Queries & Comments
010
No Theological Reasons for Failing to Publish Dead Sea Scrolls; Syrian Authorities Commended
To the Editor:
I am disturbed by a statement made by Morton Smith in his article “The Case of the Gilded Staircase,” BAR 10:05. In the second paragraph of the article he states: “Scholars … have now withheld from the public Dead Sea Scroll materials assigned to them by an international committee more than 30 years ago.”
Could you tell me why these scholars continue to withhold publication of their assignments? I cannot avoid the suspicion that there may be religious or doctrinal reasons for their failure to do so. It has been known for a long time that the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls changed the minds of many Bible scholars concerning the origins of Christianity and its striking similarities to the earlier Essene doctrines. Professor Yadin refers to the relationship of the Essene doctrines to early Christianity in his article in the same issue.
Could it be that the scholars are withholding publication of material which they know would further contradict long-held views concerning Christianity and its origins? How else can one explain what appears to be deliberate refusal to release important information?
Frank Pruslin
San Diego, California
There is absolutely no truth to the suggestion that publication of Dead Sea Scroll material is being withheld for doctrinal, religious or theological reasons. In the January 1983 issue of Revue Biblique (pp. 97–95 ff.), Father Pierre Benoit, current chairman of the international committee for the publication of the scrolls, answered this unfounded charge that nevertheless apparently continues to circulate. “Nothing could be more false,” Father Benoit asserts. We agree. The people who are editing the unpublished scroll materials are men of impeccable integrity and scholarship. It is absurd to suggest that their delays are occasioned by theological considerations.
The reasons for the delays are simply stated: The difficulty of the task (especially of fitting together thousands of tiny scroll fragments in their proper order) and the press of other work—in short, procrastination.
This is, of course, an explanation, not an excuse. We favor the immediate publication of photographs of all unpublished scroll materials so they will be available to any scholar who wishes to study them. (See “Jerusalem Rolls Out Red Carpet for Biblical Archaeology Congress,” BAR 10:04.) But it is calumny to suggest that theological fears lie behind the failure to publish.
While we’re on this subject, we would like to commend the Syrian authorities for the way they have handled the publication of the Tell Fakhariyah inscription.
This is an extremely important old Aramaic inscription (no later than mid-ninth century B.C.) engraved on a statue accidentally uncovered in 1979 near Tell Fakhariyah in Syria. In addition to the Aramaic version of the inscription, the statue also contains an Akkadian version of the same text. (See “Earliest Aramaic Inscription Uncovered in Syria,” BAR 07:04, by Adam Mikaya.)
The Syrian authorities originally assigned publication of the inscriptions to R. Degen and D. Kennedy. After two years, Degen and Kennedy had not completed their work. In 1981, the Syrian authorities commendably informed Degen and Kennedy that their right of exclusivity had expired. Promptly thereafter, in 1982, a complete edition of the bilingual inscription was published by, a new scholarly team consisting of a French, a Syrian and an English scholar.1
As Dennis Pardee and Robert D. Biggs of the University of Chicago’s Oriental Institute have commented, “Degen and Kennedy still have their way open to produce a more thorough study. But at least now the texts are available to the scholarly world and are no longer subject to rumor and speculation.”2
For the decision to insure prompt publication, bravo for the Syrian archaeological authorities!
In the past, we have been critical of the Syrian authorities when they attempted to exert political influence on the scholarly interpretation of the famous Ebla tablets by requesting—and obtaining—from the Italian epigrapher assigned to translate them an official, notarized statement denying that the tablets had any “links with the biblical text.”3 The Syrian ambassador to the United States later admitted that his government didn’t like the epigrapher’s interpretation of the Ebla tablets.4 So there is no question that the Syrians attempted—whether or not successfully—to put a political finger on the scholarly scale.
The Syrian authorities apparently learned from the international outrage that followed. Their handling of the Tell Fakhariyah inscription can serve as a model.
We hope that those who control the unpublished Dead Sea Scroll materials will learn from this model. An international outrage is already building up over the failure, after more than 35 years, to make all Dead Sea Scroll materials available to the entire scholarly community. While no theological motives lie behind this refusal, the fact remains that the materials are unavailable. And this is simply unacceptable.—Ed.
Did Jesus Live With the Essenes in the Wilderness?
To the Editor:
The article by Yigael Yadin in the September/October BAR (“The Temple Scroll—The Longest and Most Recently Discovered Dead Sea Scroll,” BAR 10:05) has made me wonder about Jesus’ forty days in the wilderness before he began his active ministry. As he seems to have been influenced somewhat by the Essenes, both for and against their doctrines, could it be possible that this period in the wilderness was actually spent with the Essenes at Qumran? The more I think about it the more likely this seems.
Louise H. Patterson
Little Rock, Arkansas
Joseph A. Fitzmyer, S.J., replies:
The question posed by reader Patterson is legitimate enough. Historically, it is possible that Jesus might have spent such a period with “the Essenes at Qumran” Yet such a possibility 012stems only from speculation. One would have to have some evidence that “he seems to have been influenced somewhat” by them. By way of contrast, a plausible case can be made out for an association of John the Baptist with the Essenes of Qumran (see my commentary, The Gospel According to Luke I–IX [Anchor Bible 28; Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1981], pp. 453–454), before he broke off from them and went off “to preach a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (Luke 3:3). But there is simply no comparable evidence for the case of Jesus of Nazareth. The earliest Gospel which mentions his forty-day sojourn in the desert suggests that he was there apart from other human beings: “He was in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with wild beasts, and angels ministered to him” (Mark 1:13). No humans are mentioned, and I should hesitate to interpret the mention of Satan, wild beasts, and angels as an allusion to the Essenes of Qumran. Jesus was clearly a Jew, but his connection with the Essenes of Qumran, if any, remains purely in the realms of speculation.
(Father Joseph Fitzmyer is Professor of New Testament at The Catholic University of America.—Ed.)
The Essenes and Sun Worship
To the Editor:
I love your magazine, but every once in a while you make me so mad I could spit! The article by Morton Smith (“The Case of the Gilded Staircase,” BAR 10:05) suggesting the Essenes were sun worshippers is a case in point. There may be evidence that they thought the sun was a physical manifestation of Yahweh. But there’s a great difference between worshipping Yahweh and reverencing a special manifestation of him, on the one hand, and worshipping that manifestation on the other.
Terrell Tanner, M.D.
Oxford, Georgia
To the Editor:
The article by the late Yigael Yadin in your September/October issue (“The Temple Scroll—The Longest and Most Recently Discovered Dead Sea Scroll,” BAR 10:05) was truly remarkable.
However, the article that followed by Morton Smith (“The Case of the Gilded Staircase,” BAR 10:05) showed a basic lack of understanding. Dr. Smith suggests that the Talmudic rabbis were guilty of “pretentious misinterpretation of the Law,” based on a saying of Rav, a third-century amora who founded the academy at Sura in Babylonia. It was Rav who said that “No one can be seated in the Sanhedrin unless he knows how to prove from Scripture that a reptile is clean.” This meant only that problems must be looked at from all angles. This was the essential methodology of the academy at Sura. Perhaps Dr. Smith is guilty of “pretentious misinterpretation” of the Babylonian Talmud. There is a difference between aggadah (illustrative stories to explain a point) and halakah (the law).
Moreover, Dr. Smith’s conclusion that the Essenes practiced sun worship simply doesn’t wash. There is a big difference between blessing God’s creations and worshipping them. For example, there is a service performed once every 28 years called Birkat Hakamah (the Blessing of the Sun) in which thanks are given to God for creating the sun. This is still done by observant Jews every 18 years. Jews also say prayers of thanksgiving for bread, fruit, wine, etc. Does Dr. Smith feel that it is a small step to say that these same Jews worship bread or grapes or an apple?
Dr. Lawrence Kobak
Howard Beach, New York
To the Editor:
In reference to Morton Smith’s article on the possibility of sun worship by the Essenes, as suggested by the ceremonial stair-tower in the Temple Scroll, I call your attention to the water-drawing ceremony cited in Mishnah Sukkot 5:1:
Men of piety and good works used to dance before them with burning torches in their hands, singing songs and praises. And countless Levites [played] on harps, lyres, cymbals and trumpets and instruments of music, on the fifteen steps leading down from the Court of the Israelites to the Court of the Women … Two priests stood at the upper gate which leads down from the Court of the Israelites to the Court of the Women, with two trumpets in their hands. At cock-crow they blew a sustained, a quavering and another sustained blast … When they reached the gate that leads out to the east, they turned their faces to the west and said, “Our fathers when they were in this place 074turned with their backs toward the Temple of the Lord and their faces toward the east, and they worshipped the sun toward the east; but as for us, our eyes are turned toward the Lord.”
The priests” formula refers directly to Ezekiel 8:16, cited by Smith.
If this is the case and Mr. Smith’s supposition regarding the Essenes and sun worship is right, we are dealing with an ancient dispute concerning Temple ritual, going back to the First Temple.
Rabbi Gilbert Kollin
Hollywood Temple Beth El
Los Angeles, California
To the Editor:
I was dismayed by Morton Smith’s article in BAR’s September/October 1984 issue.
In discussing the Essene community and its doctrines, Smith freely uses pejorative terms such as “a clique of sanctimonious fanatics,” “overconfidence in their own interpretations,” “absurd Essene exegesis” and the like.
Who is to say whether a group consists of “sanctimonious fanatics” or sincere believers? What religious group does not proclaim confidence in its own interpretations? Who decides whether a particular exegesis is “absurd” or not? I fear that there is some unpleasant intolerance lurking beneath Morton Smith’s scholarly mien.
Is such terminology appropriate for a fine magazine such as BAR—which rightly prides itself on objective presentation of all scientific and religious points of view?
Martin O. Cohen
Tappan, New York
To the Editor:
I enjoyed Morton Smith’s sense of humor.
Thank you for a fine magazine. I look forward to the Bible Review.
Theodora Speer
Bellevue, Washington
See also on this topic, “Challenge to Sun-Worship Interpretation of Temple Scroll’s Gilded Staircase,” in this issue.—Ed.
Source of the King James Unicorn
To the Editor:
Bill Clark’s interesting article on the oryx (“The Biblical Oryx—A New Name for an Ancient Animal,” BAR 10:05) suggests that the King James Version called the oryx a “unicorn” because “this incredible creation of the imagination seemed … the perfect translation of the Hebrew re’em.” But it is doubtful that the KJV rendering comes from medieval folklore or the travel tales of the Crusaders. It seems more likely that the translators got the idea from the Greek Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate, which they undoubtedly consulted.
The Septuagint (the ancient Greek translation of the Old Testament) normally renders the Hebrew re’em as
The Latin Vulgate uses three different animal names to translate re’em. Sometimes it merely borrows the Greek word (monokeros in Latin letters); sometimes it uses the Latin equivalent—unicornis, which, of course, also means “one-horned.” But its most common rendering is another borrowing from the Greek, one that means “nose-horned”: rhinoceros!
Larry Kuenning
Oreland, Pennsylvania
Bill Clark replies:
The oldest known reference to monoceros is in the Septuagint, and this obviously was incorporated into the Vulgate directly, or as unicornis or rhinoceros. There is currently, however, no way to identify these creatures with any degree of certainty, no way to link them to the Hebrew re’em, and until some new evidence does turn up, I think it wiser to defer on speculating.
Reference to the unicornis is found in other ancient writings, but these are invariably descriptions of fabulous creatures. Pliny the Elder, for example, gives us a surely fictitious creature in his description of unicornis (Naturalis Historia, viii, 21).
Crusader tales, exaggerated as they tend to be, usually have kernels of truth in their origins. They have left us with several detailed descriptions of the unicorn—these accounts offer some precise zoological facts that associate the unicorn of the Middle Ages with the re’em of the Hebrew Bible. I mentioned a few of these facts in my article, but there are more. A zoologist studying the penned unicorn in the “Hunt of the Unicorn” tapestry, for example, would quickly observe from the animals split hooves that it is not an equine (contrary to current popular identifications of unicorns). The animal is taxonomically among the Artiodactyla—suggesting related biological features, such as sophisticated ruminant digestion. Equines, on the other hand, are in the order Perissodactyla, which is generally considered to be morphologically more primitive.
It is possible to make these links between the medieval unicorn and the re’em (oryx), which, incidentally, is indeed part of the order Artiodactyla. It is impossible to link the re’em (oryx) to the unicorns in the Septuagint, the Vulgate and in Pliny.
Not every stone of Israel has been turned over, however, and perhaps some enterprising Biblical archaeologist of the coming generation may sift through the layers of debris and find a mosaic properly labeled as monoceros or unicornis or rhinoceros.
Warning: It is extremely unlikely that the Vulgate rhinoceros has anything in common with the animal we know today by that name.
BAR Is Right, Josephus Wrong
To the Editor:
Your gremlins got you again. You note 076(Yigael Yadin, “The Temple Scroll—The Longest and Most Recently Discovered Dead Sea Scroll,” BAR 10:05) that the tetragrammaton consists of the four consonants YHWH. In Wars (V.v.7), Josephus states that the high priests’ golden crown “was engraven (with) the sacred name: it consists of four vowels.”
Vada Hogan
Solana Beach, California
Jacob Milgrom replies:
We don’t know why Josephus wrote “four vowels.” The editor of the Loeb edition of Josephus surmises that Josephus may have been thinking of a Greek form, but this is only a surmise.
Appalled at Drinks
To the Editor:
We have just received the July/August issue and are appalled! In the article entitled “Jerusalem Rolls Out Red Carpet for Biblical Archaeology Congress,” BAR 10:04, you picture several people holding drinks. We are firm in our belief that no magazine with Biblical in its title should include or participate in such activities.
We would appreciate your canceling our subscription and refunding our money immediately!
Randy and Sherrene Walker
Sherwood, Oregon
It was punch, anyway.—Ed.
To the Editor:
I think your magazine is the best thing since the Bible and sliced bread.
Ann Marie Regis
Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Can You Top This?
To the Editor:
In the September/October issue of BAR (Queries & Comments, BAR 10:05), Dr. Lawrence Kobak correctly observes that blowing the ram’s horn (or shofar) is not associated with Passover (as stated by Hershel Shanks in “Synagogue Excavation Reveals Stunning Mosaic of Zodiac and Torah Ark,” BAR 10:03); but then Kobak himself rather incorrectly suggests that it should be associated with Yom Kippur. It is Rosh Hashanah that is designated in the Bible (Numbers 29:1) as yom tru‘a the “day of sounding (of the horn)” or as yom zikhron tru‘a (Leviticus 23:24). To this day, shofar blowing is an essential part of the ritual on Rosh Hashanah when sixty, or more, blasts of the ram’s horn are sounded. The use of a ram’s horn for a single long blast (tqiya gdola) at the conclusion of the Yom Kippur service is a late custom which has no Biblical or talmudic precedent (except in connection with the jubilee year [Leviticus 25:9]).
Apparently gremlins are still at work.
Henryk Minc
Department of Mathematics
University of California
Santa Barbara, California
In orthodox synagogues, 100 blasts of the shofar are required on Rosh Hashanah. See Isaac Klein, Guide to Jewish Religious Practice, pp. 195–196.—Ed.
The Similarity of Canaanite and Israelite Psalms
To the Editor:
I am writing concerning several respondents who were disturbed concerning BAR’s article on the affinities between an Ugaritic (Canaanite) hymn and Psalm 29 in the Bible (see Queries & Comments, BAR 10:01).
When I was an Ugaritic student of Professor Elmer B. Smick, currently at Gordon-Conwell Seminary, we learned that the important differences between the Israelites and their neighbors were to be looked for in Israel’s God and religion, not in their culture. Cultural items, including language and literary genre, were commonly shared in the Levant, just as cultural items have always been exchanged among groups living in proximity to one another. That the authors of Scripture might utilize a magnificent piece of literature to honor the true God is not reprehensible. Could not the author of Psalm 29 be correcting a false notion that Baal was the god of storms by asserting, in the very same way, that the storm-god was not Baal but the very God of creation that Israel praised? This would be a way then of declaring Yahweh’s superiority. Or perhaps, since no one really knows the origin of this artfully created psalm, could it not have been a treasure of a common milieu that several neighboring peoples adopted? I have heard hymns sung by religious groups that I would never identify with, yet it has not destroyed the impact of the hymn for me.
Robert I. Vasholz, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Old Testament
Covenant Theological Seminary
St. Louis, Missouri
079
Josephus Wrote in Greek and Aramaic
To the Editor:
In reference to the question regarding authentic references to John the Baptist outside the Gospels in your May/June issue (Queries & Comments, BAR 10:03), Dr. Louis H. Feldman wrote “Since there was no established GREEK word for baptism, he (Josephus) might well have used two different forms of the word.”
Would Dr. Feldman be kind enough to explain why a “GREEK word for baptism” is relevant, for it is my understanding that the works of Josephus were written in ARAMAIC.
Patricia A. Richards
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Dr. Louis H. Feldman replies:
Reader Richards is right in implying that Josephus’ mother tongue was Aramaic, as we can see from a number of Aramaic words in his works. Josephus composed his Jewish War originally in Aramaic, as we know because he declares (War I, 3) that he was translating into Greek “the account which I previously composed in my ancestral language.”
The passage about John the Baptist, however, occurs in the Antiquities of the Jews (XVIII, 116–119)—a work which was originally composed in Greek, as is clear from Josephus’ prefatory statement (I, 5) that “I have undertaken this present work in the belief that the whole Greek-speaking world will find it worthy of attention.”
When it came to finding a Greek word for “baptism,” Josephus had no established term. The word baptismos, which is the first word that he uses in Antiquities XVIII, 117, occurs for the first time (at least in extant literature) in the Gospel of Mark (7:4) and in the Epistle to the Hebrews (6:2 and 9:10), in a period roughly contemporaneous with Josephus. The second word used by Josephus, in this very same paragraph in the passage about John, baptisis, is found only in this passage in extant Greek literature. Another word for baptism, baptisma, does not occur in Josephus but is found for the first time in existing Greek literature in the Gospel according to Matthew (3:7), in the Epistle to the Romans (6:4), as well as in numerous other places in the New Testament. Hence it appears that at approximately the same time there were three Greek terms current for the concept of baptism.
No Theological Reasons for Failing to Publish Dead Sea Scrolls; Syrian Authorities Commended
To the Editor:
You have already read your free article for this month. Please join the BAS Library or become an All Access member of BAS to gain full access to this article and so much more.
Endnotes
For a more detailed examination of this problem see “Dates, Discrepancies, and Dead Sea Scrolls,” The New Christian Advocate, July 1958, pp. 50–54.
Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews XV.ii.1; VS.x.4; XVII.ii.4. The film, “Jesus of Nazareth,” erroneously followed Ramsay’s weak argument in an at tempt to harmonize the Gospels, because it showed the Romans taking a census in Herod the Great’s reign.