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Re: Josephus & DSS

Dear Steve,

Dealing with your response:
> 
>> Please try the following for a while:
>> 
>> 1) forget that people have made a connection between the Essenes and Qumran,
>> between the Essenes and the dss;
I still think this is sage advice.

>>
>> 2) think that the Sabbath Sacrifices probably got to Masada via carrier
>>pigeon;
>Thats a pretty heavy item for a carrier pigeon. 
They grew 'em big.

That a dss was found in the Cairo Genizah doesn't mean that the people who
used the genizah were covenanters. Neither does a dss at Masada.

>> 3) forget that anyone has suggested that Qumran was a monastery;


My post was about cutting down the assumptions. If you assume the people who
died around 68 at Qumran were Essenes, then you might ask the following
question:
>If they were so "peace loving anti war people" why did the Romans wipe them
>out in about 68 AD ?  

(
>I was at Q. and the place is as dry and remote as it could possibly be.
> Where did they get their food?  Where did they get their water? I saw no
>living plants there. Not a tree, not a shrub, nothing.  Where did they get
>the food for their famous community meals?
The ecology of the area has changed a lot: there is evidence that there were
a number of farms down the Dead Sea shore. The water level was higher. It
seems to have been a wooded area in the Iron Age.
)

>> 4) imagine that the War scroll was totally vicarious wishful thinking
>I understand that the order of battle of the Sons of Light described was very
>similar to that used by the Romans.
>> .until you've got independent arguments for sufficiently supporting any of
>> the things my list negates.
>It is very hard to prove a negative. 
It's the positive that you need to prove, eg the people at Qumran were Essenes.

>> I always think it's better to say that you don't know rather than being just
>> plain wrong.
>From reading this list for about 10 months, I can say that I am not alone in
>my lack of knowledge, as well as being just plain wrong.
I'm sure you'll find I've been plain wrong at times. (Note: the "you" in my
statement was impersonal.)

>I just read an exerpt from the Encyclopedia Britanica in 1900 and the wrong
>theories 
>about astronomy by the "experts" is astonishing.
It's not "experts" so much that're important, it's reduction of assumptions,
and increase of reasoning & evidence.

Ian Hutchesson