[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: orion brief responses

    [The following text is in the "iso-8859-1" character set]
    [Your display is set for the "US-ASCII" character set]
    [Some characters may be displayed incorrectly]

RGmyrken@aol.com wrote:

>  Introducing the Essenes into these events, postulating
> Jannaeus' persecution of Judah the Essene, and so forth, these are not
> facts
> found in the historical texts (i.e. in the historical "lacunae" or
> gaps in
> the text).

    I understand and agree with your dictum about working within
theexisting historical texts rather than the "gaps" or lacunae.
However,
there are many cases where the historical data, textual or
archaeological,
no longer survives or has yet to be found.  This can be for a legion of
reasons, politics, catastrophe, war, or as often happens in religious
texts, destruction by the "winning team."
    In this case, it seems to me that conjecture centered on the
"gaps" or lacunae is appropriate as long as it has some foundation in
the *context* of the existing historical data.  Much of this seems to be

the case in the varied theories on the origins of the DSS and the
"people of the DSS" and for period of 2nd temple Judaism itself.
    I am not a "professional" like many of the fine scholars on this
very informative list and therefore a "consumer" of the thoughts
and ideas in my efforts to build my own constructs of this very
interesting period.  I can usually find some merit in many of the
proposals offered by Schiffman, Golb, Eisenman, Charlesworth,
Allegro, as well as those offered by members of this list, but
like most, have never seen a proposal that explains all of the
textual and archaeological data.  It therefore seems to me that
the lacunae (in the metaphorical sense)  is all we have to work
with at times...certainly not in the highly imaginative manner
of Thiering...but those that are within the context of "highest
probability" based on what we do know of this period.

Jack

--
D’man dith laych idneh d’nishMA nishMA
   Jack Kilmon (jpman@accesscomm.net)


 http://users.accesscomm.net/scriptorium