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

Re: orion Hanukkah civil holiday?; Etc.



On Wed, 6 Jan 1999 RGmyrken@aol.com wrote:

>      In light of Martin Jaffee's insightful comments, perhaps the following
> analysis will prove generally agreeable.
>      We may properly distinguish between holidays with a sacred mandate
> (Torah, 11QT) and those with a civil; mandate (e.g. those inaugurated by the
> Hasmoneans).  Having a civil mandate does not necessarily exclude a holiday
> from the sphere of the religious.  By the same token, holidays that are
> religious (in whole or in part) do not necessarily thereby fall into the
> sphere of the sacred.  Hanukkah, originally possessing a civil mandate, and
> later a rabbinic mandate, had both religious and nationalist overtones (in
> various mixture through time).  However, Hanukkah never possessed the status
> of a sacred holiday alongside those of the Troah or 11QT.  That being the
> case, Hanukkah's absence in the Qumran calendar texts is only to be expected,
> and is not useful in determining the attitude of the scrolls authors toward
> the Hasmoneans.


Where do I sign? :-) Marty Jaffee


For private reply, e-mail to Martin Jaffee <jaffee@u.washington.edu>
----------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe from Orion, e-mail to majordomo@panda.mscc.huji.ac.il with
the message: "unsubscribe Orion." For more information on the Orion Center
or for Orion archives, visit our web site http://orion.mscc.huji.ac.il.