Re: [Megillot] falsifying methodology; 3 cases; etc.

[RUSSELLGMIRKIN]

Dear Stephen,   Some selective responses.  (On the Tel Dan Inscription, your comments are both incorrect and out of place on Megillot, and will therefore be ignored.)   You wrote: "Russell, your misrepresentation included declaring that there was no evidence other that what you mentioned"   Au contraire, you here misrepresent me.  I made two very specific declarations in my posting, neither of which conform to your statement:   (1) "There is no recorded interaction of Judah the Essene with Alexander Jannaeus, and there is no way of telling how long he lived into the latter's reign, if at all."   (2) "In your <reconstructed> history of the Essenes, you have some sort of conflict between Judah and Alexander Jannaeus which causes Judah to emigrate from Jerusalem to the Transjordan.  There you have him attacked by Alexander Jannaeus.  There is no historical record for any of these events, or indeed for antagonism of Alexander Jannaeus for the Essenes."   Do you agree?  If not, where is the historical record for contact between Judah and Jannaeus, for a hypothetical emigration of Judah the Essene to Transjordan, or an attack on Judah by Alexander Jannaeus, or antagonism of Alexander Jannaeus for the Essenes?   You continued: "whereas you know I that draw on other evidence."   I do know that you have advanced certain IMO faulty arguments from Strabo the geographer for Alexander Jannaeus as Wicked Priest that you have declined to discuss on this list.  But I don't see how those arguments relate to the specific questions posed above regarding historical sources on an alleged assault on Judah the Essene by Alexander Jannaeus.   You wrote: "Local and some foreign groups of every stripe had cause for worry during Jannaeus' long time."   Again, I see no basis for this broad assertion in the historical sources.  And specifically, no basis in historical sources for a proposed antagonism of Jannaeus and the Essenes.   You wrote: "Some things are more readily falsified or more completely falsified than others. Falsification may not be our only tool. Another observation or invitation was to consider the most probable (tentative) reconstruction of history, the confluence of evidence." The basic methodological question as I see it is whether one should insist on systematic historical corroboration from ancient sources for one's proposals, or whether it is acceptable to advance historical proposals lacking historical corroboration, or even the possibility of falsification in the sources.  If you can't falsify a scientific hypothesis through experimentation or observation, you aren't doing science. If you can't falsify a historical hypothesis through reading the sources - the historical analog to observation in the hard sciences - you aren't doing history, IMO.    As an example of how this is done, take my historical hypothesis that the scrolls date to the Hellenistic Crisis and Maccabean War.  I have already demonstrated the Maccabean background of the War Scroll in articles in DSD, so let us instead here take on the Wicked Priest.  During the Hellenistic Crisis we have Onias III, whom II Macc. 3.1; 4.2, 35 characterize as a very righteous high priest; Simon the temple captain, his opponent, whom 2 Macc. 3.4-6, 11; 4.1-3 designates as a liar, plotter, and murderer; and Menelaus, whom 2 Macc. 4.23-25, 50 describes as exceedingly wicked - and qualifies as the most wicked high priest of the second temple period.  These three make obvious candidates for the Teacher of Righteousness, the Man of Lies, and the Wicked Priest of the scrolls.  Focussing exclusively on the hypothesis that Menelaus was the Wicked Priest, we may corroborate the following details:  that he "ruled" Israel (with the root moshel=ruler, not malek=king, in 1QpHab 8.9-10); that he "stole" and "seized public money" (2 Macc. 4.32, 39; cf. 1QpHab 8.11-12); that he conspired to assassinate the Teacher of Righteousness in exile (and eventually succeeded, 2 Macc. 4.33-34; cf. 1QpHab 11.4-8; 4QpPs[a] 4.8); that he performed repulsive acts and defiled the sanctuary (the looting and desecration of the temple in 167-164 BCE in 2 Macc. 4.39; 5.15, 21, etc.; cf. 1QpHab 12.8-9); that he "betrayed the law for the sake of riches" (2 Macc. 5.15; cf. 1QpHab 8.10); that he was eventually turned over to the dreadful nations who cruelly executed him (2 Macc. 13.3-8 by suffocation in hot ashes; cf. 1QpHab 9.10; 10.5 by "sulferous fire").  All these historical events described in the scrolls are directly corroborated in conventional historical sources.  None of these same events are corroborated for Jonathan, Simon, Alexander Jannaeus, or other Hasmonean Era candidates for Wicked Priest.    One could go through the same procedure of testing against the historical data for Onias III as Teacher of Righteousness or Simon as Man of Lies, with similar results.  But the basic point is I think amply illustrated:  the historical content of the scrolls can and should be systematically tested against the sources, and historical proposals regarding the scrolls should closely conform to historical accounts.  After all, the events documented in the pesherim, War Scroll, and other texts did not happen in a corner.   Best regards, Russell Gmirkin