Thanks for the many useful notes, Jim Davila, at http://paleojudaica.blogspot.com and at http://qumranica.blogspot.com
If I may make two points about the Temple Scroll class note at the latter: 1) Joseph M. Baumgarten *does not* (in many recent publications, bibliography on request) and *did not* (in JJS 1980) assert a Sadducee origin of Qumran mss. He pointed out some MMT agreement with what is later called Sadducee in Mishna. Two groups can agree on some points, against a third group, without being identical groups. (It happens, e.g., in politics.) J. Baumgarten has for 50-some learned years consistently given many good reasons to consider Essene, not Sadducee, origin of Qumran mss. 2) Here's why it is *not* helpful to call Qumran legal texts "hakakha": because that was not in their vocabulary, and because that uses the vocabulary of a group that Qumran writers plainly opposed on a broad range of legal matters, and because it makes it difficult to first read the Qumran legal texts in their own intention, and because the surviving mainstream (Rabbinic) Judaism used the term "halaka" (continuing Pharisee usage) and when the term "halakha" is used of Qumran, it obscures the fact that the Qumran/Essene legal texts did not become that mainstream, i.e., it can obscure the history of sectarianism. For your consideration, please. best, Stephen Goranson _______________________________________________ g-Megillot mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mailman.McMaster.CA/mailman/listinfo/g-megillot
