Russell Gmirkin:
You say the clincher is that Sirach prays for a descendant
of Simon to always occupy the office of high priest, according
to the covenant of Phineas, and that 'this makes no sense after
the end of the Oniad priesthood in the 170's BCE (and was
indeed omitted in the Greek translation of 132)'.
The assumption is that the language of wishing permanent
success to a dynasty will never be composed later than when
that dynasty is currently in power--by anyone (including
descendants or restorationists or later poets writing of
golden ages). Is this a safe assumption?
You have a point though.
In your system, with 1QS composed 'early', you don't dispute
that the copies at Qumran are later, including with the variants
between 'sons of Zadok' and without. Do you have some
theory to account for this? Were the variants already in place
c. 170's-160's (or whenever you date 1QS composition) and
then several editions perpetuated mechanically and simultaneously
for another 100 years of copies at least? Or do the variants come
in post-original composition, going one way (toward adding
Zadokites) or the other (toward editing out Zadokites)? Yet
in either of the latter cases, the process is incomplete (since
the same 'library'--the Qumran cave finds--has these later-dated
copies with the variants). Any thoughts?
(And despite what I do not doubt will be an informative and
interesting answer from you and/or others, pressing time
concerns require me to bow out of further discussion now.)
Greg Doudna
For private reply, e-mail to "Greg Doudna" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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