Marcus,
I have to reserve comment on your article on Atkinson 1959
until I find your article to see what you say. On other points
see below.
I wrote:
> > If the Kittim of pNah 3-4 i 3 are the Romans, then would not the
> > Kittim of pHab be also, by definition? I see these two texts as
> > very closely similar, parallel, and contemporary texts, and the
> > Kittim would be the same between these two texts. At
You replied:
> Why 'by definition'? Surely an a priori assumption such as this is
inherently
> dangerous. Both our areas of research have indicated that other similar
terms
> have different meanings and applications in different texts. So your own
example
> of Ephraim which we both accept is a simple reference to the Northern
kingdom in
> Testimonia. Likewise Lebanon undergoes a range of different meanings in
both the
> scrolls and targumim (Vermes has an excellent article on the latter). Why
should
> Kittim be the same across different texts?
As will become clear in a chapter in my pNah I don't
think there is *any* use of 'Ephraim' in the pesharim
or CD, etc. that means anything other than Samaria as
biblically, although it may be a shorthand way of speaking
of 'non-Judea Israel' of the Hasmonean era, in much the
same way Americans would speak of 'Russia' as the
other half of the world opposed to the West (when
Russia is actually only one republic among many of the
USSR). Both speakers and hearers in the discourse of
the schematic two-superpower world consisting of
'America versus Russia' fully understand there are
'lesser' nations even though they don't get mentioned.
Now on 'Lebanon', here I believe you are confusing something.
You and Vermes are talking about differences in how 'Lebanon'
in quotations get interpreted. That is not at all what I am talking
about. I am talking about how the authors of these texts themselves
use these terms. To my knowledge, no author of a pesharim text
uses 'Lebanon' in any way other than to quote it and then
offer an allegorical-kind of interpretation on it. The interpretations
of elements of quotations do vary from text to text, and there is
no dispute on that. But there is no shift in meaning by these authors
of 'Lebanon' (since I do not recognize any attested use of
'Lebanon' by any of these authors in their own composition of
their own sentences to start a database), nor do I accept that
'Ephraim' shows any change of meaning or referent across
different Qumran texts. In the absence of demonstrable examples
of changed referents or meanings of these sobriquet-like
names or titles or terms, I strongly question the presumption that
this is a common phenomenon. Again, I am not talking about
what pesherists do in interpreting words from quotations
(which does vary and cannot be presumed consistent between
texts).
> Personally I understand pNah to come
> from a later time period to pHab (perhaps the Next Generation so to
speak...),
Here there is a difference that affects the Kittim question. If your
understanding could be shown to be the case, then to me that
would render a change of meaning of Kittim (or other related
kinds of term) much more plausible. But the final chapter of my
pNah study will make my argument that these texts are contemporary,
I think perhaps to the same months. Different authors, but pNah
and pHab are operating from the same contextual worlds, and
same literary context, and the presumption would be the 'Kittim'
between the two texts will be identical. (But I realize this follows
in part from the prior arguments I have just outlined which
you and others have not yet seen--and which I do not want to
go into here prior to publication.)
I wrote:
> > As for the Roman identity of the Kittim of pHab, the reasons
> > that convinced me that is correct are the worship of the
> > weapons and the Republican-era Roman coins from the Atkinson
> > 1959 article argument; parallels with Roman description in
> > I Macc. 8 and Kittim of pHab; being the world power;
> > 'isles of the west'; and the parallel with pNah, and also
> > other reasons for supposing these texts to come from
> > mid-1st BCE. As I read it, the text (pHab) implies an
> > existing power, an existing Kittim, not a future or
> > eschatological Kittim.
You answered:
> easiest first! 'isles of the west' amounts to no more than reference to
the Deut
> prophecy that the Kittim will come from the isles of the sea (also the
origin of
> the eagle in pHab).
OK, this point granted, although the allusion is not entirely
devoid of information, as I see it. Would the authors of the
pesharim use this language of the Kittim if they were Parthians
from the north? I do not think so. Therefore although this allusion
does not say who the Kittim are, it has some usefulness in saying
who the Kittim are not (in pHab).
> In any case, as I say I do think that the Kittim in pHab are Romans - the
> existing power as you rightly point out - I just apply caution in adopting
this
> identification since I can find no cast-iron reasons for why the
identification.
> Reading a lot of the early material reinforces my own opinion of how weak
this
> argument is - Dupont-Sommer is a prime example. For him 'standards' are
> everything!
Certainly questioning of established canons of received truth is
fruitful and beneficial to healthier Qumran scholarship.
Dupont-Sommer deserves a biography; in my opinion he was
a genius--cut off from access to the texts for his whole life!--but
one of the two or three major minds from the early days, even
though his genius was so powerful and compelling
that it has established a probably-erroneous Essene construction
with deep roots which may take a lot of time to unravel and
then reconstruct. I am working on deconstructing the First
Revolt deposit dating of the texts which originated with
Dupont-Sommer (and then was adopted by all). The other
underappreciated genius from the early days (appreciated by
those who know, but I mean I don't think the extent of his genius
in the Qumran field is widely enough understood, and I hope he
might receive further recognition while he remains alive) is Milik,
aged and in Paris now.
I wrote:
> > On the CD 'head of the kings of Yavan' reference, while
> > I think that is Pompey, I don't think the CD expression
> > requires the 'head' to be of Yavan personally, only in
> > command of them. The reason why Pompey would be
> > referred to in such a way is explicable in terms of the
> > wordplay of the pesher. Although it is conjectural, I
> > imagine 'Yavan' meant 'Greeks' and 'Kittim' (in the world
> > of these texts) may be a sobriquet for 'Romans' without
> > necessary genealogical connection, although Romans
> > themselves (by some other eponym) and Greeks probably
> > would have been regarded in some family tree affinity.
You answered:
> Again I reject the loose relationship of Yavan to Kittim especially at
this
> stage in the evolution of the latter.
Possible misunderstanding here. I am not now claiming (above)
that Kittim are in any genealogical or subset relationship relative to
Yavan. As I see it, Yavan is a family-tree eponym (Dierk's
Asia Minor Greeks, or whatever it meant exactly) whereas
'Kittim' is a different animal--a sobriquet, consciously applied
to something different than its original referent. The actual
eponym for the Romans in the 1st BCE world of these texts
I don't know, and is not too important to know. They are
calling Romans not by their actual eponym, but by the
sobriquet 'Kittim' (as I understand these matters). This
clarifying of this point answers your next point (not quoted
here) on the objection to circularity in the identification of
'Yavan' of CD. I agree now that 'Yavan' of CD does not
apply to Romans, though I do see the 'head of the kings of
Yavan' as a reference to Pompey.
> You write:
> Finally, I would simply ask this: how likely is it that
> the pesherist would refer to Pompey in terms of his subject armies and not
his
> own military force? I'm afraid I simply don't buy it!
What the composition of Pompey's armies was I am not sure is
relevant to the issue of identity of 'head of the kings of Yavan'.
I accept your criticism if this was the heart of the argument.
The heart of the argument is the basic Dupont-Sommer one:
Pompey was the acknowledged supreme power in the East,
over all of the lesser kings of Yavan. This was explicit, the
dominant political fact at the time of the threatened
Kittim (Roman) conquest c. 63 BCE reflected in pHab and
(as I argue) CD. In the most basic meaning of the words
the CD expression is a fit with Pompey. It is true this
identification is related to a cluster of other arguments
focusing on this dating for CD (about which there is
much dispute), but that is the argument.
Greg Doudna
For private reply, e-mail to "Greg Doudna" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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