[Megillot] Jewish Iliad or Oddity?

[Dierk van den Berg]

Jewish Iliad or Oddity?

 

Due to the wars of 1967 and 1973 and the following, still running bloody Near East conflict, any archaeological excavation is strictly prohibited in the northern part of the occupied Golan Heights, the bordering INFIL security buffer and in the southern districts of the Lebanon and Syria (as well as in the likewise archaeologically interesting 'Arabah (i.e., Paul's "Arabia") east of the Jordantreaty line of 1994). Before 1967 the rare excavations were focused exclusively on known locations of ancient cities, so that up to now nobody has ever tried to investigate the maze of Pancho Villa, the volcanic cave terrain of erstwhile political banditry in the Antilibanos and the Damaskene only to meet the high adventure of becoming lost or killed by disguised Arab Hezbollah fighters or Israeli military snipers in the rough, party even mined hinterland, straddling on the ancient spice trade route that connects Gaza (Coastal Road) and Damascus (King's Road). Accordingly, no ancient scroll fragment has come down to us from this high emotional region. In so far we are in the same situation as it was with Chirbet Qumran before the accidentally finding of cave material by a shepherd, the Bedouin Muhammad ehd-Dhib in 1948 - no scroll findings at hand. Fortunately, different from Qumran - at which any scholarly attempts made to connect the location with the fictive Aristotelian vita contemplativa (i.e., the apolitical life) of Pliny's Essaioi and Philo's Therapeutae together or parallel to Josephus' literary idealization of an Essenoi/Essaioi mix-up (commonly called "Essenes") were doomed to fail the logical criteria of historicity as non-fiction since Bergmeier's investigation of 1993 – we indeed have the necessary literary evidence of the virtual existence of religious "freedom fighters" from the mountainous regions mentioned above and, moreover, of their acting, more or less accordingly to the scrolls found far away at the shores of the Dead Sea. No people known that might have read the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran and no literary material found for the known people that dwelled in the volcanic caves of the former Damaskene. How does such an "oxymoron" fit together?

Albeit logically to be expected shifts over the ages in theory and practice of liberation from the yoke of the mighty, omnipresent occupant, all those armed political "robbers" had one decisive thing in common: They all walked on the what I call Isaiah Trail: Their intention was at first

to separate themselves..from the 'men of mischief', to go into the  wilderness to prepare the way of the HE (i.e., God) as it is written (Is 40.3): In the desert prepare the way of YHWH, make straight in the wilderness a road for our god [Community Rule 1QS 6,13f.; cf. Lk 3.4 et par.]

To follow such a rule one has to make an Exodus from Israel first, at which the necessary forty years in the wilderness allude to the forty years in the wilderness during the Exodus, to imply, that a single way is open to their return to life by their having the wicked "Egypt state" merged into that of the camp in the wilderness. Prelude of the Isaiah Trail made by volunteers led by a Joshua-redivivus was always the crossing of the River Jordan (cf. Acts 5.36, Jos. Ant xx.5.1; cp. II. Apoc James), to meet a prophetic guide in the 'Arabah on the East Bank of the River Jordan(Mt 3.1) that would reveal to the volunteers the further course of the forty years in the wilderness [of the nations] (Mt 4.1 et par.), that

is: to appear once in might, after being kept safe by the guarded one, (Heb: nazaret), equipped with the Ghost of His Holiness, the literal Holy Ghost of those ransomed from all sins, at the endpoint of the semi-circular Isaiah Trail - in Galil ha-Gojim (Mt 4.12 et par), the region that bordered the already known Damaskene and its volcanic hiding caves beyond the Golan Heights known as the Wilderness of Nations, nowhere else. That is the way of the freedom fighters: What the father has started, first the sons may finish. Not by chance the Pesher to Isaiah, a scroll of the DSS corpus, informs the reader that

...they return from the Wilderness of Nations. (together with the Davidic) Prince of the Community. [4Q161 frg 5+6 line 2]

and the War Scroll adds that they return from

...the Wilderness of Nations to camp in the Wilderness of Jerusalem. to fight against a lot of the Sons of Darkness, against the army of Belial, the host of Edom and Moab, of the Ammonites and the Amalekites and the people of Philistia and the hosts of the Kittim of Asshur, with which the wicked of the covenant are allied with. [1QM col 1]

This is a sequel to the War of Jacob against Esau in the Book of Jubilees [Jub 37:10f.], thus a second war against Idumaean, now Herodian claims for leadership over Israel 40-37 BC.

Consequently, the very first guerrilla activities under the command of a Davidic "shepherd" took place in the late forties of the 2nd c. BC, starting in the Antilibanos, the Damaskene and soon reaching Galilee - a second anti-Herodian front to the still in Pereia (the today Jordan) operating regular forces of the later King-Priest Antigonos. That (and why) much later guerrilla leaders like Judas the "Galilean/Gaulanite" (nomen est omen), even if their philosophy is a clear reduction of earlier Zadokite claims in the DSS and a radical shift towards more zealousness (in battle) of the biblical Phinehas, would likewise start their military actions from the Damaskene, literally "coming down from the Golan Heights", should be much clearer now to us. The reason of the shift towards the so-called "fourth philosophy" of the Sons of Phinehas, the Zealots, is mentioned in the Q-logia, in John's prediction for someone to come:

I baptize you with water, but the one coming after me is stronger than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to remove; he will baptize you with holy spirit and fire; [Lk 3:16b]

The metaphor "sandals to remove", i.e. to show the (naked) feet "of the stronger one" is understandable for a short time:

(1) [.] (Ge 49.10a) The (Davidic) sceptre shall [no]t depart from the tribe of Judah. While Israel has the dominion, (2) there [will not] be cut off someone who sits on the throne of David. For the Mechoqeq (the Mosaic "staff", an authoritative, prophetic Torah Interpreter) is the Covenant of Kingship, (3) [and

the Thou]sands of Israel, they are the "feet" (military standards; Ge 40.10b). [Blank] Until the Messiah of Righteousness comes, the Branch (4) of David. For to him and to his descendants has been given the Covenant of Kingship of His people for everlasting generations. [4Q252 frg 1 col. v.1-4]

In the logia, John plays the role of the 2nd c. BC Mechoqeq, who - and that is the shift made by the Zealots here and already a century earlier by the Teacher of Righteousness in his split from the Mechoqeq Movement - is no longer "worthy" to reveal the military "feet" of the stronger Davidic Messiah, here: the Zealot leader, the "Galilean" (sic!). The reason for such a denial of John's official revelation of the "feet" as well as of his being of the "Covenant of Kingship" is apparently to be found in (military) breakdowns in the past, e.g. in the 30s of the 1st c. BC and in the "fact" that the expected Messiah of Righteousness was already among them. Be that as it may, now the young wilds show the ropes to the old. The new device is: Less thinking - more acting, just zealousness.

We know now the philosophy of the Isaiah Trail, the reversal to the Torah by the "surviving rest". The surviving 'rest' is already editorial interpretation of the name of one of Isaiah's sons - Shear Yashub - "a rest reverses" within the Book of Isaiah. The convertibility of the metaphors used as well as the universality of liberation as the central theme of the outgoing 2nd Temple period has led to a permanent reinterpretation of what is called the Threat song against Asshur (Is 10.5-12.6), the estimated historical sitz-im-leben of all repentant ones, obviously by means of a necessary identification process of the religio-political groups involved in the theme. And one of these groups was the one behind the figurative John the Baptist in the Q logia, the hypothetical saying source of the synoptic Gospels. Another group (if ever to be decided) was the 'Community of the Many' that has left its mark in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The chief difference between the two sources is the fact that only the Johannine logia as part of Q had to pass the filter of later redaction by a successor group – the 'Jesus Movement', a group that itself would later become assimilated by the Pauline Christendom. For a better understanding of the different stages within the essential, for seemingly eternal Threat song against Assur I have to add an outline:

 

Threat song against Assur Is 10.5-12

 

- Threat against Assur (part 1) [10.5-19] - Repentance of a Surviving 'Rest' [10.20-27] - Poem of Enthronement [10.28-11.5]

- Liberation from the yoke of Assur [10.28-34]

- Approach of the army of Assur [10.28-32] - Redeeming Intervention by YHWH [10.33-34]

- Enthronement of a Davidic King [11.1-5] - Threat against Assur (part 2) [11.6-12.6]

- The last stand [11.6-10] - . [11.11-12.6]

The DSS end due to the absence of the Redeeming Intervention by YHWH and John the Baptist starts his action again with the Repentance of a surviving 'Rest' in expectation of  the following Poem of Enthronement. The position of the Zealots would be, then, that of the Threat against Assur (part 2), esp. the The Last Stand, whereas the Jesus Movement in the Logia is apparently busy with the Enthronement of a Davidic King.

But re-read the Book of Isaiah first, for it is indeed a fountain of information, necessary for all understanding of any actionism in the outgoing 2nd Temple period.

I have to come to an end, but not without to give a logical explanation for the presence of the Dead Sea Scrolls, with a single exception all hidden in sealed caves close to the important River Jordan line. The fact that the caves were sealed shows that the scrolls were not hidden at the stage of occupation of the Land of Israel - it is already mentioned this might have happened not in the Jordan region but in Galilee - but during a flight from the scene, a flight that was apparently expected to be just a temporary one. Not necessarily it is to be understood as a revival of another exodus into the wilderness. However, the number of refugees was obviously far below that of the number possible readers of scrolls deposited (commonly calculated at some 4.000), a reason would have been the heavy losses during the wars of the years 39-37 BC. In this way only a few sets of scrolls, if ever, would have survived the religious cleansing of a maniac Herod the Great together with their "owners" in the years that followed the siege of Jerusalem 37 BC. After the production of "unique" jars (i.e. jars made by a single Rechabite potter family) to hide the scrolls, the great hiding and sealing (cave 3Q remained unsealed), a last skirmish with Trachonite bowmen might mark the end of this group. The great question is: Did all scroll material, once written in the Damaskene (better known to DSS interested as "Land of Damascus"), in fact leave that region with the baggage train when the Messianic War of Jacob against Esau has started in 40 BC? I don't think so, because there would be no logic therein, too safe were the caves in the Damaskene and - somebody has to teach the "truth" in the scrolls to those who are still too old or yet too young to share the ranks and files of the fighters.

All we need is some luck, a new Muhammad ehd-Dhib.

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Constructive criticism is required and welcome.

tot ziens

_Dierk