Greg Doudna and list,
I question the recent presentation by GD, on the facts, on the framing of
questions, and on conclusions.
GD asserted that it's the majority opinion that the Teacher of Righteousness had
served as High Priest. Though I haven't surveyed all the literature on this
lately, it's my impression that it may not be a conviction of the
majority. For example, GD listed VanderKam's Calendar book page 116 as
supporting GD's view, yet that page merely says "It may be...[that the TR as
represented in H] make[s] one think that he once held high rank...." And if one
reads VanderKam's more relevant and recent and more detailed treatment of this
question in his book explicitly on High Priests, From Joshua to Caiaphas (2004)
244-250, one reads a long discussion and his conclusion: "...the argument turns
out not to be convincing." And there is a difference between an Intersacerdotum
with one or more unknown priests and priests whose names are known, not neatly
fitting in GD's schema.
The Diodorus quote does not help GD's case by claiming "the Jews are so
docile...they fall to the ground and do reverence to the high priest." All? To
Hyrcanus II or his brother? During Civil War?
Also GD's post includes unnecessary and obscuring dichotomies. GD offers that
the alternative (why just two alternatives, by the way?) was that the Qumran
group "had a very marginal position," "ghettoized irrelevance." Gee, that's not
my position. nor that of many others. (In other words, Essenes did have
influence.)
Dismissing Josephus on Hyrcanus II as biased storytelling is rather casual
dismissal, bracketing off of evidence noncongenial to GD's proposal.
(Bracketing that resembles Russell Gmirkin saying Hanukkah [and 1 Maccabees]
went unmentioned in Qumran texts due to a split--an ancient (? attested where?)
split and choice--to distinguish religious festivals from secular {Temple
dedication?] ones, and exclude writing Hanukkah and Maccabees.)
The dichotomy between second century and first century TR candidates is
unhelpful, obscuring, since, in my view, both the Teacher and the WP were born
in the former, and became prominent in the former, and both died in the latter
century.
GD calls his proposal "elegant." If one needs be told, perhaps one didn't
notice.
GD says he was unmoved by being the first to suggest Hyrcanus II as Teacher.
Perhaps I recall a letter announcing this to a Barbara Thiering list,
highlighting that very point, mistakenly?
Might Hyrcanus II have been not proposed as TR , decpite the huge and varied
literature, by anyone because he is quite unfitting? Because he was not the
Teacher?
Finally, GD offers the explanation that Hyrcanus II had never been proposed as
TR before because of "pseudo-objections." But, if he had not been proposed, to
what would scholars have been objecting, or pseudo-objecting?
best
Stephen Goranson
http://www.duke.edu/~goranson
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