Dear Ian Werrett,
The word plays--not merely just one or two of these {see e.g. VanderKam's High
Priest book and his article in the Tov FS)--are evidence for the second temple
use of the term "halakha" by Pharisees, then retained in Rabbinic Hebrew. The
Meier JBL article explicitly brackets out--excludes, hence distorts--some of
the Pharisee evidence; I found it quite non-persuasive. I don't have my copy
at hand, but it has many penciled objections, and lacking bibliography; I
could find it and go into detail, but there seems little point. BTW J.
Baumgatrten, private communication [some years ago] confirmed that there is
no use of halakha in Qumran ms known to him. Of course they use the root, as
does any Hebrew writer--but not the technical term of themselves. D. Boyarin
and A. Baumgarten have written on self-designation names followed by
cacophemism (cf. caricaturnamen).
I wish Qumran scholars would not use the term "halakha" of the Qumran/Essene
writers that opposed "halakha," but I am beginning to sense that some scholars
will likely continue to use it in those contexts. Again, I find no benefit in
its (totally, utterly unnecessary) use, only a down side--describing Qumran
mss legal determinations with a term they rejected; and other, neutral words
are easily, readily available. It's using the "winners" vocabulary to describe
the losers (losers in terms of survival as a group). I consider it a poor
method move; and a tossing out of "what if" heuristics. But I'm repeating
myself, so I guess, for now, we could agree to disagree.
Perhaps, on the other hand, we could agree that Alexander Jannaeus was
the "wicked priest," who reportedly told his wife to hand over his corpse to
Pharisees to do with as they decided??
all the best,
Stephen Goranson
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