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.
---
Constructive criticism is required and
welcome.
tot ziens
_Dierk
