Re: [Megillot] Jewish Iliad or Oddity?

[RUSSELLGMIRKIN]

Dierk,   A miscellany of responses.   < The ancient ruins of Qasr el-'Abd - the 'Palace of the Slave' - and the adjacent caves of 'Arâq el-Emir, 'the Cliffs of the Prince' are indeed located in the fruitful Wadi as Sîr, the Wadi 'of Sheepfold' on the road to 'Ammân.Unfortunately, the masonry is clearly of Roman type, though the ruined tower may have been an earlier outpost or part of HyrcanosTobiyah b. Joseph's fortess as described in Josephus' Hasmonean apologia. >   The castle (birta) and caves at Araq el-Emir correspond in great detail archaeologically to the detailed description in Josephus.  The archaeologists who excavated the site and published their findings are in agreement that the remains are to be dated to the time of Hyrkanus the Tobiad.  Following Tcherikover's chronology for the Tobiads, the castle will thus have been constructed in c. 175-168 BCE.  See P. Lapp, “Sounding at ‘Araq el-Emir (Jordan),” BASOR 165 (1962) 16-35; idem, “The Second and Third Campaigns at ‘Araq el-Emir (Jordan),” BASOR 171 (1963) 8-39; N. Lapp (ed.), The Excavations at Araq el-Emir (AASOR 47; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1983), this last containing significant contributions by various specialists.  None of the archaeological discussions I have read have attributed the monumental architecture to the Roman period.   < The ice is thus thin for all DSS interested, as thisn as that of my earlier identification of Onias III's exile not in Daphne near Antioch at the Orontes as to be read in Macc and thus easily to be recited, but in the homonymous location at the Lake Semechonitis in the Paneas Mts. >   Interesting that you should question whether Onias III was assassinated at Daphne near Antioch of Syria or of the Huleh valley near Jordan's sources.  I investigated this same question some 15 years ago, but concluded that the northern, conventional location ultimately made more sense in terms of the events described in Maccabees.  Note that 2 Maccabees does not describe Daphne as a residence of exile.  This is a common scholarly construct, but has no basis in the text.  Rather, it seems to me that Onias made a special trip to Antioch in 170 BCE to denounce Menelaus.   < Acc to 1QM 1.2, this wilderness is by no means identical with the 'Wilderness of Judea' >   True.  The wilderness of the peoples of 1QM and 4QpIsaA is clearly not the wilderness of Judea.  But the Isaiah wilderness allusion ("make straight a path in the wilderness") in 1QS is not equated with either Damascus or the wilderness of the peoples.  It is the 1QS reference that I would say most plausibly relates to the wilderness of Judea.   Your relating John the Baptist to Theudas as a wilderness prophet probably has some merit.  Horsley had some interesting studies on the first century CE wilderness prophets described in Josephus (including John the Baptist).   < This brings me back to the terms 'Land of Damascus' and 'Wilderness of Nations' in connection with the Serekh texts (whereto 1QM does not belong!). >   1QM should be classified as a Serekh text alongside 1QS, 1QSa and 1QSb.  There is first of all the fully developed Serekh terminology in columns 1-9 (and a more primitive serekh terminology in columns 10-19 that is interesting in historical dating the development of the term).  See additionally L. Schiffman, The Eschatological Community of the Dead Sea Scrolls:  a Study of the Rule of the Community (Atlanta:  Scholars Press, 1989).  Schiffman's book shows the common legal traditions in 1QS, 1QSa, 1QM and the organizational (but not halachic) rules in CD, namely CD 15:5-6; 10:4-10; 13:4-7; 14:6-12.  Schiffman, The Halakhah at Qumran (Leiden:  E.J. Brill, 1975) 60-68 has an interesting discussion of the military origin of the term Serekh.  Although he draws no historical conclusions, a very reasonable inference is that the serekh terminology developed against the background of the war for which 1QM served as a war manual.  One can indeed trace the development of this term from the primitive liturgical war procedure in columns 10-19 (which I would date to 165-164 BCE) to the fully developed use of the term in columns 2-9 (which I would date to 163 BCE).  I would date the development of the serekh terminology to the outset of the "professional" phase of the Maccabean war in 164/163 BCE.  This in turn dates 1QS, 1QSa, 1QSb, and serekh materials in CD to c. 163 BCE based on parallels in vocabulary.  1QSa is particularly interesting in detailing the social institutions of the fledgling Maccabean state in the aftermath of the rededication of the temple in 164 BCE.   < Once it is clear that programmatic texts show less if no local colour at all, one immediately has to ask what you exactly mean with 'Judean Outlook' in the Serekh texts in contrast to ' Exile's Outlook' in the Pesharim or related texts. >   1QM was certainly written from the explicit perspective of Judea, especially columns 1-9 that have the high priest situated in the rededicated temple and have the armies go out and return to Jerusalem.  1QSb has a similar, here implicit, Judean perspective with mention of both the high priest and (as in 1QM) the prince of the congregation (who here rules over Israel).  1QSa has a clear Judean perspective with conscription, national counsels for convocation of war or other purposes presided over by the high priest and Messiah of Israel (i.e. the prince once again).  These texts are commonly interpreted as eschatological only because of an unwarranted synthesizing assumption that they were written from Damascus, Qumran, or elsewhere outside of Jerusalem that is not born out by the texts themselves.  One only has an 'Exile's Outlook' in certain Damascus portions of CD.  The pesharim as a whole have a Judean outlook.  Both 1QM and 4QpIsaA refer to a return from the wilderness of the peoples to Judea, written from a Judean perspective (and arguably referring to a return from the land of Damascus).  The picture is of a Judean group (whom I identify with the Maccabean state) who authored the serekh literature and a second group who underwent a temporary exile in the land of Damascus (and who by source critical arguments from CD are to be associated with the halachic legal traditions).  1QS is linked to the Judean serekh texts, so I would take its wilderness allusions to be to the Judean wilderness (though Maccabees also refers to other wilderness locations of Judean guerilla fighters).   Best regards, Russell Gmirkin