Russell Gmirkin responded: >>On the first question, one might point to the Oniads as figures holding both high priestly and civil positions. The reference to "Messiah the Prince" (or "the Anointed Prince") at Dan. 9:25 is usually taken to refer to Onias III, assassinated in exile in 170 BCE. Does "Messiah the Prince" combine two titles? (Or, alternately, does it suggest that anointing was associated with the princely title - in which case, can we assume that the Prince of the Entire Congregation was also an anointed Messiah?)<<
After quickly reviewing the cases where the RSV used the words "anoint," "anointed," or "anointing" in relation to persons (rather than offerings, alters, or personal hygiene, etc.), they seem to fall into the categories of high priests, kings and prophets. It is late at night and I would not want to claim the competency to search the Hebrew bible directly, but I think this captures the range of use for the term "anointed (one)." Jewish history has seen periods in which an anointed king and a high priest coexisted (the period of the kings, and then in the Persian period certainly in the period of Zerubabbel and Joshua, and finally again in the reign of Herod), or the high priest was also the governor (Persian and much of the Hellenistic periods), and in which the high priest held both the priestly office and the kingship (from John Hyrcanus I onwards to the start of the Roman period). It is hard to say just how these periods were perceived by different groups/parties at different times and places in history. Jesus is perceived as both a high priest and a sort of (heavenly) king in the Christian book of Hebrews, as if the Hasmonean practice served as a model. Yet not everyone likely saw the Hasmonean innovation as a positive thing. Others may have hearkened back to the "good ol' days" before the captivity, and others again probably thought the practice of letting the high priest act as a provincial governor was preferable to the alternatives. As you are more familiar with the secondary literature than I would be, are all these options (i.e., king vs high priest vs prophet) typically looked into when trying to interpret a phrase such as that which is under discussion in CD? It seems that interpretation sometimes follows what we would *like* the phrase "anointed of Aaron and Israel" to mean, rather than what it *could* mean. Do you see that too, or am I mistaken? Respectfully, Dave Hindley Cleveland, Ohio, USA PS: It is interesting that you mention Dan 9:25 and its usual (modern) association with the high priest Onias III. But why assume the reference is to a high priest? Why not Cyrus, as in Isaiah 45:1? Even if the word "anointed (one)" *does* refer to a high priest (as it may in Dan 9:26), why only to a "good" one? By leaving open the question of whether an anointed one was a king/ruler or priest (and I am purposely ignoring "prophet" for the moment), the seventy weeks of Dan 9 can be explained as a sophisticated cryptogram: The governing period of the cryptogram, according to the way I see it, is actually 62 weeks of years, starting with the year in which Jer 29:10 *appears* to have been uttered (circa 597/6 BCE, based on 29:2) and ending 163/2 BCE. At the end of an initial seven weeks of years (Dan 9:25) we are in the period (ca. 548 BCE) when Cyrus was incorporating the Median and Lydian territories he had conquered, including northern Mesopotamia, and getting ready to conquer Babylon. This is, incidentally, probably the same point in time in which the author of Isaiah 45:1 came to the conclusion that Cyrus had been anointed by God to liberate the Jewish captives. The anointed one of Dan 9:26, on the other hand, is probably the "bad" high priest Menelaus, who was executed about 163/2 BCE. FWIW, the "one week (of years)" of 9:27 is approximately the final seven years of the 62 year-week governing period, indicating the period when Antiochus IV desecrates the temple ca. 171-169 BCE and its rededication in late 164 BCE. A "seventy" year-week cryptogram was formed by taking the 62 year-week base period, plus the initial seven year-weeks plus the final year-week that are actually contained within it, and arbitrarily adding them together. For private reply, e-mail to "David C. Hindley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ---------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from Orion, e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: "unsubscribe Orion." Archives are on the Orion Web site, http://orion.mscc.huji.ac.il. (PLEASE REMOVE THIS TRAILER BEFORE REPLYING TO THE MESSAGE)
