Dr. Altman, Thank you for your response. Included in it was your comment:
"There are things we simply cannot know -- not now, not ever. What a dead author was thinking when he wrote something must forever rest in the realm of the unknowable. Accept it." This pretty much applies to everything that we examine here on Orion. So it seems obvious that we cannot just "accept it". We have to correlate information from other sources and come up with a "working model" for what could have been met. Not that this PROVES what was being thought.... but so that other conclusions or assumptions can be tested against the "working model". What interests me about the Rechabite area is the potential for "triangulation" that has not yet been exploited. Some say I should not rely on Eisenman's conclusions. I don't believe I am relying on his conclusions. I do not share his opinions about the relationship of the DSS to New Testament personalities. But I am making use of some of Eisenman's knowledge of obscure texts; this seems to be a fairly conservative approach, as long as I'm willing to double- check his sources. Something very interesting was going on with the Rechabites - - and with the Enochian Jewish community. And this is one of those rare times when an exploration of the two different groups might determine in what ways were they really different, or in what ways they were really the same. I'm perfectly happy to consider the guild aspects of the Rechabites, but would also want to investigate the guild aspects of the Levites as well. Perhaps the reasons we should not consider the head of a Rechabite guild a "true priest" is the same reason we should not consider the head of a Levite family a "true priest". I am ordering the various sources mentioned by you and others in order to see where these correlations take the thread. George Brooks Tampa, FL For private reply, e-mail to George Brooks <[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 TRAILOR BEFORE REPLYING TO THE MESSAGE)
