RE: orion-list Enochian Sects: Samaritan vs. Judah-ite
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of George Brooks Sent: 19 August 2002 03:27 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: orion-list Enochian Sects: Samaritan vs. Judah-ite George wrote in response to my previous qestions: The deity that is archaeologically attested to the Rechabite lifestyle is the Aramaean Shai al' Qaum, who is traditionally translated as Companion/Protector of the Caravan. But it could also be a pun on the term Qaum, and mean BOTH Caravan and stone. In anycase, there seems to be close congruence between the Rechabites and the peoples that were devoted to Shai al Qaum.While the Hellenized version of this anti-wine God would eventually become Lycurgus, there seems to be strong evidence (per Diodorus's famous texts about Nabataeans), that devotees of Shai settled in the land of Edom and were known as Nabataeans. And LONG before there was a people we would call Essenes, the Nabataeans themselves had undergone a transition from tent dwelling mavericks to agriculturally supported people living in urbanized centers. *** George, it puzzles me why one has to have an anti-wine god that is not the God of Israel in order to explain the Rechabite abstention from alcohol. What I say next is simplistic (as usual). Just suppose a group (a 'tribe' say) of Israelites had a bad experience that caused a large number of them to be wiped-out. Could such an experience affect their view of God and what his commands are for them? Do people's experiences form their views of their god, at least to some extent. I can well imagine that if the tribe was having a party one day and alot of them were the worse for wear when they were attacked and defeated, that such an experience would be seen as punishment from god for their excess, and that god was telling them to abstain for ever. There were surely possibilities of diversities arising among the 'tribes' of Israel according to their different experiences. More interestingly for me, if Rechabites believed in an anti-wine god, did they also believe in a pro-tent god -- one who didn't dwell in a building made by men such as a temple? I wonder if an experience formed that view? Sincerely, Geoff For private reply, e-mail to Geoff Hudson [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)
Re: orion-list Enochian Sects: Samaritan vs. Judah-ite
Well Geoff, that's an interest list of questions. You write: why one has to have an anti-wine god that is not the God of Israel in order to explain the Rechabite abstention from alcoholJust suppose a group (a 'tribe'say) of Israelites had a bad experience that caused a large number of them to be wiped-out. Could such an experience affect their view of God and what his commands are for them? Do people's experiences form their views of their god, at least to some extent? I'm not quite sure how determined you are to pursue this method of analysis in the scanty world of Palestinian archaeology. You could use this same approach to virtually any consensus view. But perhaps you choose this approach simply because you don't know that much yet about the Rechabites. The injunction against wine, living in houses and agriculture is EXACTLY the same set of taboos that the Aramaean Nabataeans had according to Diodorus (he was reporting a text usually placed around the 300's BC). While Diodorus doesn't say who first commanded the taboo injunctions, Jeremiah's text tells us that the Rechabites got their injunctions from Jonadab, Bar Rekab. Interestingly, Sam'al, a neo-hittite Aramaean state in the S.E. corner of Anatolia, had at least one king named Bar Rekab, and they had a deity called Rekab-El. This deity was a charioteer deity, as in chariot rider of storms. And while we don't have the ID of a Jonadab in Sam'alian texts, the circle of evidence does seem rather tight around the idea that somehow a person or deity Rekab is related to the region that the Rechabites hailed from, and/or that Shai al' Qaum is related to the deity Rekab. What's especially interesting, I think, is that the O.T. also puts the legendary Hadad (the same name as the Aramaean rider of storms deity) right in the middle of Edom... which is the homeland of the very same wine-avoiding Nabataeans. So I guess, in view of all these overlapping factors, what evidence do you have that the Syrian Rechabites were influenced by some OTHER deity other than the only one we know of that was opposed to wine consumption or that they spontaneously came up with the same rule system that the Nabataeans did? I look forward to your comments. Best wishes, George 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)
RE: orion-list Enochian Sects: Samaritan vs. Judah-ite
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of George Brooks Sent: 17 August 2002 23:54 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: orion-list Enochian Sects: Samaritan vs. Judah-ite George wrote: Jeremiah's discussion of the Rechabites [who elsewhere are connected with the region of Hamath] explains that the Rechabites had retreated to Jerusalem to avoid Assyrian predations. But how had they become so closely involved with the Yahweh cult to receive the commendations of Jeremiah? Was there faith a recent acquisition? Or had it been acquired a generation or generations earlier? The Old Testament provides a clue; in 2 Kings 17 we read: 2 Kings 17:24-31 The king of Assyria brought people from ... Hamath... and settled them in the towns of Samaria to replace the Israelites. They [Hamathites and others] took over Samaria...Then the king of Assyuria gave this order: 'Have one of the priests you took captive from Samaria go back to live there and teach the people what the god of the land requires.'...Nevertheless, each national group made its own gods in the several towns... the men from Hamath made Ashima [which is probably a-shai-ma a reference to the Caravan god Shai al Qaum, the Rechabite god who prohibited the consumption of wine]. But the text continues in a strange duality: 2 Kings 17:32-34a They [the deportees, including those of Hamath] worshipped the Lord, but they also appointed all sorts of their own people to official for them as priests in the shrines... to this day they persist in their former practices. This then alternates with the opposing view contained in verse 34b: They nieghter worship the Lord nor adhere to the decrees and ordinances, the laws and commands that the Lord gave the descendants of Jacob. This is then followed by yet ANOTHER contradictory doublet: 2 Kings 17:41 Part A - Even while these people were worshipping the Lord... Part B - they were serving their idols. And this is concluded with To this day their children and grandchildren continue to do as their fathers did. This appears to be an on point explanation for how and where this alien Rechabite guild comes from. Their ancestors, being deported by the Assyrians from the home territories of the Rechabites (i.e., Hamath) are settled in Samaria and are taught the cult of Yahweh. And that despite their interest in Yahweh, they continue to include alien elements in their religious life. Later, as Assyrian hostilities begin to creep south again, eventually to swallow up even Jerusalem, they flee southwards, to a safe haven for Yahweh worshippers. Jeremiah is obviously impressed with them. [And I find it conceivable that Jeremiah is, himself, a highly placed Rechabite. But let's not digress.] ** Dear George, 1. Jehonadab son of Recab (2 Kings 10.15) was around before the exile described in 2 Kings 17. So presumably the Rechabite lifestyle was already in evidence. 2. How do you reconcile the nomadic, tent dwelling, Maverick Rechabites with settled, law-bound, controlled, agricultural Essenes? Geoff For private reply, e-mail to Geoff Hudson [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)
orion-list Enochian Sects: Samaritan vs. Judah-ite
In prior posts, I have discussed the possible connection between Enochian sects of Judaism and the Rechabite clans (or guilds). By referring to Boccaccini's marvelous _BEYOND THE ESSENE HYPOTHESIS_, I am careful to point out that Boccaccini would NOT agree with me that the Essenes came out of a Samaritan matrix. On page 29 he writes: Epiphanius offers another piece of interesting evidence. As did other late Christian authors, he mistook the Essenes for a Samaritan sect, yet he located a genos of Jews with a strikingly similar name, the Ossaioi, in the vicinity of the Dead Sea (Haer. 19.1.1-4, 10). The idea that the Essene movement had to be PARTICULARLY Judah-ite does not seem to cross Boccaccini's mind very seriously. And yet he notes comments about the ANTIQUITY of the Essenes that would, by definition, have to precede the emergence of Judah (the son of Israel): Page 24: Pliny, takes pleasure in amazing his readers by saying of the Essenes for thousands of centuries a people has existed that is eternal... Some modern readers are already quick to dismiss such comments as propaganda or error, and that the Essenes can only be defined within the confines of the JEWISH (i.e., Judah-ite) theology, if not the post-Maccabean Jewish theology! And yet the Boccaccini is perfectly comfortable discussing Enochian theology that precedes even the rise of the Zadokites. At some point, one has to wonder about the semantic confusion that could be standing in the way of seeing the multiple possibilities for interpreting the roots of Enochian sectarianism, and its influences on the rest of Hebrew thought. Historians point to the emphasis on Zadokites in the Dead Sea Scrolls as an indication that the Essenes were derived from group of Jewish Zadokite priests. In the past I have pointed out that another interpretation is that since the Essenes were a voluntary association, Zadokite priests could have elected to JOIN the Essenes, rather than the Essenes were established to protect Zadokite preeminence. But there are other solutions as well. After the rise of the Maccabeans and the Hasmoneans, the Samaritan temple was quite proud of the authenticity (which doesn't appear challenged) of their OWN Zadokite priesthood. This priesthood comes from a time that a Jewish high priest fled/moved to Samaria and established his lineage there. This is a slightly different trajectory from the rise of Dositheanism, where a devotion to the Jerusalem cultus is transplanted amongst Samaritans which creates ethnically Samaritan people who are religiously Jewish. So now we have THREE possible avenues for the Zadokite presence moving into Samarian environs. And thus THREE possible ways for Samaritan Zadokites to become a part of the pan-Hebrew Essene movement. But *WAS* the Essene movement pan-Hebrew? The Suda/Suidas material explicitly says it was. It says that the Rechabites (certainly non-Jewish, but based on Jeremiah's discussion at least partly Hebrew) were the source of the Essenes. Here's a helpful URL on the Suda article: http://www.stoa.org/sol-bin//search.pl? Search for the Epsilon article number 3123. Search results for epsilon,3123 in Adler number: Headword: Essaioi Adler number: epsilon,3123 Translated headword: Essenes, Essaioi Translation: Jews, ascetics, who differ exceedingly from the Pharisees and scribes with reference to their mode of life;[1] progeny[2] of Jonadab, son of Rechab the righteous. They are fond of one another and more pious than others: they turn away from pleasure as from an evil, but they assume moderation, self-control, and the capacity not to succumb to passions as virtues. And marriage is despised among them, but taking to themselves other people's children while they are still young and teaching them, they consider them as kin, and stamp them with their own customs. And they reject all baseness and practice every other virtue. They cultivate moral speech, and are generally assiduous in contemplation. And hence they are called Essaioi, [Sitters][3] with the name signifying this, that is, [they are] contemplators.[4] Essaioi very much excel and are very much superior to the Pharisees in their mode of life.[5] Greek Original: Essaioi: Ioudaioi, askêtai, Pharisaiôn kai grammateôn tên askêsin ex epimetrou dianestêkotes, progonoi Iônadab, huiou Rhichab tou dikaiou. philallêloi kai tôn allôn eulabeis pleion: hoi tên men hêdonên hôs kakian apostrephontai, tên de sôphrosunên kai enkrateian kai to mê tois pathesin hupopiptein aretên hupolambanousi. kai gamos men par' autois huperoratai, allotrious de paidas neous eti proslambanomenoi kai didaskontes hôs sungeneis hêgountai kai tois êthesin heautôn entupousi. kai pan aischron apoballontai kai pasan allên aretên exaskousin. hoi epimelountai tês êthikês lexeôs, theôriai de ta polla paramenousin. enthen kai Essaioi kalountai, touto dêlountos tou onomatos, toutesti theôrêtikoi. hoti
