Gill, I don't know who came up with those ideas about Paul that you mention but that person hasn't read much history. The Jews far from being quiet and non belligerant launched a major rebellion against the Romans at around the time of Paul's execution.
The Christians were quiet and peaceful citizens but were nonetheless viciously persecuted by the Roman emperors and state.
Qumran, meet Brooklyn
by Doug Mason 19 Replies latest watchtower bible
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greendawn
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Doug Mason
Leolaia,
Thank you so much for your observation that the WTS's methods often resemble "pesher" interpretation. This is the point I had recently been trying to make in another thread.
I think that a particular example is their interpretation of the "FDS parable". The WTS does not follow accepted methods of interpreting a Parable, and their process is not allegorical. They quite baldly claim that the parable is a prophecy!
What exercises my mind is how to counter their approach. I am a literalist, interested in looking at the local context, writer's background, etc., etc. This means that I and the WTS are in different worlds. How then does one enter into a meaningful dialog with a JW?
Doug -
Doug Mason
I thought that I should describe the method I used to create the list of “Qumran features”.
Firstly, I “googled” these words: Qumran Pesher.
I then obtained the listed features from information from the following:
http://www.tyndale.cam.ac.uk/Tyndale/staff/Instone-Brewer/TheolHermeneutics.htm
http://www.xenos.org/MINISTRIES/crossroads/OnlineJournal/issue3/mtmain.htm
“A Doctrinal Study of Acts 2:14” — Clifford Rapp Jr., Chafer Theological Seminary
I am certain other sites provide relevant information.
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quietlyleaving
Hey Doug - your links were interesting but I got a bit carried away and ended up with Barbara Thierling and her take on the Qumran Peshurs. I understand that she is Australian and is very respected in her field.
Her books sound intriguing but before I buy any I'd like to hear what you and Leolaia have to say about her writings.
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Doug Mason
quietlyleaving,
As I researched the subject, I saw some critical comments about her writings. I make no claims of expertise, but did as you have done and studied information that is available. One problem with the information on the www is that every person can now put out their own weird ideas and people accept them because they appear on the www.
You will need to see if there are real experts (I am not one) here or on the www who can help you to form your own opinion. Look for a balance of views. I am cautious about extremist views.
My interest is in seeing how the information may be applied to tackling the WTS's methods.
In that respect, as when discussing the meaning of the "FDS parable", it might come down to discussing the respective methodologies (processes) used when interpreting, and see how these stack up, before discussing the ultimate interpretation (outcomes or outputs).
This might be a significant departure from previous practice, but could prove more meaningful.
If you find anything useful or interesting, please share them with me.
Doug -
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quietlyleaving
Doug here is something I found interesting - however it doesn't have anything to do with peshers (excuse me for digressing from your topic) but it does throw light on the relationship between the growth of christianity, the Romans and society's needs.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/why/appeal.html
Narkissos thanks for the enlightening link - you saved me some time and money there.
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quietlyleaving
The article I mentioned above is quite long. Here is an interesting section
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/why/appeal.html
So why do they succeed? Why do people become Christians? I think there are some important historical observations to make here. One is that we have to realize that the Roman Empire itself was going through some massive demographic changes at this time. Now let's think about it this way... cities are growing but the population itself, at least within cities, was probably not growing easily. There's more people dying than are being born in most major cities. In other words, the old pagan aristocracy is shrinking, not growing. Where are they coming from, these new people in the cities? Probably they're immigrating from the countryside or moving from other countries, but then again that's exactly what we hear about the Christians. They're on the move. They travel to the cities. They're the new population along with a lot of other people, so I think from a kind of social perspective we have to see the growth of Christianity as a product of the changing face of the city life in the Roman world....
On top of all that there are plagues and famine, and it's been suggested by demographers now that if you've got a survival rate of only one tenth more among one part of the population than another segment of population when you have a massive die off... the result will be that at the end of this process [there will be] far more members of that one group relative to the total population. In other words, in a very short period of time you can have a group that was at one point a very small minority seemingly become miraculously now the majority, and I think in part that's what happens to the Christians. That through this period of very turbulent times in the second and third century, the Christians now become a significant proportion of the leading citizens of some of the major cities of the Roman world.
Now what are they offering? It's very simple. With new immigrant groups, all of them trying to find their way into Roman society -- to make it in the Roman world, to be a part of the mainstream, to march up the ladder of success -- belonging is one of the key issues, and what I think the Christians offer probably as well or better than anybody else in the Roman world is a sense of belonging. To be part of the Christian community... to be part of the church, is to belong to a society of closely knit friends, brothers and sisters and Christ, and it may be something as simple as that that spells the [basis] of the success of Christianity in the Roman world....
Christianity was beginning to grow in substantial ways by the late second and early third century precisely because it was responding to some basic, deeply felt human needs. It really was probably beginning to answer the questions that people were asking, and we can see that growth in a variety of ways. For one thing, there really is no empire wide persecution of Christianity throughout the entire second century and into the first half of the third century. It was always sporadic; it was always local concerns. The first time the empire as a whole says "We have to eradicate Christianity," is not until the year 249, 50, the persecution of Decius, ... but by that time, the Christians are so numerous that they can't possibly be eradicated; they've already grown that much.
So, in the sense, the persecution really doesn't catch up until it's already too late. We have some indication of the basic growth of Christianity at this time, especially in the cities, in terms of the records of the city of Rome. In the year 251, right at the time of the persecution of Decius, we have a register of the church at Rome, which says that they had 46 presbyters and 56 exorcists and doorkeepers and a number of other people that they catalogued; seven of this and seven of that; quite a lot of people are in this catalog. And at the end, it says over 1,500 widows [and needy persons] on the roster of the church at Rome; that is, people, women who are being taken care of by the church. The church becomes, in a lot of ways, a new kind of social welfare agency in the Roman Empire. The leaders of the church are the patrons of society. By the end of the third century, Christian bishops in many places will have taken over the role of the old civic patrons that had led the processions at Ephesus and Corinth and Rome. They've made it into society.
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Leolaia
Barbara Thiering had some decent work early in her career (such as her 1963 Journal of Semitic Studies paper on the poetics of the Hoyadot scroll and her 1974 JBL article on the cultural context of asceticism at Qumran) but in the '80s and '90s she developed her imho bizarre reading of the NT which imposes all sorts of concepts and ideas on the text that are not really there at all. In a real sense, she has ceased being a student of Qumran peshar and become a pesharist herself, a practitioner of this form of exegesis with the biblical text. At least in peshar the commentary supplies an "X is Y" type of interpretation, and is precisely what is missing in the biblical text but what Thiering supplies in her publications. Perhaps I am oversimplifying things, but that is how her conjectures read to me. She has quite a following on the internet among non-professionals, but most scholars in the field of Qumran studies regard her as a fringe theorist.
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quietlyleaving
thanks Leo
