Mr. (Dr. Prof.) Geza Vermes' "The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English:" (Ch. 1)

Vermes, Geza. The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English. New York: Penguin Books, 1998. http://www.amazon.com/The-Complete-Dead-Scrolls-English/dp/0713991313/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1381787067&sr=8-2&keywords=Geza+Vermes+complete+dead+sea+scrolls


This volume was published in 1998, nearly 50 years after the initial discovery.  They have grown in scholarly significance over the 50 years of research.

Chapter One: “Introduction” (1-25)

Some notes and musings:

·        Khirbet Quman is “complex of ruins” 8 miles south of Jericho on the western edge of the Dead Sea and just north of En Gedi.  It’s vacant, arid, and hot.  But, it was the site of an “ancient Jewish community.”  

·        11 caves are nearby.  Cave 1 is a “stone’s throw” away

·        A young Bedouin boy, Muhammad ed-Dhib, found some manuscripts in the final years of the British mandate, 1947.

·        Various scrolls had a varied history of ownership: (1) E.L Sukenik of Hebrew University got 3 scrolls (Isaiah, Scroll of Hymns, War of the Sons of Light with the Sons of Darkness), (2) 4 scroll to a Syrian Orthodox Metropolitan, Mar Athanasius (complete scroll of Isaiah, Commentary on Habukkuk, Manual of Discipline), and others

·        “1000s of 1000s” of fragments were found at Cave 4

·        Several scrolls were found at Cave 11, including the “Temple Scroll”

·        Philo, Josephus, and Pliny the Elder described an “ascetic sect” in this area

·        The “Community Rule,” a scroll, was a “code of sectarian existence” (3)

·        Scholarly debates began over dating:  Prof. de Vaux dating to the “last centuries” of the Second Temple (pre-63 B.C.) while Profs. Dupont and Sommer dating them to the early Roman period (post-63 B.C.)

·        A general scholarly consensus locates them during the Maccabean period, called the “Maccabean Theory” (4).  Profs. Vermes and F.M. Cross (Harvard) hold this view.

·        Cave 4 contents: chaos in claims to ownership.  This cave alone yield 575 titles. Most are in Hebrew, few in Aramaic and few still, LXX titles.  

·        “Politics mixing with scholarship” along with “academic imperialism,” to use Mr. Vermes’ terms.

·        Mr. (Dr. Prof.) Emanuel Tov, Professor of Biblical Studies, Hebrew University, gets sovereignty.  He widens access for scholars.”  “Scholarship and the general public were to become the beneficiaries of the new era of liberty” (10).

·        All books of the OT are extant minus Esther.  Mr. Vermes thinks this accidental, but other theorize an anti-Esther perspective because of her marriage to a Persian King.

·        General scholarly consensus on dating = 200 B.C. to 70 A.D. Although, some scholars see Babylonian antecedents

·        Importance: no Hebrew or Aramaic documents from the pre-Christian era. Earliest Hebrew text is the Ben Asher Scroll in Cairo, 895 A.D.  Yet, the Isaiah Scroll in 1000 years older. Mr. Vermes says of the canonical books:  “…remarkable for almost general uniformity to the Masoretic Text…”

 

(Wiki): Biography of "Dead Sea Scrolls" Scholar: Mr. (Dr. Prof.) Geza Vermes

Géza Vermes or Vermès (Hungarian: [ˈɡeːzɒ ˈvɛrmɛʃ], 22 June 1924 – 8 May 2013) was a British scholar of Jewish Hungarian origin—one who also served as a Catholic priest in his youth—and writer on religious history, particularly Jewish and Christian. He was a noted authority on the Dead Sea Scrolls and ancient works in Aramaic such as the Targums, and on the life and religion of Jesus. He was one of the most important voices in contemporary Jesus research,^[1] and he has been described as the greatest Jesus scholar of his time.^[2] Vermes' written work on Jesus focuses principally on Jesus the Jew, as seen in the broader context of the narrative scope of Jewish history and theology, while questioning the basis of some Christian teachings on Jesus.^[3]

Biography 

Vermes was born in Makó, Hungary, in 1924 to parents of Jewish descent, schoolteacher Terezia (Riesz) and liberal journalist Emo Vermes,^[4][5] (His family, however, had not practiced Judaism since the early 19th century.^[4]) All three were baptised as Roman Catholics when he was seven. His mother and journalist father died in the Holocaust.

Vermes attended a Catholic seminary. When he was eligible for college, in 1942, Jews were not accepted into Hungarian universities.^[6]

After the Second World War, he became a Roman Catholic priest, but was not admitted into the Jesuit or Dominican orders because of his Jewish ancestry. Vermes was accepted into the Order of the Fathers of Notre-Dame de Sion,^[4] a French/Belgian order founded by Jewish converts^[7] which prayed for Jews.^[8]

He studied first in Budapest and then at the College St Albert and the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, where he read Oriental history and languages. In 1953 obtained a doctorate in theology with the first dissertation written on the Dead Sea Scrolls and its historical framework.^[4]

After researching the scrolls in Paris for a few years, he left the Catholic Church in 1957, and reasserting his Jewish identity, came to Britain and took up a teaching post at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. He married Pamela Hobson Curle, a scholar and poet who was already married.^[4][9] in 1958. In 1965 he joined the Faculty of Oriental Studies at Oxford University, rising to become the first professor of Jewish Studies before his retirement in 1991. In 1970 he became a member of the Liberal Jewish Synagogue of London,^[10] "but insisted he had not converted, just “grew out of” Christianity".^[7] After the death of his first wife in 1993, he married Margaret Unarska in 1996 and adopted her son, Ian Vermes.

Vermes died on 8 May 2013 after a recurrence of cancer.^[11]

Academic career

Vermes was one of the first scholars to examine the Dead Sea Scrolls after their discovery in 1947, and is the author of the standard translation into English of the Dead Sea Scrolls: The Dead Sea Scrolls in English (1962)^[12] He is one of the leading scholars in the field of the study of the historical Jesus (see Selected Publications, below) and together with Fergus Millar and Martin Goodman, Vermes was responsible for substantially revising Emil Schurer's three-volume work, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ,^[13] His An Introduction to the Complete Dead Sea Scrolls, revised edition (2000), is a study of the collection at Qumran.^[14]

Until his death, he was a Professor Emeritus of Jewish Studies and Emeritus Fellow of Wolfson College, Oxford, but continued to teach at the Oriental Institute in Oxford. He had edited the Journal of Jewish Studies^[15] from 1971 to his death, and from 1991 he had been director of the Oxford Forum for Qumran Research at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies^[16] He inspired the creation of the British Association for Jewish Studies (BAJS) in 1975 and of the European Association for Jewish Studies (EAJS) in 1981 and acted as founding president for both.

Vermes was a Fellow of the British Academy; a Fellow of the European Academy of Arts, Sciences and Humanities; holder of an Oxford D. Litt. (1988) and of honorary doctorates from the University of Edinburgh (1989), University of Durham (1990), University of Sheffield (1994) and the Central European University of Budapest (2008). He was awarded the Wilhelm Bacher Memorial Medal by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (1996), the Memorial Medal of the city of Makó, his place of birth (2008) and the keys of the cities of Monroe LA and Natchez MI (2009). He received a vote of congratulation from the U.S. House of Representatives, proposed by the Representative of Louisiana on 17 September 2009.

In the course of a lecture tour in the United States in September 2009, Vermes spoke at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, at Duke University in Durham NC, at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore MD, and at the University of Louisiana at Monroe and at Baton Rouge.

On 23 January 2012 Penguin Books celebrated at Wolfson College, Oxford, the golden jubilee of Vermes's The Dead Sea Scrolls in English, which has sold an estimated half-a-million copies worldwide. A "Fiftieth anniversary" edition has been issued in the Penguin Classics series.

Historical Jesus

 

Main article: Historical Jesus

Vermes described Jesus as a 1st-century Jewish holy man, a commonplace view in academia but novel to the public when Vermes began publishing.^[4] Contrary to certain other scholars (such as E. P. Sanders^[17]), Vermes concludes that Jesus did not reach out to non-Jews. For example, he attributes positive references to Samaritans in the gospels not to Jesus himself but to early Christian editing. He suggests that, properly understood, the historical Jesus is a figure that Jews should find familiar and attractive. This historical Jesus, however, is so different from the Christ of faith that Christians, says Vermes, may well want to rethink the fundamentals of their faith.^[18]

Important works on this topic include Jesus the Jew (1973), which describes Jesus as a thoroughly Jewish Galilean charismatic, and The Gospel of Jesus the Jew (1981), which examines Jewish parallels to Jesus’ teaching.^[14]

Vermes believed it is possible "to retrieve the authentic Gospel of Jesus, his first-hand message to his original followers."^[19]

Selected publications

• Scripture and Tradition in Judaism: Haggadic studies (Studia post-biblica), Brill, Leiden 1961 ISBN 90-04-03626-1
• Jesus the Jew: A Historian's Reading of the Gospels, Minneapolis, Fortress Press 1973 ISBN 0-8006-1443-7
• Post-Biblical Jewish Studies, Brill, Leiden, 1975 ISBN 90-04-04160-5
• The Dead Sea Scrolls: Qumran in Perspective, Minneapolis, Fortress Press 1977 ISBN 0-8006-1435-6
• Jesus and the World of Judaism, Minneapolis, Fortress Press 1983 ISBN 0-8006-1784-3
• The Essenes According to the Classical Sources (with Martin Goodman), Sheffield Academic Press 1989 ISBN 1-85075-139-0
• The Religion of Jesus the Jew, Minneapolis, Fortress Press 1993 ISBN 0-8006-2797-0
• The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, Penguin 1997 ISBN 978-0-14-044952-5 (2004 ed.) (Fiftieth anniversary ed. 2011 ISBN 978-0-141-19731-9)
• The Changing Faces of Jesus, London, Penguin 2001 ISBN 0-14-026524-4
• Jesus in his Jewish Context, Minneapolis, Fortress Press 2003 ISBN 0-8006-3623-6* The Authentic Gospel of Jesus, London, Penguin 2004 ISBN 0-14-100360-X
• The Passion, London, Penguin 2005 ISBN 0-14-102132-2.
• Who's Who in the Age of Jesus, London, Penguin 2005 ISBN 0-14-051565-8
• The Nativity: History and Legend, London, Penguin 2006 ISBN 0-14-102446-1
• The Resurrection: History and Myth, Doubleday Books 2008 ISBN 0-385-52242-8.
• Searching for the Real Jesus, London, SCM Press 2010 ISBN 978-0-334-04358-4
• The Story of the Scrolls: The Miraculous Discovery and True Significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls, London, Penguin 2010 ISBN 978-0-14-104615-0
• Jesus: Nativity - Passion - Resurrection, London, Penguin 2010 ISBN 978-0-14-104622-8
• Jesus in the Jewish World, London, SCM Press 2010 ISBN 978-0-334-04379-9
• Christian Beginnings from Nazareth to Nicaea, AD 30-325, London, Allen Lane 2012 ISBN 978-1-846-14150-8

For more details see his autobiography, Providential Accidents, London, SCM Press, 1998 ISBN 0-334-02722-5; Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham MD, 1998 ISBN 0-8476-9340-6.

References

1.      Jump up ^ Theissen, Gerd and Annette Merz. The historical Jesus: a comprehensive guide. Fortress Press. 1998. translated from German (1996 edition). Chapter 1. Quest of the historical Jesus. p. 1-16

2.      Jump up ^ Crace, John (March 18, 2008). "Geza Vermes: Questions arising". The Guardian. Retrieved 2008-03-19. ; G. Richard Wheatcroft review of The Authentic Gospel of Jesus.

3.      Jump up ^ Harrington, Daniel J. (March 24, 2008). "No Evidence? The Resurrection by Geza Vermes". America. Retrieved 2008-12-19. 

4.      ^ Jump up to: ^{a b c d e f} http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/17/world/europe/geza-vermes-dead-sea-scrolls-scholar-dies-at-88.html?_r=0

5.      Jump up ^ [1]

6.      Jump up ^ http://forward.com/articles/176752/geza-vermes-hungarian-bible-scholar-who-returned-t/#ixzz2TSHw5Nz0

7.      ^ Jump up to: ^{a b} http://www.economist.com/news/obituary/21578017-geza-vermes-jew-ex-priest-and-translator-dead-sea-scrolls-died-may-8th-aged Geza Vermes: Geza Vermes, a Jew, ex-priest and translator of the Dead Sea Scrolls, died on May 8th aged 88

8.      Jump up ^ http://forward.com/articles/176752/geza-vermes-hungarian-bible-scholar-who-returned-t/#ixzz2TSIZlL2A

9.      Jump up ^ W.H. Auden links in (Noreen) Pamela Hobson's Family Tree Nicholas Jenkins "Family ghosts" genealogy database, Department of English, Stanford University

10. Jump up ^ Géza Vermès, Providential Accidents: An autobiography, Rowman & Littlefield, 1998, ISBN 0-8476-9340-6, p. 170.

11. Jump up ^ http://paleojudaica.blogspot.ca/2013_05_05_archive.html

12. Jump up ^ , re-issued in London by Penguin Classics, as The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, 2004, ISBN 0-14-044952-3.

13. Jump up ^ Edinburgh, T. & T. Clark, 1973, ISBN 0-567-02242-0, 1979, ISBN 0-567-02243-9, 1986-87. ISBN 0-567-02244-7, ISBN 0-567-09373-5.

14. ^ Jump up to: ^{a b} "Jesus Christ." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2010. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 08 Nov. 2010 [2].

15. Jump up ^ JJS Online.

16. Jump up ^ Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies.

17. Jump up ^ Sanders, E. P. The historical figure of Jesus. Penguin, 1993.

18. Jump up ^ Vermes, Geza. The authentic gospel of Jesus. London, Penguin Books. 2004. Epilogue. p. 398-417.

19. Jump up ^ Géza Vermes, "The great Da Vinci Code distraction", in The Times, 6 May 2006. Article reproduced in Vermes, Searching For The Real Jesus: Jesus, The Dead Sea Scrolls and Other Religious Themes (SCM Press, 2009). ISBN 978-0-334-04358-1

Mr. (Dr. Prof.) John Tulloch's "The Old Testament Story:" Those Who Read It

Tulloch, John H. and McEntire, Mark. The Old Testament Story (8th Ed.). Upper Saddle River: Pearson-Prentice Hall, 2009. 

We have the 8th editions, but there is a 9th edition available at: http://www.amazon.com/The-Old-Testament-Story-Edition/dp/0205097839/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1376794370&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=tulloch+the+old+testament+story

Chapters 1. The Book and Those Who Study It

Mr. Tulloch bills his work as an “introduction to an academic study of the Old Testament” (2). Fair enough. Workable for a high school class and, perhaps, a first-year course in college. But, not recommended more widely.

But, gratuitously, he informs us…page 1 and then again on page 2…the Torah as “canon” was completed in 500 B.C. and the Hebrew canon close in 100 A.D. Whala! There ya' have it. Case settled, right? There are other objections that will be raised as we proceed. There is much good material here, but…

He offers a fair-enough summary of the Old Testament over two pages: Creaton, Flood, Patriarchs, Judges, Monarchy, Divided Monarchy, Exile, and the Post-Exilic Period. No problems.

He inserts a one-liner denying “verbal plenary inspiration” calling it the “dictation theory,” a specious one-liner that, God willing, will be rebutted elsewhere, notably, in connection with reviews of the highly recommended volume by the Mr. (Rev. Dr. Prof.) Robert Reymond, that is, his stellar Systematic Theology.

Mr. Tullloch airbrushes God out. It's a presumption or operational assumption by faith alone--his faith alone, er, an assumption of the establishment in some places.

Mr. Tulloch uses the metaphor of “tributaries” gathering force and unification as the canon emerges, but then gratuitously informs us that:

• The Torah (Genesis-Deuteronomy) was accepted as canonical in 400 B.C. Oh really?

• The Prophets were accepted as canonical in 200 B.C. Really, now?

• The Kethuvim (Writings) received canonical authority in 100 B.C.

• We would add, evidence please? This dawg ain't gonna fly well.

Mr. Tulloch advises that the "Dead Sea Scrolls" offer the entire OT canon or portions of those books, minus two books. Also, there 1000 non-canonical manuscripts. More as this story develops too.

We get a “brief” on textual criticism:

• The Leningrad Codex is dated at 1000 B.C. What Mr. Tulloch failed to note was that about 3-4% of the text varies from those of the Dead Sea Scrolls from a millennium earlier. To wit, the inference that grand caution was used in textual transmission and that the canon was closed before the Council of Jamnia, c. 90 A.D. A council that “recognized” the authoritative OT canon.

He helpfully (and we wish to note the positive elements in the book) offers a review of the background of the Masoretes. That is, the family and, particularly one rabbi, Aaron Ben Moses Ben Asher, who labored on the Hebrew texts by day and by night. There were no printing presses. He labored with pen in hand, ink well, at a desk, without lights in the house, and produced careful textual “pointing” to the text.

Truly, but amazingly, Mr. Tulloch tells us about “major shifts” in Old Testament studies.

• The standard introduction to Documentary Hypothesis initiated by H. W. Witter (d. 1711) and Jean Astruc (d. 1753) with observations about alternating uses of the divine names, Jehovah and Elohim, certain repetitions, and a few differing names (Mt. Sinai and Mr. Horeb)

• The standard introduction to sources names J (dated 950 B.C.), E (750 B.C.), D (550 B.C.) and P (450 B.C.)

• To our humor and amusement, Mr. Tulloch notes two weaknesses with this: (1) no evidence and (2) the assumption of evolution. This little note is another “one-liner.” What does that mean? No evidence? Evolution, an assumption? This one-liner, "no evidence" and "evolution," was very telling and humored us here.

• Another shift occurs with the schools of formgeschichte, or, “form criticism,” an effort to further analyze smaller units: the Sitz em Leben, or life context, of stories, poems and laws.

• Another “shift” to redaktionsgeschichte,” or redaction criticism, an effort to evaluate the “theology of editors” who reshaped the text. Mr. Tulloch doesn’t use the German terms, but for the record, we include them. Further, he does not identify the philosophically assumed effort at de-historicization or the anti-theological assumptions that were widely operative. This school or effort was just coming into its own during this scribe’s studies

But then, we get essentially, something of a “concession speech” by Mr. Tulloch with another “marked shift” in Old Testament studies. That is, scholars are focusing on the “finished product” as documents that are “entirely credible” and as “works of force and authority” (15). More can be said, to wit, that the Documentary Hypothesis, Form Criticism, and Redaction Criticism is in a state of some disarray. More as that storyline develops.

Mr. Tulloch gives a quick overview of archaeology: the purpose, practice, skills, tools and value (17-21).

He has a lovely and helpful “block” of important archaeological discoveries:

• Rosetta Stone—the three-language, or tri-lingual, inscription whose de-coding enabled the reading of Egyptian texts. What Mr. Tulloch fails to note is that these civilizations were literate, an embarrassing note highly underplayed in the liberal world of yesteryear. You mean Moses might have been literate? With scribes too? Oh no! You mean he “actually” may have written the Pentateuch? More as that develops.

• Gilgamesh Epic—another account of the Flood

• Beni Hasan Mural—located 150 miles north of Cairo, depicting traders and commerce. I would add that this scribe had opportunity to view this wonderful mural. The colors were original and preserved by the dry sands and very preserving and protecting climate

• Gezer High Place—10 tall obelisks or stones—witnesses to a covenant ceremony

Misters (Revs. Drs. Profs.) Roland Harrison and Gleason Archer's Introduction to the Old Testament still are much more to be preferred and recommended for novitiates.