Re: Embracing a 'green' biblical creed - will Stewardship of the Earth work for the right reasons?

On Nov 25, 12:49 am, ijda...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Ian Davis)
wrote:
In article <slrnhgpbjs.nic.usenet-nos...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,

Seebs  <usenet-nos...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 2009-11-25, Yowie <yowie9644.DIESPAM...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
crunch wrote:
BTW I find it strange that neither you nor any other SRQer
has yet found a major factual error in her articles.

One word for you:

Aloes.

Yup.  That one seems pretty solid.  The lack of a serious response from
crunch to that point was when I became convinced that it wasn't just that
he was bad at communicating, it really is that he has no comprehension
of the material at all.

Even more worrying is his presumption that he only has to state an opinion
for that opinion to have been proven as consequence decisively.

On the contrary that's not my presumption; that's
your projection.

 That isn't
the way that science works, or the way that most people grow to have
confidence in a position.
It suggests a basic lack of understanding, or
confusion as to what it means to be certain of something. Generally one
becomes certain of something because others agree with a position, or
because the available evidence strongly supports it.  If I were to
claim that the moon was made of green cheese, which most people would
disagree with, and for which there was no evidence in support of my
position, and then go on to say that I had made that point decisively,
merely because I had stated this somewhat forcefully, people would have
grounds to consider me nuts.

Ian

Major correction of Ian Davis -

I know how science works because I am a professional
meteorologist and was once an experimental psychologist.
(I have long been interested in Green Movement ideas.)

So that most people may grow to have confidence in a
position, here an example from the world of scholarship,
given by me recently to archaeologist Kendall K Down
of sci.archaeology -

More good news
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/qumran_origin/message/5479

"Here are excerpts from a very important review, in Dead Sea
Discoveries 11, 3,
of a book by the Israeli scholar Jodi Magness. The review, in
unusually
laudatory terms, marks a turning point in Qumran studies, the end of
the last regime.

"The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls, by Jodi Magness,
Grand Rapids Michigan and Cambridge UK: Eerdmans, 2002. $26. ISBN
0-8028-4589-4

Review by Magen Broshi and Hanan Eshel, Jerusalem, Bar Ilan
University
This is undoubtedly not only the best book on the site of Qumran but
also one of
the best books ever published on Palestinian archaeology. Magness is a
leading
authority on Roman Palestine. She has produced a highly readable small
volume
based in part on several innovative articles of hers that are already
accepted
as part of the scholarly consensus.

Her most important contribution seems to us to be her correction to
de
Vaux's chronological conclusions. The site, first settled in the Iron
Age,
was reoccupied only after a long hiatus and later than previously
assumed
(not about 130 BCE, but somewhere in the first half of the first
century BCE).
This stratum ended at the end of the first century BCE (not 31 BCE,
but around 4
BCE, during the destruction which followed Herod's death. De Vaux was
apparently
wrong in assuming a long gap after the earthquake of 31 BCE).

Yet, by and large, the book is a well argued defense of deVaux's main
conclusion that Qumran was an Essene settlement. This is perhaps the
book's most
important contribution. Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls suffered from
a deluge
of theories, ranging from the bizarre to the improbable. These
theories
are unquestionably mutually exclusive. The site could not have
possibly
been both a monastery (a term de Vaux never used) and a caravanserai,
or both a
fortress and an agricultural villa rustica. The scrolls could not have
been at the
same time Essene, Sadducean, Pharisaic, Christian, and a melange of
books from
the Temple archives. The 900 manuscripts of Qumran are essentially
homogenous and
represent the theology and practice of a sect. This proliferation of
theories
constitutes the Qumran paradox: few sites have ever been excavated in
the Holy
Land which are so well preserved, so unambiguous in their unique
character, with
outstanding collections of books as serendipitous as these. Speaking
about the archaeology of Qumran and ignoring the manuscripts is
ludicrous. The
scrolls finds in the eleven caves of Qumran are part and parcel of
the
archaeology of Qumran.

(..) The repeated efforts of scholars since Karl Heinz Rengstorf and
Norman Golb, like Alan Crown, Lena Cansdale, Yitzhar Hirschfeld and
Juergen
Zangenberg to dissociate the manuscripts from the compound are
untenable. The
suggestion that Temple archives or just various Jerusalem archives
were taken to
Qumran as a hiding place is not borne out by the circumstances in
which they
were found. The overwhelming majority of the books (Cave 4 alone
contained over
2/3 of the lot) were not stored as manuscripts ought to be stored;
they were
found lying on the floor. Cave 4 might have been the community's
storage room
vandalized by Roman soldiers. The few scrolls found carefully stored,
like those of
Cave 1, were stored in a cylindrical jar the like of which was not
found among
the myriads excavated in Jerusalem. The rabid hatred towards the
Jerusalem
Temple and its personnel expressed in the scrolls precludes the
possibility
that these compositions could have belonged to the Temple.

(..) The reviewers are of the opinion that it is possible to prove on
the basis of archaeological finds alone, even without the aid of the
wealth of
the manuscripts, that in the last 150 years of the Second
Commonwealth
Qumran was occupied by a monastic community.

(..) In her defense of de Vaux's identification of Qumran as a
religious establishment, Jodi Magness is right. There is no doubt,
the
settlement was an Essene community.

Magen Broshi. Hanan Eshel Jerusalem, Bar Ilan University."

This removes much of the opposition that was preventing developments
in my direction. There is, of course, still a way to go, but I would
say
there will be no turning back now.

B.T."

-----

David Christainsen



.

Relevant Pages

  • Magness and Allegro
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    (sci.archaeology)
  • Re: Archaeologist disproves widespread beliefs about the Dead Sea Scrolls
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    (sci.archaeology)
  • Re: Newly Discovered Tunnel May Once Have Carried Dead Sea Scrolls
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    (sci.archaeology)
  • Re: Why not think about a measured life?
    ... Whereas universal gravity is 177,000 miles per second. ... Dead Sea Scrolls - Discipline and War ... Scrolls' were discovered at Qumran. ...
    (uk.religion.christian)