Christian Texts and History • Re: Hypothesis: Wicked Priest = Herod Agrippa I, Teacher of Righteousness = Simeon of Jerusalem, Man of the Lie = Paul

I don't know what else to say about this, so I will cite Baumgarten, who sees this section in CD the same way I do.

The princes of Judah are denounced towards the end of the ideological section of the Damascus Document (CD VIII 3-21b). These princes hope for healing, but they are really rebels. In fact (as opposed to the claim of these princes), they have not forsaken the ways of the faithless, having defiled themselves. Quoting the verse in Deut 32:33, "their wine is the venom of serpents and the cruel head of asps," the author of the Damascus Document explained that the serpents were the kings of the nations, and wine their ways (i.e., the ways of the gentle kings, adopted by the Jewish rulers), while the head of the asps was the chief of the kings of the Greeks, who will seek vengeance upon the Jewish rulers. That is, the Jewish rulers will pay the appropriate price for their sins: those foreign, i.e., Greek, kings whose ways they aped will be the source of their destruction.

Footnote 18: Note that at this stage of the argument in CD VIII, those who suffered punishment at the hands of the Greek king were the princes of Judah, as they have been the subject throughout the preceding section, and the "builders of the wall" have not yet been mentioned.


https://www.google.com/books/edition/Sh ... frontcover

Wait, what? Baumgarten sees this section in CD the same way you do? I don't know how that could be possible since I agree with Baumgarten on almost everything (of what is quoted). The only difference might be that I say that the princes of Judah are the same as the builders of the wall. But that's not even the part we debate here.

The important part is that Baumgarten says: the kings of the nations = the gentile kings

This is what I've been saying and on the other hand, you've been saying that these kings of the nations are Jewish kings (not the gentile kings). Am I wrong?

I see the "of which God had said" part to refer to all "the wicked customs" that the princes of Judah lived by, like the wicked customs that Israel lived by in Dt. 32:33.

First of all, are you saying that the author of CD writes about the princes of Judah from the time of Hosea (c. eighth century BCE)? I think he writes about a contemporary group with the DSS sect. Baumgarten also thinks so. I'm just asking because I'm not sure what your position is.

Second, I'm afraid, the translation "the wicked customs" is misleading. Let's look at the Hebrew text:

בדרך = on [the] path (singular) = https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D7%93%D7%A8%D7%9A
רשעים = wicked ones (plural) = https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D7%A8%D ... %A2#Hebrew
אשר = that, which, who, whom = https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D7%90%D7%A9%D7%A8
אמר = said = https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D7%90%D7%9E%D7%A8
אל = God = https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D7%90%D7%9C
עליהם = about, of (plural) = https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D7%A2%D7%9C

From this analysis, we see that the path (custom) is singular and the wicked is plural. That means God said something about the wicked ones because of the word "about (עליהם)" which is plural. So the translation of Martinez is the best one here.

Statistics: Posted by AdamKvanta — Sun Dec 29, 2024 2:02 am

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