Inbetween right & wrong {Avraham, Moshe or Spong?}


One way or another: we can always find situations in the past comparable to our present plight?

There might be a lot of differences in time, space, religion, philosophy, culture, language & modernisms,
but behind & under it all we can still meet our funny apelike ancestors in gestures, positions and wordplay!

Thus there are also furhter parallels between Flavius Josephus's descriptions of the Essenes and the scrolls
with regard to the acceptance of "imperial authority". According to Josephus, they vow "to keep faith with all
men, especially with the powers that be, since no ruler attains office save by the will of G d" {BJ 2.140}! We now rather say instead of 'God': 'survival of the fittest/strongest/cleverest crowds among us' or 'Fate'?

Here too FJ makes no mention of the temporary nature of this subjection, nor of the "everlasting hatred for the men of the pit in clandestine spirit." Did the Essenes manage to hide their hatred of society at large and their eagerness for the day of vengeance form Josephus, or did he omit these details because they did not fit with his portrait of the Essenes as Jewish philosophers, seekers of peace and brotherhood?

Whatever the case, the Manual of Discipline and the Hodayot describe a community that refrains from evil
and lovingly accepts their worldly suffering. Their outward behavior fits well with the ideal portrayal of the Essenes known from FJ & Philo - assuming, of course, one overlooks the doctrine of eternal hatred and vengeance to which they secretly adhered. Do all religions & "Rules" still have their 'secret plans' to 'win'?

Like all Jewish movements, also the Qumran community considered itself verus Israel, "Israel: who
walk in perfection" {1QS 9.6}! The Manual of Discipline {8.12} reads: "And when these come into being in
Israel," and the anonymous scribe added "a YACHAD" above the line - perhaps an appositive gloss to the
word 'Israel'? Question: who are the TRUE inheritors of The Land {'who owns life & the division of power'}?

But when their hopes of gaining political power came to naught, the hope of being identified as the sum
total of the Jewish people was dashed as well! Only when the sinning Israel will be destroyed, only, them, in the eschaton, will the Community alone remain as the true Israel. As a result, the destruction of all the
nations of the world - the main focus of the War Scroll - is almost wholly absent from the other scrolls ...

The contrast between the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness is limited, in practical terms, to sectarian
hatredf aimed at the rest of the Jewish people. The shift in the "YACHAD's" attitude toward mainstream Ju-daism finds expression in the content of the term berit, covenant. The author of the War Scroll knows
of a single covenant, the one "G D" forged at Sinai with "a nation of holy ones of the covenant" {1QM 10}!

In short: we can find more or less the same kinds of divisions almost everywhere sooner or later in terms of inheritance of the true values of the people, the country, the culture? People tend to dig deep down in their past to try to find THEIR right to rule instead of all those 'newcomers', 'strangers', 'criminals' a.s.o.!


08 mrt 2010 - meld ongepast verhaal
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