[Coco] Re: So far OT I'm in the Twilight Zone

[Richard E. Crislip]

Hello Neil

On 12/30/03, Neil Morrison wrote:
> 
> Michael Baigent accepts Dr Robert Eisenman's proposition and I find
> this attractive. This is from "The Messianic Legacy" (p89):-
> 
> ... there appeared a new study of the issue by Dr Robert Eisenman,
> Chairman of the Department Religious Studies at the University of
> California, Long Beach. Eisenman’s work bears an unwieldy title
> "Maccabees, Zadokites, Christians and Qumran". But it does much to
> dispel the prevailing confusion and, in our opinion constitutes one
> of the most import treatments of the subject to date. Although the
> specific evidence is complex, the conclusions are not only
> impressively convincing, but also beautifully simple. Indeed,
> Eisenman seems to have focused a searchlight on the underlying
> simplicity of what has hitherto seemed a complicated situation.
> 
> Working from original documents, and questioning the reliability of
> second-hand commentators such Josephus, Eisenman traces the various
> names by which the members of the Qumran community — the authors of
> the Dead Sea Scrolls — referred to themselves. This leads him to
> conclude that the Sons of Light, the Sons of Truth, the Sons of
> Zadok, or Zaddikim (Zadokites) the Men of Melchizedek (the z-d-k
> ending reflecting variation of Zadok), the Ebionim (the Poor), the
> Hassidim (the Essenes) and the Nozrim (the Nazareans) are ultimately
> one and the same — not different groups but different metaphors or
> appellations for essentially the same group, or the same movement.
> The primary objective of this movement seems to have been oriented
> towards the dynastic legitimacy of the high priest-hood. In the Old
> Testament the High Priest of both David and Solomon is called Zadok,
> either as a personal name or as an official title. He is
> traditionally associated, very closely, with the Messiah, the
> anointed one, the rightful king. More specifically, he is associated
> with the Davidic Messiah.
> 
> As Eisenman demonstrates, the legitimacy of the high priesthood — of
> Zadok or of the Zadok — was  resuscitated by the Maccabeans, the last
> dynasty of Judaic kings, who ruled Israel from the second century
> B.C. until Herodian times and the Roman occupation....

Fasinating. I'd been carring on an extended conversation with a fellow at my
local eatery, you know the usual ignorance sharing kind, on that very
subject. Wish I could do a better job of avoid those 8-/. But that quote of
one who appears to know what he's talking about is refreshing. Thanks

Regards
-- 
Cruisen                                                      _|_
              on AutoPilot with an Amiga   ---o-( )-o---   and a CoCo
 
                                             Richard