pesherim procrastination
i am procrastinating right now because every time i start reading a new article i get this overwhelmed feeling. there are so many details in the dead sea scrolls and i don't know if i'm supposed to just know them myself or if it's okay to just use all the palaeographic evidence as it's already been presented...
there is just so much of it! now i know how these 3000 words are supposed to be spent - just pages of reciting the requotations of the bible and then saying what significance they have for the sect.
man.
sometimes i think the find at qumran really didn't help matters much. at least we get a minority's perspective on the events at that time. i mean 200 years worth of material, but a lot of it is impossible to determine date or order of production, or even if they come from the same group half the time.
WHY ARE THERE SO MANY PROBLEMS WITH ISRAELI/PALESTINIAN ARCHAEOLOGY AND HISTORY!?
it drives me up the wall. almost everything we think we know is based on inference from texts - texts whose translation can change dramatically because hebrew is such a metaphorical language - and all the physical evidence is fraught with fraud or orthodox jewish bans or stolen or damaged or infused with so many other cultures and times (thanks a bunch bedoin burial practices!).
sometimes this subject drives me up the wall, but on the other hand, its pretty freaking amazing to learn about all this stuff that has influenced the culture, ethnicity and religions of millions of people throughout the past 4000 or so years up to today.
if nothing else, its a lot better than theological arguments.
also, i really really wish i knew hebrew :(
there is just so much of it! now i know how these 3000 words are supposed to be spent - just pages of reciting the requotations of the bible and then saying what significance they have for the sect.
man.
sometimes i think the find at qumran really didn't help matters much. at least we get a minority's perspective on the events at that time. i mean 200 years worth of material, but a lot of it is impossible to determine date or order of production, or even if they come from the same group half the time.
WHY ARE THERE SO MANY PROBLEMS WITH ISRAELI/PALESTINIAN ARCHAEOLOGY AND HISTORY!?
it drives me up the wall. almost everything we think we know is based on inference from texts - texts whose translation can change dramatically because hebrew is such a metaphorical language - and all the physical evidence is fraught with fraud or orthodox jewish bans or stolen or damaged or infused with so many other cultures and times (thanks a bunch bedoin burial practices!).
sometimes this subject drives me up the wall, but on the other hand, its pretty freaking amazing to learn about all this stuff that has influenced the culture, ethnicity and religions of millions of people throughout the past 4000 or so years up to today.
if nothing else, its a lot better than theological arguments.
also, i really really wish i knew hebrew :(