Freethought & Rationalism Archive

aa5874 · 07-29-2012, 08:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duvduv

Philo and Josephus don't describe them the same way, and there is no identification of their locations or writings or teachings. And if Jews couldn't say anything significant about them, then how could Romans?
What do the names Simon and John tell us other than names found in the gospels?
And nothing about this third major group in either the Jerusalem or Babylonian Talmuds or midrash.

What BS!!! The Jerusalem or Babylonian Talmuds or midrash do NOT contain all the groups of Judea and do NOT mention the details of the War of the Jews c 66 CE like Josephus.

Josephus claimed an Essene named John was involved in the War.

Now, please show what the Jerusalem or Babylonian Talmuds or midrash wrote about Josephus and the War of the Jews c 66 CE.

Did Josephus exist based on the Jerusalem and Babylonian Talmuds or midrash??

pinkvoy · 07-29-2012, 08:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duvduv

There is not a single mention of this alleged "third major group" in the entire Talmud or Midrash. There isn't a single shred of a document describing their locations in all of these references. If they were so important they would have had sources of their writings and locations and their teachers and differences. How could someone write "several books" about them and not identify their locations?
"Third major group " my foot. Perhaps one minor sect that a writer liked better than the rest.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duvduv

Philo and Josephus don't describe them the same way, and there is no identification of their locations or writings or teachings. And if Jews couldn't say anything significant about them, then how could Romans?
What do the names Simon and John tell us other than names found in the gospels?
And nothing about this third major group in either the Jerusalem or Babylonian Talmuds or midrash.

I'm not sure what your point is, there are multiple contemporary witnesses to the existence of the Essenes.

spin · 07-29-2012, 08:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pinkvoy

Quote:

Originally Posted by Minimalist

Israeli archaeologists, Magen and Peleg, recently published findings that Qumran was a pottery factory not a monastery.

Where does that leave your "Essenes?"

this is a professor of Judaic studies
Shaye I.D. Cohen:
Samuel Ungerleider Professor of Judaic Studies and Professor of Religious Studies Brown University

Quote:

Who were the Essenes?

A good example of a group which separated itself from society at large and defined itself against the Temple in Jerusalem are the Essenes, or perhaps you might say, the people of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Dead Sea community, whom most scholars regard as Essenes. Here is a group of people who left Jerusalem, went to live in the wilderness, to live by themselves, totally isolated from other Jews, from the rest of the community, and as their Scrolls reveal, saw themselves as the new sacred community, waiting for the time, when ... they imagine that the Temple would be reconstituted and reconstructed and rebuilt.... and a new and better priestly group would take over the Temple in Jerusalem. And, in the meantime, while the wicked priests are still off in Jerusalem, following the wrong calendar, following the wrong purity rules and officiating improperly before the Lord, in the meantime, pure purity and true holiness resided only among themselves, in their own community, off near the Dead Sea.... The community itself was a surrogate temple....

The manuscripts that we call the Dead Sea Scrolls are a wide variety of texts. Some of these texts are hardly sectarian texts. These are texts that all Jews would have had, all Jews would have read. For example, the largest single category of Dead Sea text or Qumran Scrolls are text you and I call Biblical. No one is going to say the Book of Genesis was a Qumran document because fragments of the Book of Genesis were found in the Qumran scrolls.... We have to realize then that the Qumran scrolls contain a wide variety of text and we are not always able to distinguish clearly those texts which they simply read from those texts, which they actually wrote.

[What is the significance of the Qumran Scrolls?]

Even before the Qumran Scrolls were discovered, we knew that Judaism in the time of Jesus was a very diverse phenomena. After all, the Jewish historian Josephus gives us the names of Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes. We know from the New Testament of a group called Herodians - what they are exactly, we don't know, but there they are. Rabbinic texts add the names of yet other groups and then once the war comes around, in the year 66, we have the names of a whole slew of other groups.... Plus, we have a very wide ranging rich literature from this period which is impossible to imagine all coming from a single source, or all coming from a single school or a single class. The result was, even before the Qumran Scrolls were discovered, we knew or sensed that Judaism in the 1st century of our era was a very rich and varied phenomena. What the Qumran Scrolls do is to demonstrate clearly and unambiguously the truth of that which we always somehow felt or intuited....

The Qumran Scrolls show us the existence of a sect, a group that has separated itself from society at large, a group that defines itself against the Temple, the single central institution of Judaism..., and sees itself as the repository of everything that is sacred and true and sees all other Jews out there, including the priests, as wrong at best and at worst, irredeemably wicked. That is something which we had never previously seen....

The Qumran Scrolls also reveal a whole range of new books which we previously had not known, or had known about only in fragments or only in quotations, or perhaps in corrupted versions. We now have the original text. We have now a rich library of text showing that diversity was even greater than we had ever imagined and the range of possibilities for 1st century Judaism was far bigger than any of us had ever suspected.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...t/essenes.html

per Shaye I.D. Cohen:
Samuel Ungerleider Professor of Judaic Studies and Professor of Religious Studies Brown University

the sect of Jews who regarded DSS scrolls as sacred texts, some of which has some semblence to Josepheus/Philo/Pliny description of Essenes.

There's no evidence in the material you cite from Cohen that argues in favor of the Essenes being the scrolls community.

It is sufficient that Cohen's opinions vaguely support the view that you accept. You won't process the fact that there are hundreds of scribal hands involved in the writing of the DSS, so the notion of a small sect popping out bizarre literature cannot explain the scribal hands. The scrolls were written in Jerusalem.

Cohen can keep his notion that the scrolls group separated itself from society at large, well, maybe they separated after the scrolls were copied by those scribes... Hmm, that doesn't work either because the notion of the separation is found in the scrolls. They lived in Jerusalem but separated from society. I know, the priests separated themselves from the people for purity reasons, yet lived in Jerusalem, at least some of them. But wait, there is talk in the scrolls about exile, even from the temple... That sounds like when the Sadducees went into exile during the reign of Salome Alexandra because of the Pharisees. (And there was also another period when the priesthood was forced to abandon the temple, during the Hellenistic crisis when Antiochus IV polluted the temple circa 167 BCE.)

Essene hypothesists should consider why there were priestly rosters found among the scrolls, temple visions, liturgies, why the scrolls community seems quite in favor of the temple. If he wants to argue for the Essenes, he might like to explain why there was a toilet in the middle of Qumran, when Josephus goes into great detail about Essene toilet habits (which involved going away and digging your own hole). While we're there perhaps he could explain why the scrolls talk about menstruation, when the mainstream Essene was supposed to be celibate, or worse why the scrolls supported the maintenance of genealogies that give the priests their status, while the celibate Essenes took in others' children and thereby repudiating genealogy.

There is not one solid piece of evidence to support the notion that the Essenes either were responsible for the DSS or lived at Qumran (a site that would have consistently been ritually unclean, given the manufacturing processes evinced at the site). Just look for evidence from the supporters of the Essene hypothesis. They'll talk about celibacy until you point out the rulings about women, then they'll talk about the other sort of Essenes that married. They'll talk about separation and/or exile from the temple, but that's no help. They'll ask who else could it be... that follow the sons of Aaron and of Zadok (ie the priests). Will you still believe it?

pinkvoy · 07-29-2012, 09:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Quote:

Originally Posted by pinkvoy

this is a professor of Judaic studies
Shaye I.D. Cohen:
Samuel Ungerleider Professor of Judaic Studies and Professor of Religious Studies Brown University

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...t/essenes.html

per Shaye I.D. Cohen:
Samuel Ungerleider Professor of Judaic Studies and Professor of Religious Studies Brown University

the sect of Jews who regarded DSS scrolls as sacred texts, some of which has some semblence to Josepheus/Philo/Pliny description of Essenes.

There's no evidence in the material you cite from Cohen that argues in favor of the Essenes being the scrolls community.

It is sufficient that Cohen's opinions vaguely support the view that you accept. You won't process the fact that there are hundreds of scribal hands involved in the writing of the DSS, so the notion of a small sect popping out bizarre literature cannot explain the scribal hands. The scrolls were written in Jerusalem.

Cohen can keep his notion that the scrolls group separated itself from society at large, well, maybe they separated after the scrolls were copied by those scribes... Hmm, that doesn't work either because the notion of the separation is found in the scrolls. They lived in Jerusalem but separated from society. I know, the priests separated themselves from the people for purity reasons, yet lived in Jerusalem, at least some of them. But wait, there is talk in the scrolls about exile, even from the temple... That sounds like when the Sadducees went into exile during the reign of Salome Alexandra because of the Pharisees. (And there was also another period when the priesthood was forced to abandon the temple, during the Hellenistic crisis when Antiochus IV polluted the temple circa 167 BCE.)

Essene hypothesists should consider why there were priestly rosters found among the scrolls, temple visions, liturgies, why the scrolls community seems quite in favor of the temple. If he wants to argue for the Essenes, he might like to explain why there was a toilet in the middle of Qumran, when Josephus goes into great detail about Essene toilet habits (which involved going away and digging your own hole). While we're there perhaps he could explain why the scrolls talk about menstruation, when the mainstream Essene was supposed to be celibate, or worse why the scrolls supported the maintenance of genealogies that give the priests their status, while the celibate Essenes took in others' children and thereby repudiating genealogy.

There is not one solid piece of evidence to support the notion that the Essenes either were responsible for the DSS or lived at Qumran (a site that would have consistently been ritually unclean, given the manufacturing processes evinced at the site). Just look for evidence from the supporters of the Essene hypothesis. They'll talk about celibacy until you point out the rulings about women, then they'll talk about the other sort of Essenes that married. They'll talk about separation and/or exile from the temple, but that's no help. They'll ask who else could it be... that follow the sons of Aaron and of Zadok (ie the priests). Will you still believe it?

I understand that what Cohen says

Quote:

"A good example of a group which separated itself from society at large and defined itself against the Temple in Jerusalem are the Essenes, or perhaps you might say, the people of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Dead Sea community, whom most scholars regard as Essenes.

Most scholars means not all scholars.

Ok, the Essenes did not live in Qumran, and they did not author all of the documents DSS.

At some point different groups of Jews contributed to the DSS at different points in time.

At least a couple of those documents like the Community rules have documents that matches up with what Josepheus says were the beliefs and practices of historical essenes. Some of those DSS that are not the Tanakh or Torah come from Jewish groups that do not appear to match up with what is known about historic Judaism.

In essence, you can have orthodox Christians depositing their bibles at Nag Hammadi, and a distinct group of gnostics also depositing their scriptures there.

for me the issue is that there is a continuity between the non-Torah non-Tanakh DSS and the NT.

Quote:

English Translation of The War Rule (Serekh ha-Milhamah) 4Q285 (SM) Courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority (12)

]Isaiah the prophet: [The thickets of the forest] will be cut [
down with an axe and Lebanon by a majestic one will f]all. And there shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse [
] the Branch of David and they will enter into judgement with [
] and the Prince of the Congregation, the Bran[ch of David] will kill him [
by stroke]s and by wounds. And a Priest [of renown (?)] will command [
the s]lai[n] of the Kitti[m]

the DSS War Rule, a shoot from the stump/root of Jesse speaks of a Branch of David, slaying, enter into judgment, speaking of a Prince

with revelations

Quote:

16 “I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you[a] this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star.”

17 The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let the one who hears say, “Come!” Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life.

18 I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this scroll: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this scroll. 19 And if anyone takes words away from this scroll of prophecy, God will take away from that person any share in the tree of life and in the Holy City, which are described in this scroll.

20 He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon.”

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

21 The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Am

The author of Revelation came from a community that was familiar with DSS War Scroll.

spin · 07-29-2012, 10:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pinkvoy

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Quote:

Originally Posted by pinkvoy

this is a professor of Judaic studies
Shaye I.D. Cohen:
Samuel Ungerleider Professor of Judaic Studies and Professor of Religious Studies Brown University

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...t/essenes.html

per Shaye I.D. Cohen:
Samuel Ungerleider Professor of Judaic Studies and Professor of Religious Studies Brown University

the sect of Jews who regarded DSS scrolls as sacred texts, some of which has some semblence to Josepheus/Philo/Pliny description of Essenes.

There's no evidence in the material you cite from Cohen that argues in favor of the Essenes being the scrolls community.

It is sufficient that Cohen's opinions vaguely support the view that you accept. You won't process the fact that there are hundreds of scribal hands involved in the writing of the DSS, so the notion of a small sect popping out bizarre literature cannot explain the scribal hands. The scrolls were written in Jerusalem.

Cohen can keep his notion that the scrolls group separated itself from society at large, well, maybe they separated after the scrolls were copied by those scribes... Hmm, that doesn't work either because the notion of the separation is found in the scrolls. They lived in Jerusalem but separated from society. I know, the priests separated themselves from the people for purity reasons, yet lived in Jerusalem, at least some of them. But wait, there is talk in the scrolls about exile, even from the temple... That sounds like when the Sadducees went into exile during the reign of Salome Alexandra because of the Pharisees. (And there was also another period when the priesthood was forced to abandon the temple, during the Hellenistic crisis when Antiochus IV polluted the temple circa 167 BCE.)

Essene hypothesists should consider why there were priestly rosters found among the scrolls, temple visions, liturgies, why the scrolls community seems quite in favor of the temple. If he wants to argue for the Essenes, he might like to explain why there was a toilet in the middle of Qumran, when Josephus goes into great detail about Essene toilet habits (which involved going away and digging your own hole). While we're there perhaps he could explain why the scrolls talk about menstruation, when the mainstream Essene was supposed to be celibate, or worse why the scrolls supported the maintenance of genealogies that give the priests their status, while the celibate Essenes took in others' children and thereby repudiating genealogy.

There is not one solid piece of evidence to support the notion that the Essenes either were responsible for the DSS or lived at Qumran (a site that would have consistently been ritually unclean, given the manufacturing processes evinced at the site). Just look for evidence from the supporters of the Essene hypothesis. They'll talk about celibacy until you point out the rulings about women, then they'll talk about the other sort of Essenes that married. They'll talk about separation and/or exile from the temple, but that's no help. They'll ask who else could it be... that follow the sons of Aaron and of Zadok (ie the priests). Will you still believe it?

I understand that what Cohen says

Quote:

"A good example of a group which separated itself from society at large and defined itself against the Temple in Jerusalem are the Essenes, or perhaps you might say, the people of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Dead Sea community, whom most scholars regard as Essenes.

Most scholars means not all scholars.

Thank heavens.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pinkvoy

Ok, the Essenes did not live in Qumran, and they did not author all of the documents DSS.

At some point different groups of Jews contributed to the DSS at different points in time.

At least a couple of those documents like the Community rules have documents that matches up with what Josepheus says were the beliefs and practices of historical essenes. Some of those DSS that are not the Tanakh or Torah come from Jewish groups that do not appear to match up with what is known about historic Judaism.

This is arrived at by turning a blind eye to what those texts actually say. Consider 1QS 7.6, "If money belonging to the Yahad is involved in a fraudulent scheme and lost, the man responsible must repay the sum 7 from his own funds." Doesn't Josephus BJ 2.122 (2.8.3) say of the Essenes, "Riches they despise, and their community of goods is truly admirable"?? Scholars can be pretty perverse.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pinkvoy

In essence, you can have orthodox Christians depositing their bibles at Nag Hammadi, and a distinct group of gnostics also depositing their scriptures there.

Do you really think that happened? The mixture of texts at Qumran is the result of different groups depositing texts in the same locations??

Quote:

Originally Posted by pinkvoy

for me the issue is that there is a continuity between the non-Torah non-Tanakh DSS and the NT.

Utter rubbish. The relationship of ideas from one literary tradition and another need not be direct at all despite similarities. Just consider flood stories which can be found in many communities around the world. Would you really want to say that they came from the same literary sources? I'd tend to doubt you would.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pinkvoy

Quote:

English Translation of The War Rule (Serekh ha-Milhamah) 4Q285 (SM) Courtesy of the Israel Antiquities Authority (12)

]Isaiah the prophet: [The thickets of the forest] will be cut [
down with an axe and Lebanon by a majestic one will f]all. And there shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse [
] the Branch of David and they will enter into judgement with [
] and the Prince of the Congregation, the Bran[ch of David] will kill him [
by stroke]s and by wounds. And a Priest [of renown (?)] will command [
the s]lai[n] of the Kitti[m]

the DSS War Rule, a shoot from the stump/root of Jesse speaks of a Branch of David, slaying, enter into judgment, speaking of a Prince

Did you somehow miss the point that "the stump of Jesse" is a reference to Isaiah 11:1 and that David is the epitome of the messianic prince?? Do you think that that the writer of Revelation got the notion not from the common tradition in circulation derived from Isaiah that 4Q285 also refers to and instead cites 4Q285?

Quote:

Originally Posted by pinkvoy

with revelations

Quote:

16 “I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you[a] this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star.”

17 The Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let the one who hears say, “Come!” Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life.

18 I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this scroll: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to that person the plagues described in this scroll. 19 And if anyone takes words away from this scroll of prophecy, God will take away from that person any share in the tree of life and in the Holy City, which are described in this scroll.

20 He who testifies to these things says, “Yes, I am coming soon.”

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

21 The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God’s people. Am

The author of Revelation came from a community that was familiar with DSS War Scroll.

Obviously, he couldn't have been familiar with Isaiah and got the idea from that book!

spin · 07-29-2012, 10:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pinkvoy

I'm not sure what your point is, there are multiple contemporary witnesses to the existence of the Essenes.

Josephus doesn't claim to be a contemporary witness. Philo lived in Alexandria. Who are the multiple contemporary witnesses?

Duvduv · 07-29-2012, 10:42 AM

The Jerusalem Talmud in tractate Sanhedrin says that at the time of the destruction of the Temple there were TWENTY-FOUR heretical sects. But the idea that there was a "third major group" called Essenes or "the Fourth Philosophy" has no reference at all in Jewish religious sources. I could never understand why so many people feel so invested in the idea of the "Qumran sect" or of "the Essenes" or "Massada" when these are merely opinions.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pinkvoy

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duvduv

There is not a single mention of this alleged "third major group" in the entire Talmud or Midrash. There isn't a single shred of a document describing their locations in all of these references. If they were so important they would have had sources of their writings and locations and their teachers and differences. How could someone write "several books" about them and not identify their locations?
"Third major group " my foot. Perhaps one minor sect that a writer liked better than the rest.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duvduv

Philo and Josephus don't describe them the same way, and there is no identification of their locations or writings or teachings. And if Jews couldn't say anything significant about them, then how could Romans?
What do the names Simon and John tell us other than names found in the gospels?
And nothing about this third major group in either the Jerusalem or Babylonian Talmuds or midrash.

I'm not sure what your point is, there are multiple contemporary witnesses to the existence of the Essenes.

pinkvoy · 07-29-2012, 10:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

Quote:

Originally Posted by pinkvoy

I'm not sure what your point is, there are multiple contemporary witnesses to the existence of the Essenes.

Josephus doesn't claim to be a contemporary witness. Philo lived in Alexandria. Who are the multiple contemporary witnesses?

Since Josepheus was born around 36 CE, he was in the same time period as Essenes. Philo may have lived in Alexandria but he still wrote about them. Pliny + Josepheus + Philo = multiple contemporary witnesses.

pinkvoy · 07-29-2012, 10:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Duvduv

The Jerusalem Talmud in tractate Sanhedrin says that at the time of the destruction of the Temple there were TWENTY-FOUR heretical sects. But the idea that there was a "third major group" called Essenes or "the Fourth Philosophy" has no reference at all in Jewish religious sources. I could never understand why so many people feel so invested in the idea of the "Qumran sect" or of "the Essenes" or "Massada" when these are merely opinions.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pinkvoy

I'm not sure what your point is, there are multiple contemporary witnesses to the existence of the Essenes.

Would you have anticipated the existnce of the authors of non-Tanakh DSS scrolls from Jerusalem Talmud or early Jewish Christians?

pinkvoy · 07-29-2012, 10:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by spin

This is arrived at by turning a blind eye to what those texts actually say. Consider 1QS 7.6, "If money belonging to the Yahad is involved in a fraudulent scheme and lost, the man responsible must repay the sum 7 from his own funds." Doesn't Josephus BJ 2.122 (2.8.3) say of the Essenes, "Riches they despise, and their community of goods is truly admirable"?? Scholars can be pretty perverse.

since we're talking about religion i see no "contradiction" repaying for fraud 7 x back and despising riches in favor of community goods is something a leftist socialist hippie feminist Marxist living in a capitalist society might agree with.

bell hooks is a lesbian radical feminist who despises capitalism and loves money.

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