Freethought & Rationalism Archive

mountainman · 03-17-2009, 02:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by maryhelena

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/biblic.../message/20202

Dear maryhelena,

Thanks for that reference.

This is an interesting synopsis of the (Josephan) Essene invention proposal, and it is not such a great step to contemplate that while the text of Josephus exhibits a number of inventions, these inventions may not in fact have been "Josephan" and may have in fact have been derived from a subsequent century. In an earlier post CliveDurdle mentioned something about the Josephan references to the "synagogues of the Essenes" as anachronistic, but I dont have the details on that.

Quote:

The (Josephan) Essene invention proposal

In response to the claim that Josephus entirely invented Essenes, one could
consider, among other things:

Philo wrote all his works before Josephus wrote any of his works; three of
Philo's extant works mention Essenes. For refutation of the proposal that Philo
did not write about Essenes see the detailed commentary and fascinating excursus on history of scholarship in F.C. Conybeare, About the contemplative life, or, the fourth book of the treatise Concerning virtues, 1895.

The invention proposal has been made before and answered before. See, e.g. Henri E. del Medico, Le mythe des esséniens des origines à la fin du Moyen Age, 1958, and reviews, and S. Wagner, Die Essener in der wissenschaftlichen
Diskussion, vom Ausgang des 18. bis zum Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts; eine
wissenschaftliche Studie, 1960.

Why would Josephus invent Judah the Essene (fl. 104 BCE)? For the proposal that Judah was the Essene "Teacher of Righteousness" and Jannaeus the "Wicked Priest" see, e.g.
"Jannaeus, His Brother Absalom, and Judah the Essenes" (nb: PDF).

For the proposal that Pliny's source on Essenes was Marcus Agrippa (circa 15
BCE) see, e.g. "Rereading Pliny on the Essenes...".

For the proposal that "Essenes" in English came from several Greek spellings
which came from the Hebrew Qumran-attested self-designation unique ancient collocation 'osey hatorah see, e.g. "Others and Intra-Jewish Polemic as Reflected in Qumran Texts" (PDF).

For a caution on over-reading Spartans into Josephus' Essenes see, e.g. amazon

Stephen Goranson
http://www.duke.edu/~goranson

If we were to look at the puzzle of ancient history before us we may gradually perceive that it is able to be described as a four dimensional jig-saw puzzle, three of space and one of time. We have a face-up side with which we are familiar (because it was painted before we were born) and we have a face-down side, which is rarely perceived. There will be at least two sides to every bit in this 4D jigsaw puzzle.

Interested researchers should take note that in the mileu of antiquity beside the "Essenes" were described the therapeutae . The therapeutae are rarely discussed in general review of antiquity by "Biblical scholars", even though there is an extremely abundant supply of archaeological citations for this "group.

I also am not so sure that the "Essenes" are the missing link.
But the missing link to what?
To an antiquity were the therapeutae have some voice.
In one sense the therapeutae were the foundation of the Hellenistic civilisation.

The new testament was written in Greek for the Hellenistic civilisation.
But in which century was it actually authored?
Here we do not have a consensus of opinion.

All we can be sure of is that the temples and shrines of the therapeutae of Asclepius were destroyed, and the literature of Porphyry, Plato and Pythagoras was burnt, with effect from c.324 CE. Some conjecture for example that the Apollonius Inscription was donated as late as Diocletian.

Best wishes,

Pete

maryhelena · 03-17-2009, 04:21 AM

Quote:

=mountainman;5851823]maryhelena;5851785]
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/biblic.../message/20202

Dear maryhelena,

Thanks for that reference.

This is an interesting synopsis of the (Josephan) Essene invention proposal, and it is not such a great step to contemplate that while the text of Josephus exhibits a number of inventions, these inventions may not in fact have been "Josephan" and may have in fact have been derived from a subsequent century. In an earlier post CliveDurdle mentioned something about the Josephan references to the "synagogues of the Essenes" as anachronistic, but I dont have the details on that.

If we were to look at the puzzle of ancient history before us we may gradually perceive that it is able to be described as a four dimensional jig-saw puzzle, three of space and one of time. We have a face-up side with which we are familiar (because it was painted before we were born) and we have a face-down side, which is rarely perceived. There will be at least two sides to every bit in this 4D jigsaw puzzle.

Interested researchers should take note that in the mileu of antiquity beside the "Essenes" were described the therapeutae . The therapeutae are rarely discussed in general review of antiquity by "Biblical scholars", even though there is an extremely abundant supply of archaeological citations for this "group.

I also am not so sure that the "Essenes" are the missing link.
But the missing link to what?
To an antiquity were the therapeutae have some voice.
In one sense the therapeutae were the foundation of the Hellenistic civilisation.

The new testament was written in Greek for the Hellenistic civilisation.
But in which century was it actually authored?
Here we do not have a consensus of opinion.

All we can be sure of is that the temples and shrines of the therapeutae of Asclepius were destroyed, and the literature of Porphyry, Plato and Pythagoras was burnt, with effect from c.324 CE. Some conjecture for example that the Apollonius Inscription was donated as late as Diocletian.

Best wishes,

Pete

Hi, Pete
Well, you have given me some things to think about......So best probably not to run away with the Josephus invention - though he will remain my No.1 suspect.....

But will keep a close eye on the other fellow....

Clivedurdle · 03-17-2009, 08:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clivedurdle

What about the archaeology?

Quote:

Vegetarian Essenes? Volume 52 Number 3, May/June 1999 by Spencer P.M. Harrington Twenty-eight spartan dwellings on the edge of the Ein Gedi oasis in southern Israel may have been the home of a community of Essenes, the Jewish sect thought by some to have collected the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Note the number of dwellings!

spartan above means not decorous - not a reference to Spartans!

And what about the archaeology!

maryhelena · 03-17-2009, 09:44 AM

http://jwest.wordpress.com/

Quote:

Rachel Elior Responds to Her Respondents

March 17, 2009 — Jim

Rachel writes

May I remind the participants what is the nature of the arguments, I would like to briefly sum up what is written about the Essnes and to compare it with what is known about the content of the scroll. I make no remarks about archeology only on texts that everybody can read:

The Essenes were first introduced by Philo (d. 50 CE), a first century Jewish scholar who lived in Alexandria. Philo was interested in the ideas of the Stoa and told his readers that there were more than 4,000 Essenes (Essaioi) living in villages throughout the Land of Israel. He maintained that these people had no monetary concerns, lived a very simple, modest life, did not have any earthly possessions, devoted much of their time to study, and observed the Sabbath according to all the strictest instructions. He further noted their love of God, their concerns with piety, honesty, morality, philanthropy, holiness, equality, freedom, and the importance of communal life. He added that the holy Essenes did not marry and lived a celibate life, and practiced communal residence, money, property, food and clothing. He said that they convened in synagogues every Sabbath and studied the law according to philosophical and allegorical interpretations. He maintained that these people cherished freedom, possessed no slaves, and resented the use of weapons or participation in commerce. Philo did not mention any name, place, date, or historical circumstances, or any background to the consolidation of this group.

However intriguing and interesting as these descriptions might be, we can not substantiate them on any historical or philological evidence: no Hebrew or Aramaic text before the Common Era or in the first century of the Common Era reveals any data about this perfect group that lived according to the highest ideals of freedom, equality, communality, modesty, chastity and liberty. No Hebrew or Aramaic text mentioned such a faultless group numbering thousands of people spread all over the country. No Jewish source written in Hebrew or Aramaic ever mentioned the existence of this celibate group that lived in opposition to the biblical commandment which demanded marriage and procreation from all members of Jewish society. No Hebrew source mentions a group that rejected slavery, denounced weapons, and resented commerce. No Hebrew or Aramaic source is familiar with the word Essenes or Essaioi.

The second witness, Pliny the Elder (d. 79 CE), relates in some few lines that the Essenes do not marry, possess no money (like Philo), and existed for thousands of generations. Unlike Philo, who did not mention any particular geographical location of the Essenes other than the whole land of Israel, Pliny mentioned Ein Gedi, next to the Dead Sea, as their residence. However, there is no room next to Ein Gedi for thousands of people and there is no word in the Hebrew language that refers to any of the above. No noun, no verb, no adjective is associated with the term Essenes, no chronicle or recollection of the legendary Essaioi or Essenes is to be found in the language of the land where they allegedly resided for thousands generations.

Josephus, writing in the last third of the first century in Rome, is the third witness. He relates the same information mentioned above concerning piety, celibacy, the resentment of property and the denouncing of money, the belief in communality and commitment to a strict observance of the Sabbath. He further added that the Essenes ritually immersed in water every morning, ate together after prayer, devoted themselves to charity and benevolence, forbade the expression of anger, studied the books of the elders, preserved secrets, and were very mindful of the names of the angels kept in their sacred writings. He further wrote that their life expectancy achieved more than 100 years.

There exists no known Hebrew or Aramaic text before or after the Common Era which supports any of these exceptional traits and ideal society that presumably had existed for many generations and thousands of years. It seems to me that this is a description of an ideal society in Utopia that Philo had imagined, and not a real society in the land of Israel in the first century CE. Pliny and Josephus were fascinated with this ideal of a holy community that respects the elderly and frees the slaves, cherishes equality and freedom, and has contempt for the values of the mundane world.

The New Testament knows nothing about such accomplished holy communities in the first century CE and the Apocrypha also reveals no sign of such moral achievements in any Jewish community.
On the other hand we have 930 scrolls or remnants of scrolls written in Hebrew and Aramaic which were found in Qumran 60 years ago. The scrolls (all translated into English) are dated in general to the Second and First Centuries before the Common Era. No scroll has the word Essenes or Essaioi or any close word.

All the scrolls are Holy Scriptures: they are associated with the biblical books written during the first millennium BCE; they include the ineffable name of God written in four letters in Paleo-Hebrew; they include the biblical narrative and its expansion. They further include stories told by angels as well as numerous lines of priestly-angelic liturgy, psalms, priestly blessings, Temple worship, priestly watches, priestly dynasty, priestly calendar, and priestly history.

The writers identify themselves in the Manual of Discipline and in the Damascus Document, the Florilegium, and the Rule of Blessings, as The Priests the sons of Zadok according to the biblical tradition of the high priesthood (II Samuel 15:27-29; 19:12; I Kings 1:34; Ezekiel 40:46; 43:19; 44:15; 48:11; I Chronicles 9:11; Ezra 7:2; Nehemiah 11:11). They refer to themselves as the Seed of Aaron, holy of holies, as the children of Zadok and their covenanters [allies], and similar priestly names. They call their leader the Priest of Justice (Cohen Zedek) and they authored texts that were titled as The Temple Scroll, The Scroll of Priestly Watches, The Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice, The Scroll of Blessings — all pertaining directly to priestly service in the earthly Temple and the heavenly sanctuaries.

Scholars who studied the legal tradition reflected in the scrolls associated it with the Sadducee’s [=Zadokite priests] legal tradition. Scholars who studied the calendar attested in the scrolls associated it with the Sadducee’s tradition on the calendar mentioned controversially by the Sages. Scholars who studied the language of the scroll attached it to Biblical Hebrew and post-Biblical Hebrew with unique priestly vocabulary.

In light of the above facts there are a few questions that I wish to raise:

Why should we associate the priestly oriented scrolls with the Essenes, who are not connected to the priesthood in any of the above testimonies? Why should we connect a library of 930 holy scriptures written in Hebrew and Aramaic to a group unknown in the Hebrew language [but known as Essenes (Essaioi) in Greek], which group is not associated with sacred writing, priestly worship, a solar calendar or Temple ritual — all of which are central in the scrolls? Why not connect the scrolls to the explicitly asserted identity of the writers — the priests, the sons of Zadok and their allies?

Why should we accept Josephus’s evidence, which was based on Philo’s non-historic description of an ideal community of thousands of people and was written in the last two decades of the first century CE, 250 years after the events of 175 BCE, when the Zadokite Priests were deposed from the Temple by Antiochus Epiphanes and took the scrolls from the defiled Temple in the middle of the second century BCE, in the Hasmonean period, and continued to write and copy them in the desert and elsewhere?

The priestly content of the scrolls — which demonstrates obvious concern with holy time (priestly calendar; priestly watches that kept the sevenfold divisions of 364 days calendar — cf. calendar of MMT; calendar in Scroll of priestly watches; calendar in Jubilees 4-6; I Enoch chapters 72-82; ritual calendar at the end of 11Q Psalm Scroll; calendar at the flood story 4Q252; calendar of festivals in the Temple Scroll; calendar of Sabbaths in Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice), with holy place (Temple on Mount Zion; Chariot vision; Holy of Holies — Jubilees; Enoch; Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice), and with holy ritual (priestly blessings, psalms sung by the Levites, priestly songs; sacrificial ritual — MMT; Damascus Document; Psalm Scroll, Temple Scroll, Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice) — does not allow connecting the scrolls to the Essenes, who are not known to fight for a solar calendar, for holy place, or to debate on Temple rituals, as is obvious in the scrolls. The struggle between the Priest of Justice and the Wicked Priest in Pesher Habakkuk and Pesher Tehilim and in other Pesharim points out again to a priestly context and priestly struggle in the wake of the Biblical era.

Why should we dismiss the obvious priestly concern of the scrolls and the priestly history of the second and first centuries BCE at the Hasmonean period (152-37 BCE), attested richly by the scrolls, and the numerous connections to the world of the Bible, and replace it with the non-historical legendary Essenes of the first century CE, which offers no historical context?

Why should we rely on the questionable testimony of Philo, Pliny and Josephus, written in Greek and Latin outside of the Land of Israel in the first century, about peaceful celibates who lived ideal lives in a Utopia where the expression of anger, lust, greed or desire, and luxury or comfort, were utterly forbidden, and entirely disregard the most valuable testimony of 930 scrolls written in Hebrew and Aramaic by struggling, desperate Zadokite priestly circles and their supporters, who lost the sacred sovereignty of the Temple and the divine worship, promised to them in Exodus and Leviticus, and written clearly in sacred prose and holy poetry, their disappearing Biblical world, in the Hasmonean period, when they were deposed and lost all earthly power and had to rely upon the angelic world and an apocalyptic future?

Rachel Elior

Toto · 03-17-2009, 10:59 AM

So she's actually saying that Philo invented the Essenes (as a Platonic form?) and Josephus used Philo as a source.

maryhelena · 03-17-2009, 11:21 AM

So, it starts with Philo and his Utopian vision of the simple communal life in the Land of Israel. Pliny a possible innocent that believed the story was true. And Josephus - a man known to be interested in dreams, prophecy and fulfilment - seeks to present his own understanding of this Utopian vision as being fulfilled in his own historical existence/experience. Thus, vision - prophecy - and reality - fulfilment. Josephus sets out to make the vision true - by giving, in his historical account, ‘evidence’ that the Essenes actually existed. (well they did, to Josephus - but intellectually or spiritually....) Well, what can one say? Josephus, methinks, should be in line for a Nobel Prize....

Quote:

Josephus Life par.2. “I had a mind to make trial of the several sects that were among us. These sects are three; - Pharisees, the second Sadducees, and the third Essens, as we have frequently told you; for I thought that by this means I might choose the best, if I were acquainted with them all”.

(not of course the place to get into this here - but all this does raise questions regarding Josephus and early Christianity....)

andrewcriddle · 03-17-2009, 11:57 AM

It may be worth noting that Josephus does not merely refer to the Essenes as a group. 2 specific individuals, Manahem in Antiquities 15 chapter 10 and Simon in Antiquities 17 chapter 13, are described as Essenes.

Andrew Criddle

Clivedurdle · 03-17-2009, 12:21 PM

Quote:

Ancient India and The East
Zoroaster (?628BCE-?551BCE)
Web ivu.org International Vegetarian
and Vegan Events
- near you in 2009

Avestan name for Zarathustra. Persian prophet, founder of Zoroastrianism. Various account claim he lived anywhere from 6,000 to 100 BCE, rpoably in what is now eastern Iran.
from a reader in the, UK:
According to Colin Spencer in The Heretic's Feast (Fourth Estate, 1994), Zoroaster, the founder of Zoroastrianism (aka Parseeism in India) was "an abstainer from meat" who "forbade all animal sacrifice" and was a considerable influence on Pythagoras. CS reckons that "in his concepts of dualism and monotheism he influenced Judaeo-Christianity and in other ways Hinduism". There are still Z'ians / Parsees in India and possibly also in Iran where the religion was founded.
[the origns of this account can be seen in the following quote from Wikipedia: "The Pythagorean tradition considered the mathematician to have studied with Zoroaster in Babylonia (Porphyry Life of Pythagoras 12, Alexander Polyhistor apud Clement's Stromata I.15, Diodorus of Eritrea, Aristoxenus apud Hippolitus VI32.2). "]

http://www.ivu.org/history/east/zoroaster.html

I have quite easily found references to earlier aesthetic groups, and I was not expecting to find that Zoroastrianism was vegetarian, nor that Pythagorus went to Babylon!

The archaelogy is very clear about a vegetarian male community in the correct time and place. I really do not know what other evidence people want, especially as her arguments start with the comment "ignoring the archaeology"!

Where did monasteries and hermits on styli come from - spontaneously from the ground like flies?

Pythagorean Zoroastrian gnostic Jewish sects make complete sense, especially as this pattern is repeated throughout history with Quakers and Cathars and many more. I would argue it is a psychological pattern of humanity to set up utopian groups - this was not a fantasy but a real description of real and quite common human behaviour!

maryhelena · 03-17-2009, 12:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewcriddle

It may be worth noting that Josephus does not merely refer to the Essenes as a group. 2 specific individuals, Manahem in Antiquities 15 chapter 10 and Simon in Antiquities 17 chapter 13, are described as Essenes.

Andrew Criddle

Maybe Josephus had some like minded friends...... a secret society of Essenes - spiritual brothers type of thing..........

Or, since Josephus was in vision fulfilled, or realized, mode, he might as well go the whole hog and give names to some of those in the spiritual/intellectual fellowship....

If, as now seems likely, Josephus was able to create a 'historical' Essene community - create it from a philosophical vision - it does make one wonder what he could accomplish if he turned his hand to fulfilling OT prophecy..........................??

Clivedurdle · 03-17-2009, 12:39 PM

Not that secret a group at all - gnostic pythagorean jews, possibly one of the pre Jesus xianities found around the med in Lyon, Alexandria etc. Got labelled Essenes in Palestine. Called Theraputae in Alexandria...

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03-17-2009, 10:59 AM	#45
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	So she's actually saying that Philo invented the Essenes (as a Platonic form?) and Josephus used Philo as a source.

03-17-2009, 11:57 AM	#47
andrewcriddle Veteran Member Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Birmingham UK Posts: 4,876	It may be worth noting that Josephus does not merely refer to the Essenes as a group. 2 specific individuals, Manahem in Antiquities 15 chapter 10 and Simon in Antiquities 17 chapter 13, are described as Essenes. Andrew Criddle

03-17-2009, 12:39 PM	#50
Clivedurdle Contributor Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: London UK Posts: 16,024	Not that secret a group at all - gnostic pythagorean jews, possibly one of the pre Jesus xianities found around the med in Lyon, Alexandria etc. Got labelled Essenes in Palestine. Called Theraputae in Alexandria...

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