aa5874

This is dedicated to the Essenes.

It has been my opinion that for some time that the Essenes were WIPED off the face of the EARTH by the Romans.

How is it a that Multiple Attested Sect, the Essenes, just EVAPORATED into thin air AFTER the Fall of the Temple???

Philo, Josephus and Pliny the elder wrote aboy the Essenes.

This is PRECISELY what one expects if the Essenes did exist.

The Essenes had an impact of the society and times in which they lived.

But, what happened to them??? They just Vanised.

It was GENOCIDE.

The Romans WIPED the Essenes off the Face of the Earth during the War of the Jews.

Nobody will EVER find the Essenes again.. They WERE BURNT UP by the Romans.

Josephus WROTE that the Essenes were BURNT and TORN to PIECES.

Wars of the Jews 2.8.10 In Memory of the Essenes. May their Souls rest in peace.

maryhelena

aa - I don't believe I just read this...??

People wrote words about JC - and methinks you don't believe JC existed as a human being...............so what gives here??

Yep, Josephus is as great at writing pseudo-history as those gospel writers.............:banghead:

jdboy

"Essene" isn't this just a term applied to any jew that thought they were the righteous and the covenant keepers?
I think the romans were trying to end the expectation of a future messiah by first crucifying the real messiahs and then writing the jesus story to show the one true messiah resurrected as savior of the world(roman worship of the emperor)
Why do you think this was genocide?

aa5874

You don't believe the Romans BURNT UP the Essenes and TORE them to PIECES???

We are not dealing with "pseudo"--we dealing with Genocide.


Wars of the Jews 2.8.10

Duvduv

Maryhelena, you are addressing a very good point since for so long Josephus has been accepted as a reliable source with integrity, and that he was even relied on by the people who wrote the gospels (though not the authors of the epistles).

And if there are good reasons to really question the integrity of Josephus, there must be equally good reasons to investigate Philo (in addition to the mystery of why no one interpolated a Jesus story into Philo's writings).

So far there are reasons to discount what's in Josephus not only regarding Jesus and the Baptist (who gets more coverage that the Savior himself), but regarding Miriamne and to top it off, regarding Massada. And who knows what else.

Duvduv

And who knows what other fictions. LIke the ESSENES perhaps?? AA seems to think they were destroyed. For years I have wondered WHY Josephus would have picked the Essenes as a significant group among the Jews when for their size there must have been many more. And the Zealots as a philosophy of worldwide or even Judean Jews (as opposed to Jews in Jerusalem)?? Never made sense to me.

aa5874

Well tell us what makes sense to you and present YOUR sources of antiquity.

If you are NOT prepared to provide your sources of antiquity that make sense that what is your point???

The works of Josephus makes sense to me.

What of antiquity makes sense to you???

Eusebius???

Minimalist

Perhaps the answer is simply that he wrote that he lived among them for a time?

maryhelena

Duvduv: If the research into early Christian origins is ever going to produce meaningful, substantial, results - then Josephus has to be questioned far more thoroughly than is usually done. Here is a link to an old thread re the Essenes.

http://www.freeratio.org/thearchives...d.php?t=264056

Essenes never existed, were a Josephan invention, claims Rachel Elior

And Philo, as well. After all, if he is the first to write re the Essenes, then he, with Josephus, has to be seriously questioned. Actually, if one stops to think about it, the Essene story is a bit like the JC story. It's a developing story. Josephus carried the story forward; adding his own dating structure; made three of them prophets; added a new category of Essenes - those that could marry; and that 'genocide'. Philo creates the Essenes. Josephus develops the story - and then, when their usefulness comes to an end - has them conveniently killed off...

These two writers (both of them could well be pseudonyms...) writing during a time of great interest, and consequences, for early christianity - and they are given a free pass..................For heavens sake, surely, we can't expect those involved in laying the ground work for early Christianity, to spell it out for us. Particularly when, from a ahistoricist/mythicist position, we are dealing with the development of ideas and not with a historical carpenter, itinerant gospel preacher.

When we are, as Rachel Elior points out, dealing with a non-Jewish type community living in Palestine - and that story continues until this group of people are killed off around the time of the war of 70 c.e. - a red flag should be waving fast and furious. Because, bottom line, is that not what the Christian story is about - a non-Jewish community living in Palestine, neither Jew nor Greek - and after 70 c.e., with the temple destroyed, this new community was literally cut free from its Jewish heritage.

Duvduv

I don't find where Elior gives a satisfactory explanation as to why the earlier Philo mentioned the Essenes if Josephus invented them. Perhaps Josephus relied on Philo, and it was Philo's account that needs to be questioned first.