Toto

DSS in context

maryhelena

Interesting! Maybe someone has been listening to Rachel Elior.....

aa5874

But, is this a joke?

When did the New Testament become more reliable that the writings of Josephus, Philo or Pliny?

The Essenes MUST have appeared in Jewish writings.

Josephus and Philo were Jews.

The Essenes MUST have appeared in non-Jewish writings.

Pliny was NOT A Jew.

Now, in the New Testament there is not even any RELIABLE history for the main character Jesus unless it is certain he was a Ghost of God.

And, if it is considered that Josephus and Pliny are UNRELIABLE sources for the Essenes then we can also say that the NEW Testament is an UNRELIABLE source for the JESUS cult since they were NOT mentioned by neither Philo, Josephus, Pliny nor in the DSS.

Soon the DSS may be deemed UNRELIBLE because they did not mention JESUS and his cult.

avi

What is the evidence that Josephus' depiction of the Essene cult represents a distortion? What motive could a fourth or fifth century Christian, who controlled access to Papyrus and original texts, have in redacting or interpolating Josephus with regard to the Essenes?

"vast rabbinical literature"? Was it not largely destroyed, by the Romans in the early second century? Am I in error on this point? I thought that the masoretic texts were nearly all destroyed?

There exists a vast quantity of bibles out there, but most of them repeat the same story, over and over, despite the fact that there are many different versions, often with conflicting texts--mark 7:31 to pick a simple example.

A "vast rabbinical literature" that simply reiterated the same single version, oblivious of scores of alternative versions, most of which had been destroyed by countless pogroms, would not represent a reliable alternative to Josephus, regarding existence of the Essenes, in my opinion. What motive would someone have had, for inserting a fable about the Essenes in Josephus, if the author himself did not depict that sect?

avi

aa5874

What I find extremely disturbing is that Philo and possibly Pliny wrote about the Essenes before Josephus yet he is assumed to have been unreliable..

Philo may have written about the Essenes about 30 years before Josephus.

It simply does not make any sense for Josephus to write about the Essenes in great details knowing fully well that those who previously read Philo would have likely known the Essenes did not exist 30 years in advance.

And even more bizarre, why would Josephus repeat the name of the same sect in "Wars of the Jews", and perhaps a decade or so later in "Antiquities of the Jews" and in "The Life of Flavius Josephus" when there were writers like APION who claimed Josephus' histories were not true.

Josephus had to write 2 books "Against Apion" to defend his works on the history of the Jews.

It would appear to me that estimates in general in Josephus appear to have been exaggerated so perhaps the numbers of Essenes may have been far smaller.

mountainman

Eusebius needed a missing link between the intrepid band of Jesus and the Twelve and the Nation of Christians. He needed a remote type of group that were a small perhaps historical cult in his 4th century antiquity, and he need these to be in essence Jewish.

The Essenes according to Pausanias were a group of temple servants associated with a godess in Ephesus. They were of course Hellenistic - Graeco-Roman - as were all the cults of the "pagans" - the pre-Christian empire. Eusebius is writing a New History of the tribe of Christians. For other data see this thread ..... The Essenes and the bees

He forges into Pliny and Josephus a Jewish Essenes cult that are remote dwellers -- at some parts of the year or year on year off basis for temple service. These are extremely similar to the "Therapeutae".

Nobody wants to deal with these ubiquitous Therapeutae.
Because they are the temple servants to the Greeks.
Everyone is looking at the "Jewish Temple" of the 1st century.
Everyone misses the "Greek Temples PLURAL" of the 4th century.

Which emperor destroyed the Jewish Temple in the 1st century CE?
Which emperor destroyed the Greek Temples in the 4th century CE?

Is the New Testament written in Hebrew for the Jewish tribes?
Or is the New Testament written in Greek for the Greek civilisation?

Where did all the Greek "temple servants" / "public servants" go?
Up the River with Pachomius c.324 CE?
They were made redundant and "set loose" after 324/325 CE.
See the Graeco-Roman "Healing God Asclepius" and the massive
amounts of archaeological evidence 500 BCE to 500 CE.

All emperors before Bullneck sponsored the Greek temples and their divinities
and their literature and their custom. See the coinage and the archaeology.

We are dealing with the most thoroughly dishonest historian in antiquity.
See Momigliano on Eusebius as a "chronologer".

arnoldo

I was trying to find the phrase "invention of scholars" in the amazon preview of the book however Chapter 7 is not available. A reviewer at the amazon site noted above gives the following citation concerning the Essenes.

aa5874

But, why would Eusebius fabricate the Essenes and then FORGET to mention them in the same Gospels for which they were invented?

The Essenes were NOT said to have been in contact with Jesus or any Jesus believers including Paul or believed in the Pauline doctrine in the writings of Josephus or Philo and are not found in the NT.

mountainman

The tetrarchy ("leadership of four people") of Gospels was important but not all the fabrication of the christians was invested in these four obituaries to the new god of Constantine. They had control of the entire set of Greek literature. Eusebius used Josephus and Pliny to speak for him. It was tantamount to the same thing, only a little more insidious, or in fact "wretched" to use the word Emperor Julian reserves for Eusebius. See for example the Testimonium Flavianum. Eusebius did not FORGET the Essenes. He knew they were Graeco-Roman temple servants in Ephesus who retured to the wilderness in a routine fashion just like all the other "Therapeutae" or "Graeco-Roman Temple Servants" --- sons of monks. But Eusebius's New Story was about the history of the Jewish Temple and the Nation of Christians.

The technology of literature and its preservation was in the hands on one Nicaean party. Have you read the Historia Augusta? Moreover, when I say "Eusebius" above, I mean both Eusebius and those othodox history-twisting imperially sponsored eccesiastical heresiologists who preserved the "Eusebius" we now have in the later 4th and 5th centuries. The Law Codes (Justinian, etc) suffered massive intrusive forgeries -- and so did the orthodox "history of events".


Ignoring for the moment what has been "said" and "not said" in the literature, the Jewish Essenes cannot be located by the archaeolgists. The Hellenic Essenes referred to by Pausanius appear to be far more historic and genuine. You need to deal with the empty archaeological set of the evidence at hand. There is no archaeological evidence for the "Jewish Christians". There is no archaeological evidence for the "Jewish Essenes". What do you say about this archaeological empty set aa5874?

One reason could be that these "nations" were simply fabricated. Who would have reason to fabricate the nation of christians, and when? You and others may like to claim that the evidence for the existence of "Jewish Essenes" may yet turn up - and this is a valid position also. But at the moment, the Jewish Essenes are a "literary" phenomenom - and thus perhaps fictional. With respect to the field of ancient history and archaeology, the Jewish Essenes are a "transcendental" phenomenom - no blips on the radar.

maryhelena

Eyal Regev says in his book (link above)

My, what a cavalier attitude towards Philo - don’t like his point re Essene celibacy - so put that in the bin but keep his Essenes anyway! Sounds a bit like Christian apologists that want to get rid of the supernatural bits re Jesus of Nazareth and keep the bits that suit their fancy...

And yet it is this distinguishing mark - Essene celibacy - that Rachel Elior finds to be a very questionable element re the historicity of Philo’s Essenes!