Scholar: The Essenes, Dead Sea Scroll 'authors,' never existed

Haaretz.com ^ | Mar 13, 2009

[SunkenCiv]

more about the Chinese thing:

The Chinese connection (to the Dead Sea Scrolls)
The Star | Nov. 4, 2006 | NEIL ALTMAN
Posted on 11/30/2006 8:40:52 PM PST by John Philoponus
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1746758/posts

Challenging History: The Dead Sea Scrolls
The Evening Bulletin [PA] | 25 September, 2007 | Neil Altman
Posted on 09/25/2007 4:48:34 PM PDT by brityank
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1902099/posts

[Philo-Junius]

With what hope of success would Josephus have perpetuated this fraud? He was writing journalism, not history; there would have been thousands of Jews and other locals who would have heard of his account and said, “Essenes? What on earth is he talking about?”

He would only have immediately discredited himself by trying to perpetuate a fraud a million people could have immediately unveiled.

Now a scholastic fraud 2,000 years later, on the other hand...

[Unam Sanctam]

Clearly there was a movement represented by the Dead Sea Scrolls, started by a “teacher of righteousness”, who apparently objected to one of the Hasmonean Chief Priests, so I don’t see why it is inconsistent to say that a group founded perhaps by a renegade priest wrote the dead sea scrolls.

[rdl6989]

That’s funny, I did a search and nothing came up. I even searched the keywored essenes and nothing recent was posted. :D

[bert]

Think Babtists...... they split up all the time.

It is reasonable to assume that a group of Jerusalem priests split off and became Essenes at the new community of Qumran.

[Star Traveler]

It sounded like he was saying that there was no such thing as a group called the Essenes...

[SunkenCiv]

...and I don’t think we’re getting our money’s worth out of Google search lately. Used to work great, now I’m not too sure.

[SunkenCiv]

In his book "The Jewish War," Flavius Josephus describes the Essenes as an ascetic, mystical religious sect that lived in abstinence from worldly pleasures, including sex. The Essenes are commonly believed to have written the Dead Sea Scrolls...

...by some people, yeah.

The problem I see with this author/paper is that the accuracy of Josephus (in this case, about the existence of a bunch of cave-dwelling ascetics called the Essenes) doesn't have anything much to do with the Dead Sea Scrolls, which apparently were hidden just the one time and never gone back for, and includes the Copper Scroll, which describes the hiding places of various items of value, appears to be obviously stuff from the Temple. Given the dating of the scrolls themselves (info that wasn't available to the modern individual who cooked up the Essenes=scroll writers), it seems settled that the cache of scrolls came from the Herodian temple during the Roman War.

This equating Josephus' Essenes with the writers of the Dead Sea Scrolls isn't in Josephus, and isn't even in the scrolls' text, but has a modern origin. One the one hand we have people who fanatically defend this identification, and on the other we have the author of the claims described in the topic message. Both proceed from the same false premise.

[rdl6989]

and I don’t think we’re getting our money’s worth out of Google search lately. Used to work great, now I’m not too sure.

Agreed!

[DesScorp]

"CE = A.D."

I loath that politically correct BCE/CE crap. It's BC and AD, you bedwetting, God-denying pansies. I refuse to use those terms. I say BC and AD.

[screaming eagle2]

Well,....that too.