[mnehring]

the Essenes had written the scrolls in Qumran, claiming instead that they were written by ousted Temple priests in Jerusalem.

I wonder if he thought that maybe, just maybe, that was a nickname for the 'ousted temple priests'?

[ClearCase_guy]

I have a vague recollection of an old joke in which a scholar asserts that Shakespeare’s plays were not actually written by Shakespeare, but by another man with the same name.

[bcsco]

I wonder if he thought that maybe, just maybe, that was a nickname for the 'ousted temple priests'?

I had a similar thought; that Essenes was the name taken by the ousted temple priests, or a name applied to them...

[dangus]

Actually, my understanding was that the Essenes WERE dissident Temple priests, sorta. The notion I’m referring to was that the Essenes were trying to revive the schools of prophecy which had written most of the Old Testament. They had found the dominant Temple priests unreceptive, and so, just like the more ancient prophets, set up camp in the wilderness.

Unstated but tempting to assume in this notion is that they did consider themselves eligible to be temple priests, but rejected, or that they actually were temple priests who then were dismissed or left in protest.

Anyone know anything about the Essenes which can support this notion or not? It’s actually a notion I probably picked up from my mother when I was a kid, so it’s nothing I can support. (She was studying theology, but often mentioned stuff from her classes which was pretty much bleeding-edge theoretical at the time... which was the 1970s. (gasp!!! — but she did have a very good head on her shoulders and knew how to recognize nonsense.))