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Re: DSS Course (monastery theory)
To Mark Dunn:
Thanks for the passage from Will Durant. However, material from 1944 and 1930
is more of a springboard than a destination in the current discussion!
One question. You said that the QumranitesI'
>chose their leaders by a general vote, mingled their
goods and earnings in a common treasury, and obeyed the Chasidic motto, 'Mine
and thine belong to thee.'"
I'm not sure what you mean by Chasidic motto. The aphorism that you quote
is rabbinic, but not all rabbinic = hasidic (since hasidism did not come into
being until the 18th century). If by "Chasidic" you were referring to the
ancient group usually called Essaioi or Essenes, then what would lead you
to attribute a rabbinic maxim to a group living in BCE?
Equally puzzling was your quote of Durant's theory that the Essenes
>derived their piety from the Chasidim, their
name probably from the Chaldaic aschai (bather)<
Presumably *aschai* refers to the semitic root s-X-y (sin-Xet-yod) meaning
to swim. But Xasid is spelled Xet-sin-dalet, and the synonym Xasin is
spelled Xet-sin-nun; so whichever Durant has in mind, there is an obvious
error here. (But perhaps I'm spending too much time refuting scholarship
that has not been state-of-the-art for 50 years!)
"Puzzled in Providence"