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Re: Women in the Scrolls

>I have been bouncing back and forth between reading Schliffman, "Reclaiming
>the Dead Sea Scrolls" and William Whiston's translation entitled "The
>Complete Work os Josephus."  In doing so I was struck by what appears to be a
>somewhat unusual contrast.  In his Chapter "Women in the Scrolls,"
> Schliffman seems to be attempting to discount Philo's account of the Essenes
>as untrustworthy or  inaccurate.  In that process Schliffman says: "Finally,
>he [Philo] presents a negative view of women that is familar from some
>Hellenistic sources but not common in Palestinian Judaism."  

I think you are missing his point. Philo seems to imply a celebacy aspect 
which is what Schiffman (if I understood corectly) is disagreeing with.

>In Josephus, I find accounts such as these from "Antiquities of the Jews."
>  Book IX, Chapter VIII - Concerning Sanballat and Manasseh etc.:  "But the
>elders of Jerusalem being very uneasy that the brother of Juddua the high
>priest, though married to a foreigner, should be a partner with him in the
>high priesthood , , ,  so they commanded Manasseh to divorce his wife . . . .
> Whereupon Manasseh come to his father-in-law , Sanballat, and told him, that
>although he loved his daughter Nicaso, yet he was not willing to be deprived
>of his sacerdotal dignity on her account."   Book XII, Chapter IV - How
>Antiochus made a League with Ptolemy etc.  "This good fortune [Joseph]
>enjoyed for twenty-two years; and he become the father of seven sons by one
>wife; he had also another son, whose name was Hycanus, by his brother
>Solymius's daughter [as follows].  [H]is brother . . . adorned his own
>daughter, and brought her to him by night, and put her into his bed.  And
>Joseph being disordered with drink, knew not who she was, and so lay with his
>brother's daughter,  . . . ."  Book XI, Chapter V - How Xerxes, the Son of
>Darius, Was Well-Disposed etc.  "Jechonias, a principal man in Jerusalem,
>came to him and said, that they had sinned in marrying strange wives; and he
>persuaded him to adjure them all to cast those wives out, and the children
>born of them; . . . ."  There are many other examples of similar treatment of
>women, wives, and even their children.  Some of this reminds me of St.
>Augustine divorcing his wife of 12 (?) years and abandoning his son in the
>name of  his new found religion.  My question is,  how can it be seriously
> argued, as Schliffman seems to do, that women are not "commonly" presented
>in a "negative view" in "Palestinian Judaism."   Isn't this argument
>particularly weak? 

I think you misunderstood the points here, and hence why they were 
difference. 1 and 3 are dealing with the Jewish abhorance of 'intermarriage' 
and not of women per se. 2 seems to be showing the low moral character of the 
royal family (a common theme in Josephus).

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