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Wolmen [sic] in the Scrolls & Gnosticism
To Jim Dalvila, Ian Hutcelsson, and Glenn Woolden (oops!) and everyone else
who noticed, I'm sorry. Schiffman, not Schliffman.
Anyway, assuming that the book "Eunuchs for the Kingdon of Heaven" is not
well known - but it may be - I thought I would report a few of the author's
other comments:
"Thanks to the discoveries of Qumran on the Dead Sea in 1947, we can get a
better picture of the desert-dwelling sect from the time of Jesus that has
been know since Antiquity under the name of the Essenes. The influence of
Gnosticism and its sexual asceticism, which was in itself alien to Judaism,
can be clearly seen in this sect. It was not, admittedly, a purely monastic
community, since married people could also be part of it, but the great
cementery to the east of Qumran shows that the full-fledged members, the ones
that set the tone, were monks. [Does this drive you crazy?] Even the layout
of the graves testifies to the privileged position of the unmarried and the
inferior status of women and children. The settlement was totally destroyed
by the Romans in 68.
"The Jewish idea of a good Creation by a good Creator God was severely
impaired by the influence of Gnosticism. The world, according to Qumran, is
darkness under Satan's [didn't we go through that Satan word recently?]
dominion. We find a similar Gnostic expression in the Gospel of John, since
for all the polemics against Gnosticism it had a significant influence on the
New Testament. Neither in the New Testament nor in the Jewish sect at
Qumran, however, was the Jewish idea of the one, good God ever abandoned."
So there is some more and now I was go home and ealt. Mark Dunn