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Re: Isaiah and Essenes

Friends,
     I am sorry that my response has been delayed. I am several thousand
miles away from my library and had to wait until HUC's library reopened in
order to check the evidence.

Stephen Goranson, sorry about calling you Seth, wrote:
You (David Kaufman) wrote that "Josephus seems to refer to Judah as one of
the Hessaioi
in War I 78." This is simply false. Was it a typo?
**********
Actually, No. I say "seems". What the text actually says is that Judah was of
the Genos of the Essaios. Sorry about adding the breathing. It's lack only
adds to my argument, however. I am arguing that the term(s) related to this
group underwent changes related to their being dragged back and forth between
Hebrew and Greek. I look at the term Essaios and simply see the plural term
Essaioi being misunderstood. There is good reason to suspect that titles of
groups, particularly involving names as roots, could easily be dragged from
nominative to genitive, nominative plural to nominative singular, etc....
This word, Essaios, may be seen as simply the singularization (if that is a
word) of a plural group name. The Essaioi were of the Genos of the Essaios.
The breathing is insignificant.

Stephen Goranson continued:     
To the best of my knowledge, so far, there is no reason to suppose that Philo
would fail to recognize a Greek spelling of Isaiah and misspell it.
**********
Philo himself states that he is guessing the answer. He says, I think, or
something like that, and not, I know. Why is that? It is because the term
bounced from language to language. It was not Hebrew and not Greek, but a
combination. Isaiah is not a Greek term. Hessaioi or Essaioi is not a Hebrew
term or a Greek term. It is a Hebrew root in Greek transliteration with a
Greek suffix.

Stephen Goranson wrote:
I have no problem with your making proposals. You're clearly an industrious
fellow, and who knows what you may turn up. 
*********
Stephen,
     This kind of language does not belong in a respectful discussion. Are
you this condescending with your students?

You continue:
My concern, which I may not have
expressed well enough, is that you (David Kaufman) sometimes declare what
cannot be known.
E.g., your declaration that one cannot know whether the Qumran cave mss are
connected with the khirbet involves an unwarrented assumption of knowledge
itself.
********
The proof is in the proving. Show me evidence that it can be known and I will
acknowledge that it can be done. Until there is irrefutable proof, not
theories, and what that proof might be I have no idea, we can not KNOW, but
can theorize.

-David Jay Kaufman
HUC-JIR Jerusalem
Rabbinical Student