Re: Herod-era and DSS

[Moshe Shulman <mshulman@ix.netcom.com>, RGmyrken@aol.com]

>Greg Doudna writes:
>> But here is a question for you, Russell.  Your "sectarians"
>>  of the first BCE--who are they?  According to Josephus,
>>  the "sadducees" carried influence during the first part
>>  of the 1st BCE, then lost power.  Perhaps Qumran literature
>>  emerges from this context?  And forget Essenes--who may
>>  be the first-century CE successors of this formerly-powerful
>>  party or philosophic school or association, by another name.
>>  Isn't it strange that the rabbis knew first- and second-
>>  century CE heterodox types as "sadducees" and seem never
>>  to have heard of Essenes?  What is going on here?
>>  Best wishes and looking foward to your War Scroll article--
>>  Greg Doudna

>I consider 4QMMT to demonstrate a relationship between the
>sectarians and the Sadducees.  But the content of the scrolls
>most closely resembles the description of the Essenes in Josephus
>in my opinion.  So I posit that (a) the sectarians originated in
>Maccabean times; (b) in the early Hasmonean times there was an
>amicable split between the largely priestly Sadducees and the
>sectarians; (c) that the Essenes of Josephus were the spiritual
>heirs of the sectarians who preserved their literature.  The rabbis
>may have preserved memories of both the Essenes and Sadducees
>under the name Sadducees, the former being considered a subset or
>historical split-off of the latter.

I would disagree with b, since there is a lot of criticism of the
'priesthood' in the DSS, but I think that what you say is what Schiffman is 
saying.

>An unsolved problem for me is Josephus' sources on the Essenes.
>Without knowing his sources, it's difficult to be certain what the
>testimony of Josephus signifies.

In his Lives he claimed to have learned from them.

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