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Re: Essenes, again.
>
>I'm not taking sides in the discussion with Moshe Shulman about the Essene
>hypothesis, but I have a minor question. Ignoring the reference to Judas the
>Essene, contemporary of Aristobulus I ca. 100 BCE (Ant. 13.311), when would
>you date the incident when Manaemus the Essene predicted Herod the Great
>would be king? This took place when Herod was a "boy" (Ant. 15.373). I
>don't know exactly when Herod was born,
Herod was born, according to my calculations, in 72 B.C.E. (he bacame
king in 37 B.C.E. at the age of 35, which means he was born in 72 B.C.E.)
but he began to serve as governor of
>Galilee prior to 47 BCE (Wars 1.203) [around age 25?], and died at a
>reasonably advanced age in 4 BCE [around age 65-70?]. I would guess in 62
>BCE Herod was about 10, give or take 5 years, and so the encounter with
>Manaemus probably took place around this time. So in your opinion about how
>long had the Essene sect/party been in existence at this incident, or do you
>discount the anecdotes about early Essenes scattered in Ant.?
>
>Best,
>
>Russell Gmirkin
>
Gretchen A. Shapiro Haas
CCJS
Ohio