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Re: orion Orion Sadducees (MMT) et al, Part 2

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Yirmiyahu Ben-David wrote:

> (Continued from part 1)
>
> >*IF* the "DSS people" were Essenes, as seems to be the case,
> >and *IF* there was a cloistered community of Essenes at Qumran, and
> (and
> >this is the biggest "if") *IF* the DSS corpus originated at Qumran,
>
> This isn't logical.  There are so many "ifs" here, all of which are
> likely
> rife with non sequiturs, that the logical statement *of your ifs* is:
> It's
> almost certain that the "Yeshuines" did NOT exist side by side with
> the "DSS
> people"...  I don't think it can be stated quite that strongly,
> another way
> of saying that your "ifs" is very illogical.  Try putting some
> probability
> figures to your ifs and you'll begin to see what I mean.

    We do not know with qualification that the people of the DSS texts
were Essenes,a term that comes to us only from Greek sources (Josephus,
Pliny, Philo) and a
self-designation used nowhere in the texts.  Based on the evidence, "IF
the DSS
people were Essenes" is a most logical statement.

    Neither the epigraphal nor archaeological evidence has clearly shown
that a
community of Essenes resided at the K. Qumran site which does not
conform
to the "tour guide" of Pliny in his description of them.  We have only
the probability
based on the proximity to some of the caves.  The only correct scholarly
consensus
can be "IF there was a cloistered community of Essenes at Qumran."

    There is legitimate scholarly disagreement over whether the DSS
corpus had
its origin at K. Qumran and no sound archaeological evidence to support
it.  It is
doubtful whether the small percentage of the 200 or so members of this
putative yahad
(that could write) would turn out texts with well over 800 scribal
hands.  The texts
could have been held at the Temple, the Essene Quarter of Jerusalem or
even
"brought home" from outside of Judea.  Therefore "IF the DSS corpus
originated
at Qumran" is perfectly appropriate.

> Now to return to Dale's original question, I think it highly probable
> that there was a great deal of shared thought between the Yeshuine
> community and the DSS people, even a sharing of terms of
> self-designation.  Given a community of "DSS people" at Damascus, I
> would also pose the probability of Yeshuines who can be called in the
> semantic use of the term, "proto-Christians."

Jack Kilmon
jpman@accesscomm.net