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orion Re: Jack Kilmon & Essene Christians
Yirmiyahu Ben-David wrote:
> At 12:40 23/07/97 -0500, Jack Kilmon wrote:
> > I said nothing about the Essenes being Christians...I remarked
> that
> >the earliest
> >*scholars* who set the trends of DSS scholarship for so long were
> >Christians.
>
> Whatever the miscommunication was, this clears it up.
I am deeeeelighted.
> > First of all, an Essene-Christian "connection" is not the same as
>
> >the silly notion
> >that the Essenes were Christians
>
> I don't think my concern was at all remote. It was one reading of
> what you
> wrote: "Along come the putative Essenes who wear the white
> hats...er...robes..and they are perceived to be more like us
> Christians than
> "dem durn Pharisees and Sadducees."
Yes, perceived by the Christian scholars who used such terms and
"monastery"to characterize Qumran.
> It appeared from this that you might be agreeing with the earlier
> assessment
> and trying to pave the way to re-open an earlier line of discussion
> about
> reading 'proto-Christians' into the Essenes.
Only in a very loose sense and with a clear understanding that I
view the term"Christian" as anachronistic and cross-cultural to the
Essenes or to the
"DSS people" who may or may not have been Essenes. My reading of the
texts is of a "genre" of Judaism into which the earliest "Jesus People"
may
well have had compatability.
> That's why I initiated a
> peremptory inquiry for clarification, which was hard to obtain. If
> you had
> understood my inquiry the one paragraph above would have solved it
> all. In
> any case, I'm glad it was a miscommunication and consider it resolved
> that
> no link has been established between Essenes and Christians.
>
With Augustinian and Tertullian-like Hellenistic Christians...no..or
very remote.With the Jewish "Jesus People/Netzarim," perhaps.
Jack Kilmon
jpman@accesscomm.net