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Re: orion WHO SAYS "ESSENES"?
In response to Dave Washburn's 25 May post:
Well, perhaps Stephen Pfann could have written "just what else" are
these literary remains if not an Essene collection, rather than "where"
else are they. (Maybe he even meant something along that line-- though it's
merely a guess.) More importantly, opinions on that merely one sentence
aside: dismissing the evidence for Essene residence at Qumran as if it were
"proximity and minor circumstantial evidence," I suggest, is unlikely to
persuade anyone as deeply and intimately familiar with the evidence as,
say, Stephen Pfann. In other words, Dave, yes, in fact, this Essene Qumran
library was, after all, essentially "lost" till 1947 or therebout, so you
do have a technical semantic point, on part of one sentence. But that
doesn't work against his whole post or whole position, IMO.
On the issue of a "level playing field": can't we all admit, now,
on the rather open forum of orion, that it is rather level? What alternate
theory has not been tried? Prof. Golb's sometime complaint that he could
not get a hearing is surely by now outdated. The result? On his proposal
that all the scrolls were brought from Jerusalem during the First Revolt:
can you name anyone familiar with the history, archaeology, and mss who
accepts it?
Again, other than in caricature, *no one says _every_ ms was
produced at Qumran.* It's a tattered straw man by now. Essenes lived
elsewhere, too. If you wish to criticize the conclusion of Essene residence
at Qumran, please address your critique to views which are actually held.
sincerely,
Stephen Goranson goranson@duke.edu