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Re: orion-list Essenes, Zias article, etc.
To Stephen,
You keep insisting on the fact that the Qumran manuscripts belonged to
the Essenian community and you are determined to bring any proof to
justify your hypothesis.
Father Rolland de Vaux and his followers have been trying to do just
that for the past fifty years and I don't think they have convinced every
one. They were willing to ignore certain documents, like the Copper
scrolls and others, in order to make a stronger point for their Essenian
theory.
We are now learning that the good Father was even willing to minimize
certain facts (skeletons of women, etc.) or deny others to defend his
theory.
What about the fact that some of the manuscripts were found at Massadah,
stronghold of the Zealots, who were certainly not peaceful Essenians?
It appears to me that these scholars had made up their mind before they
had concluded their investigation. We must be cautious about this kind
of research.
Nothing proves that all the documents were from one source.
Prof. Golb has a point when he aserts that the diversity of the documents
points to the fact that they came from different sources, which might
include Sadducean writings (Prof. Schiffman) or even maginal Pharisaic
sources or some apocalyptic group. These documents may very well have
belonged to the main library of Jerusalem!
Leo Abrami
For private reply, e-mail to leorose@juno.com
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