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orion-list Evolution of the Sadducees and Pharisees? - RE: 4Q448
Russell and others:
I am wondering if some might resist suggestions about the links
of the Sadduccees with the Essene/DSS community because of
common views about the Sadducees expressed in the New
Testament.
In the New Testament we get the "disctinct image" (as opposed, perhaps
to a "clear picture" which would suggest "reality") that the Pharisees
opposed the Sadduccees, and both the Pharisees and the Sadducees
opposed everyone. And it certainly is more convenient to think these
tendencies reflect all time periods (what I call the "unitary
viewpoint").
But when one reads Josephus, you hear about Herod wiping out the
Sanhedrin and installing NEW priests of the Sadducees, including
the Egyptian Boethius who is so WELL identified with the New Testament's
view of Sadducees that it makes one wonder why was he arguing so
strenuously IF the Sadducees were ALREADY following these views?
And then, a slghtly differenet time, there is a partnership between an
Essene
and a Pharisee to resist authorities. And this alliance, and presumably
the
major players making the alliance possible, are smashed as well. After
this time, there seems to be LITTLE in agreement between the Essenes
and the Pharisees.
So I'm wondering what kind of academic treatment there might be on the
EVOLUTION of the Sadducees and the Pharisees from groups that
USED to be strongly affiliated with the Hasidim/Maccabee matrix, to
groups
that (while keeping the same organizational names that the New Testament
and Josephus would later use) have very little in common with the
interests
of the Essene/DSS/"Doers of Torah"/"Doers of War" matrix? Certainly
war, mass executions, and the fear of further reprisals would go a long
way
to change the complexion of each group, and it would certainly provide
more
"DEPTH" to the analysis of what tends to be a FLAT treatment of the
history
of these groups.
Courtesy of Josephus, we seem to have LOTS of hints and clues about the
gradual shifts of sects/groups that all came out of the victorious
Maccabeean
"stew" at one time or another. And yet by the New Testament times this
stew
has separated out into completely new and conflicting alliances.
I can see how your particular views on the Sadducees and 4Q448 would fit
such a model. Or perhaps you have reasons to think this model fits no
one's
views? Looking forward to input from all over Orion.
George Brooks
Tampa, FL
On Sat, 18 Dec 1999 00:32:10 EST RGmyrken@aol.com writes:
> Stephen Goranson makes some interesting comments about Psalm
> 154, noting
> that it occurs in one context on the same scroll as a sectarian
> calendar, on
> another with 4Q448 (Hymn to King Jonathan). J.A. Sandars notes its
> Essene
> affinities in terminology, but considers it to predate the Essenes.
> "Its
> affinities to known ideas and practices of the Qumran Essenes
> suggest that it
> may have originated in Hasidic or proto-Essenian circles, perhaps in
> the
> second quarter of the second century BC" (The Dead Sea Psalms
> Scroll, p.
> 109). Sandars suggestion that the Hasidim may have authored the
> text (which
> Goranson omitted in his otherwise informative posting) is doubtless
> related
> to the phrase "qehal hasidim" ["assembly of the pious" or "assembly
> of the
> Hasidim" (line 12). This is the same phrase in Ps. 149:1 which is
> the basis
> for the phrase "company of Hasideans" at 1 Macc. 2:42 to describe
> the initial
> army of [Mattathias and] Judas Maccabaeus. Some scholars earlier in
> the
> century believed Ps. 149 and others (including Ps. 154, known from
> the
> Syriac) derived from the Hasidim in Maccabean times. This view is
> now
> discredited (largely due to Oesterly); rather, the Hasidim took
> their name
> from Ps. 79 and 149 around 166 BCE. It is possible that Ps. 154 was
>
> pre-Maccabean but came to be viewed with special favor by the
> Hasidim after
> 166 BCE.
> Certainly the phrase "qehal hasidim" ["assembly of the pious"]
> came to
> be specially and specifically applied to the Hasidim after the
> Maccabean
> period. This raises the interesting question: why do lines from
> Ps. 154
> appear on the same scroll as 4Q448? As I argued in "The War Scroll
> and Roman
> Weaponry Reconsidered" (DSD 3 [1996] 89-129) and "Historical
> Allusions in the
> War Scroll" (DSD 5 [1998] 172-214), all evidence points to the War
> Scroll
> being the war manual of the Maccabean army of 163 BCE, i.e. the
> Hasidim.
> Elsewhere I have argued (including on this list) that both the
> Sadducees and
> Essenes revered the older literature of the Hasidim, and that the
> Qumran
> scrolls may be a Sadducee library containing a large proportion of
> older
> Hasidim texts. It seems to me that by the time of Alexander
> Jannaeus, such
> texts as Psalms 154 must have been taken to refer to the Hasidim.
> The use of
> Ps. 154 at Qumran shows the sectarians held literature referring to
> the
> assembly of the Hasidim in high regard. The authors of 4Q448, by
> also
> copying Ps. 154 on the same scroll, also show their Hasidean
> affinities:
> that is, they probably considered themselves descendants and
> spiritual heirs
> of the Hasidim. (I hold that 4Q448 was written by Sadducee
> partisans of
> Alexander Jannaeus, but if it is insisted that 4Q448 was written by
> Essenes,
> would this not suggest a linguistic as well as historical connection
> between
> the Hasidim and Essenes?)
> I do not at all follow Goranson's logic that the (rather
> incidental)
> condemnation of the wicked in Psalm 154 somehow supports the
> proposition that
> Jonathan is a wicked figure in 4Q448. If parallels must be drawn,
> why not
> compare the "assembly of the Hasidim" in Psalm 154 with the
> "assembly of your
> [God's? Jonathan's?] people Israel" in 4Q448? However, all such
> analogies
> are speculative. The fact that a "qehal Hasidim" psalm is
> associated with
> the Hymn to King Jonathan, however, is undeniably an important clue
> to the
> spiritual affinities of the authors of 4Q448.
> Regarding the date of Philo's essay on the Essenes, "Every Good
> Man is
> Free," thank you for the references, which I will read with
> interest. If
> this treatise predates 37 BCE, then the disturbances at Alexandria
> become
> irrelevant to that treatise, as you say: however, one must see the
> dating
> arguments first. "The Contemplative Life" (on the Therapeutae near
> Alexandria) postdates the Essenes, but the Loeb introduction
> proffers no
> suggested date.
>
> Best regards,
> Russell Gmirkin
> For private reply, e-mail to RGmyrken@aol.com
For private reply, e-mail to George Brooks <george.x.brooks@juno.com>
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