Who cares and why does it matter? Qumran and the essenes, once again!

Dead Sea Discoveries

Volumn 11, Issue 2, 2004, Pages 174-190

  Baumgarten, Albert ^a  

^a BAR ILAN UNIVERSITY   (Israel)

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EID: 61949457303     PISSN: 09290761     EISSN: 15685179     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1163/1568517041717818     Document Type: Review

References (50)

1. For the evidence supporting the conclusion that a sectarian group lived at the site, and that that group was responsible for most, if not all, of the manuscripts found in the neighboring caves, see D. Dimant, "The Qumran Manuscripts: Content and Significance," Prepare the Way in the Wilderness (eds D. Dimant and L. Schiffman; Leiden: Brill, 1995) 23-58
2. The most extensive discussion of this conclusion is T.S. Beall, Josephus's Description of the Essenes Illustrated by the Dead Sea Scrolls (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988)
3. For the purposes of this paper I ignore the stranger theories of Qumran origins that have arisen in the past decade. For further discussion see A.I. Baumgarten, "The Current State of Qumran Studies: Crisis in the Scrollery - A Dying Consensus," Judaism in Late Antiquity, Part Three, Where We Stand: Issues and Debates in Ancient Judaism, Volume One (eds J. Neusner and A. Avery Peck; Leiden: Brill, 1999) 99-122. I focus here only on the "agnostic" view that considers some of the scrolls as sectarian and as foundational for the way of life of a group that lived at the site, but that does not identify that group with the Essenes. See above, n. 1
4. See in particular, P.R. Davies, "Review of Todd S. Beall, Josephus's Description of the Essenes Illustrated by the Dead Sea Scrolls," JTS 41 (1990) 164-69. Even when the Essene hypothesis was in its energetic youth, in a key lecture delivered in 1966, F.M. Cross, Jr. recognized that Qumran and the Essenes shared "similar bizarre views, performing similar or rather identical lustrations, ritual meals and ceremonies" (emphases mine). Note the qualifications Cross felt impelled to introduce into his comparison in order to account for the similarities as well as differences
5. See F.M. Cross, Jr., "The Early History of the Qumran Community," New Directions in Biblical Archaeology (eds D. Freedman and J. Greenfield; Garden City: Doubleday, 1971) 77
6. See A.I. Baumgarten, "The Rule of the Martian as Applied to Qumran," Israel Oriental Studies 14 (1994) 121-42. Since writing that paper I have learned that the formal name for the principle I called "the rule of the Martian" is "the narcissism of small differences."
7. See D. Flusser, "Pharisees, Sadducees and Essenes in Pesher Nahum," Essays in Jewish History and Philology in Memory of Gedaliahu Alon (eds M. Dorman et al.; Jerusalem: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1970) 133-68 [Hebrew]
8. A German version of this paper appeared in Qumran (ed. K. Grözinger; Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesselschaft, 1981) 121-66
9. and A. Dupont-Sommer, "Le Commentaire de Nahum découvert près de la Mer Morte (4QpNah) Traduction et Notes," Semitica 13 (1963) 55-88
10. See M. Goodman, "A Note on the Qumran Sectarians, The Essenes and Josephus," JJS 46 (1995) 161-66
11. See further idem, "Josephus and Variety in First-Century Judaism," The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Proceedings 7,6 (2000) 201-13
12. This is true even of the best suggestion, that of S. Goranson, "Others and Intra-Jewish Polemic as Reflected in Qumran Texts," The Dead Sea Scrolls After Fifty Years: A Comprehensive Assessment (eds P.W. Flint and J.C. Vanderkam; Leiden: Brill, 1999) 2.537-40. Goranson can offer no proof that phrases such as made the transition from description to designation, much less to self designation as the name of the group. Indeed is no differently used in the scrolls than any number of other descriptive terms for the group. On internal philological grounds alone, no one would have focused on it as special, and suggested that it became the basis for a widely used name for the group, were it not for the possible connection to the term Essene. Thus it is not surprising that some scholars employ terms such as "Community of the Renewed Covenant," for the Qumran group, on the basis of sources such as CD vi.19, as this seems to have been an explicit self-designation, while Goranson's proposal has won little acceptance. Furthermore, by way of contrast, Pharisees and Sadducees (understood as "separatists" and those loyal to the house of Zadok, respectively), were designations explicitly used by groups for themselves and each other in sources in the same Semitic languages in which the names Pharisees and Sadducees are explained (e.g. m.Yad. 4:6-7). For Essenes, however, we cannot be certain whether the name is to be understood in a Semitic language or in Greek. On the name of the Pharisees and the history of its interpretation see A.I. Baumgarten, "Pharisees," Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls (eds L.H. Schiffman and J.C. VanderKam; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000) 2.657-63
13. L. Fleck, Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979) 28-38
14. See R. Merton, "The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy," Antioch Review (1948) 193-210
15. reprinted numerous times since. I cite this paper according to the version in R.K. Merton, On Social Structure and Science (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996) 183-204
16. On the Essenes treating other Jews as if they were aliens in matters of food see A.I. Baumgarten, The Flourishing of Jewish Sects in the Maccabean Era: An Interpretation (Leiden: Brill, 1997) 93-94
17. Note especially the comments of M. Stern, Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1976) 1.480
18. I do not think this difficulty is solved by the suggestions of Y. Hirschfeld, "A Settlement of Hermits Above Ein Gedi," Tel Aviv 27 (2000) 103-55
19. Note the response of J. Magness, "Not A Settlement of Hermits or Essenes: A Response to Y. Hirschfeld," Tel Aviv 27 (2000) 273-85
20. and Hirschfeld's "Reply to D. Amit and J. Magness," Tel Aviv 27 (2000) 286-91
21. For the numerous discussions of the place of women at Qumran see the excellent summary by E. Schuller, "Women in the Dead Sea Scrolls," The Dead Sea Scrolls at Fifty, 117-44
22. My analysis is based on the discussion in R. Donceel, "Synthèse des observations faites en fouillant les tombes des nécropoles de Khirbet Qumrân et des environs," QC 10 (2002) 35-43
23. In retrospect it seems that de Vaux was right on one point: the tombs from which he sent remains to Vallois each had only one burial, hence Vallois was wrong to identify these as the remains of thirteen individuals. This conclusion has been confirmed by S. Sheridan, "Scholars, Soldiers, Craftsmen, Elites: Analysis of the French Collection of Human Remains from Qumran," DSD 9 (2002) 207
24. J. Zias, "The Cemeteries of Qumran and Celibacy: Confusion laid to Rest?" DSD 7 (2000) 220-53
25. See S. Sheridan, "Scholars, Soldiers," 208, n. 33. See the photo of T9, 209, fig. 2c
26. See further Eshel et al., "New Data," Table V, 162
27. See D.R. Schwartz, "Review of A.I. Baumgarten, Second Temple Sectarianism: A Social and Religious Historical Essay," Haaretz, English Edition, May 10, 2002
28. See Eshel et al., "New Data," 150
29. Eshel et al., "New Data," Table IV, 160
30. On this male burial see M. Broshi and H. Eshel, "Whose Bones?" BAR (January/ February 2003) 31-33. I ignore the absurd sensationalist proposal (the preposterousness of which on all counts has been well demonstrated by Broshi and Eshel) that these were the bones of John the Baptist, the founder of the Qumran group
31. Eshel et al., "New Data," 146-41. There is other evidence for burials at Qumran of those who died elsewhere, such as the remains of wooden coffins found in T18 (130), T19 (129) and T20 (135). Note that one must distinguish between secondary reburial and the remains of those who died elsewhere brought to Qumran in coffins for primary burial there
32. See N. Golb, Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls? The Search for the Secret of Qumran (New York: Scribner, 1995)
33. See e.g. J. Magness, "Qumran Archeology: Past Perspectives and Future Prospects," in Flint and VanderKam, The Dead Sea Scrolls After Fifty Years, 53-57
34. Magness as elaborated her reasons for rejecting the identification of Qumran as a villa in J. Magness, The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002) 90-100
35. See also M. Broshi, "Was Qumran Indeed a Monastery? The Consensus and its Challengers: An Archeologist's View," Bread, Wine, Walls and Scrolls (London: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001) 259-73. From a non-archeological perspective see also above, n. 1
36. See E. Eshel, "4Q477: The Rebukes of the Overseer," JJS 45 (1994) 111-22
37. For an imaginative (in the best sense of the word) account of Hananiah's experience see M. Broshi, "A Day in the Life of Hananiah Nothos: A Story," A Day At Qumran: The Dead Sea Sect and its Scrolls (ed. A. Roitman; Jerusalem: The Israel Museum, 1997) 61-70
38. For a discussion of what distinguished Qumran burial practices from those of other Jews of the era, see R. Hachlili, "Burial Practices at Qumran," RevQ 16 (1993) 247-64
39. See also E. Regev, "Family Burial in Herodianic Jerusalem and its Environs and the Social Organization of Immigrants and Sectarians," Cathedra 106 (2002) 35-60 [Hebrew]
40. For an analysis of the principle of the replacing of biological kinship with sectarian brotherhood in ancient Jewish groups, with a special focus on the Qumran cemetery, see A.I. Baumgarten, Second Temple Sectarianism: A Social and Religious Historical Essay (2001) 26 [Hebrew]. Against Zias, "Cemeteries of Qumran and Celibacy," 242, n. 63, finding more than one body buried in a single tomb does not invalidate the notion that biological kinship was replaced by sectarian brotherhood at Qumran. What proof do we have that the two bodies buried together were biological kin and that kinship was the reason for the joint burial?
41. Sheridan, "Scholars, Soldiers," 229-34
42. The archeological evidence at Qumran for objects typically associated with women may be slim. See Magness, Archaeology of Qumran, 163-87, esp. 175-79
43. Magness, Archaeology of Qumran, 105-13, summarizing and expanding her own earlier discussions of these issues
44. In this paragraph I expand arguments made earlier in A.I. Baumgarten, "The Temple Scroll, Toilet Practices, and the Essenes," Jewish History 10 (1996) 9-20
45. The limited conclusion for which I argued there concerning the Temple Scroll may now be expanded. De Vaux found one shovel in Cave 11 near Qumran, and he was eager to conclude that it was used for the purposes described by Josephus, yet he had the intellectual honesty to concede that this conclusion was beyond proof. See R. de Vaux, "Une hachette essenienne?" VT 9 (1959) 399-407, esp. 406-407 where de Vaux recognizes that the axe might have been used for chopping wood - the primary purpose for which such axes were made - or for digging holes for defecation, as described by Josephus; one just does not know
46. See S. Lieberman, "The Discipline in the So-Called Dead Sea Manual of Discipline," JBL 71 (1951) 199-206. The suggestion of C. Rabin, Qumran Studies (New York: Schocken, 1957) to connect the Qumran group with the Pharisees can be disregarded as a relic of an older era of scholarship
47. See L. Ginzberg, An Unknown Jewish Sect (revised and updated translation; New York: Jewish Theological Seminary, 1970)
48. For a classic attempt to resolve issues of this sort see J. Strugnell, "Flavius Josephus and the Essenes: Antiquities XVIII.18-22," JBL 77 (1958) 106-15
49. Perhaps the best and most flexible formulation of this genealogical connection is that proposed by F. García Martínez and A.S. Van der Woude, "A 'Groningen' Hypothesis of Qumran Origins," RevQ 14 (1990) 521-41
50. M. Bloch, The Historian's Craft (trans. P. Putnam; New York: Random House, 1964) 29-35. Another name for this same unfortunate intellectual phenomenon is "the genetic fallacy."