Rachel Elior, courtesy of James Davila, defends her contrarian thesis on the Essenes (an invention of Philo of Alexandria) once again. A key graph:
Philo invented the Essenes as
an ideal society and Josephus was much influenced by him, and the fact that no
Jewish source written in Hebrew or Aramaic before or after the Common Era knows
anything about a group called Essenes or mentions any group known as celibates
denouncing private property and family life raises severe questions about their
historical existence in the Land of Israel.
There are a number of problems with Elior’s déclassement
of non-Hebrew and non-Aramaic Jewish sources of the Greco-Roman period and her
apparent conviction that rabbinic tradition of the same period preserves reliable
information about intramural divisions within Second Temple Judaism. In
previous posts, I touched on some of the problems with Elior’s basic historiographical
assumptions (here,
here,
here,
and here).
I am however not surprised that Elior finds it hard to accept that ascetic
ideals, inclusive of being a eunuch for the kingdom of heaven and the
renunciation of private property, were current in Second Temple Judaism. It is standard
claptrap that the ideals of continence and celibacy and other forms of asceticism never penetrated Judaism of
the Greco-Roman period, either before or after the destruction of the temple, or
if they did, only within that breakaway Jewish sect, Christianity, centuries
after it cut the cord. To be sure, the existence of Jewish sects like the
Essenes and the Therapeutae never has been compatible with that narrative. Elior
is just being consistent when she accuses Philo and Josephus of rank invention
on this score.
In that sense, her thesis is an opportunity in disguise. What would happen
if the full range of Judaisms from 500 bce
to 500 ce attested in the available
sources were written up as if they were all part of a single tapestry? It would
then seem as if the Judaism of the Talmuds and midrashic literature were but
one variety of Judaism among many that flourished in antiquity. Against the
backdrop of attested acculturation over a long duration, and given all the
other variations and plurality of expressions, it would then seem surprising if
ascetic ideals had not penetrated Judaism and given rise to all-male
celibate communities.
Discussions of asceticism and monasticism in the manuals and encyclopedias almost always overlook scads of evidence. Few seem inclined to connect the dots as it were, beginning with the evidence for all-male celibate Jewish communities and individual ascetics in the Second Temple period, inclusive of a figure like John the Baptist, the reality to which texts like Matthew 19:12 and Revelation 14:4-5 seem to allude, the kind of life Jesus lived, and the attestation of ascetic ideals, including celibacy and virginity, in Syriac Christianity, possibly ab initio (this article by Susan Ashbrook Harvey introduces the topic from one angle, and provides further bibliography), not to mention the apparent singlehood of the wandering prophets in the Didache. It's about time someone wrote a comprehensive history of asceticism in both East and West beginning as early as the evidence allows and going right up through the 4th or 5th centuries of this era.
UPDATE: a rejoinder to Elior from Vermes here.
If I may reply to Prof. Elior: How many Second Temple Period Hebrew manuscripts include Perushim and Zaddukim? Fewer than include the self-designation 'Osei-haTorah? Prof. Elior asserts "the absence of the Essenes from the Hebrew language" and asserts that that self-designation is "too general and not specific enough to denote a particular group"--and yet, there it is! Defying Prof. Elior's declaration that it does not exist. They knew not her rules. No Hebrew speakers used it? The Qumranites did. Dozens of later scholars did (E.g., Isaak Jost writing in Israelitische Annalen didn't know Hebrew?). That 'osey hatorah and ma'ase hatorah are unique to Qumran in extant ancient Hebrew mss makes these all the more characteristic in self-designating Essenes. Similarly, Essenes existed, though Prof. Elior has established that she would prefer that it were not so. Wanting them to go away may not help historians explain the evidence. Common words have been used for many religious designations; e.g., Amoraim, Tannaim, Haredim, Karaites, Gnostics, Society of Friends, Taoists, Gnostics, Kabbalists, Muslims, Methodists, Cathari... The Essene Teacher was a priest; not all priests were Sadducees; no either/or.
Elior first calls Josephus unreliable, then uses absences in Josephus as if proof, as if his Greek readers wanted complicated calendar discussion. Those early scholars got the Essene identity right--of some of the scrolls; they didn't claim Essenes composed all of them. But the Essene "Wicked Priest" was Alexander Jannaeus, rather than the earlier Jonathan that Prof. Vermes proposed. The Essene Teacher was a priest; not all priests were Sadducees. For evidence of that see http://www.duke.edu/~goranson/jannaeus.pdf
Stephen Goranson
http://www.duke.edu/~goranson
Posted by: Stephen Goranson | May 03, 2009 at 02:56 AM
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Posted by: dissertation writing help | July 27, 2009 at 06:28 AM
The Essenes have been under attack from two sides, each side with its own axe to grind. It suits them both to minimise Essenism - Elior is just the ultimate way of minimising them.
Christians have wished to suppress the influence Essenism had on Christian origins, and having most ancient mss in their libraries for so many centuries they have had ample opportunity. Fortunately citations betray some of this Christian activity, and so reveal the implicit motivation, and we can see how Josephus has been corrupted to project the Essenes in a way that suits Christian 'history'.
From the other side comes a Jewish tendency to see and discuss the entire Tanakh in Pharisaic terms. Great scholars such as Fitzmyer have been infuriated by the way that many Talmudic scholars seem to be in denial about the sectarian nature of second temple Judaism. Hyam Maccoby for example managed to write a book explaining how Christianity arose, where all the main characters are Pharisees, including Jesus, but not Paul - his choice as the real originator. Maccoby mentions the Essenes just once - but only to invoke their support against the Sadducees. From Elior's extreme position one could not tell that the Zadokite Fragments were published in 1910, and that Schechter identified the Essenes as the authors at that time.
Posted by: Sid Green | February 21, 2012 at 06:10 AM