Rachel Elior on the Essenes that never existed
What a few weeks it has been for the study of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Scholarship suggesting the existence of the Essenes, a religious Jewish group that lived in the Judea before the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, is wrong, according to Prof. Rachel Elior, whose study on the subject will be released soon.
Elior blasts the predominant opinion of Dead Sea Scrolls scholars that the Essenes had written the scrolls in Qumran, claiming instead that they were written by ousted Temple priests in Jerusalem.
“Sixty years of research have been wasted trying to find the Essenes in the scrolls. But they didn’t exist, they were invented by [Jewish-Roman historian] Josephus. It’s a history of errors which is simply nonsense,” she said.
See here for the full article. A few months ago I had Shabbat lunch at a friend’s house and Prof. Elior was also a guest. Most of the conversation was about the controversy surrounding the Gabriel Vision text, yet had I known I would have steered the discussion to the Essenes and the Dead Sea Scrolls. It seems like Prof. Elior has presented a version of this theory before in her book The Three Temples. Also see here.
Update: See these comments at Paleojudaica.
Update II: Jim West has posted a response by Rachel Elior to criticism of her theory.
Update III: Time magazine reports on Elior’s theory. She answers some of her critics.
But Elior claims says these ancient historians, namely Philo and Pliny the Elder, either borrowed from each other or retailed second-hand stories as fact. “Pliny the Elder describes the Essenes as ‘choosing the company of date palms’ beside the Dead Sea. We know Pliny was a great reader, but he probably never visited Israel,” she says.
Elior is braced for more criticism of her theory. “Usually my opponents have only read Josephus and the other classical references to the Essenes,” she says. “They should read the Dead Sea Scrolls — all 39 volumes. The proof is there.”
March 12th, 2009 at 11:28 pm
That just goes to show that before you have Shabbat lunch you should do a complete google search on all the guests at the lunch ( but do the serach before Shabbat) Harry
March 13th, 2009 at 2:49 am
I do not know what the bruhaha is. L. Ginsberg wrote a book identifying them as Saducees years ago. Y. Sussman has been saying for years that they were written by Saducees. A. Goldberg as well has identified the scrolls as written by Saducees. This idea has been floating around the HU Talmud dept. for years. In all the courses where these texts were actually studies, thus has been the conclusion. It is not a hidush.
March 13th, 2009 at 5:33 am
I do not think that the hiddush is the Sadducean connection, Lawrence Schiffman has also said that, but I am not aware of anyone else who claims that the Essenes were a figment of Josephus’s imagination.
March 14th, 2009 at 8:50 am
Pliny wrote about a Jewish group called (something like) “The Essenes”, so to that extent Josephus probably wasn’t making them up. None the less, it’s hard to read his account without feeling that he worked hard to portray himself as an authority on everything Jewish. His audience had heard of the hereditary Jewish priests – why, Josephus was one of those. They knew of the Jewish rebellion – General Josephus was here to answer questions. And as for this mystical sect, the Essenes, described by Pliny – Josephus just happened to be one of the few initiates into their mysteries! The passage (in his Life, para 2) where he describes this is a bit of an eye-opener: he was “initiated” into all three groups over a period of three years, INCLUDING THREE YEARS AS AN ESSENE. Yes. Right.
Now, this doesn’t mean that the Scrolls were *not* written by some esoteric group of hermits. You may call them Essenes or what you will. It just means that the only significant anti-Pharisaical religious group we know of is the Sadducees. And the scrolls are pretty consistent with what we know of their doctrines, and – a point I’ve never seen anyone else make – we have never seen any other texts that can plausibly be described as Sadducean. But Sadducean texts must have been out there, because you don’t have a Jewish religious group without texts, even if it’s just their own version of the Tanach. So why not say that this is a Sadducean library or collection of libraries? Because of three doubtful things: that Qumran was a Jewish monastery, and that the monastics were Essenes, and that the monastics wrote or collected the Scrolls. But if any of these things is false then we have no prima facie reason to think of the Scrolls as Essene, and so why not suppose that they are Sadducean?
March 15th, 2009 at 9:18 am
What is Rachel Elior’s specialty? She has written books on chassidus also. Is she an expert in chassidus, Kabbala and the history of groups of bayis sheini?
March 15th, 2009 at 9:58 am
She has also written about early Jewish mysticism and Heichalot literature, especially her book The Three Temples: On the Emergence of Jewish Mysticism.
March 15th, 2009 at 1:27 pm
Prof. Elior is a leading scholar on various periods of Jewish Mysticism. Her book The Mystical Origins of Hasidism is the best book on Hasidism known to me. Her book Jewish Mysticism is the most isightful discussion on this issue that I have read and her work on early Jewish mysticism is the most original discussion that offers an explanation to the chariot tradition and its priestly context. See in The Cambridge History of Judaism vol .4 her article on Early forms of Jewish Mysticism.
I do not know about the Essenes but it seems that the texts of the scrolls are saturated with priestly issues and the authors do call themselves the priests children of Zadok, so Saducees is much more reasonable than Essenes.
March 16th, 2009 at 7:29 am
So, Samson the Saducee Strangler came from Qumran? Works for me.
March 17th, 2009 at 10:49 pm
The only thing I don’t understand is that I have read the community rule, part of the dead sea scrolls. This seems to indicate that there was a sect of jews that were neither the pharisees nor the sedducees. It writes out a guideline for how the group is to conduct itself. It seems like there was no cohabitation allowed. There are several instances in this scroll that do not follow the pharisees or sedducees way of life. Who then were these people? It makes sense that they were essenes. Especially since josephus’ account of the essenes fits the description given in the community rule scroll of the dead sea scrolls.
March 19th, 2009 at 4:10 am
Re: The Gabriel’s Vision text. As you know, Prof. israel Knohl has expounded on that a great deal. Find some of his commentary on the Shalom Hartman Institute website, plus, his exclusive English-language translation of the stone’s text.
February 24th, 2010 at 2:12 pm
The writers of the scrolls certainly were a disenfranchised bunch-maybe Sadducees. But Josephus would have to have a really good reason to invent the Essenes.