Archaeologica.org

This all happens close enough to the Roman period that I don't doubt that Roman and certainly Greek leaders knew about the subterfuge.

And....why would they care? Roman interest in the area was clear enough. They wanted QUIET while they kept their armies to the East to keep an eye over the traditional invasion routes from Mesopotamia. Oh, and they enjoyed meddling in Armenian affairs, too.

I've been thinking on that a lot Min. I think the Romans saw it for what it was, a tool for manipulating the people in Judea. They just weren't quite sure whether it was a tool they could use by placating the Jews or whether they should just scrap it. For the most part it was a nuisance because it was written to exclude foreign Kings (except Cyrus ).

Certainly Constantine realized its potential as Christianity, a way to create rabid followers with himself as the leader but he was too early to really get the benefit. It was really the beginning of the evolution of the Dark Age concept of 'Divine Rule' which gave absolute authority of God to a King supposedly called by God. That's the big attraction for political leaders with Literalist Christianity, it justifies anything the King wants and demands absolute unquestioning obedience. What King wouldn't want that?

Of course it is dangerous to generalize over long periods of time but from Pompey and Scaurus in 63 BC naming Antipater as governor to Herod Agrippa II who didn't die until about 100 AD the Romans continually tried to divest themselves of the place by trotting out some local to rule as a puppet king.

Augustus and Tiberius granted concessions and with the praefect in Caesaria and the Sanheddrin in Jerusalem there was a degree of home rule even when the region was nominally under direct Roman rule.

Still, Caligula and Claudius promoted their boyhood friend, Herod Agrippa, to be king and actually handed him a kingdom which was larger than Herod the Great's. Caligula ordered statues of himself to be set up in the temple, an order which the governor of Syria, Petronius, delayed carrying out at the risk of his life until Caligula was assassinated. With Herod Agrippa's death in 44 the Romans did not have a ready candidate to step in and so resumed direct rule themselves with disastrous consequences. Ultimately, the provocations of Nero's governor, Gessius Florus, caused the Great Revolt, although even here Florus was more interested in robbing the temple treasury than worrying about "religion".

But these are political decisions. The only religious interference that the Romans generally attempted was to appoint the high priest. I can't see where the Romans gave a rat's ass about religion in Judaea as far as a means of control is concerned. That was more the aim of the Jewish elite which controlled the religious life of the people and used it to maintain their own perks. If the Romans disliked the actions of a high priest, they removed him. If the people got out of line, Roman steel usually brought them to their senses....or killed them...either way would have been fine with the Romans.

Of course, there is Joseph Atwill's theory!

http://www.caesarsmessiah.com/summary.html

Nice link Min. I hadn't seen that particular one before but the basic theory has been around for a while. I've seen theories that even have the gospels written variously under the reigns of Trajan, Hadrian, Vespasion etc, all plausible given the lack of concrete evidence.

We aren't really disagreeing so much here. The problem the Romans had was that they knew what was going on but couldn't figure out how to deal with it. All they really wanted was for Judea to accept its status as a Roman province and quit rebelling but by then the Jews had bought into the whole kingdom of God nonsense.

Minimalist wrote:
Of course, there is Joseph Atwill's theory!

http://www.caesarsmessiah.com/summary.html

A non-mystic and completely political allegory!

That's interesting and entirely plausible, given that, in those days, people were much more familiar with allegory and would know how to create it for their own ends.

Like having a nice but put upon Pontius Pilate, when we all know he was an absolute tyrant. And blaming the Jews for the death of Jesus... hmmm... I'm going to have to give this some more thought.

Good find Min!

I haven't read Caesar's Messiah. One of these days.

This, however,

To replace the Torah, then, the Romans created a literary equivalent, the gospel of Matthew (and shortly thereafter the Hellenistic and Roman versions known as Luke and Mark).

is based on old scholarship whereas now Mark is generally considered to be first and Luke and Matthew copies and extensions of it.

I kind of wonder just how "Jewish" the themes were. Our first attested visions of xtianity come from Asia Minor...not Judaea. Still, one of these days I will have to see what he has to say.

Minimalist wrote:I haven't read Caesar's Messiah. One of these days.

Well with your knowledge of Roman history, and Seeker's knowledge too, you'd be the ideal team to read it and come up with a worthwhile conclusion.

Love your smilie by the way. Where do you get them from?

I think the themes are pretty much non-Jewish.


Ish - I've been re-thinking your 'Sons of Zadok = Sadducees' equation in the Dead Sea Scrolls discussion more and more. One interesting thing about Qumran is that some scholars think it may have been a sort of wealthy retreat or an individual's property. What if Qumran is where the scribes who wrote the OT actually worked on it? The Dead Sea Scrolls could well be rough drafts, including bits that were rejected, of what became the Septuagent.

My thinking here is that the whole Maccabeean paradigm was this notion of restoring the Kingdom of God which worked well with the Teacher of Righteousness theme but in the end taking on the role of Messiah was just a step they weren't willing to take.

Well, Min and I got into a bit of a disagreement about this, because I didn't feel that the extract from the article that he was citing in any way showed that the Qumran wasn't the home of the Essenes, and we also have Josephus putting them 20 miles down the road from there.

Maybe there was more to that theory or that article than was contained in the extract, but I was a bit put off by the archaeo (who's name I can't remember) saying that nothing spiritual could have gone on there because it was a place for making pottery. I couldn't understand how the two could be linked .. so I sort of gave up reading after that.

But in any case, whether they were written or just deposited at Qumran, I guess, is not so much the point as who wrote them, and why, particularly the Zadokite Document (otherwise known as the Damascus Rule). So is that the document that you wish to discuss, and are you know moving towards the possibly that the sons of Zadok could either be the Sadducees, or be associated with them?

the extract from the article that he was citing in any way showed that the Qumran wasn't the home of the Essenes

Josephus makes the point that there was not "the home" of the Essenes. He specifically commented that they were in every city in the long description in The Jewish War.

The monastic view of the Essenes comes from the earliest researcher, Roland de Vaux, who happened to be a French monk himself and seems to have attached the medieval romance-vision of monastic life to the Essenes. There is simply nothing in Josephus' description which indicates that the Essenes sat around on their asses copying documents. Josephus does say that they were into animal husbandry.

Love your smilie by the way. Where do you get them from?

I just imagine what I need and do a search on Google Images. Truly amazing the variety that smilie makers have come up with.

OK, then. So what do we know about the Essenes from Josephus:

http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/jose ... ssenes.htm

They lived in houses in cities or towns

They have no one certain city, but many of them dwell in every city; and if any of their sect come from other places, what they have lies open for them, just as if it were their own; and they go in to such as they never knew before, as if they had been ever so long acquainted with them.

They carried weapons

For which reason they carry nothing at all with them when they travel into remote parts, though still they take their weapons with them, for fear of thieves.

They worked .. he isn’t specific at what

. And as for their piety towards God, it is very extraordinary; for before sun-rising they speak not a word about profane matters, but put up certain prayers which they have received from their forefathers, as if they made a supplication for its rising. After this every one of them are sent away by their curators, to exercise some of those arts wherein they are skilled, in which they labor with great diligence till the fifth hour. After which they assemble themselves together again into one place; and when they have clothed themselves in white veils, they then bathe their bodies in cold water. And after this purification is over, they every one meet together in an apartment of their own, into which it is not permitted to any of another sect to enter; while they go, after a pure manner, into the dining-room, as into a certain holy temple, and quietly set themselves down; upon which the baker lays them loaves in order; the cook also brings a single plate of one sort of food, and sets it before every one of them; but a priest says grace before meat; and it is unlawful for any one to taste of the food before grace be said. The same priest, when he hath dined, says grace again after meat; and when they begin, and when they end, they praise God, as he that bestows their food upon them; after which they lay aside their [white] garments, and betake themselves to their labors again till the evening;

They read the ‘writings of the ancients’. So if they could read, they could almost certainly write:

They also take great pains in studying the writings of the ancients, and choose out of them what is most for the advantage of their soul and body; and they inquire after such roots and medicinal stones as may cure their distempers....

Moreover, he swears to communicate their doctrines to no one any otherwise than as he received them himself; that he will abstain from robbery, and will equally preserve the books belonging to their sect, and the names of the angels (5) [or messengers]....

2. There are also those among them who undertake to foretell things to come, (7) by reading the holy books, and using several sorts of purifications, and being perpetually conversant in the discourses of the prophets; and it is but seldom that they miss in their predictions....

Their doctrine was derived from Plato

For their doctrine is this: That bodies are corruptible, and that the matter they are made of is not permanent; but that the souls are immortal, and continue for ever; and that they come out of the most subtile air, and are united to their bodies as to prisons, into which they are drawn by a certain natural enticement; but that when they are set free from the bonds of the flesh.

They then, as released from a long bondage, rejoice and mount upward. And this is like the opinions of the Greeks, that good souls have their habitations beyond the ocean, in a region that is neither oppressed with storms of rain or snow, or with intense heat, but that this place is such as is refreshed by the gentle breathing of a west wind, that is perpetually blowing from the ocean; while they allot to bad souls a dark and tempestuous den, full of never-ceasing punishments.

And indeed the Greeks seem to me to have followed the same notion, when they allot the islands of the blessed to their brave men, whom they call heroes and demi-gods; and to the souls of the wicked, the region of the ungodly, in Hades, where their fables relate that certain persons, such as Sisyphus, and Tantalus, and Ixion, and Tityus, are punished; which is built on this first supposition, that souls are immortal; and thence are those exhortations to virtue and dehortations from wickedness collected; whereby good men are bettered in the conduct of their life by the hope they have of reward after their death; and whereby the vehement inclinations of bad men to vice are restrained, by the fear and expectation they are in, that although they should lie concealed in this life, they should suffer immortal punishment after their death.

These are the Divine doctrines of the Essenes (6) about the soul, which lay an unavoidable bait for such as have once had a taste of their philosophy.

Also - Pliny the Elder, in his Natural History, locates some Essenes in the town of Ein Gedi on the north-western shore of the Dead Sea, near to where the scrolls were found.

Ishtar wrote:Well, Min and I got into a bit of a disagreement about this, because I didn't feel that the extract from the article that he was citing in any way showed that the Qumran wasn't the home of the Essenes, and we also have Josephus putting them 20 miles down the road from there.

Maybe there was more to that theory or that article than was contained in the extract, but I was a bit put off by the archaeo (who's name I can't remember) saying that nothing spiritual could have gone on there because it was a place for making pottery. I couldn't understand how the two could be linked .. so I sort of gave up reading after that.

But in any case, whether they were written or just deposited at Qumran, I guess, is not so much the point as who wrote them, and why, particularly the Zadokite Document (otherwise known as the Damascus Rule). So is that the document that you wish to discuss, and are you know moving towards the possibly that the sons of Zadok could either be the Sadducees, or be associated with them?

What I'm suggesting is that the Essenes weren't involved at all. The Sadducees were a kind of revolutionary party either created by the Maccabees or perhaps just a ruling elite and were primarily writing to create a Jewish bible that justified the Sadducees as righteous leaders.

The problem they would have run into is that the Pharisees were still too authoritative over doctrinal matters to completely push aside so the Zadokite documents stayed out of the OT. i still think that the Essenes Zealots etc more likely grew out of the Pharisee side of the equation. They were disaffected minority groups while the Sadducees were quite happy with the status quo what with them having all the money and being in charge.

In Antiquities, Book XVIII, Chapter 5, 1 Josephus says:

yet is their course of life better than that of other men; and they entirely addict themselves to husbandry.

Pliny the Elder never went to Judaea and his source for his writings on the area seems to be Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa, Octavian's most trusted lieutenant. Agrippa served as governor of Syria as late as 17 BC and died in 12 BC. So, Pliny's data about the Essenes was somewhat dated as compared to Josephus who was living with them in the first century AD.

That also means that Agrippa saw fit to mention them which indicates, at the very least, that the Essenes had some sort of noticeable presence in the first century BC. Note that no Greco-Roman or Jewish writer in the first centuries AD or BC mentions any "christians."