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i did a search on the essenes just to get a feel for what information is out there and how they are viewed, though i haven't read them all or even all of the main ones yet here are a couple links to get an idea of who they were:It would be a blow to the idea of the Essenes
And the Essenes are a group that literally abandoned Jerusalem, it seems, in protest... against the way the Temple was being run.
Our explicit sources contain very little information of a historical nature. The Qumran documents are full of historical allusions, but they are notoriously ambiguous. Moreover, the history of the Qumran community may not accurately reflect the history of Essenism as a whole. By using a combination of sources, however, scholars have developed the following tentative outline of Essene history. The Essenes seem to have arisen after the Maccabean revolt (ca. 167-160 B.C.). Sometime between 152 and 110 B.C. at least some of the Essenes, perhaps only the leaders, retreated to Qumran, on the shores of the Dead Sea. There they stayed until the Parthian invasion of 40 B.C. or the earthquake of 31 B.C. forced them to leave. At that time they settled in the regions around Jerusalem. Soon after Herod the Great's death (4 B.C.) at least some of the Essenes returned to Qumran. Some seventy years later Essenes were involved in the revolt against the Romans. The survival and persistence of the Essenes as a separate group after A.D. 70 is still debated. Many scholars have found traces of Essenism within such later sects as the Ebionites, the Mandaeans, and the Karaites.
Also still undecided is the importance and influence of Essenism within pre-A.D. 70 Judaism and early Christianity. It has often been dismissed as a peripheral Jewish sect or hailed as the very seedbed of the Christian faith. Both of these positions are too extreme. It is more likely that the Essenes were one expression of a widespread pietistic reaction to the pragmatic and tepid spirit of the official Judaism. From the ranks of such a reaction the early church would have drawn heavily.
archaeologist wrote:getting back to your link, where do they no suppose the location to be for the essenes to have copied the scrolls? if this pottery factory was not the place, they must have thought of some replacement area.
Dr. Golb said that, of course, Qumran could have been both a monastery and a pottery factory. Yet, he added: “There is not an iota of evidence that it was a monastery. We have come to see it as a secular site, not one of pronounced religious orientation.”
For years, Dr. Golb has argued that the multiplicity of Jewish religious ideas and practices recorded in the scrolls made it unlikely that they were the work of a single sect like the Essenes. He noted that few of the texts dealt with specific Essene traditions. Not one, he said, espoused celibacy, which the sect practiced.
The scrolls in the caves were probably written by many different groups, Dr. Golb surmised, and were removed from Jerusalem libraries by refugees in the Roman war. Fleeing to the east, the refugees may well have deposited the scrolls for safekeeping in the many caves near Qumran.
The new research appears to support this view. As Dr. Magen noted, Qumran in those days was at a major crossroads of traffic to and from Jerusalem and along the Dead Sea. Similar scrolls have been found at Masada, the site south of Qumran of the suicidal hold-out against the Romans.
Dr. Magen also cited documents showing that refugees in another revolt against the Romans in the next century had fled to the same caves. He said they were “the last spot they could hide the scrolls before descending to the shore” of the Dead Sea.
In the magazine article, Dr. Magen said the jars in which most of the scrolls were stored had probably come from the pottery factory. If so, this may prove to be the only established connection between the Qumran settlement and the scrolls.
it is a pssibility and it may be time to re-think the essenes involvement with the scrolls and the caves. i am not married to the traditional theory and what is written n the scrolls doesn't depend so much on who copied them.Perhaps the idea of the Essene sect sitting around a monastery copying documents was a holdover from Father Roland De Vaux, who was, after all, a French priest
another possibility but i would like to see more research before i am satisfied. yes and i can understand how they decided to make thatpottery factory a mnastary since they found religious documents, so the building must be religious also.The scrolls in the caves were probably written by many different groups, Dr. Golb surmised, and were removed from Jerusalem libraries by refugees in the Roman war. Fleeing to the east, the refugees may well have deposited the scrolls for safekeeping in the many caves near Qumran.
now i will post the link to the correspondence between the director and herschel shanks, it is quite long but it raises good points for discussion.Filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici recently sent BAR editor Hershel Shanks a preview copy of his newest documentary, The Exodus Decoded (which will air on the History Channel on Sunday August 20 at 8 pm Eastern Time) and asked for his reaction. The almost 2-hour program lays out the case for the Exodus having occurred in about 1500 B.C. and identifies Ahmose as the pharaoh who at first refused to let the Israelites go, only to watch helplessly as God inflicted the Ten Plagues on Egypt. The program also claims that the Ten Plagues were a series of highly unusual but natural calamities triggered by the volcanic eruption on the Aegean island of Santorini (ancient Thera).
i hope you can give me a good synopsis since i don't have access to that channel here.I'll most definitely watch it. In fact, I'll probably record it to study at leisure.
it is possible but i am at a disadvantage as all i have are those letters and little else to go on.In any case, in spite of his intention it seems as if Jacobovici will do nothing except piss off both sides
this is the thing, i do not think that finding 'a date' would help any cause as there would have to be a lot more foundational physical proof to convince everyone that it really happened. again,, i also doubt that we will find such evidence as faith is the key here and i do not see God destroying what He says pleases Him.even IF the dating problem were solved what Jacobovici is suggesting is hardly going to help the Fundamentalist cause
I'll watch it too. Sounds interesting.
Filmmaker Simcha Jacobovici recently sent BAR editor Hershel Shanks a preview copy of his newest documentary, The Exodus Decoded (which will air on the History Channel on Sunday August 20 at 8 pm Eastern Time) and asked for his reaction. The almost 2-hour program lays out the case for the Exodus having occurred in about 1500 B.C. and identifies Ahmose as the pharaoh who at first refused to let the Israelites go, only to watch helplessly as God inflicted the Ten Plagues on Egypt. The program also claims that the Ten Plagues were a series of highly unusual but natural calamities triggered by the volcanic eruption on the Aegean island of Santorini (ancient Thera). Jacobovici traces a series of events that took place in Camaroon in the 1980s that has some uncanny resemblances to some of the Biblical plagues: a seepage of natural gas that turned a lake red, caused people to break out in boils and then killed people who were sleeping near the lake but not those who were at higher elevations. The Exodus Decoded also claims to locate Mt. Sinai and to identify how the Ark of the Covenant looked.
