E-FEATURESJosephus on the Essenes Talkback Add Your Comment
 Flavius Josephus was a first-century Jewish historian, politician and soldier whose literary works provide crucial documentation of Roman Palestine in the first century A.D. At age 29, he was appointed general of the Jewish forces in Galilee. He was eventually captured by Vespasian, who was at that time the supreme commander of the Roman army. Josephus capitulated and sought to ingratiate himself with the Roman general, eventually becoming part of the imperial court in Rome. He was an eyewitness to the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple by the Roman army in 70 A.D. He spent the rest of his life in Rome pursuing his literary career, the surviving results of which comprise a vital source of historical information. Josephus’s commentaries on the laws and characteristics of the Essene community have been invaluable to scholars studying ancient Jewish laws and customs. They have also been the subject of much debate, particularly as they pertain to the Dead Sea Scrolls. Researchers have relied heavily on Josephus’s works as they try to determine who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls, who inhabited Qumran, and whether or not the authors of the scrolls and the community at Qumran were in fact one and the same. Professor Steve Mason asserts in his article “Did the Essenes Write the Dead Sea Scrolls? Don’t Rely on Josephus” (BAR, November/December 2008) that the texts of Josephus cannot be relied upon to support the conclusion that the Essenes were the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the inhabitants of Qumran. So what does Josephus have to say about the Essene community? Following is a translated excerpt from The Jewish War, in which Josephus provides his main description of this fascinating group. This deliberately literal translation of the Greek is from Steve Mason, Flavius Josephus: translation and commentary, vol. 1b: Judean War (Leiden: Brill, 2008).  The Jewish War, Book II. Chapter 8(8.2) 119 For three forms of philosophy are pursued among the Judeans: the members of one are Pharisees, of another Sadducees, and the third [school], who certainly are reputed to cultivate seriousness, are called Essenes; although Judeans by ancestry, they are even more mutually affectionate than the others. 120 Whereas these men shun the pleasures as vice, they consider self-control and not succumbing to the passions virtue. And although there is among them a disdain for marriage, adopting the children of outsiders while they are still malleable enough for the lessons they regard them as family and instill in them their principles of character: 121 without doing away with marriage or the succession resulting from it, they nevertheless protect themselves from the wanton ways of women, having been persuaded that none of them preserves her faithfulness to one man. (8.3) 122 Since [they are] despisers of wealth—their communal stock is astonishing—, one cannot find a person among them who has more in terms of possessions. For by a law, those coming into the school must yield up their funds to the order, with the result that in all [their ranks] neither the humiliation of poverty nor the superiority of wealth is detectable, but the assets of each one have been mixed in together, as if they were brothers, to create one fund for all. 123 They consider olive oil a stain, and should anyone be accidentally smeared with it he scrubs his body, for they make it a point of honor to remain hard and dry, and to wear white always. Hand-elected are the curators of the communal affairs, and indivisible are they, each and every one, [in pursuing] their functions to the advantage of all. (8.4) 124 No one city is theirs, but they settle amply in each. And for those school-members who arrive from elsewhere, all that the community has is laid out for them in the same way as if they were their own things, and they go in and stay with those they have never even seen before as if they were the most intimate friends. 125 For this reason they make trips without carrying any baggage at all—though armed on account of the bandits. In each city a steward of the order appointed specially for the visitors is designated quartermaster for clothing and the other amenities. 126 Dress and also deportment of body: like children being educated with fear. They replace neither clothes nor footwear until the old set is ripped all over or worn through with age. 127 Among themselves, they neither shop for nor sell anything; but each one, after giving the things that he has to the one in need, takes in exchange anything useful that the other has. And even without this reciprocal giving, the transfer to them [of goods] from whomever they wish is unimpeded. (8.5) 128 Toward the Deity, at least: pious observances uniquely [expressed]. Before the sun rises, they utter nothing of the mundane things, but only certain ancestral prayers to him, as if begging him to come up. 129 After these things, they are dismissed by the curators to the various crafts that they have each come to know, and after they have worked strenuously until the fifth hour they are again assembled in one area, where they belt on linen covers and wash their bodies in frigid water. After this purification they gather in a private hall, into which none of those who hold different views may enter: now pure themselves, they approach the dining room as if it were some [kind of] sanctuary. 130 After they have seated themselves in silence, the baker serves the loaves in order, whereas the cook serves each person one dish of one food. 131 The priest offers a prayer before the food, and it is forbidden to taste anything before the prayer; when he has had his breakfast he offers another concluding prayer. While starting and also while finishing, then, they honor God as the sponsor of life. At that, laying aside their clothes as if they were holy, they apply themselves to their labors again until evening. 132 They dine in a similar way: when they have returned, they sit down with the vistors, if any happen to be present with them, and neither yelling nor disorder pollutes the house at any time, but they yield conversation to one another in order. 133 And to those from outside, the silence of those inside appears as a kind of shiver-inducing mystery. The reason for this is their continuous sobriety and the rationing of food and drink among them—to the point of fullness. (8.6) 134 As for other areas: although there is nothing that they do without the curators’ having ordered it, these two things are matters of personal prerogative among them: [rendering] assistance and mercy. For helping those who are worthy, whenever they might need it, and also extending food to those who are in want are indeed left up to the individual; but in the case of the relatives, such distribution is not allowed to be done without [permission from] the managers. 135 Of anger, just controllers; as for temper, able to contain it; of fidelity, masters; of peace, servants. And whereas everything spoken by them is more forceful than an oath, swearing itself they avoid, considering it worse than the false oath; for they declare to be already degraded one who is unworthy of belief without God. 136 They are extraordinarily keen about the compositions of the ancients, selecting especially those [oriented] toward the benefit of soul and body. On the basis of these and for the treatment of diseases, roots, apotropaic materials, and the special properties of stones are investigated. (8.7) 137 To those who are eager for their school, the entry-way is not a direct one, but they prescribe a regimen for the person who remains outside for a year, giving him a little hatchet as well as the aforementioned waist-covering and white clothing. 138 Whenever he should give proof of his self-control during this period, he approaches nearer to the regimen and indeed shares in the purer waters for purification, though he is not yet received into the functions of communal life. For after this demonstration of endurance, the character is tested for two further years, and after he has thus been shown worthy he is reckoned into the group. 139 Before he may touch the communal food, however, he swears dreadful oaths to them: first, that he will observe piety toward the deity; then, that he will maintain just actions toward humanity; that he will harm no one, whether by his own deliberation or under order; that he will hate the unjust and contend together with the just; 140 that he will always maintain faithfulness to all, especially to those in control, for without God it does not fall to anyone to hold office, and that, should he hold office, he will never abuse his authority—outshining his subordinates, whether by dress or by some form of extravagant appearance; 141 always to love the truth and expose the liars; that he will keep his hands pure from theft and his soul from unholy gain; that he will neither conceal anything from the school-members nor disclose anything of theirs to others, even if one should apply force to the point of death. 142 In addition to these, he swears that he will impart the precepts to no one otherwise than as he received them, that he will keep away from banditry, and that he will preserve intact their school’s books and the names of the angels. With such oaths as these they completely secure those who join them. (8.8) 143 Those they have convicted of sufficiently serious errors they expel from the order. And the one who has been reckoned out often perishes by a most pitiable fate. For, constrained by the oaths and customs, he is unable to partake of food from others. Eating grass and in hunger, his body wastes away and perishes. 144 That is why they have actually shown mercy and taken back many in their final gasps, regarding as sufficient for their errors this ordeal to the point of death. (8.9) 145 Now with respect to trials, [they are] just and extremely precise: they render judgment after having assembled no fewer than a hundred, and something that has been determined by them is non-negotiable. There is a great reverence among them for—next to God—the name of the lawgiver, and if anyone insults him he is punished by death. 146 They make it point of honor to submit to the elders and to a majority. So if ten were seated together, one person would not speak if the nine were unwilling. 147 They guard against spitting into [their] middles or to the right side and against applying themselves to labors on the seventh days, even more than all other Judeans: for not only do they prepare their own food one day before, so that they might not kindle a fire on that day, but they do not even dare to transport a container—or go to relieve themselves. 148 On the other days they dig a hole of a foot’s depth with a trowel—this is what that small hatchet given by them to the neophytes is for—and wrapping their cloak around them completely, so as not to outrage the rays of God, they relieve themselves into it [the hole]. 149 After that, they haul back the excavated earth into the hole. (When they do this, they pick out for themselves the more deserted spots.) Even though the secretion of excrement is certainly a natural function, it is customary to wash themselves off after it as if they have become polluted. (8.10) 150 They are divided into four classes, according to their duration in the training, and the later-joiners are so inferior to the earlier-joiners that if they should touch them, the latter wash themselves off as if they have mingled with a foreigner. 151 [They are] long-lived, most of them passing 100 years—as a result, it seems to me at least, of the simplicity of their regimen and their orderliness. Despisers of terrors, triumphing over agonies by their wills, considering death—if it arrives with glory—better than deathlessness. 152 The war against the Romans proved their souls in every way: during it, while being twisted and also bent, burned and also broken, and passing through all the torture-chamber instruments, with the aim that they might insult the lawgiver or eat something not customary, they did not put up with suffering either one: not once gratifying those who were tormenting [them], or crying. 153 But smiling in their agonies and making fun of those who were inflicting the tortures, they would cheerfully dismiss their souls, [knowing] that they would get them back again. (8.11) 154 For the view has become tenaciously held among them that whereas our bodies are perishable and their matter impermanent, our souls endure forever, deathless: they get entangled, having emanated from the most refined ether, as if drawn down by a certain charm into the prisons that are bodies. 155 But when they are released from the restraints of the flesh, as if freed from a long period of slavery, then they rejoice and are carried upwards in suspension. For the good, on the one hand, sharing the view of the sons of Greece they portray the lifestyle reserved beyond Oceanus and a place burdened by neither rain nor snow nor heat, but which a continually blowing mild west wind from Oceanus refreshes. For the base, on the other hand, they separate off a murky, stormy recess filled with unending retributions. 156 It was according to the same notion that the Greeks appear to me to have laid on the Islands of the Blessed for their most courageous men, whom they call heroes and demi-gods, and for the souls of the worthless the region of the impious in Hades, in which connection they tell tales about the punishments of certain men—Sisyphuses and Tantaluses, Ixions and Tityuses—establishing in the first place the [notion of] eternal souls and, on that basis, persuasion toward virtue and dissuasion from vice. 157 For the good become even better in the hope of a reward also after death, whereas the impulses of the bad are impeded by anxiety, as they expect that even if they escape detection while living, after their demise they will be subject to deathless retribution. 158 These matters, then, the Essenes theologize with respect to the soul, laying down an irresistible bait for those who have once tasted of their wisdom. (8.12) 159 There are also among them those who profess to foretell what is to come, being thoroughly trained in holy books, various purifications, and concise sayings of prophets. Rarely if ever do they fail in their predictions. (8.13) 160 There is also a different order of Essenes. Though agreeing with the others about regimen and customs and legal matters, it has separated in its opinion about marriage. For they hold that those who do not marry cut off the greatest part of life, the succession, and more: if all were to think the same way, the line would very quickly die out. 161 To be sure, testing the brides in a three-year interval, once they have been purified three times as a test of their being able to bear children, they take them in this manner; but they do not continue having intercourse with those who are pregnant, demonstrating that the need for marrying is not because of pleasure, but for children. Baths [are taken] by the women wrapping clothes around themselves, just as by the men in a waist-covering. Such are the customs of this order. Did the Essenes write the Dead Sea Scrolls? Professor Steve Mason takes at whether or not Josephus' work can support the “Essene hypothesis” in the November/December 2008 issue of BAR. Additional Reading from the BAS LibraryJosephus on Essene Poverty, sidebar to BAR What Jesus Learned from the Essenes by Magen Broshi Where Masada’s Defenders Fell, by Nachman ben-Yehuda Will the Real Josephus Please Stand Up? by Steve Mason How Reliable is Josephus? sidebar to BAR Will the Real Josephus Please Stand Up? by Steve Mason
EssenesIt is heartening to see Dr. Goranson openness to dialogue. I always have been open and remain so: I hope that it happens. And I am grateful for his recognition of my non-Essene work, which I consider of a piece with this. (This BAR essay I am not particularly proud of, but that's another story.) Only sitting down together with the text will, I suspect, sort out these issues. In the meantime, there are many fundamental misunderstandings. 1. On Edna U-M, I tried fairly to summarize her argument (on her terms) before showing why I found its final proposal of a 'default' theory untenable. It's not clear to me why if I accept some of her arguments I should accept all of them. I only mentioned her work because this article was originally written, at the editor's request, as a response to her earlier BAR article. That fell by the boards, with the editor's reconfiguration, and the engagement with her (now at the end) is a vestige. 2. Dr. Goranson is exclamation-mark indignant that I should repeat her argument about predestination when I know can't be right, because it contradicts her book, even though she wrote it in the article. Yet he has no problem charging me with her error (ignoring that I was summarizing her), when the claim plainly contradicts what's in my first book (cf. Jos. on the Pharisees, 1991). How many exclamation marks does that deserve? 3. Dr. G. continues to try reading my mind, declaring what I know but allegedly misrepresent (while wrongly accusing me of psychoanalyzing Josephus). He claims that I 'know' that Jos. used sources for the Essene passage, which might have affected his Greek. Well, I know that Jos. used sources in general, yes. I don't know that he used them for the Essene passage, though I have carefully studied every published argument for that conclusion, in several languages: I haven't been sticking my head in the sand here. But all of them fail to deal with certain literary facts in Josephus, and I find them unpersuasive (and they don't agree with each other). Whether he used a source or not, I don't know -- and nor does anyone else. I have gone through the Greek carefully, many times, translated it and written a detailed commentary. As far as I can see it is well explained by Josephus' lexicon, narrative aims. and interests, and doesn't require a source to explain it. In any case, Dr. G. misunderstands what I have tried to spell out as clearly about my criteria of interpretation. I see such texts as efforts at communication (and have written about this, his audiences, etc. at length). His audiences didn't have any sources to compare, and he doesn't direct them to any sources. Therefore, the meaning of his text for those audiences, which is what I'm trying to recover in the first instance, has nothing to do with whatever hypothesized sources he may have used. 4. Dr. G. misreads my proposal about Josephus' marrying Essenes as a claim. I'm a historian and don't make such claims. I wish people wouldn't make these assertions, since the process of history is about considering all possibilities and rationally weighing them. If I raise a new possibility and explain why, in careful engagement with other known possibilities, this one 'seems to me' to 'best explain' the evidence, why pick out one consideration out of the many that I adduce, misrepresent it as psychological -- rather than premised on the implied author of this text -- and say that this is my claim? I am not imagining Josephus' mind, but working explicitly from clues (e.g., that Essenes, whom he claims to know, irresistibly attract all those who once taste their philosophy) about the impression he wished to make on his Roman audience. Given what he will later say in Ant. 18 (absolutely no women), which happens to agree with what every other Essene description says clearly, and given the curious place of this 'endnote', which plays no role in his main presentation, some kind of explanation is needed. In spite of the impression Dr. G conveys, I carefully consider source-critical explanations and find them implausible, not out of prejudice but for good reasons. So I propose Josephus' invention of this group at this point, for momentary needs, as what seems to me the best explanation on the literary and historical levels. Josephus demonstrably invents a lot of other material ad hoc, so it shouldn't be shocking, and it would explain the problems listed. Of course, I could be wrong. That doesn't matter to me: history is about the process of understanding evidence and trying to explain it. I'm not offended by genuine disagreement, not at all. But the way to challenge me is to engage my argument and my evidence, not to misrepresent it as some whacky pontification based on reading Josephus' mind. Readers can judge for themselves, on the Orion site (search mason, essenes). 5. The fundamental difference between us may lie in Dr. G's declaration that War 2 is not the place to start. Well, it depends upon what your question is. If your question is 'Who wrote the DSS?' or 'Who lived at Qumran?' then he is certainly correct. Why on earth would you begin with Josephus? If, however, your question is 'What is Josephus' War about, and how do his Essenes in Book 2 fit into that narrative?', then War actually is the place to start. Since I defined my question quite clearly, as about Josephus' evidence and the issues I face as commentator on Josephus, I examine War 2. I don't know much, but I do know that each piece of evidence, whether material or literary, needs to be understood in situ before we go using it for historical hypotheses. In this essay I am talking only about that: understanding Josephus on his own terms, and not under the influence of the Scrolls, which would require assuming a particular conclusion. I close by restating my gratitude that Dr. G. finds some of my other work acceptable. For me, this Essene thing is a tiny issue, only one example of precisely the same method I follow elsewhere, in dealing with the historical Pharisees, Pilate, Cestius Gallus, or anything else. There is a method here, and I see no way of compromising it, even at the request of colleagues who happen to hold particular views on the Qumran-Essene connection. • • • • • • • What do personal attacks have to do with EssenesStephen Goranson's comment below contains, in part, a personal attack on someone who would appear to be a member of Norman Golb's family. Readers can judge for themselves whether or not the posting of such a remark on a BAR forum reveals anything about the nature of current efforts to defend the Qumran-Essene theory. My own opinion is that the level of such discourse is emotional rather than scientific and betrays a lack of respect for ordinary people who simply want to discuss the scrolls. As for the Qumran-Essene issue, the "history of scholarship" is not necessarily the same as current scholarship. The statement I quoted last week (from a recent article in Le Monde) is evidence that people have been changing their minds. Additional evidence is the statement by Lloyd Bailey, professor emeritus of Hebrew Bible at Duke University: "The 'Essene Origin' theory of the Scrolls has largely been discredited and rejected." http://zionismandisrael.wordpress.com/2008/06/29/dead-sea-scrolls-exhibit/ I don't think scholars of Lloyd Bailey's stature make statements of the sort lightly, and they bluntly contradict the notion of any current Qumran-Essene hegemony. • • • • • • • EssenesThere is plenty of evidence that the majority of Dead Sea Scroll scholars associate the Essenes, the Qumran scroll collection, and Khirbet Qumran. Though Mason and others disagree, it is a simple fact of the history of scholarship, "J. Friedman," who sounds like Raphael Haim Golb, despite all of your aliases' denials. For some evidence, see http://www.duke.edu/~goranson and bibliography there • • • • • • • "Essenes"There is simply no evidence for Dr. Mason's declaration, in the first sentence of his article, that the "vast majority" of DSS scholars are today "committed to the Essene hypothesis." I believe, on the contrary, that it's quite clear that the vast majority of scholars are now reserving their judgment on this controversial matter. See, for example, the recent article in Le Monde (link below) on the new French translation of the scrolls; the article concludes with the sentence: ”The ties between the Essenes … and Qumran have now been reduced to nothing, just as the major American historian and paleographer Norman Golb had already written.” http://www.lemonde.fr/culture/article/2008/11/05/les-manuscrits-de-la-mer-morte-viennent-d-etre-traduits-en-francais_1115194_3246.html • • • • • • • Maso, Josephus, EssenesIf you, Prof. Mason, say you accept all Edna U-M's claimed differences between Essenes and Qumranites--including on predestination that you know to be false (!) from Josephus (!) [and also contradicts her book on this, repeatedly (is it an editing error?)]--and you do not accept any of her claimed Essene-Qumran links, well, no wonder you get the conclusion you reached. Josephus War 2 is not the place to start [bracketing off and ignoring other evidence], but with earlier writing on Essenes. I said you wrote **as if** (with the emphasis) Josephus had no sources. Of course you know he did, and maybe help with his Greek too, but go on anyway *as if* no; hence faulty conclusions. You claim not to deal with psychology of J but claim he completely made up married Essenes, desiring to be considered by his readers as worthy to be one; sure sounds like psychology, and unreliable. More later if dialogue seems possible. On various subjects other than Essenes I appreciate your research. Stephen Goranson http:www.duke.edu/~goranson • • • • • • • Josephus on EssenesI consider Steve Mason's article on Josephus's treatment of the Essenes and its bearing on the question of the identification of Qumranites as Essenes to be an excellent introduction to the subject. Considering only Josephus's description of the Essenes, it appears that a definite case can be made for the notion that the Qumranites represented a separate, but related, branch of the sect, differing from the more widespread, and perhaps more numerous, religious group described by Josephus. Josephus himself states that the Essenes he delineates were divided into celibate and non-celibate branches--why not also a cenobitic branch with a more entrenched hierarchy (and considerably more communal wealth), a peripatetic branch with communities distributed throughout the cities and towns of Judea, and perhaps even an anchorite branch living in more extreme isolation and simplicity, as suggested by the huts found above (in altitude) Ein Gedi. This last group may not have really been poor, since they may have manufactured perfumes that would have commanded a high price, but they apparently didn't spend their wealth on themselves, even communally. Their reported refusal to join in the defense of Masada against the Romans and their subsequent slaughter by the Zealots led to the historic condemnation of that defense by Rabbinic Judaism. Incidentally, I find Josephus's mention that, except for their initiation oaths, the Essenes did not swear oaths to be reminiscent of the Nazarenes' (another group not specifically mentioned by Josephus) attribution to their founder Yeshua of the command not to use oaths, at least in ordinary speech. Likewise, his sending his followers out to preach and heal without purse or spare coat also finds echo in Josephus's statement that the Essenes travelled from place to place without baggage. That some of Yeshua's followers, specifically the Eliezar family of Bethany (West), included three apparently unmarried adults also suggests that many beliefs and practices attributed to the Essenes were shared by other contemporary sectarian groups in Judea. • • • • • • • JosephusWhat are we to believe? • • • • • • • Mason, Josephus, EssenesStephen Goranson must think highly of his Amazon review of Dr. Zuleika Rodgers' book (which turns out to deal exclusively with one of its eighteen essays -- mine), for him to share it again with BAR's readers, though the article that ostensibly prompted it here has an entirely different purpose and argument, notwithstanding some overlaps. When I saw the one on Amazon.com I sighed: Why use that 'reader review' venue offered by a trade publisher, normally for brief appraisals of a book, at the point of purchase, to savage one essay alone at such length? If you disagree, why not pursue the normal avenues of scholarly engagement and open discussion? Why all the declarations about falsehood, absurdity, and the like? The 'review', which does not trouble to summarize even a bit of my argument in context, was so egregious that I didn't bother replying on Amazon. Since Dr. Goranson perpetuates it here, incredibly, I guess that I should say something. Much of what he declares so passionately he must know to be wrong, if he has read the essay he claims to be reviewing (in the Rodgers book). Example 1: He suggests that I am denying that Josephus used sources ('as if Josephus did not use sources'). How do I think Josephus learned about events in 104 BCE? Do I think he was there? I must be quite the dummy, huh? But this is a misdirected charge. Of course Josephus used sources for matters beyond his ken, including much of what is in the Judaean War. I stress the point at every opportunity when I deal with Josephus' sources at any length (e.g., in my 1991 book on the Pharisees, where there are similar issues, in perhaps a dozen or fifteen other publications, including an online essay that Dr G once responded to). to begin with, the BIble was a source for about a third of his oeuvre (Ant. 1-11). But so what? Does that mean we can skip that third because Josephus 'got it from the Bible'? Meticulous scholarship has shown that Josephus is responsible for tiny nuances of his chosen language in Ant. 1-11, even though of course he used sources. He wasn't a slavish copyist; he was, like all self-respecing ancient authors, normally in control of his narrative. (Tacitus used sources too. Does this mean that we can recover them by a sort of literary Heimlich manoeuvre?). Figuring out exactly where and especially how he used sources, and whether sources determined his choices of what to include, its structure, and its language, can only be settled by careful examination and argumentation of particular cases, none of which Dr. Goranson mentions here. I have done this kind of work for both the Pharisee passages and War 2 (2008 commentary), including the Essene passage. I remain entirely open-minded about any specific case, as I say at every opportunity. As this article tries to say, history is about arguments and evidence, not about particular conclusions, which come and go. But individual passages must be carefully examined and not assumed to come undigested from a source, to fit some theory. Anyway, my goal in studying Josephus (as I say repeatedly) is not to figure out what was in his head (e.g., 'What should I do with this source?') but to understand his writings as compositions written in Rome after 70, to figure out how his first audiences would have interpreted them. They had no idea about his sources, and Josephus makes just this point repeatedly: he writes to bring the biblical story, for example, to those who don't have the Bible. Dr. G. doesn't seem to see any of this, though I have written about it at great length -- some might say ad nauseam. Example 2. Dr. Goranson insists that my comparison of the Essenes in Josephus' War with Spartans (in the Rodgers book) should be 'embarrassed' by the fact that Spartans were warriors whereas Josephus' Essenes sought peace. Well, it would be embarrassing if I had somehow missed the point about Spartan militarism and hadn't treated the matter so thoroughly (e.g., p. 226 in the book, "Cynics, Stoics... found in the Spartiates' rigorous training . . . stripped of objectionably bellicose traits... the realization of their own philosophical aspirations" (with documentation). Philosophers and historians from Plato and Aristotle to Polybius and Josephus and Plutarch praised the Spartan virtues, while insisting that their militarism was wrong. I'm not making this up. There's nothing to disagree about here. Josephus himself makes the Spartans, explicitly, the benchmark for a praiseworthy national character and constitution ("Everyone eulogizes the Spartans," he says, but we Judaeans are far superior.) The clustered language of War's Essene passage happens to have its closest parallels in many cases to portraits of the Spartans, in Xenophon and Plutarch. That's a fact, which I can't change: a three-page table at the end of the table in Rodgers illustrates the point. I've done the work. It's about evidence and arguments. If I'm wrong, someone can show me where, and I will happily admit it. Third, Dr. Goranson has me practising 'psychoanalysis by concordance'. Anyone who has read my work will know that a distinction I consistently make is between the literary work of Josephus as we have it and the historical man, about whom we know nothing directly. I reject, and always have done, any attempt at psychoanalysis. My work is about -- I say this so often, I'm not sure how it could be missed (pp. 222-38 set the stage in the Rodgers book) -- how Josephus' (first of all Roman) audience would have understood the text that we have. I do not tie any of this to anything in Josephus' presumed mental state. There is, to be sure, a long tradition in Josephus studies of treating him as one sort of neurotic or another, feeling rotten for having allegedly betrayed his people. I have never made any claim to know anything about his mind. As a historian, I don't think we can know anything about his mind, and I don't venture there. We have only the texts and what they imply, in the most general way, about the situation, (literary) aims, and abilities of the person who wrote them -- not about his psychology. Concordances are useful things, for Tacitus, Polybius, Plato, and Josephus. There is much more confusion and obfuscation in Dr. Goranson's hit-and-run 'review' on Amazon. I'll take only one more point, which happens to be relevant to the present BAR article. I claim in the longer essay that in the 1950s, when the Qumran-Essene hypothesis was established, there were no 'interpretations' of Josephus' works as wholes ('his oeuvre'), or of his Essenes within those works, which the Qumran-Essene hypothesis could have been called upon to explain at the time. This happens to be true. I am pretty familiar with the main studies that made the Q-E case in the 1950s, and they do not -- none of them, ever -- try to explain the hypothesis in terms of what Josephus' narrative in War does with the Essenes, how the group contributes to his literary aims, structures, themes, and language. Dr. Goranson responds that this is 'Again, utterly false' and 'absurdly misleading'. He justifies his confident dismissal by reference to a German survey of "Essenes in the scholarly discussion" (1960) by Siegried Wagner, presumably intending to show that Josephus' Essene passages had in fact been much discussed since the 18th century. But to represent me as saying that Josephus' Essenes hadn't *been discussed* before the 1950s is an obviously implausible gambit. One alternative is to read what I actually wrote, in its context. As both the footnote to that sentence and the immediately following sentence make clear, by 'interpretations' I was referring readings of Josephus' works as wholes ("their structures, major and minor themes, language, and rhetorical devices"). It's not news to people who work in the field that Josephus' works were not 'interpreted' as whole compositions much before the 1980s; efforts were beginning in the 1970s (Attridge, Lindner), and those scholars knew they were pioneers. So here's a challenge to Dr. Goranson: find me a single published study from the 1950s or earlier that (a) presents a structural and thematic analysis of Josephus' War and (b) interprets his portrait of the Essenes within that framework (focusing on that structure, his language, and his rhetoric). Just a single one. Wagner's book does nothing of the sort. If you cannot find one, then retract your verdict on the falsity and absurdity of my statement. Of most areas of life, I have little knowledge. Here, I happen to know what I'm talking about, and others who know the field seem to understand me without difficulty. If Dr. Goranson is truly interested in a scholarly conversation, rather than this hit-and-run stuff, I hope that it will not be unduly difficult to follow my arguments and respond to them fairly, with some attention to the structure and content of my essays. Further, I offer as much time for direct conversation as is mutually feasible, at a conference or elsewhere, for him to present his own reading of Josephus' Essenes, Josephus' sources, and whatever else he would like to discuss, to show me my absurd errors. No doubt I have committed some absurd errors, but they are not the ones that Dr. Goranson conjures up. • • • • • • • Scholastic HubrisI'm always stunned by modern scholars dismissing the testimony of the ancients, writing off the evidence as "tendentious" and "suspect". No doubt Josephus did embellish and make palatable the details for his Greco-Roman readers - for example talking about immortality of the soul, rather than somatic regeneration, as the Essene after-life - but when modern scholars say the inconvenient testimony of the ancients is too biassed or unreliable, I really wonder why? Why should we accept that scholar's opinion more than ancient testimony? Surely the bias and unreliability is more likely at the scholarly end of the equation... first rule of any dubious argument is to deny the evidence that disagrees with one's thesis. • • • • • • • Josephus and the EssenesI've always wondered if Josephus were all that reliable when it came to Essenes. Sometimes he seems to say one thing and then turns around and says just the opposite. For example, he makes such a point of telling his readers that Essenes don't believe in oaths at all, ever, never, no, no, they simply don't swear, nonsense, heavens to Betsy, and all that. Then, the next thing you know, they're all taking solemn oaths that they'll do thus and so. Hm. Did I miss something? So I go back and reread the passages, but they're as contradictory as before. Well, did the Essenes take oaths and swear thus and so or not? Yes and no, apparently. It wasn't done but then again it was. Same with marriage. They absolutely did not trust women who were all as evil and nasty and icky as Eve and they were positively squeamish on the subject, so they were all celibate forever and ever. Except that some weren't. They got married and had kids. Purely for practical reasons. Of course, nobody had any pleasure along the way, that wouldn't be sporting! Yes, well, one begins to wonder if Josephus had any idea what Essenes were on about or not! Or was he just making stuff up to fill out his nifty book? • • • • • • • Mason on Josephus on EssenesSteve Mason's article on Josephus and Essenes repeats many claims made in his earlier publication in Making History, ed. Zuleika Rodgers. Here's may amazon review: This collection of essays with wide-ranging approaches to Josephus and history is well edited by Zuleika Rodgers. I recommend this to whichever history research libraries can afford it. Here I comment merely on Steve Mason's "Essenes and Lurking Spartans in Josephus' _Judean War_: From Story to History." In a previous article ("What Josephus Says about the Essenes in his _Judean War_," available online) Mason made some valid criticisms of the source criticism Bergmeier offered on Josephus. And he rightly noted that "John the Essene" is a misreading--there was no warrior by that name. But, in this new article, as in the older one, Mason again unaccountably underestimates the relevance of sources in the accounts on Essenes in Josephus. Evidently, sources cramp his style--by his, I mean Mason's. Need he be reminded that Josephus, born c. 37 CE, could not write about, say, Judah the Essene, fl. 104 BCE, without a source? Again Mason subjects Josephus to psychoanalysis by concordance, _as if_ Josephus did not use sources. Mason practically ignores Philo, who wrote on Essenes before Josephus. Josephus and Philo share a source, as seen, e.g., in their joint estimate that Essenes numbered "over 4000" (Philo also writes "myriads"). Philo says Essenes were peaceful, an embarassment to Mason's Spartan proposal. Philo wrote: "Essenes...work in various crafts contributing to peace....In vain would one look among them for makers of arrows, or javelins, or swords, or helmets, or armour, or shields; in short, for makers of arms, or military machines, or any instrument of war, or even peaceful objects which might be turned to evil purpose." Spartans were warriors, first and foremost; Essenes were not. No matter; Mason has other plans, so does not quote Philo for his readers. Mason writes that Pliny is not entirely reliable, so can be ignored. But it's unequal treatment to ignore Pliny--who is not really so unreliable when one realizes his source on Essenes, M. Agrippa, is from the time of Herod the Great--and then to comb through Josephus, who is not entirely reliable. That's bracketing off and ignoring evidence. Mason, citing an unreliable secondary source, would have readers imagine that before the Dead Sea Scrolls came to light in 1948 no one located Essenes in the Qumran area. False. Strack did in 1853, placing Ein Gedi south of the Essenes. De Saulcy's 1858 Atlas places a "pays des Esseniens" north of Ein Gedi. Ginsburg in 1870 located Pliny's Essenes on the "north-west shore" of the Dead Sea, right where Qumran is. Many pre-1948 writers speculated that John the Baptist lived in that same wilderness area and may have met Essenes, or even have been one for a time. Gibbon's _Decline and Fall_ 1854 annotated edition (ch. 37) correctly places Essenes not far distant from the St. Sabas Laura. And Joan Taylor wrote on Dixon's account which "states--somewhat prophetically--in 1866 that the 'chief seats of this sect [Essenes] were pitched on the western shores of the Dead Sea, about the present Ras al Feshka'"--as indeed was the case. This dismissal of Pliny on Qumran Essenes is deeply flawed. (Not even Magen and Peleg buy Hirschfeld's attempt to place Essenes uphill of Ein Gedi; they prefer Essenes out of Qumran and into limbo.) It's not circular to say that the best reading of Pliny points to Qumran. Also flawed is Mason's dismissal of the increasingly-recognized Hebrew origin of the name "Essenes," found in Qumran texts recognized as Essene on other grounds. Several times osey hatorah, observers of torah, appears as a self designation. And Mason knows Philo and Epiphanius spelled the name with O--Ossaioi/Osshnoi in Epiphanius. How many 2000-year old confirming repetitions would Mason require before paying attention? Again, this was known before 1948. Melanchthon in 1532 knew the correct Hebrew root, as did other scholars in every century following. Mason writes (p. 220) that in the 1950s "there were no interpretations of Josephus' Essene portrait..." Again, utterly false. A glance at Wagner's book Die Essener in der wissenschaftlichen Diskussion, vom Ausgang des 18. bis zum Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts; eine wissenschaftliche Studie--with a massive bibliography--suffices to show Mason's assertion absurdly misleading. For further information, see "Jannaeus, His Brother Absalom, and Judah the Essene," available online. Conybeare long ago saw the invitation to compare Spartans and Jews in a discussion of Essenes: 1 Maccabees 12 and the happenstance that Essenes are first mentioned in Josephus as existing (not starting) in 146 BCE (because his source Posidonius began then). But we now know that 1 Maccabees, though available then in Hebrew, is quite absent among the circa 900 manuscripts of Qumran. The pro-Maccabee festival Hanukkah is also unmentioned in those many calendar texts. Qumran was anti-Hasmonean, anti the family writing letters to Sparta. 4Q448 is increasingly recognized as a curse on Alexander Jannaeus. Essenes are more akin to Daniel than 1 Maccabees, and were unarmed (unlike David Koresh, whose disaster Mason oddly compares). If Josephus wanted to compare the Essenes and the Spartans, why did he not, you know, use the word "Spartans"? He used "Pythagoreans" and "Dacians" when he compared; Philo also named names to compare: Magi, Gymnosophists. Mason guesses married Essenes--he supposes invented by Josephus "as a means of permitting his own Essene affiliation"(!)--were in the desert and celebates in the cities, despite the wilderness types including Banus and John the Baptist. Initiation and the giving of all property is a big step, found explicitly in War 2 and in the Qumran cave texts; Mason misdirects attention from that. Moses was a writing lawgiver; Lycurgus was not. Such a waste of learned talent, this incantation of the Josephan nature of all, even his hapax patterns. The essay may be a virtuoso rhetorical performance, but it misleads readers, and unfortunately has little to do with ancient history. For more on Essene-Qumran association see: http://www.duke.edu/~goranson • • • • • • • |
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