Pythagoreans and Essenes

Pythagoreans and Essenes
Author: Justin Taylor
Publisher:
Total Pages: 152
Release: 2004
Genre: History
ISBN:

This study attempts to answer the question of the origins of the non-biblical features of the Essenes' way of life. It is clear that their project was founded in biblical and Jewish realities. Where did those elements come from that appear not to have been derived from these sources? That they have their origins in Greek, and specifically Pythagorean, customs is an idea that recurs regularly in the history of scholarship and has had some notable supporters in the 19th and first half of the 20th centuries, including E Zeller, E Schuer, I Levy, F C Cumont and M J Lagrange. Recent scholars seem more reluctant to accept such views. The inquiry will take the reader through the available sources, then a series of comparative studies with possible parallels in Greece and elsewhere, to see whether and in what terms the question of Pythagorean influences on Essenism can be answered.

Josephus' Description of the Essenes Illustrated by the Dead Sea Scrolls

Josephus' Description of the Essenes Illustrated by the Dead Sea Scrolls
Author: Todd S. Beall
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 216
Release: 2004-12-23
Genre: Bibles
ISBN: 9780521609418

This study provides an analysis and commentary on Josephus' description of the Essenes in the light of the new material from Qumran. A fresh translation is provided alongside the Greek text of the passages in Josephus, as well as a full commentary on the major passages in which he describes this group.

Wealth in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the Qumran Community

Wealth in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the Qumran Community
Author: Catherine Murphy
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 709
Release: 2018-12-24
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 9047400658

This volume is concerned with exploring sectarian attitudes toward wealth and the economic practices that gave rise to and issued from those attitudes. An introductory chapter establishes the state of the question. Three subsequent chapters focus on major sectarian texts: the Damascus Document, the Rule of the Community, and 4QInstruction A. Other sectarian and non-sectarian texts that mention wealth are discussed in a fifth chapter, while archaeological evidence from the Qumran region and contemporary documentary texts are introduced in chapters seven and eight. Finally, ancient secondary testimony on Essene economic practices is discussed. The book breaks new ground in arguing for several biblical rationales for the practice of shared wealth. Its integration of archaeological and documentary evidence sheds surprising new light on the economic organization of the Qumran community.

Beyond the Qumran Community

Beyond the Qumran Community
Author: John J. Collins
Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2010
Genre: History
ISBN: 0802828876

With the full publication of the Dead Sea Scrolls, fresh analysis of the evidence presented can be and indeed, should be made. Beyond the Qumran Community does just that, reaching a surprising conclusion: the sect described in the Dead Sea Scrolls developed later than has usually been supposed and was never confi ned to the site of Qumran. / John J. Collins here deconstructs the Qumran community and shows that the sectarian documents actually come from a text spread throughout the land. He examines the Community Rule, or Yahad, and considers the Teacher of Righteousness, a pivotal fi gure in the Essene movement. After examining the available evidence, Collins concludes that it is, in fact, overwhelmingly likely that the site of Qumran housed merely a single settlement of a very widespread movement.

The Essenes, the Scrolls, and the Dead Sea

The Essenes, the Scrolls, and the Dead Sea
Author: Joan E. Taylor
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 439
Release: 2012-11-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 019955448X

The mystery surrounding the Dead Sea Scrolls remains, over 60 years after their rediscovery. Who hid them and why? This groundbreaking book reinvigorates the contested hypothesis that the Essenes were responsible. Rather than being a marginal esoteric sect, Taylor shows that this group acted as one of the leading legal schools of Judaism.

Utopian Communities of the Ancient World

Utopian Communities of the Ancient World
Author: Brent James Schmidt
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2010
Genre: Essenes
ISBN: 9780773437364

This is the first comparative study of lived Utopian communities in antiquity. The examined communities provide examples of somewhat successful utopian experiments that belie the twentieth century notion that the application of utopian ideals must always lead to dystopia or not work at all.