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- ericrous, on 03/16/2009, -18/+118Josephus had no real motivation to make up this story, and would have been putting his life in danger had the Romans found out he was willfully deceiving them. What's more, we know that all the other groups he mentions actually existed. We also know that there were several contemporary mystical groups focused around the Dead Sea that are similar to the mystical separatist movement that he describes (including that of John the Baptist, mentioned in the Christian gospels, as well as the Gnostics). While these groups may not have called themselves "Essenes" (it was likely a Hellenization of another name, much as "Jesus" was a Hellenization of "Joshua"), there is no reason to doubt that the movement Josephus describes actual existed (esp. since he describes them as so small). Whether or not the Dead Sea scrolls were written by a community of actual Essenes, it doesn't really speak to whether or not they actually existed (the Zealots didn't leave any extant writings behind either, but we know they existed).
- snapple44, on 03/16/2009, -7/+99The claims of whether or not it was the Essenes who wrote it has nothing to do with it being fiction or truth.
- sandemanport, on 03/16/2009, -24/+113history always repeats its self ... even thousands of years ago people were just as full of ***** as we are now.
- pennvneff, on 03/17/2009, -2/+46Did you actually read the article? Rachel Elior believes that the Essenes were a fabrication by Josephus and NOT the Dead Sea Scrolls.
It's clearly stated in the article Elior's theory is that the Dead Sea Scrolls were written by, "the renegade sons of Zadok, a priestly caste banished from the Temple of Jerusalem." - z00k, on 03/17/2009, -4/+39The author of this comment does not exist.
- ElBeh, on 03/17/2009, -8/+40Ugh, this article discusses the subject under the assumption that the Essenes were proven to be the authors in the first place. In fact, while they are a popular candidate, the true "Dead Sea Sect" has never been verified to be any known sect. The most supportive idea that the Essenes weren't the Dead Sea Sect is that the very word "Essenes" does not appear in any form in the Dead Sea Scrolls. And seeing how a few of the major scrolls were community laws, you would expect the name of the sect to be there, eh?
- S7aind, on 03/17/2009, -7/+38That response does nothing to address the argument ericrous made. That's great your an atheist, but that post doesn't apply to eric's post.
- UNCCEJ1010, on 03/17/2009, -5/+32You know, most actual scholars of religious studies I've met view themselves as historians, not theologians.
So can you stop with your militant atheism in a story about a historical subject.
It's not really relevant to this subject at hand. - ThinkBox, on 03/17/2009, -15/+37Any historical scholar would agree he DID exist.
The supernatural elements of the story aren't agreed upon by everyone.
I don't know why I'm even replying to you... you'll just bury me and continue saying whatever you want to believe... I mean, isnt that what Digg is about? - ijaho, on 03/17/2009, -15/+36Not much of a scholar. Seems fairly obvious the author had to exist.
- ShrimpCrackers, on 03/17/2009, -10/+30^^^ This is what Christians actually believe! ^^^
- LiquidIse, on 03/17/2009, -6/+26Summary: A "scholar" with no evidence save simple speculation makes sweeping claims and somehow ends up in Time. Ads ensue.
- CressCrowbits, on 03/17/2009, -5/+22If god does exist, I'd wish he'd just come down and tell us how it is so we'd all just shut up and stop blowing each other up.
- PeeEqualsNP, on 03/17/2009, -0/+16Well obviously there had to be an author, but she is arguing that the currently accepted authors were not the actual authors because she believes that group never existed. Her evidence: The authors never mentioned themselves in the scrolls... Lack of evidence as evidence of non-existence... wow.
- cfuse, on 03/17/2009, -4/+19In regards to your first sentence, 1) the assumption that people never do things (stupid or otherwise) that get them into mortal danger is false, and 2) just because Josephus genuinely believed it to be the truth doesn't automatically make it so. People often don't behave rationally, especially when religious conviction comes into play.
All that being said, Elior is operating on a truckload of speculation, and her position doesn't exactly scream academic rigour (in my opinion).
Still, the minute biblical texts come under any sort scrutiny there will be a million people from a hundred different groups getting their collective panties in a bunch. Any serious academic enquiry will quickly be stamped out by the same people who think the Earth is 4000 years old and that Jesus rode a dinosaur. - sbb1531, on 03/17/2009, -22/+37the proof lies with those telling the stories:
"Christians believe in a Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in all humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree."
Proof? - scottknick, on 03/17/2009, -1/+15Wow, looks like the headline has made a number of diggers start barking up the wrong tree.
The scholar in question is not claiming that the DSS had no authors. She is simply saying that one popular theory of their authorship -- that they were written by a quasi-monastic group that Josephus dubbed the Essenes -- is false.
Actually, scholars have been questioning Josephus' veracity -- and particularly his political motivations for the way he wrote his histories -- for some time. And the notion of Qumran as an Essene "monastery" has pretty much been cast aside. The assumption that the DSS was the product of a single community -- rather than being a library of texts gathered from various locations over the course of centuries -- has also been criticized for quite some time now. So I don't think this theory is going to be met by shock in any scholarly circles. - Justavian, on 03/17/2009, -14/+28There's no extra-biblical account of the miracles of jesus, and the very small amount of text that exists outside of the bible that merely MENTIONS his existence is all in question. The total amount of text that exists to verify the historicity of the jesus character is less than a paragraph. None of it is contemporary to his life, and no writing on earth (including the biblical accounts) is an eye witness account.
That information is not in dispute. The best "any" historical scholars could say is that the evidence is very thin.
When you combine this with the fact that all of the events ascribed to jesus were ascribed to previous godmen, it's hard to really justify the historicity. If there was a man that served as the basis for jesus, the stories so warped the events in his life as to make it impossible to verify his existence.
No eyewitness accounts, wildly differing accounts in the bible (read the gospels again - the understanding that most people have of the life of jesus is from a general narrative that cobbles together the good bits from each story and ignores the fact that they don't match up), and no clear extra-biblical evidence of any kind.
Historians are not always scientific. Any scientist will agree that the evidence for a historical jesus is terrible at best. - inactive, on 03/17/2009, -4/+18Its funny how this is becoming an anti-Christian thread, and it's about a Jewish topic.
Sure, the Christian text includes the old Testament, but its also about the Jewish Tanakh. - a2fan, on 03/17/2009, -8/+22@LilRabbitFooFoo "Therefore, all of this is just mental masturbation."
Much like your posts. Please don't play with yourself in public. - serif69, on 03/17/2009, -1/+14Nothing gets by you.
- inactive, on 03/17/2009, -2/+14Thank you for injecting some much needed knowledge into this thread.
- TubaTechno, on 03/17/2009, -2/+13I like how people misconstrue arguments to the extreme. For example, Jesus riding a dinosaur. Honestly, have you actually met someone who thinks that? And for that matter, what percent of all humans think that?!
- inactive, on 03/17/2009, -3/+13ericious,you should send your findings to Prof. Elior at Hebrew University and set her straight.
- DankBuddz, on 03/17/2009, -7/+16Do you have any idea what is even written in the scrolls?
- eir574, on 03/18/2009, -0/+8"Get about 2 billion people to believe that and you might have a point."
I was previously unaware that we can determine whether something is likely to be true by its popularity. Does that mean that there was a time when the earth actually was the center of the universe, or is it possible that many, many people can fervently believe something to be true when it's completely false? - TruthKid, on 03/17/2009, -0/+8This is huge guys, he's onto something
- inactive, on 03/17/2009, -0/+8Most diggers are idiots who just want to tell you their religion is the best. They have no concept of things like "academic review" or "reading the article".
- Arramol, on 03/17/2009, -0/+8The Dead Sea Scrolls contain the Old Testament and some other religious writings, not the New Testament.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Sea_Scrolls - inactive, on 03/17/2009, -6/+14Ask ANY local university historian for the evidence indicating jesus was anything other than a manufactured martyr of the late 1st century CE.
He/she will tell you that no such evidence of a "historical" jesus exists. His existence MUST be taken on faith, just like those who believe in Zeus, Unicorns and/or many other mythical characters.
Christians love to bring up the names of Josephus Flavius, Pliny the Younger, Tacitus, Suetonius and others as testimonies to Jesus’ life, however, they couldn't have been eye-witnesses to him simply because they didn't live in his calculated supposed lifetime.
How about historians who ~did~ live in that time? “Take, for example, the works of Philo Judaeus who's birth occurred in 20 B.C.E. and died 50 C.E. He lived as the greatest Jewish-Hellenistic philosopher and historian of the time and lived in the area of Jerusalem during the alleged life of Jesus. He wrote detailed accounts of the Jewish events that occurred in the surrounding area. Yet not once, in all of his volumes of writings, do we read a single account of a Jesus "the Christ." Nor do we find any mention of Jesus in Seneca's (4? B.C.E. - 65 C.E.) writings, nor from the historian Pliny the Elder (23? - 79 C.E.).
If, indeed, such a well-known Jesus existed, as the gospels allege, does any reader here think it reasonable that, at the very least, the fame of Jesus would not have reached the ears of one of these men?Amazingly, we have not one Jewish, Greek, or Roman writer, even those who lived in the Middle East, much less anywhere else on the earth, who ever mentions him during his supposed life time. This appears quite extraordinary, and you will find few Christian apologists who dare mention this embarrassing fact.
Amazingly, we have not one Jewish, Greek, or Roman writer, even those who lived in the Middle East, much less anywhere else on the earth, who ever mentions him during his supposed life time. This appears quite extraordinary, and you will find few Christian apologists who dare mention this embarrassing fact.
Its time to end the madness folks! We can pretend all we want. - JQP123, on 03/17/2009, -1/+9"Yeah.... a "Jewish" scientist trying to prove that only the new testament is an inaccurate fabrication.... anyone else see a huge conflict of interest?"
The main fabrication I see is in your statement. She is not claiming anything regarding the accuracy of the new testament. - dartmanx, on 03/17/2009, -1/+8@YogiWanKenobi:
Yes, their version of "Humor In Uniform" was great, especially the one that started "One day I was on my way to Legion formation with my buddies Flavius and Jacindus when we ran into Sub-Centurion Theordorus beating some Jewish slaves"... - inactive, on 03/17/2009, -0/+7More of an anti-religion thread.
- ryanspeck, on 03/17/2009, -10/+17All those books were written by people that weren't any of those you named, decades after Jesus' alleged death. At best, it's verbal anecdote passed off as factual witness account. At worst, it's an outright fabrication by those writing the books.
Though there are scholars that think the whole church was created by Paul, who bascially invented the entire thing. Jesus was a composite of many of the claims made by a variety of other crucified "messiahs" that cropped up around that period, of which there were many. - inactive, on 03/17/2009, -7/+14all of those accounts, were written several after jesus death, and were cherry picked from about 30 other gospels by the Catholics as being the "true" ones.
- StaticThunder, on 03/17/2009, -0/+7I swear, its like the internet contains an endless discussion about the nonexistence of Santa Claus, and 12 year old's "Your[sic] an idiot." who have no idea continue to stumble into it and become disappointed.
- inactive, on 03/17/2009, -0/+7Why don't you present what you feel is the best piece of evidence for the biblical jesus?
Actually, one of the main reasons I denounced my Christian faith is because of quite the opposite, I can't find one single shred of evidence for the jesus of the bible. Not one artifact or eyewitness account. Not even in the Bible
Can you help?
No more debates filled with fancy semantics, just back up your statements with actual scientific evidence. - CaptHuggyFace, on 03/17/2009, -2/+9Dugg for intelligently contributing to the conversation.
- hooah212002, on 03/17/2009, -3/+10@flip2trip:
I believe that, on the planet Hesranes, there is a being called olnigeckory. He is the creator of all and will end the world. He gives us life.
Prove He doesn't exist. - TubaTechno, on 03/17/2009, -1/+8Considering the Jews were pretty meticulous in keeping records and historical documents, it is surprising that there is little external (extra-Biblical) evidence to support Jesus' existence. I would still venture to argue that documents may have been lost during the destruction of Jerusalem in 70AD.
However, he is right, "the absense of evidence is not evidence of absence". Historians could still make a discovery that might change our view of history. Then again, they might not. But to state that "Jesus never existed" beyond all doubt would be erroneous. - kavaliro, on 03/17/2009, -5/+12Occam's Razor. The simplest explanation is that they existed. I'm not saying that it's certain she's wrong, I'm just saying it's extremely unlikely. It's less likely that Josephus would fabricate this story than for me to get struck by lightning. It just doesn't make good sense. Stranger things have happened, but she'll have to do more than just conjecture a possibility to be taken seriously.
- consonance, on 03/17/2009, -0/+6Everyone here is lying. I painted the post on the back of a sea turtle that was picked up by an eagle and dropped on the head of a short, bald man named Francisco, killing him. His brother, Leonardo, has posted the message in an attempt to find me and enact justice.
- papastout, on 03/17/2009, -0/+6*****, I translated the original comment from the original aramaic texts. Only to have it suppressed
- hooah212002, on 03/17/2009, -0/+6Ok ok, I tried to get away fro the FSM, but I will resort to Him anyways. Prove the FSM does not exist. (enough of us believe)
seriously, I am waiting for a xtian to prove the NON-existance of my father, my creator, THE FSM. - StaticThunder, on 03/17/2009, -1/+7Most people who didn't agree on the existence of Horus wouldn't bother to pursue Biblical Studies or even care about Biblical Historicity.
When push comes to shove, they have Josephus, Pliny and Tacitus, and that is it. - AndySomnifac, on 03/17/2009, -1/+7This article is not about authenticity, it is about authorship. I am not arguing that the Bible is fact, as I believe it is a tool to teach values and morals (some of which I disagree with), and not a literal history.
This article deals with the author of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which obviously were written by someone, and are among the oldest biblical documents ever. Who wrote them is of historical interest.
Seriously, there's a time and a place for the discussion of the relevance of Judaism/Christianity/Islam/Insert Other Religion Here, but this is not it. And I say this as an atheist who has no belief in religion whatsoever. To ignore the history of religion is to ignore a significant part of human history. - apologeticus, on 03/17/2009, -1/+7No. You clearly didn't even read the article.
"James Charlesworth, director of the Dead Sea Scrolls project at Princeton Theological Seminary and an expert on Josephus, says it is not unusual that the word Essenes does not appear in the scrolls. "It's a foreign label," he tells TIME. "When they refer to themselves, it's as 'men of holiness' or 'sons of light.' " - verevi, on 03/17/2009, -0/+6@THEMorUS wrote: "Your an idiot."
That speaks volumes. - X9001, on 03/17/2009, -0/+5NO! It was written by an ancient civilization that neither mentions itself of has any proof of itself
- theodenking, on 03/17/2009, -5/+10This is history, not religion.
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