1. Several papers read at the Brown conference, which I attended, made
unreliable assertions. Several papers in the Brown volume make uneliable
assertions. Some of the papers contradict one another. Nothing from the Brown
conference and volume seriously refuted Essene presence at Qumran.
2. There is no evidence of balsam production at Qumran.
3. Hirschfeld's proposed Essene site is not accepted by other archaeologists
including Y. Magen and Y Peleg in their Brown paper. It is too late,
too small,
and wrong type.
4. For evidence that Cross did not suggest zealots briefly held Qumran in 68,
see his Ancient Library of Qumran. If Romans defeated zealots there, they may
well not have buried any of them they killed.
5. Russell wrote that Dio Chrysostom's "city" can only be Jericho. Not so.
Further, in the analysis of Adam Kamesar (JAOS 111 [1991] 134-5), the
Stoic Dio
presented Essenes as a polis in the sense of "a group of people living under a
rule of law in the same place."
6. Pliny's main source for Judaea and his source for Essenes was Marcus
Agrippa,
circa 15 BCE. Essenes did not just then arrive, nor just then come into being.
"Rereading Pliny on the Essenes: Some Bibliographic Notes":
http://orion.mscc.huji.ac.il/symposiums/programs/Goranson98.shtml
Judah the Essene lived long before Russell's "c. 4 BCE" date. Pliny and Philo
and Josephus all had earlier sources.
"Jannaeus, His Brother Absalom, and Judah the Essene"
http://www.duke.edu/~goranson/jannaeus.pdf
7. Qumran texts differ with Sadducee views. How many Sadducee-accepted books
were there, anyway, besides Torah? Would Sadducees have copies of Daniel, with
resurrection and named angels?
8. There is no aristocratic second temple period burial known at Qumran.
best,
Stephen Goranson
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