EssenesSorry, but the basic axiom is absolutely wrong: Exiles that are "living in settlements throughout Judah" are not exiled but always associated to the society even if they claim to be separated. But Exile language reflecting a real existing exile is the key to identify both literary-"historical" vorlage und historical sitz-im-leben of such a political group (don't even think of a host of philosophers, please).
Moreover, I don't understand how the far-off literary periphery, here the idealizing philosophical stuff of the literary circle connected to the Hellenic library of Agrippa and largely rooted in the Aristotelian philosophy of the Nicomachean Ethics launched by Herod's court commentator Nikolaos of Damascos, would ever lead us to the nucleus of a messianic nut - shouldn't we crack the nutshell first? Aren't we investigating the wrong end? NB However, sooner or later all Essene research has to shift away from the yahad towards the staff-movement, a movement always willing to make power-compromises and that was close related to the establishment from it's very beginning, no matter who has lead the people of Israel (as long as he didn't claim to be authoritative prophet like Moses as Hyrcan I did in 127 BC). Herein the friendly relationship to Herod the Great is founded, attested in the "Essene cubit" of the Herodian cult-architecture... _dierk _______________________________________________ g-Megillot mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mailman.McMaster.CA/mailman/listinfo/g-megillot
