Good, Philip Davies, you have invited methodological discussion. OK, methodologically-speaking, I say, starting with "Josephus's Essenes" is not methodologically the best place to start. (Bergmeier's book also has a related problem.) Because Philo is plainly earlier. Because Pliny's source, Marcus V. Agrippa, is plainly earlier. (By the way, both support current existence, as far as they knew, in both first centuries, BCE and CE, of Essenes.) Because Josephus's sources and Philo's sources plainly overlap (e.g., in the hypertetrakischilioi Essenes estimate). This source overlap, I think, was recognized long before 1948. Posidonius, ethnographer, etymologist, historian, Stoic/Platonist, Syrian, and Strabo are involved.
Bibliography: L. H. Feldman and J. R. Levison, Josephus' Contra Apion (AGJU 34; Leiden: Brill, 1996) 22-48. S. Goranson, "Others and Intra-Jewish Polemic as Reflected in Qumran Texts," The DSS After Fifty Years: A Comprehensive Assessment (ed Flint & VanderKam; vol. 2, Brill 1999, 534-51). best, Stephen Goranson _______________________________________________ g-Megillot mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mailman.McMaster.CA/mailman/listinfo/g-megillot
