Dear Stephen, Your observations about Baumgarten are correct! Baumgarten does not assume Sadducean origins for the Qumran mss. In point of fact, he has, throughout his long career, presented many papers where he considers the similarities between the Essenes and the Qumran mss.
As for your second observation concerning 'halakha' ... I think that my position has been well stated in our previous exchanges. That being said, might I suggest that you look at Y. Sussmann's article on the history of 'halakha' in DJD X. In this article Sussmann argues that the 'halakhic' material in the scrolls shares many of the same features as rabbinic legal interpretation and should be seen as an early stage in the development of what would eventually come to be known as rabbinic 'halakha'. This being the case, are we not well within our rights to call the legal material at Qumran 'halakha'? Finally, in response to your suggestion that the use of the word 'halakha' "obscures the fact that the Qumran/Essene legal texts did not become that mainstream, i.e., it can obscure the history of sectarianism," I would have to strongly disagree with you. Schiffman and H. Harrington have spent much time showing how the Qumran 'halakha' differs from rabbinic 'halakha'. If anything the use of the word 'halakha' has provided us with a ruler of sorts that we can use to determine just how and where the Qumran community differed or agreed with rabbinic 'halakha'. Best, Ian -- Ian Werrett PhD Candidate St Mary's College University of St Andrews ----------------------------------------------------------------- University of St Andrews Webmail: http://webmail.st-andrews.ac.uk _______________________________________________ g-Megillot mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mailman.McMaster.CA/mailman/listinfo/g-megillot
