George, I think Ian Young did answer your point.
He does not need to name a sect which wrote the scrolls
in order to not be convinced of the Essene hypothesis.
That is a logical non-sequitur. It is a perfectly legitimate
position to say 'I don't know', when one doesn't.
Your assumption that there certainly are no Sadducee
texts among the scrolls is not shared by a significant
number of Qumran scholars. See DJD X on 4QMMT,
and see M. Kister's article in 1994 Wise et al,
_Methods of Investigation of the Dead Sea Scrolls and
the Khirbet Qumran site_. Also L. Schiffman,
_Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls_, 1994.
Two other points might be considered. The first is that
the leader of the Qumran sect, in the world of the texts,
may be known by the name, as it could be paraphrased,
"The Sadducee Teacher' or "the Teacher of
Sadduceeism", by the wordplay on MWRH H(ts)DQ.
There is little scholarly dispute that the name 'Sadducee'
comes from some form of the root (ts)DQ. Which of
Josephus's three sects would it be, if one has to choose,
whose leader is called, explicitly, 'the Sadducee Teacher'?
The second is that the authors of Pesher Habakkuk appeared
to regard the Wicked Priest as a former member of their
sect. At 1QpHab 8.10 the Wicked Priest was 'called by the
name of truth' at first (before he went bad). A comparison of
the language of H'MT, 'the truth', in the immediate context of
pHab, as well as the larger context of other texts such as 1QS,
shows that this is a much more technical and stronger term
than simply 'he started out with a good reputation'. Compare
pHab 7.10-12, 'the men of truth, the doers of the law, whose
hands do not grow slack in the service of the truth...'.
Compare pHab 8.16-17, 'the priest who rebelled (against)
[and fors]ook the statutes [of God'. He was, at one time, one
of the doers of the law, known by the name of truth, that is,
he was of the sect of the authors of the text.
In other words, in the world of the text, the authors are saying
the Wicked Priest was one of their own, who went bad.
Most scholars believe this Wicked Priest was some historical
high priest, perhaps a Hasmonean high priest, though there are
disputes over which one.
One way of getting at the question of which sect is the sect of
the Qumran texts would be to ask the question: what sect
was this Wicked Priest a member of (such that he was regarded
as a defector or apostate in the view of the Qumran texts)?
Josephus doesn't know of any Pharisee or Essene high priests.
Something to think about.
Greg Doudna
For private reply, e-mail to "Greg Doudna" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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