Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

Prof. Elior did correct herself after all these interviews. Perhaps worth considering: if a person is persuaded that X did not exist (perhaps not rare for some in this forum), X being Essenes in this case, one might not bother learning too much about X before promoting an alternative. A perhaps rela...

Apparently, Rachel Elior was not misrepresented by Haaretz and by the [London] Times. Consider also Time Magazine, March 16, 2009: "Elior, who teaches Jewish mysticism at Jerusalem's Hebrew University, claims that the Essenes were a fabrication by the 1st century A.D. Jewish-Roman historian Fla...

Prof. Rachel Elior as quoted in Haaretz, March 13, 2009: "Sixty years of research have been wasted trying to find the Essenes in the scrolls. But they didn't exist, they were invented by [Jewish-Roman historian] Josephus. It's a history of errors which is simply nonsense," she said. [http:...

To clarify, though I did not detail the contents of the Bruno Callegher article (available online--I do not know whether a subscription is required), I'll note that it includes documents and photographs. I find proposals that either several experts missed obvious identifications or conspired to cove...

Though I do not suppose that such a posited invention occurred, here's comment on the proposal concerning Philo. mary helena wrote: "Rachael [she uses the spelling Rachel] Elior has already suggested that it was Philo that invented the Essenes..." It may be worth recalling that Prof. Elior...

I recommend that libraries obtain this book for its interesting arguments and contributions to learning, though scholars might do well to recognize some shortcomings. It is generally quite well written and produced (a rare exception: consistently misspelling the Protogospel of James scholar George Z...

"Presuppositions"? Augustus Spijkerman and Henri Seyrig--two of the best experts alive--were invited by de Vaux to examine coins including silver coins hoarded at Qumran. These three (and others) agreed that the latest hoarded coin date was 9/8 BCE. Robert Donceel, who was not too shy to d...

If the above observations are valid, it then follows that the Wikipedia Qumran article coin section was largely unreliable for several years. Lately someone has brought it a bit closer to reality, for example by citing a 2010 article in Dead Sea Discoveries that finds Lönnqvist claims on the Qumran ...

Lönnqvist op. cit. page 10, On Donceel on intrusive coins: "After consultation with H. Seyrig, these coins were removed from the main accounting of the hoards of Qumran." But Henri Seyrig died in 1973, and Donceel did not become involved with the Qumran publication project until 1986 or 19...

Apparently, there was a misunderstanding of R. Donceel's Revue Biblique comment (in French; quoted in gospels and coins thread) on the hoard coins in K. Lönnqvist, Report of the Amman Lots... (2007) p. 10, where is it mistakenly referred to as : "...these coins were removed....It remains unclea...