Bibliography
| Title: The Essenes in Philo and Josephus Secondary Title: Qumran between the Old and the New Testaments Pages: 32-68 Type: Book Section Year: 1998 Abstract: Fitzmyer, Joseph A. in: OTA 22.2 (1999), 303: "This is a fresh presentation of the data about the Essenes in Philo and Josephus in light of recent proposals to identify the Qumran community otherwise. Philo's data are found in three books: (a) Every Good Man Is Free; (b) Hypothetical and (c) The Contemplative Life. Philo gives respectively 32, 20, and 35 items of information on the Essenes (and Therapeutae). B. compares the similarities and differences and shows that (c) stands "somewhat apart" from the other two, but with "solid interrelations" between it and Philo's other accounts. Josephus' data are found in three classes of writings: (a) minor accounts scattered in different books; (b) Antiquities 18\ and (c) Jewish War 2. In these writings Josephus supplies respectively 5, 12, and 43 items of information on the Essenes. B. again compares the similarities and differences and notes that (c) stands apart with a high percentage of special material. He further compares the two writers in considerable detail and finds that they both "have the same attitude of admiration for the Essenes (Therapeutae)M and notes that the substance of Pliny's account (Nat. Hist. 5.17.4) reflects the same information as found in Philo and Josephus. In all, the Essenes were a form of Judaism influenced by the ideas of the ambient Hellenistic-Roman world. B. agrees with M. Hengel that these Jews adopted a form of the well-known Hellenistic voluntary association, designated as the koina (circles of individuals with a common interest in philosophy, religion, or other subject). Philo and Josephus thus describe the Essene association in Hellenistic terms, and their descriptions are borne out by the Qumran Scrolls. B. supports Hengel's contention about Philo's and Josephus' accounts as Hellenistic, rather than "Hellenistic distortions", because their accounts correspond to Qumran data "to a very large extent". The two authors provide sources relevant to the Essene/Qumran community, even when "they do not verbatim correspond with the Dead Sea Scrolls". Keywords: Groups and Religious Movements in Palestinian Judaism |