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Re: Essene name



Dear Herb,
Your suggestion is most interesting, although I would go through Akkadian 
in which hatchet is hassinu.  It is certainly closer to Essene than Hasid 
(the samekh- sadi interchange is well attested both within Hebrew and 
inter-dialectically).  Also note, that in the Old BAblyonian Nippur 
recension of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh sees in his dream a hassinu, and this 
term has obvious sexual overtones since it forecasts the  coming (no pun 
intended) of Enkidu, Gilgamesh's new companion (see A. Drafkorn-Kilmer's 
article in Zikir Shumim Studies F. Kraus).
It's so nice when Assyriology and Qumranic studies come together- this 
has been the greatest conicidence of Akkadian and Qumran Hebrew since 
ohazey avot was shown to be equivalent of ahiz or sabit abbuti.
Avigdor Hurowitz

On Fri, 20 Sep 1996, Herb Basser wrote:

> oh jospehus tells us essenes had axes to grind and had paddles on them
> to dig holes to bury their waste-- and initiates wee given these axes
> wiht their degrees. in my pseudo-rabad i suggest essen=hetzen=hatchet
> and go on to show some exegesis of deut to explain where josephus's
> notice is based.
> 
> hbasser
>