orion RE: Orion Gmirkin's Proposals Part II

[RGmyrken@aol.com]

Stephen Goranson writes:
>  Gmirkin wrote that the Judah the Essene story was invented to provide
>  Menahem a teacher... 
You appear not to understand my argument, which is that Judah was in fact 
Menahem's teacher, that the anecdote has a historical kernal, and was
repeated in 
Herodian circles due to the relation of Judah and Menahem, and transmitted by
ND, but 
that the title "Judah the Essene" is an anachronism.  

I am taking a break from from this discussion until I read Menahem Stern as
well 
as the fragmenta of Posidonius, as I want to give Goranson's ideas a fair
hearing.  
However, in my current reading of Posidonius on the Jews as presented in
Josephus and in 
a major fragment found in Strabo, my initial impression is that Posidonius
was an anti-
Semite whose writings contained much misinformation but no real information
on Judaism 
or its sects. Hence I am growing increasingly sceptical of Posidonius as a
source on 
Essenes.  If Goranson can show a single instance of direct dependency on
Posidonius (ca. 
135-51 BCE) in an account on the Essenes, I would welcome this development
and gladly 
accept it as demonstrating pre-Herodian Essenes.  Otherwise, the existence of
Essenes 
before Herod should be acknowledged as doubtful, a theoretical construct,
less than a 
fact:  which is itself a useful fact.

-- Russell Gmirkin

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