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Re: orion Pharisees among DSS?



Asia,

Neusner based his discussion of the Pharisees before 70 on Josephus, 
the NT, and Rabbinic literature.  While it might be possible to 
construct an argument for a piece of pre-70 Jewish literature as 
Pharisaic (one might try Judith, for example), it would need to be on 
the basis of those three bodies of evidence, and each of them 
presents its own special problems in application to pre-70 Pharisees. 
  Additionally, taken together (or even in pairs), these three bodies 
of material do not present anything like a unified portrait of pre-70 
Pharisees.  So far, the discussion has noted that 4QMMT takes the 
Sadducean position in several of the Pharisee/Sadducee disputes 
preserved in Rabbinic literature, and no one seems to have noted any 
efforts at fence-building, for example, in the DSS.  I'd say that we 
don't know enough about the forms of Pharisaic literature before 70 
to reach a conclusion about its presence in the DSS, but also that 
what we don't know (in conjunction with the little we do know)
 would make such an argument fairly dubious.

David Suter
Saint Martin's College

> From:          asia@checkpoint.com

> >I have encountered the following argument, in discussions re collective
> >nature of the DSS corpus. The argument goes "there are no Pharisee writings
> >among the DSS texts...". In relations to this argument, I would like to ask
> >fellow-orioners - do we know enough about the forms of "Pharisee
> >literature" in the period 2BC - 1AD to be sure whether they are, or are
> >not, in the DSS corpus?
> 
For private reply, e-mail to dsuter@crc.stmartin.edu
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