Scholar Claims Dead Sea Scrolls 'Authors' Never Existed

[Dandelion_Wine]

a claim that has shaken the bedrock of biblical scholarship

I like how Time makes it look like this of bible scholarship dome has been shaken to its core.

What I like most about ‘biblical scholars’ like her is something along the lines of “There is no evidence that X is true, therefore I assert Y is true” - which amounts to nothing more than speculation and fabrication that has no evidence, just like X.

time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1885421,00.html?cnn=yes
Biblical scholars have long argued that the Dead Sea Scrolls were the work of an ascetic and celibate Jewish community known as the Essenes, which flourished in the 1st century A.D. in the scorching desert canyons near the Dead Sea. Now a prominent Israeli scholar, Rachel Elior, disputes that the Essenes ever existed at all — a claim that has shaken the bedrock of biblical scholarship.

 

[Eucharisted]

Time magazine would be hilarious if it wasn’t so serious.

 

[KathleenElsie]

If the authors did not write them then my just appeared out of no where. Can we say the hand of God wrote them?

 

[Evan_H]

Is she attempting to insinuate that they were fabricated in order to falsely justify scripture?
Or that they simple weren’t written by whom we originally believed to?
I didn’t see any major dispute concerning the date they were authored.

 

[Joe_Kelley]

Maybe they just evolved without an author.

 

[DavWan]

I like how Time makes it look like this of bible scholarship dome has been shaken to its core.

What I like most about ‘biblical scholars’ like her is something along the lines of “There is no evidence that X is true, therefore I assert Y is true” - which amounts to nothing more than speculation and fabrication that has no evidence, just like X.

More than that, this would be an argument from silence fallacy. No evidence for something would not prove the opposite. it just means the point was not proven from this lack of evidence.

time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1885421,00.html?cnn=yes
Biblical scholars have long argued that the Dead Sea Scrolls were the work of an ascetic and celibate Jewish community known as the Essenes, which flourished in the 1st century A.D. in the scorching desert canyons near the Dead Sea. Now a prominent Israeli scholar, Rachel Elior, disputes that the Essenes ever existed at all — a claim that has shaken the bedrock of biblical scholarship.

I doubt the Pope is losing sleep over this. Whether or not the Essenes existed don’t mean much for Biblical scholarship.

However, I think the response was far from 'shaken"

Elior’s theory has landed like a bombshell in the cloistered world of biblical scholarship. James Charlesworth, director of the Dead Sea Scrolls project at Princeton Theological Seminary and an expert on Josephus, says it is not unusual that the word Essenes does not appear in the scrolls. “It’s a foreign label,” he tells TIME. "When they refer to themselves, it’s as ‘men of holiness’ or ‘sons of light.’ " Charlesworth contends that at least eight scholars in antiquity refer to the Essenes. One proof of Essene authorship of the Dead Sea Scrolls, he says, is the large number of inkpots found by archaeologists at Qumran.
Perhaps the Biblical Scholars were shaken from laughter?

 

[thistle]

I like how Time makes it look like this of bible scholarship dome has been shaken to its core.

What I like most about ‘biblical scholars’ like her is something along the lines of “There is no evidence that X is true, therefore I assert Y is true” - which amounts to nothing more than speculation and fabrication that has no evidence, just like X.

time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1885421,00.html?cnn=yes
Biblical scholars have long argued that the Dead Sea Scrolls were the work of an ascetic and celibate Jewish community known as the Essenes, which flourished in the 1st century A.D. in the scorching desert canyons near the Dead Sea. Now a prominent Israeli scholar, Rachel Elior, disputes that the Essenes ever existed at all — a claim that has shaken the bedrock of biblical scholarship.

What difference does it make if the Essenes existed or not?