tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9396860.post110545646374337026..comments2024-03-28T08:41:17.341-04:00Comments on <center> Ralph the Sacred River </center>: Dead Sea Scroll Fact SheetEdhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05188482189638751204noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9396860.post-1105458931174036202005-01-11T10:55:00.000-05:002005-01-11T10:55:00.000-05:00Thanks, Ed, for sharing your good fact sheet. If I...Thanks, Ed, for sharing your good fact sheet. If I may, I'll question one statement: that the scrolls themselves don't tell us who wrote them. I suggest that *some* of the scrolls do self-identify the sectarian group, and, in effect, tell us who wrote *some* of the texts. Namely "Essenes"; not in English, of course, nor in any of the many Greek spellings (including Ossaioi), but in the Hebrew self-designation, 'osey hatorah, observers of torah, the Essene self-description. This Hebrew origin was recognized at least as early as a 1532 history edited by Philip Melanchthon--can anyone supply an earlier "modern" scholarly citation?--and seen or discussed by twenty-some other pre-1948 scholars; for bibliography:<br />http://www.mail-archive.com/g-megillot@mcmaster.ca/msg00016.html<br />Scholars since 1948 who advocate this identity, or who discuss it, include James VanderKam, Judy Yates Siker, Catherine Murphy, James Tabor, and William Brownlee. (See, e.g., articles by VanderKam and me in DSS After Fifty Years, v.2.)<br />best, Stephen GoransonAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com