Essenes and Essaeans (for Stephen Goranson).

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Ben C. Smith
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Essenes and Essaeans (for Stephen Goranson).

Post by Ben C. Smith »

Hi, Stephen. I hope you see this.

In your article, "Others and Intra-Jewish Polemic as Reflected in Qumran Texts," you note several sect name pairs, any name among which may serve as an alternate to the other member of the same pair: Ναζωραῖος and Ναζαρηνός; Ἐσσαῖος and Ἐσσηνός; Ὀσσαῖος and Ὀσσηνός; and Σαμψαῖος and Σαμψηνός. (Epiphanius seems to lurk behind most of these.) Are there others like this out there? They do not have to be sect names; they could be gentilics or the like. How many of these pairs exist, do you think? How common are they?

Thanks.

Ben.
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Re: Essenes and Essaeans (for Stephen Goranson).

Post by StephenGoranson »

Thanks Ben. I’m a poor typist, so let me use some abbreviations and such.
Call the four examples above 1a, 1b, 2a, etc. The a-b differences may be useful in source criticism (though Steve Mason, for one example, doubts this for Josephus; I’ll find the reference if requested). How common are these? I guess not very; others may know better. Some may wonder if –enoi (or -hnoi, with h=eta here) is a more Hellenic ending and –aioi a more Semitic-influenced one. It may be interesting to see which is used in different NT books (with some ms variation in Mark, if I recall.). And in different accounts of Essenes (given in Adam and Burchard, Antike Berichte uber die Essener—I have a list somewhere.) Multi-lingual Josephus and Epiphanius use both Essene spellings; others usually only one.
In Josephus Antiquities 15, 371 he says “*We* call them” Essaioi. His Hellenic sources may use the other spelling; see “Posidonius, Strabo, and Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa as Sources on Essenes,” JJS 45 (1994) 295-8.
Emile Puech, “La ‘forteresse des pieux’ et Qumran. A propos du papyrus Murabba’at 45,” Revue de Qumran [available at JSTOR for free this year] 16.3 (1994) 463-471 esp 465-6 gives another maybe comparable –aioi and –enoi example, with bibliography.
The similar-named Artemis priests—different declension.
NT Grammars by Moulton and Blass Debrunner Funk have some note of transliteration and gentilics.
De Nominibus Graecis in aios, aia, aion (1877) by K. Zacher is available at hathitrust.org
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Re: Essenes and Essaeans (for Stephen Goranson).

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StephenGoranson wrote: Tue Sep 22, 2020 1:40 am Thanks Ben. I’m a poor typist, so let me use some abbreviations and such.
Call the four examples above 1a, 1b, 2a, etc. The a-b differences may be useful in source criticism (though Steve Mason, for one example, doubts this for Josephus; I’ll find the reference if requested). How common are these? I guess not very; others may know better. Some may wonder if –enoi (or -hnoi, with h=eta here) is a more Hellenic ending and –aioi a more Semitic-influenced one. It may be interesting to see which is used in different NT books (with some ms variation in Mark, if I recall.). And in different accounts of Essenes (given in Adam and Burchard, Antike Berichte uber die Essener—I have a list somewhere.) Multi-lingual Josephus and Epiphanius use both Essene spellings; others usually only one.
In Josephus Antiquities 15, 371 he says “*We* call them” Essaioi. His Hellenic sources may use the other spelling; see “Posidonius, Strabo, and Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa as Sources on Essenes,” JJS 45 (1994) 295-8.
Emile Puech, “La ‘forteresse des pieux’ et Qumran. A propos du papyrus Murabba’at 45,” Revue de Qumran [available at JSTOR for free this year] 16.3 (1994) 463-471 esp 465-6 gives another maybe comparable –aioi and –enoi example, with bibliography.
The similar-named Artemis priests—different declension.
NT Grammars by Moulton and Blass Debrunner Funk have some note of transliteration and gentilics.
De Nominibus Graecis in aios, aia, aion (1877) by K. Zacher is available at hathitrust.org
Thanks for these notes. I had not found many of these pairs, either, and none that you did not list in the article. I have already looked at how the gospels treat Nazarene versus Nazoraean, and have my own handy table of those references. I do think that the -aia/-aea ending is conducive to certain Semitic transliterations, but there seem to be plenty of plain Greek names with that ending (like Antaeus/Ἀνταίος).

Good to add another pair to the list: Φουραῖα and Φουρηνοί. Thanks for the tip on Peuch.

I appreciate the response!
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Re: Essenes and Essaeans (for Stephen Goranson).

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If interested: Steve N. Mason, “What Josephus Says about Essenes in his Judean War,” in Stephen G. Wilson and Michel Desjardins, eds., Text and Artifact in the Religions of Mediterranean Antiquity: Essays in Honour of Peter Richardson (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2000), 434-467. But Josephus explicity used sources, so I differ with him about that. I suppose someone could compare War and Ant. styles with the presumably less source-laden Vita.
I agree with Mason and Schalit before him: "John the Essene" is mentioned as a general, but that may be a confusion in Josephus with the gentilic, someone from Essa/Gerasa, see Abraham Schalit (in Namenwoerterbuch zu Flavius Josephus, supp. to the Concordance edited by K.H. Rengstorf, Leiden, 1968, p.34, 46, 66).
If interested in tracing who used different spellings of Nazarenes also beyond NT, A. F. J. Klijn and G. J. Reinink, Patristic Evidence for Jewish-Christian Sects (Leiden: Brill, 1973) is helpful. (Maybe also “Nazarenes,” in Anchor Bible Dictionary.)
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Re: Essenes and Essaeans (for Stephen Goranson).

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StephenGoranson wrote: Thu Sep 24, 2020 2:05 am If interested: Steve N. Mason, “What Josephus Says about Essenes in his Judean War,” in Stephen G. Wilson and Michel Desjardins, eds., Text and Artifact in the Religions of Mediterranean Antiquity: Essays in Honour of Peter Richardson (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2000), 434-467. But Josephus explicity used sources, so I differ with him about that. I suppose someone could compare War and Ant. styles with the presumably less source-laden Vita.
I agree with Mason and Schalit before him: "John the Essene" is mentioned as a general, but that may be a confusion in Josephus with the gentilic, someone from Essa/Gerasa, see Abraham Schalit (in Namenwoerterbuch zu Flavius Josephus, supp. to the Concordance edited by K.H. Rengstorf, Leiden, 1968, p.34, 46, 66).
Okay, thanks!
If interested in tracing who used different spellings of Nazarenes also beyond NT, A. F. J. Klijn and G. J. Reinink, Patristic Evidence for Jewish-Christian Sects (Leiden: Brill, 1973) is helpful. (Maybe also “Nazarenes,” in Anchor Bible Dictionary.)
I have been looking through all of those, and also through Pritz.
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Re: Essenes and Essaeans (for Stephen Goranson).

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StephenGoranson wrote: Thu Sep 24, 2020 2:05 amIf interested in tracing who used different spellings of Nazarenes also beyond NT, A. F. J. Klijn and G. J. Reinink, Patristic Evidence for Jewish-Christian Sects (Leiden: Brill, 1973) is helpful. (Maybe also “Nazarenes,” in Anchor Bible Dictionary.)
(I currently have a text file full of quotes and notes related to tracing the term "Nazarene" and its sister terms: Nazoraean, Nazareth/Nazara, Nasoraean, Nazirite, and so on; that file is sitting right now at 60,000+ words, and only a tiny fraction of the file has to do with the NT usages, which are collated on a simple table.)
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Re: Essenes and Essaeans (for Stephen Goranson).

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Ben C. Smith wrote: Thu Sep 24, 2020 6:31 am
StephenGoranson wrote: Thu Sep 24, 2020 2:05 amIf interested in tracing who used different spellings of Nazarenes also beyond NT, A. F. J. Klijn and G. J. Reinink, Patristic Evidence for Jewish-Christian Sects (Leiden: Brill, 1973) is helpful. (Maybe also “Nazarenes,” in Anchor Bible Dictionary.)
(I currently have a text file full of quotes and notes related to tracing the term "Nazarene" and its sister terms: Nazoraean, Nazareth/Nazara, Nasoraean, Nazirite, and so on; that file is sitting right now at 60,000+ words, and only a tiny fraction of the file has to do with the NT usages, which are collated on a simple table.)
Spin put up a thread on Nazareth a few years ago. Nazareth, the neverending story.?

http://earlywritings.com/forum/viewtop ... ng#p47481

Mentioned in that thread was the article by Peter McKenna on Nazareth: Jesus Nazōraios: hidden truths revealed?

http://earlywritings.com/forum/viewtop ... 0#p47600

Peter McKenna is well known to many of us as a longstanding member of Liverpool Humanist Group. He is a Senior Lecturer in Computer Science at Manchester Metropolitan University. Originally from Larne in County Antrim, his first degree at Liverpool University was in Classics and Ancient Greek

In December 2010, Peter’s paper “Jesus Nazōraios: hidden truths revealed?” received “Honorable Mention” at the awarding of the 2011 “Mythycist Prize”, which was sponsored by The Mythicists’ Forum, a consortium of prominent New Testament scholars, together with American Atheists, Inc.

His short essay reviewed the linguistic issues surrounding the cognates Nazareth/Nazoraios/Nazarene. It attempted to show how the title “Nazoraion” led to the name of Jesus’ New Testament hometown.

We have not seem much of spin on this forum for a while - but one never knows with spin.....

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Re: Essenes and Essaeans (for Stephen Goranson).

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maryhelena wrote: Thu Sep 24, 2020 11:29 pm
Ben C. Smith wrote: Thu Sep 24, 2020 6:31 am
StephenGoranson wrote: Thu Sep 24, 2020 2:05 amIf interested in tracing who used different spellings of Nazarenes also beyond NT, A. F. J. Klijn and G. J. Reinink, Patristic Evidence for Jewish-Christian Sects (Leiden: Brill, 1973) is helpful. (Maybe also “Nazarenes,” in Anchor Bible Dictionary.)
(I currently have a text file full of quotes and notes related to tracing the term "Nazarene" and its sister terms: Nazoraean, Nazareth/Nazara, Nasoraean, Nazirite, and so on; that file is sitting right now at 60,000+ words, and only a tiny fraction of the file has to do with the NT usages, which are collated on a simple table.)
Spin put up a thread on Nazareth a few years ago. Nazareth, the neverending story.?

http://earlywritings.com/forum/viewtop ... ng#p47481
I have been through that thread. :) Thanks. I disagreed with spin about a decade ago on the Nazareth issue (and we debated it on the old IIDB/FRDB forum), but I soon came around and currently mostly agree with him so far as the etymology and orthography of the terms are concerned.
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Re: Essenes and Essaeans (for Stephen Goranson).

Post by maryhelena »

Ben C. Smith wrote: Fri Sep 25, 2020 4:10 am
maryhelena wrote: Thu Sep 24, 2020 11:29 pm
Ben C. Smith wrote: Thu Sep 24, 2020 6:31 am
StephenGoranson wrote: Thu Sep 24, 2020 2:05 amIf interested in tracing who used different spellings of Nazarenes also beyond NT, A. F. J. Klijn and G. J. Reinink, Patristic Evidence for Jewish-Christian Sects (Leiden: Brill, 1973) is helpful. (Maybe also “Nazarenes,” in Anchor Bible Dictionary.)
(I currently have a text file full of quotes and notes related to tracing the term "Nazarene" and its sister terms: Nazoraean, Nazareth/Nazara, Nasoraean, Nazirite, and so on; that file is sitting right now at 60,000+ words, and only a tiny fraction of the file has to do with the NT usages, which are collated on a simple table.)
Spin put up a thread on Nazareth a few years ago. Nazareth, the neverending story.?

http://earlywritings.com/forum/viewtop ... ng#p47481
I have been through that thread. :) Thanks. I disagreed with spin about a decade ago on the Nazareth issue (and we debated it on the old IIDB/FRDB forum), but I soon came around and currently mostly agree with him.
Your a clever chap, Ben.... ;)
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Re: Essenes and Essaeans (for Stephen Goranson).

Post by StephenGoranson »

Since "Spin," as far as I know, has not published the article, it is difficult to know what anyone is agreeing with, except that maryhelena and that author--sometimes hard to tell them apart--apparently agree often.
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