Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Polycarp66 AT aol.com]

In a message dated 12/29/99 11:15:13 AM Central Daylight Time, 
mshulman AT ix.netcom.com writes:

<< The Sadducees and Essenes, which some scholars say are different branches
 of the same
 >philosophy, based their outlook on the Temple.  They had no stragegy for
 surviving the
 >Temple's destruction.  On the other hand, the Pharisees did.  If, indeed,
 it is later
 
 I would here have to disagree. The DSS are filled with tirades against the
 temple as it was. They seemed to be independant of the temple.
 
  >>
Not only so, but does it not seem rather unlikely that a group which accepted 
only the Pentateuch (if Josephus can be credited)

Josephus consistently emphasizes the opposition between the Sadducees and the 
Pharisees. In Ant 13 §297 we first encounter the Sadducees’ rejection of the 
Pharisaic law “not recorded in the Laws of Moses,” and in Ant 18 §17 
Josephus says that the Sadducees observed nothing apart from the Law. Thus, 
the claim that the Sadducees considered valid only those regulations and 
traditions written down in the Law appears just twice, and only in the latter 
books of the Antiquities. 

Freedman, David Noel, ed., The Anchor Bible Dictionary, (New York: Doubleday) 
1997,
1992.

would agree with a group which accepted far more?  While I don't believe that 
Moses wrote the Pentateuch, I would be much more ready to accept that than a 
notion which seems to offer nothing but scepticism with regard to the 
composition of the Pentateuch.  

It seems that the one who (post deleted -- I don't remember who) wrote to 
suggest that it would be totally wrong-headed to state that you could not 
date the composition to any time prior to the earliest documentary evidence 
it precisely correct.  The document sets the absolute latest date.  It in no 
way indicates that that date was in fact the time of its composition.

 Yes, I do accept the documentary hypothesis in its main outlines.  I would, 
however, proceed from there to a form-critical analysis and attempt to 
determine its history prior to its redaction into various codes.

gfsomsel