Josephus, Antiquitates Judaicae [Ant.] 18.20, and Philo, Quod omnis probus liber sit [Prob.] 75, both number the Essene population at more than four thousand. It is probable that Josephus here relies on Philo, or that both of their accounts stem from a common source; see Morton Smith, “The Description of the Essenes in Josephus and the Philosophumena,” Hebrew Union College Annual [HUCA] 29 (1958) 273–313. Although the accuracy of this figure is doubtful, Josephus enhances its innate value by estimating elsewhere that the Pharisees numbered more than six thousand (Ant. 17.41). Since this latter figure appears to be of his own invention, the numbers suggest that Josephus reckoned the Essenes to have been at least two-thirds as populous as the Pharisees. Berndt Schaller,“4000 Essener–6000 Pharisäer: Zum Hintergrund und antiker Zahlenangaben,” in Antikes Judentum und frühes Christentum. Festschrift für Hartmut Stegemann zum 65. Geburtstag (ed. Bernd Kollmann et al.; Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft [BZNW] 97; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1999) 172–82, considers them to be typological figures with no evident historical value. Nevertheless, he suggests that the figures might represent a relative population ratio of Pharisees to Essenes (ibid., 182). See also Seth Schwartz, Imperialism and Jewish Society, 200 B.C.E. to 640 C.E. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2001) 93–94. While acknowledging that Josephus's numbers are unreliable, Schwartz concludes that the sects would have constituted a rather high percentage of the adult male population of Judaea, suggesting that “almost no Judaean (of whatever social class) can have avoided contact, indeed even family relationship, with a sectarian, and that no Judaean settlement apart from the smallest can have lacked a sectarian population” (ibid., 94).

On the demographic diffusion of the Essenes, see esp. Josephus, Bellum Judaicum [B.J.] 2.124:

(“not in a single city, but in large numbers in every town”), and see further idem, Ant. 13.311–312, 15.373–378; B.J. 2.124–127. Philo's testimony on this matter is inconsistent: at one point he reports that the Essenes lived in villages and specifically avoided cities (Prob. 76), yet he reports elsewhere that they lived in many cities and villages in Judaea (Hypothetica [Hypoth.] 11.1; cf. idem, Prob. 85). The occurrence of multiple Essene communities likely informs the references in the Damascus Document [CD] to those sectarians who lived in “camps” governed by sectarian law (see e.g., CD 7.6, 12.22–23, 13.5, 13.16, 13.20, 14.3, 14.9, 14.7, 19.2, 20.26) and those who lived in “towns” (CD 10.21; 12.19). On the social location of the townie sectarians, see the comments of Joseph M. Baumgarten in idem and Daniel R. Schwartz, “Damascus Document” in Damascus Document, War Scroll, and Related Documents (vol. 2 of The Dead Sea Scrolls: Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek Texts with English Translations; ed. James H. Charlesworth et al.; Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1995) 53 n. 190, who locates them as in regular towns among the broader Jewish populace rather than in exclusive sectarian towns.

On attraction to Essenism among other Jews, see Josephus, B.J. 2.120; Philo, Hypoth. 11.2–3;Pliny, Naturalis historia [N.H.] 5.73. The renown of the Essenes is especially notable in reference to the account of Philo, for he doesn’t appear to have been aware of the Pharisees or the Sadducees. For his part, Pliny seems to have been so impressed with the Essenes that he failed to notice that they were Jews, a nation for whom he otherwise had little affection; see Robert A. Kraft, “Pliny in Essenes, Pliny on Jews,” Dead Sea Discoveries [DSD] 8 (2001) 255–61. For further indication that the Essenes enjoyed a reputation outside of Jewish circles, see Steve Mason, “What Josephus Says about the Essenes in His Judaean War,” in Text and Artifact in the Religions of Mediterranean Antiquity: Essays in Honour of Peter Richardson (ed. Stephen G. Wilson and Michel Desjardins;Waterloo, Ont.: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2000) 423–455, at 426–28, who has pointed out that Josephus distinguishes between a Greek-language version of the sect's name,

, and Semitic-language version of the name,

, in common use amongst Jews (Ant. 15.371–372). As Mason keenly notes (ibid., 427), Philo, a Jew, likewise refers to the sect as

(Prob. 75; Hypoth. 11.1, 11.14), while Pliny the Elder (N.H. 5.73) and Dio Chrysostom (ap. Synesius of Cyrene, Dio 3.2), both Gentiles, employ the terms Esseni and

, respectively.

Pliny, N.H. 5.73, intimates that an Essene community was active in the northern Dead Sea region after Jerusalem had already been destroyed (Hierosolymis […] nunc alterum bustum). Although composed after 70 C.E., Pliny's confused account (he also mistakes Jericho for Jerusalem) is likely attributable to his reuse of materials predating the revolt; for discussion of possible sources for Pliny's information, see Stephen Goranson, “Posidonius, Strabo and Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa as Sources on Essenes,” Journal of Jewish Studies [JJS] 45 (1994) 295–98. Although they do not attest to the fate of the Essenes, a few references in early Christian literature allege the survival of certain Jewish sects past 70 C.E.; see Justin, Dialogue [Dial.] 80.4–5 (ca. mid-second century);Epiphanius, Panarion [Pan.] 20.3.1–2 (ca. mid-fourth century). Although these vague references are of little substantive historiographical value, Martin Goodman, “Sadducees and Essenes after 70 CE,” in Crossing the Boundaries: Essays in Biblical Interpretation in Honor of Michael D. Goulder (ed. Stanley E. Porter et al.; Biblical Interpretation Series 8; Leiden: Brill, 1994) 347–55, at 347–48, suggests that they may be construed as positive evidence for the continued existence of Jewish sects after 70 C.E. Epiphanius also suggests that the Essenes survived the war only to evolve into an otherwise unknown Christian sect known as the ‘Iesseans’ (Pan. 29.1.3–4, 29.4.9–5.7). His speculation, however, hardly amounts to reliable historical testimony; for a critical discussion, see Simon C. Mimouni, “Qui sont les Jesséens dans la notice 29 du Panarion d’Epiphane de Salamine?” Novum Testamentum [NovT] 43 (2001) 264–99.

This theory is founded on Epiphanius's hopelessly confused claim the Ebionites were founded by a man named Ebion who himself had arisen from the within the ranks of former Essenes who had adopted Christianity (Pan. 30.1.3. cf. 30.2.1); see my previous note and further, Albertus F. J. Klijn and Gerrit J. Reinink, Patristic Evidence for Jewish-Christian Sects (Novum Testamentum Supplements [NovTSup] 36; Leiden: Brill, 1973) 28–29. It was reintroduced in modern times by Ferdinand C. Baur, De Ebionitarum origine et doctrina, ab Essenis repetenda (Tübingen: Hopferi de l’Orme, 1831), and was developed more fully by Albrecht Ritschl, Die Entstehung der altkatholischen Kirche. Eine kirchen-und dogmengeschichtliche Monographie (2d ed.;Bonn:Marcus, 1857)204–20. For further discussion of the work of these and other scholars who pursued this mode of inquiry, see Siegfried Wagner, Die Essener in der wissenschaftlichen Diskussion, vom Ausgang des 18. bis zum Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts. Eine wissenschaftliche Studie (Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft [BZAW] 79; Berlin: Töpelmann, 1960) 176–89. Critical analysis of the patristic witnesses diminishes the plausibility that the phenomenon commonly identified as Ebionism derived from a pre-Christian sectarian context; cf. the recent discussions of Richard Bauckham, “The Origin of the Ebionites,” in The Image of the Judaeo-Christians in Ancient Jewish and Christian Literature (ed. Peter J. Tomson and Doris Lambers-Petry; Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament [WUNT] 158; Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 2003) 162–81, at 172–81, and Sakari Häkkinen, “Ebionites,” in A Companion to Second-Century Christian ‘Heretics’ (ed. Antti Marjanen and Petri Luomanen; Vigiliae Christianae Supplements [VCSup] 76; Leiden: Brill, 2005) 247–78.

See e.g., Geza Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English (5th ed.; New York: Penguin, 1997) 66. This suggestion is common also among those who identify the Qumran settlement as one of multiple Essene settlements; see e.g., Frank M. Cross, The Ancient Library of Qumran, (3d ed.; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995) 62. Despite the speculative nature of this claim, the archaeological record clearly indicates that the Qumran complex was besieged and partially destroyed in the year 68 C.E., which event marked the end of its settlement by the sectarians; see Jodi Magness, The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls (Grand Rapids, Mich.; Eerdmans, 2001) 61–62; Cross, ibid., 62–63.

See Josephus, B.J. 2.152–153, where the historian describes how certain Essenes endured torture at the hands of the Romans. Josephus does not specify the location of this incident or whether the captives in question constituted a unified sectarian community, although it is possible that he is referring to the siege of Qumran of another such settlement. Archaeologists, however, have estimated the site's maximum occupational capacity at only a few hundred people, and evidence of facilities suitable for occupation in the area around Qumran does not bring the tally much higher;see Magness, The Archaeology of Qumran, 69–71, and further, Magen Broshi and Hanan Eshel,“Residential Caves at Qumran,” DSD 6 (1999) 328–48, at 330–39, on the remains of extramural settlements in the vicinity of the site.

See e.g., Lawrence H. Schiffman, “The New Halakhic letter (4QMMT) and the Origins of the Dead Sea Sect,” Biblical Archaeologist [BA] 53 (1990) 64–73; idem, Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls: The History of Judaism, the Background of Christianity, the Lost Library of Qumran (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1994) 87–89; Yaakov Sussmann, “The History of the Halakha and the Dead Sea Scrolls: Preliminary Talmudic Observations on Miqsat Ma’ase Ha-Torah (4QMMT),” Appendix 1 in Qumran Cave 4.V: Miqsat Ma

ase Ha-Torah [4Q394 = 4QMMT^a] (ed. Elisha Qimron and John Strugnell; Discoveries in the Judaean Desert [DJD] 10; Oxford: Clarendon, 1994) 179–200; Joseph M. Baumgarten, “Sadducean Elements in Qumran Law,” in The Community of the Renewed Covenant: The Notre Dame Symposium on the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. Eugene Ulrich and James C. VanderKam; Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994) 27–36. For related theories involving the location of the Essenes within rabbinic legal discourse, see Magen Broshi, “Anti-Qumranic Polemics in the Talmud,” in The Madrid Qumran Congress: Proceedings of the International Congress on the Dead Sea Scrolls, Madrid 18–21 March, 1991 (ed. Julio Trebolle Barrera and Luis Vegas Montaner; 2 vols.; Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah [STDJ] 12; Leiden: Brill, 1992) 2.589–600, at 2.598–600 (reprinted in idem, Bread, Wine, Walls and Scrolls [Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha Supplements [JSPSup] 36; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 2001] 211–22, at 221–22); Zeev Safrai, “The Memory of the Rabbis,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls Fifty Years After Their Discovery: Proceedings of the Jerusalem Congress, July 20–25, 1997 (ed. Lawrence H. Schiffman et al.; Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 2000) 521–41. For incisive critiques of the many faulty methodological presuppositions underlying this mode of inquiry, see Yaakov Elman, “Some Remarks on 4QMMT and the Rabbinic Tradition, or: When Is a Parallel Not a Parallel?” in Reading 4QMMT: New Perspectives on Qumran Law and History (ed. John Kampen and Moshe J. Bernstein; SBL Symposium Series [SBLSymS] 2; Atlanta: Scholars, 1996) 99–128; Eyal Regev, “Were the Priests All the Same? Qumranic Halakhah in Comparison with Sadducean Halakhah,” DSD 12 (2005) 158–88, at 158–85; Lutz Doering, “Parallels without ‘Parallelomania’: Methodological Reflections on Comparative Analysis of Halakhah in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in Rabbinic Perspectives: Rabbinic Literature and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Proceedings of the Eighth International Symposium of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature, 7–9 January, 2003 (ed. Steven D. Fraade and Aharon Shemesh; STDJ;Leiden: Brill, forthcoming).

See e.g., Joseph Fitzmyer, “The Qumran Scrolls, the Ebionites, and their Literature,” Theological Studies [TS] 16 (1955) 335–72 (reprinted in idem, Essays in the Semitic Background of the New Testament [London: Chapman, 1971] 435–80); James H. Charlesworth, “The Origin and Subsequent History of the Authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls,” Revue de Qumran [RevQ] 10 (1980) 213–33. For discussion of several theories implicating the Essenes and the Dead Sea Scrolls in the origins of Christian gnosticism, see Edwin M. Yamauchi, Pre-Christian Gnosticism: A Survey of the Proposed Evidences (2d ed.; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker House, 1983) 151–56. An obscure theory implicating the Essenes in the composition of the apostolic church of Jerusalem likewise has no historical merit; see the critique of Richard Bauckham, “The Early Jerusalem Church, Qumran, and the Essenes,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls as Background to Postbiblical Judaism and Early Christianity: Papers from an International Conference at St. Andrews in 2001 (ed. James R. Davila; STDJ 46;Leiden: Brill, 2003) 63–89.

Anthony J. Saldarini, Pharisees, Scribes and Sadducees in Palestinian Society: A Sociological Approach (Wilmington, Del.: Glazier, 1988) identifies the Pharisees and Sadducees of the first century C.E. as “retainers” who occupied a limited sector of social actors who “served the needs of the ruler and the governing class” without ever achieving admission to the Jewish governing elite operating under the Roman authorities (ibid., 41). A retainer class, according to Saldarini's formulation, is “a political interest group who wished to influence the way Jewish life was lived religiously, socially, and politically” by maintaining “a partly independent power base through their influence on the people (ibid., 106).” Saldarini (ibid., 286) describes the Pharisees as a reformist sect that had differentiated itself from other Jews while maintaining the hope that their actions would motivate reform within the larger society whence they derived. The motivations of the Sadducees remain obscure, although see Albert I. Baumgarten, The Flourishing of the Jewish Sects in the Maccabean Era: An Interpretation (Journal for the Study of Judaism Supplements [JSJSup] 55; Leiden: Brill, 1997) 11 n. 29, who notes that one can presume that they functioned as a sect somehow comparable to the Pharisees by virtue of the fact that Josephus classifies them as such. Baumgarten (ibid., 13) classifies the Sadducees as a reformist sect as well, although he proceeds to warn against overconfidence in any such static characterization. As he notes (ibid., 14–15), the sects were engaged in constant negotiation of power between one another, meaning that the sociological profile of a given group could evolve over time in dynamic interaction with its competitors.

On the disruptive effects of sectarianism and competing religious ideologies on the eve of the revolt, see Martin Goodman, The Ruling Class of Judaea: The Origins of the Jewish Revolt against Rome, A.D. 66–70 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987) 76–108. Seth Schwartz, Imperialism and Jewish Society, 94–98, concurs with Goodman's conclusions but limits the political dimension of Jewish sectarianism to the first century C.E.See further Daniel R. Schwartz, Agrippa I: The Last King of Judaea (Texte und Studien zum antiken Judentum [TSAJ] 23; Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1990) 116–30, for discussion of sectarian unrest in the mid-first century C.E.

Shaye J. D. Cohen, “The Significance of Yavneh: Pharisees, Rabbis, and the End of Jewish Sectarianism,” HUCA 55 (1984) 27–53. See especially ibid., 43–45, for discussion of the impact of the loss of the Temple cult, and further idem, From the Maccabees to the Mishnah (Library of Early Christianity [LEC] 7; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1987) 131–32. Support for Cohen's theory has been widespread; see e.g., Günter Stemberger, Jewish Contemporaries of Jesus: Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes (trans. Allan W. Mahnke; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995) 140–47; Albert I. Baumgarten, The Flourishing of the Jewish Sects, 194–95; Lester L. Grabbe, Judaic Religion in the Second Temple Period: Belief and Practice from the Exile to Yavneh (London: Routledge, 2000) 120–24. Daniel Boyarin, however, has recently questioned Cohen's treatment within a comprehensive reappraisal of the designs of the Yavneh generation; see idem, Border Lines: The Partition of Judaeo-Christianity (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2004) 151–201. Boyarin (ibid., 155–57) suggests that the depiction of the Yavneh generation in the sources from which Cohen derives his argument largely reflects a sixth century C.E. viewpoint designed to promote the agenda of the nascent Jewish orthodoxy emerging in response to Christian domination. While I agree with Boyarin regarding the later rabbinic editors’ consciously revisionist portrayal of the Yavneh generation, his cursory critique of Cohen's treatment is not entirely convincing. While Boyarin is correct in arguing that late rabbinic editors embellished the earlier tannaitic accounts of the Yavneh generation, he does not engage the genuine tannaitic materials that lie at the heart of Cohen's argument. See also Jacob Neusner, Reading and Believing: Ancient Judaism and Contemporary Gullibility (Brown Judaic Studies [BJS] 113; Atlanta: Scholars, 1986) 82–89, who denies the rhetorical context in which Cohen's situates the tannaitic passages, characteristically concluding that these texts are of no historical value for the first century C.E.Although it is possible that even the tannaitic image of the Yavneh generation was formulated in reference to rabbinic ideals of the early third century, there is no way to determine this theory with any degree of certainty.

Cohen, “The Significance of Yavneh,” 45. Cohen contrasts this attitude with what he describes as an ideological isolationism that had characterized the Jewish sects of the Second Temple period; see ibid., 30, and see also idem, From the Maccabees to the Mishnah, 125–27. I am not persuaded by Cohen's definition of ancient Jewish sectarianism as a symptom of ideological competition, for the nature of the evidence does not allow us to definitively describe the respective ideologies of the sects at any given point in time. Albert I. Baumgarten (The Flourishing of the Jewish Sects, 7) offers a more basic definition of ancient Jewish sectarianism citing its sociological determinants, positing that the ancient Jewish sects “differentiated between Jews who were members of their sect and those not” on the basis of their respective attitudes towards the practices and beliefs of other Jews.

Cohen, “The Significance of Yavneh,” 49. For illustration of early rabbinic attitudes on the implications of heresy, see e.g., t. Sanhedrin [Sanh.] 13.5, which includes the minim among those whom the rabbis consider destined for eternal damnation for having separated themselves from their fellow Jews. For further discussion of this assignment and its background in ancient Jewish thought, see David Flusser, “Some of the Precepts of the Torah from Qumran (4QMMT) and the Benediction against the Heretics [Hebrew],” Tarbiz 61 (1992) 333–74, at 333–42 (reprinted in idem, Qumran and Apocalypticism [Hebrew], vol. 2 of Judaism of the Second Temple Period [ed. Serge Ruzer; Jerusalem: Yad Ben Zvi/Magnes, 2002] 58–99, at 58–67).

For examples of early rabbinic criticism of the

am ha-

areṣ, see e.g., m.

Abot 2.5, 3.14; m. Horayot [Hor.] 3.8; San. 7.7; t.

Abodah Zara [

Abod. Zar.] 3.9–10; t. Hor. 2.10, with discussion in Aharon Oppenheimer, The ‘Am Ha-Aretz: A Study in the Social History of the Jewish People in the Hellenistic-Roman Period (trans. I. H. Levine; Arbeiten zur Literatur und Geschichte des hellenistischen Judentums [ALGHJ] 8; Leiden: Brill, 1977) 114–17. For discussion of how this invective factors into the proposed paradigm of “ideological pluralism,” see Shaye J. D. Cohen, “The Rabbi in Second-Century Jewish Society,” in The Cambridge History of Judaism, vol. 3: The Early Roman Period (ed. William Horbury et al.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999) 922–90, at 959–61, who suggests that the early rabbis’ wariness of the

am ha-

areṣ was an expression of their own self-identification as “distinct from the masses of the Jews” (ibid., 961) and symptomatic of a characteristically condescending attitude towards those masses. He implies, however, that the

am ha-

areṣ remained within the bounds of normative Judaism envisioned by the rabbis, suggesting that their “ethic of separation and distinctiveness was tempered by a democratic idealism, which urged all Jews to study Torah and accept the rabbinic way.”

Although the reference dates to the early third century C.E., the Tosefta (t. Berakot [Ber.] 3.25) mentions a preexisting prayer that referred to the minim, apparently synonymous with the birkat ha-minim. The explicit association of the birkat ha-minim with the Yavneh generation first appears in the late account in the Palestinian Talmud, ca. fourth century C.E.(y. Ber. 2.5 5a, y. Ber. 4.3 8a;cf. b. Ber. 28b–29a). On the character and design of this prayer, see Reuven Kimelman, “Birkat Ha-Minim and the Lack of Evidence for an Anti-Christian Jewish Prayer in Late Antiquity,” in Aspects of Judaism in the Graeco-Roman Period (vol. 2 of Jewish and Christian Self-Definition;ed. E. P. Sanders et al.; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981) 226–44. An explicit reference to Christians known from a medieval manuscript from the Cairo Genizah was most likely inserted only after the era of Constantine; see Pieter W. van der Horst, “The Birkat ha-minim in recent research,” Expository Times [ExpTim] 105 (1993–1994) 363–68 (reprinted in idem, Hellenism–Judaism–Christianity: Essays on Their Interaction [Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1994] 99–111). Boyarin, Border Lines, 67–73, maintains the late dating of the anti-Christian interpolation, but suggests that the perceived threat of Christianity was the primary impetus for the rabbis’ composition of the prayer. Cf. Flusser,“Some of the Precepts of the Torah” 366–74 (repr. idem, Judaism of the Second Temple Period, 2.91–99), who argues that the benediction originated among in the late Second Temple period as a malediction against the “separatists” (Heb. yvwrp) mentioned alongside the minim in t. Ber. 3.25. He bases his argument on the employment of the same term in the Dead Sea Scrolls (4QMMT C 7–8) and in early rabbinic texts (e.g., m.

Abot 2.5; t. Sanh. 13.5) in reference to social “outsiders” (Flusser, ibid., 357–63 [repr. idem, Judaism of the Second Temple Period, 82–88]). Flusser erroneously presumes that we can distinguish two phases in the development of the original benediction, which at first referred only to the “separatists” but was emended at Yavneh to refer to the minim as well (for this suggestion, see Saul Lieberman, Tosefta Ki-Fshutah, Order Zerai’m, Pt. 1 [Hebrew][3d ed., New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 2001] 53–54). Although t. Ber. 3.25 offers no indication of such development, Flusser's observation of the diverse subject matter of the original prayer weakens Boyarin's intimation that it was directed against any specific group, let alone a group within another group (i.e., the Christian minim). Of no merit whatsoever is the suggestion of David Instone-Brewer, “The Eighteen Benedictions and the Minim before 70 CE,” Journal of Theological Studies (new series) [JTS (n.s.)] 54 (2003) 25–44, at 40–44, that the prayer was based on a pre-70 C.E.Pharisaic curse of the Sadducees.

On the variety of Jewish practices that the rabbis classified as symptoms of minuth, see e.g., Alan F. Segal, Two Powers in Heaven: Early Rabbinic Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (Studies in Judaism in Late Antiquity [SJLA] 25; Leiden: Brill, 1977) 57–59, 109–34; Stuart S. Miller, “The Minim of Sepphoris Reconsidered,” Harvard Theological Review [HTR] 86 (1993)377–402. The rabbis only began to conflate Christians of Gentile and of Jewish extraction as minim following the rise of imperial Christianity and the consequent diminution of the Jews’ civil rights and social status, at which point their rhetoric shifted from an inner Jewish critique to an extramural polemic; for discussion, see Richard Kalmin, “Christians and Heretics in Rabbinic Literature of Late Antiquity,” HTR 87 (1994) 155–69; Boyarin, Border Lines, 220–25. For treatments addressing the functions of minuth as a rhetorical trope in later rabbinic literature, see Christine E. Hayes, “Displaced Self-Perceptions: The Deployment of Minim and Romans in b. Sanhedrin 90b–91a,” in Religious and Ethnic Communities in Later Roman Palestine (ed. Hayim Lapin; Studies and Texts in Jewish History and Culture 5; College Park, Md.: University Press of Maryland, 1998) 249–89; Naomi Janowitz, “Rabbis and Their Opponents: The Construction of the ‘Min’ in Rabbinic Anecdotes,” Journal of Early Christian Studies [JECS] 6 (1998) 449–62; Gideon Bohak, “Magical Means for Handling Minim in Rabbinic Literature,” in The Image of the Judaeo-Christians in Ancient Jewish and Christian Literature (ed. Peter J. Tomson and Doris Lambers-Petry; WUNT 158; Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 2003) 267–79.

For this observation, see Martin Goodman, “The Function of Minim in Early Rabbinic Judaism,” in Geschichte–Tradition–Reflexion. Festschrift für Martin Hengel zum 70. Geburtstag, Bd. 1: Judentum (ed. Peter Schäfer; Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1996) 501–10, at 508–9, and see also Janowitz, “Rabbis and Their Opponents,” 459–60. On early Christian construction of heresy as a categorical opposition to orthodoxy, see Walter Bauer, Orthodoxy and Heresy in Earliest Christianity (ed. Robert A. Kraft and Gerhard Krodel; trans. a team from the Philadelphia Seminar on Christian Origins; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1971) xxi–xxv, and see Michel Desjardins, “Bauer and Beyond: On Recent Scholarly Discussions of

in the Early Christian Era,” Second Century [SecCent]8 (1991) 65–82, who discusses recent critical refinements of Bauer's thesis.

Cohen, “The Significance of Yavneh,” 40–42, suggests that the early rabbis intentionally obscured their movement's roots in the Pharisaic tradition as part of their effort to erase the memory of sectarianism. This suggestion is reinforced by overall tenor of the religious reform introduced at Yavneh that Cohen describes in his article. Nevertheless, the rabbis’ ambiguous acknowledgment of Pharisaic influence on the religious ideology of their new movement does not amount to a denial that the connection actually existed, as argued repeatedly by Jacob Neusner; see e.g., idem, From Politics to Piety: The Emergence of Pharisaic Judaism (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1973) 66; idem, “Josephus’ Pharisees: A Complete Repertoire,” in Josephus, Judaism, and Christianity (ed. Louis H. Feldman and Gohei Hata; Detroit: Wayne State University, 1997)291–92. Evidence substantiating the ideological continuity between Pharisaism and the rabbinic movement is abundant, and can be found in the works of Josephus (see Seth Schwartz, Josephus and Judaean Politics [Columbia Studies in the Classical Tradition 18; Leiden: Brill, 1990] 200–8)and in the Dead Sea Scrolls, (see e.g., Daniel R. Schwartz, “MMT, Josephus and the Pharisees,” in Reading 4QMMT: New Perspectives on Qumran Law and History [ed. John Kampen and Moshe J. Bernstein; [SBLSymS] 2; Atlanta: Scholars, 1996] 67–80, at 72–80; James C. VanderKam, “Pesher Nahum and Josephus,” in When Judaism and Christianity Began: Essays in Memory of Anthony J. Saldarini, Vol. 1: Christianity in the Beginning [ed. Alan J. Avery-Peck et al.; JSJSup 85; Leiden: Brill, 2004] 299–311).

Cohen, “The Significance of Yavneh,” 31. The centrality of legal interpretation had motivated Jewish sectarian tendencies since the beginning of the Second Temple period; see Morton Smith, “The Dead Sea Sect in Relation to Ancient Judaism,” New Testament Studies [NTS] 7 (1961) 347–60 (repr. idem, Historical Method, Ancient Israel, Ancient Judaism [vol. 1 of Studies in the Cult of Yahweh; ed. Shaye J. D. Cohen; Religions in the Graeco-Roman World 130; Leiden: Brill, 1996]168–83). The etymology of the name “Pharisee” is often assumed to derive from the Hebrew verb

, literally “to separate” or “to specify,” although if this is the case, it is likely that this label was originally assigned to the founders of the sect by people outside of their group; for discussion, see Albert I. Baumgarten “The Name of the Pharisees,” Journal of Biblical Literature [JBL] 102 (1983) 411–28. Flusser, “Some of the Precepts of the Torah,” 366–74 (repr. idem, Judaism of the Second Temple Period, 2.91–99), suggests that the designation was originally imposed by Temple authorities who disapproved of the Pharisees’ factionalism.

Josephus does not offer an estimate of the number of Sadducees active prior to the war, although he indicates that their numbers were much lower than those of the Pharisees (Ant. 13.297). He further claims (Ant. 18.17) that the Sadducees typically conceded to the Pharisees in matters of practical law, although this statement has no evident bearing on their ultimate reconciliation with the Pharisees; see Steve Mason, Flavius Josephus on the Pharisees: A Compositional-Critical Study (Studia Post-Biblica [StPB] 39; Leiden: Brill, 1991) 353–54. Irrespective of how it happened, however, a number of witnesses indicate that Sadducean legal exegesis remained a viable force within the rabbinic movement. On the function of the “Sadducee vs. Pharisee” disputation texts, see Cohen, “The Significance of Yavneh,” 32–34; Saldarini, Pharisees, Scribes and Sadducees, 231–37.

In a recent study sharing certain thematic issues with my own, Adiel Schremer has suggested that the rabbinic category of minuth was predicated on strategies of scriptural interpretation similar to those employed by the Qumran community to reinforce its platform of voluntary social isolation. While his empirical thesis is slightly more demonstrable than my inferential argument, Schremer does not adequately explain why the rabbis would have adopted what he describes as a common Jewish legal rubric of separatism only to turn it on its head and reformulate it as a rubric of exclusivism. Resisting the current scholarly consensus regarding the level of popular influence of the rabbis in the tannaitic period that educates the current study, Schremer interprets their silence on the issue of relative social status as positive evidence of their superior social position. He further suggests that the rabbis’ empowered position allowed them the leeway to dictate the laws of minuth over the socially inferior groups who fell under that category. While I agree that the rabbis used the idea or heresy to reinforce extant social boundaries rather than to construct new ones, Schremer's failure to distinguish rhetoric from reality renders his argument regarding the legal basis of minuth largely ineffective. See Adiel Schremer, “Seclusion and Exclusion: The Rhetoric of Separation in Qumran and Tannaitic Literature,” in Rabbinic Perspectives: Rabbinic Literature and the Dead Sea Scrolls, Proceedings of the Eighth International Symposium of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature, 7–9 January, 2003 (ed. Steven D. Fraade and Aharon Shemesh;STDJ; Leiden: Brill, forthcoming).

As noted by Cohen, “The Significance of Yavneh,” 30, who claims that these sects claimed “exclusive possession of the truth,” i.e., who believed that their respective groups were parties to exclusive covenants with God. Although this description can reasonably be applied to certain early Christians, its application to the Essenes must be deduced from the evidence of the Dead Sea Scrolls; for discussion, see John J. Collins, “The Construction of Israel in the Sectarian Rule Books,” in Judaism in Late Antiquity, Part 5: The Judaism of Qumran: A Systematic Reading of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Vol. 1: Theory of Israel (ed. Alan J. Avery-Peck et al.; Handbuch der Orientalistik [HO]55; Leiden: Brill, 2001) 25–42. Although we cannot arbitrarily extrapolate information about the Essenes’ sectarian platform from the writings of the Qumran community, this particular aspect of their communal discipline seems to have been inherent to the broader phenomenon of Essene sectarianism. For example, the idea of a sectarian covenant is a central feature of the Damascus Document's foundation narrative; see e.g., CD 3.13, 8.17–18, with discussion in Collins (ibid., 26–30). For a thorough comparison of the sectarian disciplines of the Essenes and of one notable early Christian community, see Graham M. Stanton, “Matthew's Gospel and the Damascus Document in Sociological Perspective,” in idem, A Gospel for a New People: Studies in Matthew (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1992) 85–107.

Information on Christianity in Judaea-Palestine in the decades following 70 C.E.is scant, appearing mostly in later sources; for preliminary discussion of the extant evidence, see Seán Freyne, Galilee from Alexander the Great to Hadrian, 323 B.C.E. to 135 C.E.: A Study of Second Temple Judaism (Wilmington, Del.; Glazier, 1980) 344–56. A few early Christian sources report that the Christian Jews associated with the apostolic church of Jerusalem survived the war by removing itself to various locations in provincial Syria bordering the territory of Judaea; see Eusebius, Historia ecclesiastica [Hist.Eccl.] 3.5.3; Epiphanius, Pan. 29.7.7–8, 30.2.7 (Pella); Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions [Ps.-Clem. Recog.] 1.37.1–4, 1.39.1–3 (elsewhere in Syria). The story, however, is rather sketchy and appears to have been devised in an attempt to confer apostolic authority on a local church that was founded after the end of the apostolic period; see “Appendix: The Successors of Earliest Jerusalem Christianity: An Analysis of the Pella Tradition,” in Gerd Luedemann, Opposition to Paul in Jewish Christianity (trans. M. Eugene Boring; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989)200–13. I intend to discuss the Jewish social context of early Syro-Palestinian Christianity more extensively in my doctoral dissertation, currently in preparation.

A narrative unit spanning t.

ullin [

ul.] 2.22–24 relates two separate incidents where Jews are criticized for voicing support for Jesus, although only the second story explicitly associates this practice with minuth. An additional tannaitic reference to Christianity appears in t. Yadayim [Yad.] 2.13 (repr. t. šabbat [šabb.] 13.5), which juxtaposes manuscripts of “the gospels” (Heb.

; cf. Gk.

) with other “books of the minim.” Although these references refer to personages of the late first and early second centuries, their appearance in documents redacted in the early third century precludes us from gauging their historical accuracy. For exhaustive treatments of these well studied passages and their parallels elsewhere in rabbinic literature, see Dan Jaffé, Le judaïsme et l’avènement du christianisme. Orthodoxie et hétérodoxie dans la littérature talmudique I^er–II^esiècle (Patrimoines; Paris: Cerf, 2005) 117–312, although readers should be aware of the author's occasional overconfidence in the documentary value of these witnesses.

Daniel Boyarin has recently cited the parallel epistemological functions of the early rabbinic and Christian conceptions of heresy in support of his argument that early rabbis actually devised the terminology of minuth as an analogue to the Christian conception of

(see note 17 above). According to Boyarin, this common classification was the result of a “mutual and parallel shaping of heresy as otherness in second-century rabbinic and Christian discourse” (Boyarin, Border Lines, 54–55; see also Stephen Goranson, “Others and Intra-Jewish Polemic as Reflected in Qumran Texts,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls after Fifty Years: A Comprehensive Assessment [ed. Peter W. Flint and James C. VanderKam; 2 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 1998–1999] 2.534–51, at 536). This theory would preclude the possibility that the rabbinic conception of minuth may be read to correspond with the Jewish sects (Gk.

) of the Second Temple period. Boyarin cites David Runia's definition of the Second Temple era Jewish

as “a party or sect marked by common ideas and aims,” contrasting this usage with the connotation of “a group that propounds false doctrine” associated with the rabbinic/Christian conception of heresy (Boyarin, Border Lines, 55; see David T. Runia, “Philo of Alexandria and the Greek Haeresis-Model,” Vigiliae Christianae [VC] 53 [1999] 117–47, at 118. For a complementary discussion of the usage of the Greek term in the work of Josephus and in the New Testament, see Mason, Flavius Josephus on the Pharisees, 125–28). He reinforces this suggestion by intimating Greek lexical influence, presumably through Christian literature, on the use of the verbal abstract minuth to connote a religious taxonomy (Boyarin, Border Lines, 55; see also Goodman, “The Function of Minim,” 503–4). Accordingly, he argues that the early rabbinic application of the minuth terminology to the birkat ha-minim is a retrojection of later editors and provides evidence neither for its use in the period immediately following 70 C.E.nor, by extension, in the period prior to 70 C.E.While Boyarin is correct in affirming that we cannot unequivocally use the rabbinic references to the birkat ha-minim to trace the term minuth to the first century, his theory regarding its development is less compelling. Boyarin adduces no evidence of a Jewish-Christian dialogue current to the tannaitic era that might have provided a means for this sophisticated exchange of theological ideas between the two parties. This is not to say that there was no such communication in this period; see e.g., Marc Hirshman, A Rivalry of Genius: Jewish and Christian Biblical Interpretation in Late Antiquity (trans. Batya Stein; Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996) 31–41, who discusses the citation of Jewish religious factionalism in his apology for Christianity in work of the second century writer Justin Martyr (see esp. Justin, Dialogus cum Tryphone [Dial.] 80.3–4). But as far as I can tell, the information was traveling in only one direction as this point in time. Boyarin, Border Lines, 40–44, plausibly situates Justin's meditation within a common rabbinic/Christian discourse of group definition but fails to explain why the rabbis might have considered Christianity an existential challenge to Judaism at this time. With no further substantiating evidence to support it, Boyarin's observation that the rabbinic concept of minuth serves the same rhetorical function as the Christian

simply does not constitute a valid argument for the interdependence of the two terms. I therefore do not consider his theory to complicate my own suggestion that early rabbis might have devised the category of minuth in reference to the type of Jewish sectarianism current to the late Second Temple period.

For discussion of the epistemological implications of secondary socialization, see Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1966) 138–47. The process of secondary socialization requires one to internalize a subjective reality that is somehow opposed to the version of reality that has previously been impressed upon him or her. The newly adopted version of reality is characteristically legitimated through a revised epistemology, which interprets the present “so as to stand in a continuous relationship with the past, with the tendency to minimize such transformations as have actually taken place (ibid., 163).” This tendency is blatantly obvious in certain of the archaizing behavioral tendencies of the Essenes. For example, recent studies on the Hebrew dialect favored by the Qumran community have suggested that the Essenes assumed identification with a idealized biblical past that stood in tension with the increasingly progressive social climate current to Judaea in the first century C.E.William M. Schniedewind, “Qumran Hebrew as an Antilanguage,” JBL 118 (1999) 235–52, at 242–51, sees the unique medium of Qumran Hebrew as “a language for the community alone, which in itself highlights the community's insulation” from their surroundings (ibid., 251). See also Steve Weitzman, “Why Did the Qumran Community Write in Hebrew?” Journal of the American Oriental Society [JAOS] 119 (1999) 35–45, at 43–45, who suggests that the sect favored an archaic literary medium to reflect “its self-image as a transcendent community;its efforts to compensate for a lack of external validation; its creation of social borders between itself and outsiders (ibid., 45).”

Albert I. Baumgarten, “He Knew that He Knew that He Knew that He was an Essene,” JJS 48 (1997) 53–61, at 60. See also idem, The Flourishing of the Jewish Sects, 112–13, for further reflection on how the Essenes’ fundamentalist behavior effectuated the social boundaries, which set the sect apart from their contemporaries. For a complementary assessment of the cultural significance of religious expression, see Clifford Geertz, “Religion as a Cultural System,” in idem, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (New York: Basic Books, 1973) 87–125.

Josephus: B.J. 2. 120–127; Philo: Prob. 76, Hypoth. 11.4–5; Pliny, Naturalis historia [Nat.]5.73; see also Albert I. Baumgarten, “He Knew that He Knew,” 55–57, who cites Josephus, B.J. 2.124, as evidence that Essene communities were sufficiently distinctive to have been recognizable to Essenes and non-Essenes alike. For organizational patterns within the Qumran sect, see Charlotte Hempel, “Community Structures in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Admission, Organization, Disciplinary Procedures,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls after Fifty Years: A Comprehensive Assessment, (ed. Peter W. Flint and James C. VanderKam; 2 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 1998–1999) 2.67–92. For discussion of these communal structures in light of the Essene sect, see John J. Collins, “Forms of Community in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in Emanuel: Studies in Hebrew Bible, Septuagint, and Dead Sea Scrolls in Honor of Emanuel Tov (ed. Shalom M. Paul et al.; Vetus Testamentum Supplements [VTSup]94; Leiden: Brill, 2003) 97–111.

Philo, Prob. 81; for discussion of this passage and suggestive parallels in the Damascus Document (i.e., CD 11.22–23) and in the Dead Sea Scrolls, see Donald D. Binder, Into the Temple Courts: The Place of the Synagogues in the Second Temple Period (SBL Dissertation Series [SBLDS] 169;Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 1999) 453–68. I should note that there is some ambiguity in Philo's claim that the Essenes gathered in synagogues. Philo only rarely uses the term

to refer to an actual house of prayer (cf. idem, Legatio ad Gaium [Legat.] 311, De somniis [Somn.]2.127), typically using the term

for that function. It should be noted, however, that he usually uses the latter term in reference to Jewish houses of worship in Egypt, whereas his discussion of the Essenes is set in Judaea. On the applications of these two terms in reference to Jewish communal institutions in Egyptian Jewish texts, see Aryeh Kasher, “Synagogues as ‘Houses of Prayer’ and ‘Holy Places’ in the Jewish Communities of Hellenistic and Roman Egypt,” in Ancient Synagogues: Historical Analysis and Archaeological Discovery (ed. Dan Urman and Paul V. M. Flesher; 2 vols.; StPB 47; Leiden: Brill, 1995) 1.205–20. Kasher (ibid., 209) observes that the former term usually indicates a communal gathering rather than the building designed for that purpose, although Philo's clearly refers to synagogues as specific places in Prob. 81.

t. šabb. 13.5. This observation presupposes that the rabbis did not wield authority over an institutionalized synagogue comparable to the system of ecclesiastical authority that developed in the early Church. On the variety of synagogue types in Roman Palestine, see Stuart S. Miller, “The Rabbis and the Non-Existent Monolithic Synagogue,” in Jews, Christians, and Polytheists in the Ancient Synagogue: Cultural Interaction during the Greco-Roman Period (ed. Steven Fine;London: Routledge, 1999) 57–70.

For discussion of the factors that likely motivated the Essenes’ departure from the Temple cult, see Albert I. Baumgarten, “Josephus on Essene Sacrifice,” JJS 45 (1994) 169–83, and see idem, The Flourishing of the Jewish Sects, 108–9. Josephus (Ant. 18.19) notes that they continued to perform ritual sacrifices, albeit in private locations and according to their own standards of practice. This testimony is reinforced by frequent reference to ritual sacrifice as a component of the Qumran community's liturgy; for discussion, see Joseph M. Baumgarten, “Sacrifice and Worship among the Jewish Sectarians of the Dead Sea (Qumrân) Scrolls,” HTR 46 (1953) 141–59 (reprinted in idem, Studies in Qumran Law [SJLA 24; Leiden: Brill, 1977] 39–56); Schiffman, Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls, 289–312. See also Michael E. Stone, “The Axis of History at Qumran,” in Pseudepigraphic Perspectives: The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Proceedings of the International Symposium of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature, 12–14 January, 1997 (ed. Esther G. Chazon and Michael E. Stone; STDJ 31; Leiden: Brill, 1999) 133–49, at 148–49, who suggests that the Qumran community based its self-representation of estrangement from the Temple cult upon a pre-Essenic notion found in the Enochic literary tradition.

In light of the preponderance of evidence indicating that the Essenes practiced sacrificial rituals outside of the Temple, I should note that the Damascus Document alludes to the possibility that some Essenes were inclined to return to the Temple at a relatively early stage in the sect's history (CD 12.1, 20.22–23). Moreover, Philo, Prob. 75, claims that the Essenes offered no sacrifices at all. Philo's claim, which expressly contradicts the testimony of Josephus, is particularly troubling. It seems, however, that Philo was motivated to make this claim in the service of his typological depiction of the sect as the paradigm of Jewish piety. Accordingly, it would have been against his interest to depict the Essenes as violating the scriptural laws against sacrificing outside of the Temple; cf. Tessa Rajak, “Ciò che Flavio Giuseppe Vide: Josephus and the Essenes,” in Josephus and the History of the Greco-Roman Period: Essays in Memory of Morton Smith (ed. Fausto Parente and Joseph Sievers; StPB 41; Leiden: Brill 1994) 141–60 (repr. eadem, The Jewish Dialogue with Greece and Rome: Studies in Cultural and Social Interaction [Arbeiten zur Geschichte des antiken Judentums und des Urchristentums [AGJU] 48; Leiden: Brill, 2001] 219–40), who favors Josephus's eyewitness testimony to the Essenes’ behavior over Philo's rhetorically motivated portrait of the sect. Although the Essenes are the only Jewish group of Judaea known to have maintained this practiced sacrificial rites outside of the Jerusalem Temple, it is clear that unsanctioned sacrificial rites were regularly performed by Jews living in the Diaspora during the period of the Second Temple; for discussion, see Anders Runesson, The Origins of the Synagogue: A Socio-Historical Study (Coniectanea biblica: New Testament Series [ConBNT] 37; Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 2001) 446–50 (Egypt), 464 (Sardis). I thank Dr. Runesson for these references.

m.

ul 2.9 (repr. t.

ul. 2.19); t. Yoma 2.10. While the rabbis apparently devised this legislation in reference to a theoretical scenario when the Temple was not in disrepair, it is possible that they directed it toward individuals who continued to practice sacrificial rites after its destruction; for discussion of other rabbinic legislation acknowledging this phenomenon, see Baruch M. Bokser, The Origins of the Seder: The Passover Rite and Early Rabbinic Judaism (Berkeley, Calif.: Universityof California Press, 1984) 101–6.

The mysterious group called the “sons of the water drinkers” are reported in one tannaitic source to have removed themselves from the Temple cult in the late Second Temple period and to have prophesied and practiced unauthorized sacrificial rites in the desert; see Mekhilta [Mek.]ad Exod 18:27 (Yitro, Amalek 4 [ed. Horovitz-Rabin, 200], repr. Yitro, Amalek 2 [ed. Lauterbach, 2.187]; cf. Pesiqta de-Rab Kahana [Pesiq. Rab Kah.] add. 5 [ed. Mandelbaum, 464]). This group, evidently similar to the Qumran community, are perhaps likewise to be identified as Essenes; for discussion, see Safrai, “The Memory of the Rabbis,” 535–37. Although the rabbinic editors do not indict these people as minim, their polemical tone clearly indicates that they were aware of such sectarian behavior and considered it unacceptable.

On the role of calendrical disputes in the formation of the Essene sect, as reflected in the Damascus Document, see e.g., CD 3.13–15, 6.18–19, 12.3–6, 16.2–4. On the pre-Hasmonaean origins of the Essenes’ solar calendar, see James C. VanderKam, Calendars in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Measuring Time (London: Routledge, 1998) 113–16, and for discussion of the role of calendrical issues within Qumran community, see ibid., passim. Cf. Sacha Stern, “Qumran Calendars: Theory and Practice,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls in Their Historical Context (ed. Timothy H. Lim; Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000) 179–86, who questions whether the solar calendar was put to practical use at Qumran.

m. Roš Haššanah 2.1, m. Roš Haš. 1.8.; cf. t. Roš Haš. 1.15, where this accusation is levied upon a certain Boethusian, a specific type of Jewish sectarian active in the late Second Temple period. For discussion of the early rabbinic standards for calendrical regulation, see VanderKam, Calendars in the Dead Sea Scrolls, 36–40. Calendrical disputes with the Boethusians appear elsewhere in tannaitic legal texts (e.g., m. Mena

ot [Mena

.] 10.3; cf. m.

agigah [

ag.] 2.4), which indicates that the either the mishnaic or the toseftan recension of this law has been modified. Nonetheless, the fact that it is attributed to the minim in the Mishnah indicates that the editors of that document considered the issue to have been relevant to other types of minim than the Boethusians. A tenuous theory equating the Boethusians with the Essenes has no bearing on this subject; for a critique of this argument, see Regev, “Were the Priests All the Same?” 185–88.

Cf., however, 1QpHab 11.2–8, which describes an actual confrontation between a priest from Jerusalem and a representative of the Qumran community over the intercalation of the date of Yom Kippur. For discussion of this episode and its relevance to dispute over the cultic calendar, see Shemaryahu Talmon, “Yom Hakippurim in the Habakkuk Scroll,” Biblica 32 (1951) 549–63 (reprinted in idem, The World of Qumran from Within: Collected Studies [Jerusalem: Magnes, 1989]186–99); VanderKam, Calendars in the Dead Sea Scrolls, 44–45. Although this episode may be no more genuine than the rabbinic editors’ accusation, it serves as an incisive counterpoint to their claim that sectarians were the more insidious party to this dispute.

Josephus, B.J. 2.129, 2.138, 2.150. Mason, “What Josephus Says about the Essenes,” 438, notes that Josephus offers this appraisal in a positive light, drawing comparisons to other instances where the historian presents ritual immersion amongst the Jews as a virtue (e.g., Ant. 3.263; Vita 11).

See e.g., 1QS 3.4–6, 3.9, 5.14; for further texts and discussion, see Hannah K. Harrington, The Purity Texts (Companion to the Qumran Scrolls 5; London: T&T Clark, 2004). See also Joseph M. Baumgarten, “Liquids and Susceptibility to Defilement in New 4Q Texts,” Jewish Quarterly Review [JQR] 85 (1995) 91–101, for discussion of the purification rituals implied in 4Q274 and 4Q284. On the occurrence and functions of ritual baths at Qumran, see Magness, The Archaeology of Qumran, 147–50. Cf., however, Katharina Galor, “Plastered Pools: A New Perspective,” in Khirbet Qumrân et

Aïn Feshkha (vol. 2 of Fouilles de Khirbet Qumrân et de

Aïn Feshkha; ed. Jean-Baptiste Humbert and Jan Gunneweg; Novum Testamentum et Orbis Antiquus [NTOA], Series Archaeologica 3; Fribourg: Presses Universitaires de Fribourg, 2003) 291–320, who argues for the reclassification of many of the supposed ritual baths as water cisterns.

See Josephus, B.J. 2.150:

. Josephus's testimony is reinforced by the Community Rule document from Qumran, which dictates that certain high-ranking members of the community were to completely refrain from interaction with non-members (1QS 6.20–22). We can nevertheless safely presume that most Essenes were allowed to maintain contact with people outside of the sect, as is implied by Josephus's and Philo's accounts of their commercial contacts and their travels; for discussion, see Albert I. Baumgarten, The Flourishing of the Jewish Sects, 104–7.

t. Parah 3.3. An alternate version of this text (m. Parah 3.3) clearly evinces editorial revision, modifying the context of the polemic and assigning the interest in purity to the Sadducees rather than to the minim. The indictment against the offenders is framed in a puzzling parable: the minim are criticized for hanging stone cups on the horns of oxen, so that when they bent their necks to drink, the cups would be filled. The precise force of the Tosefta's critique is somewhat obscure, apparently implying that certain minim wished to avoid physical contact with impure waters such as those from which an ox might drink. To this cf. Josephus, B.J. 2.138, who alleges that Essene initiates were forbidden from touching the “purer of the holy waters” (

) so designated by their superiors.

A corresponding ruling elsewhere in the Tosefta (t.

ag. 3.19) explicitly alleges that the earlyrabbis thought that conflict over the preparation of ritually pure waters had been one of the causes for the departure of certain Jews from the Temple cult in the late Second Temple period. In light of the discussion above, this appears to be a reference to the Essenes or another group, who likewise practiced alternative sacrificial rites; see Albert I. Baumgarten, “Josephus on Essene Sacrifice,” 180–81, and see the references in notes 31–32 above. A related observation can be made about a group to whom the early rabbis refer as ‘morning immersers,’ who are not singled out as minim but are nonetheless criticized for their excessive observance of ritual purification (t. Yad. 1.20). This group, which appears identical to a Jewish sect to whom several Church Fathers and early Christian documents refer as ‘hemerobaptists’ (see e.g., Hegesippus ap. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 4.22; Epiphanius, Pan. 17.1–5), represents a clear example of the continued occurrence of characteristically Essenic behavior among Jews after 70 C.E.For discussion of this group, see Kurt Rudolph,“The Baptist Sects,” in The Cambridge History of Judaism, vol. 3: The Early Roman Period (ed. William Horbury et al.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999) 471–500, at 475–77, and cf. Safrai, “The Memory of the Rabbis, 535.

Josephus: B.J. 2.130–133, 2.139, 2.143, Ant. 18:22; Philo, Hypoth. 11.11. Accordingly, the Qumran legal codes prescribe strict eating habits for the community; see e.g., 1QS 5.13–16, 6.3. For discussion of diet and meals amongst the Essenes and in the Qumran community, see Albert I. Baumgarten, The Flourishing of the Jewish Sects, 93–96; idem, “Finding One's Self in a Sectarian Context: A Sectarian's Food and Its Implications,” in Self, Soul, and Body in Religious Experience (ed. Albert I. Baumgarten et al.; Studies in the History of Religions [SHR] 78; Leiden: Brill, 1998)125–47; Philip R. Davies, “Food, Drink and Sects: The Question of Ingestion in the Qumran Texts,” Semeia 86 (1999) 151–63.

t.

ul. 2.20–21. On the development of early rabbinic standards of kashruth, see Jacob Neusner, “Law and Theology in the Mishnah-Tractate Hullin,” in Verbum et Calamus: Semitic and Related Studies in Honour of the Sixtieth Birthday of Professor Tapani Harviainen (ed. Hannu Juusola et al.;Studia orientalia [StudOr] 99; Helsinki: Finnish Oriental Society, 2004) 191–97. The epistemology of the laws of kashruth in the period prior to the redaction of the Mishnah by necessity remains obscure. Yet the implication that the Essenes maintained fixed standards of practice in this regard accords with other witnesses to such customs among Jews of the Second Temple period; see discussion in E. P. Sanders, Judaism: Practice and Belief, 63 BCE–66 CE (London: SCM, 1992) 214–17.

Scholars who have dealt with this particular halakhah in the past have often assumed that the type of minuth at issue is Christianity, or, more accurately, a Christianized form of Judaism, as the text of the Tosefta explicitly contrasts the minim in question to Gentiles; see e.g., Philip S. Alexander,“‘The Parting of the Ways’ from the Perspective of Rabbinic Judaism,” in Jews and Christians: The Parting of the Ways, A.D. 70 to 135, The Second Durham-Tübingen Research Symposium on Earliest Christianity and Judaism (Durham, September, 1989) (ed. James D. G. Dunn; WUNT 66;Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1992) 15–16. The basis of this assumption seems to be the fact that neglect of the laws of kashruth was one of Christianity's definitive points of departure from the Jewish tradition, and furthermore, the fact that two adjacent pericopes clearly refer to Christian minim (t.

ul. 2.22–24). But while it is possible the law was intended to address Christians among other alleged Jewish heretics, the assumption that it refers specifically to Christians cannot be justified on the basis of the text. Aside from the issue of kashruth, the ruling refers to several other symptoms of minuth, which appear to be drawn from a stereotypical legal rubric otherwise irrelevant to Christian practice; cf. Schremer's discussion of this pericope in idem, “Seclusion and Exclusion.” Furthermore, the Tosefta use the term

, a terminus technicus for Jewish ritual slaughter, in reference to the method by which the minim in question prepared their meat. This strongly suggests that the minim in question did in fact practice some form of ritual slaughter rather than ignore the law altogether, as one might expect a Christian to have done. Given that the minim in question were Jews who practiced some form ritual slaughter, one might still suggest that the law was directed toward Christian Jews who observed laws akin to the rabbinic rubric of kashruth (see Origen, Commentarium in Matthaei [Comm. Matt.] 11.12; Pseudo-Clementine Homilies [Ps.-Clem.] Recog. 4.36.4; Ps.-Clem. Hom. 7.8.1). But according to that logic, the Tosefta is equally likely to refer to any alleged Jewish heretics who observed such laws.

Josephus, B.J. 2.126, 2.137, 2.140; Philo, Prob. 86, Hypoth. 11.12. For discussion, see Albert I. Baumgarten, “He Knew that He Knew,” 57; idem, The Flourishing of the Jewish Sects, 101.

See Jodi Magness, “Women at Qumran?” in What Athens Has to Do with Jerusalem: Essays on Classical, Jewish, and Early Christian Art and Archaeology in Honor of Gideon Foerster (ed. Leonard V. Rutgers; Interdisciplinary Studies on Cultural Interaction in Antiquity 1; Leuven: Peeters, 2002) 89–123, at 109–22 (repr. eadem, Debating Qumran: Collected Essays on Its Archaeology [Interdisciplinary Studies on Cultural Interaction in Antiquity 4; Leuven: Peeters, 2004] 113–49, at 135–49); eadem, The Archaeology of Qumran, 193–202. See also Shaye J. D. Cohen: The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties (Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1999) 30–34, who likewise concludes that Jews in the Second Temple period would not typically have been distinguishable from non-Jews by their chosen mode of dress. This opinion is shared by others who have discussed of ancient Jewish modes of dress; see e.g., Lucille A. Roussin, “Costume in Roman Palestine: Archaeological Remains and the Evidence from the Mishnah,” in The World of Roman Costume (ed. Judith Lynn Sebesta and Larissa Bonfante; Madison, Wis.: University of Wisconsin Press, 1994) 182–90; Catherine Hezser, The Social Structure of the Rabbinic Movement in Roman Palestine (TSAJ 66; Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1997) 123–30.

m. Megilla [Meg.] 4.8. This accusation is followed by several others implicating the behavior of the minim, such as their recitation of peculiar liturgies and their refusal to wear shoes. While these traits might have characterized some Essenes, we have no explicit testimony to confirm this. It seems more likely that this passage contains a litany of allegations directed against various types of heretics including, but not limited to, the Essenes. The legislation against white clothing, perhaps the most obvious parallel with the practice of the Essenes, has often been noted; see e.g., Alan F. Segal, Rebecca's Children: Judaism and Christianity in the Roman World (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1986) 149.

t. šabb. 13.5. On the implications of this statement, see Sacha Stern, Jewish Identity in Early Rabbinic Writings (AGJU 23; Leiden: Brill, 1994) 111–12, who sees it as a reluctant admission on the part of the rabbis that the minim remained party to God's covenant with Israel. Cf. Lawrence H. Schiffman, Who Was a Jew? Rabbinic and Halakhic Perspectives on the Jewish-Christian Schism (Hoboken, N.J.: Ktav, 1985) 63: “Rabbi Tarfon regards these Jewish Christians as worse than idolaters, for while it was understandable that a pagan might embrace the new faith, it was a great source of frustration that Jews, raised in the traditions of Judaism, would do so as well.” Pace Schiffman, this statement was not directed against the Christians alone but against the minim in general and is equally suited to the Essenes (see my discussion at note 30 above).

For the following, see Goodman, “Sadducees and Essenes after 70 CE,” 354. Readers will find that some of the important issues that I have raised in this paper find expression in Goodman's preliminary methodological inquiry (see especially ibid., 350–52). In my opinion, Goodman's suggestion that the lack of testimony to the Sadducees and Essenes in rabbinic literature does not amount to a denial of their existence after 70 C.E. finds support in my conclusions.

See references in note 24 above.

It is worth noting that later generations of rabbis, primarily those active in Babylonia after the fourth century, did adopt the term

(cf. Gk.

) as a reference to all Christians, whether of Jewish or Gentile origin, following a common pattern among Aramaic speaking peoples of their age. Although this term seems to have originated as early as the apostolic era as an internal Jewish designation for Christian Jews (Acts 24.5; cf. Tertullian, Adversus Marcionem [Marc.] 4.8), its original meaning appears to have become distorted through time. For an enlightening discussion of the term's origins and historical development, see Simon C. Mimouni, “Les nazoréens. Recherche étymologique et historique,” Revue Biblique [RB] 105 (1998) 208–62. Although Mimouni seems to think otherwise (ibid., 232–44), none of the examples of the term that he adduces from rabbinic literature can reliably be assigned to the tannaitic era.

Needless to say, the rabbis preserved only a few details about Christian Jews who lived in their midst. The Gospel of Matthew, however, composed in close proximity to the early rabbinic movement, offers a suitable contextual parallel for the religious platform underlying the Christian minim, who appear in early rabbinic literature. For methodological considerations supporting this point of view, see Anthony J. Saldarini, Matthew's Christian-Jewish Community (Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press, 1994) 13–18.

Josephus, Ant. 18.18:

; cf. Ant. 13.171–173, where Josephus contrasts this attitude with those of the Pharisees and Sadducees. See James C. VanderKam, The Dead Sea Scrolls Today (Grand Rapids, Mich.; Eerdmans, 1994) 76–78, for reflections of this attitude in the Dead Sea Scrolls, e.g., CD 3.15–16, 3.21–23. Cf. the tendencies toward functional response among the other Jewish sects identified by Saldarini, Pharisees, Scribes and Sadducees, 277–91 (Pharisees), and 298–308 (Sadducees). See also idem, Matthew's Christian-Jewish Community, 67, on the reaction to the destruction of the Temple among Christians who had previously aligned themselves with the Temple authorities.

See discussion at notes 31–32 above. We may cite the Qumran sectarians as examples of Essenes who had adopted a design for life that was focused on a decentralized cult; see Lawrence H. Schiffman, “Community Without Temple:The Qumran Community's Withdrawal from the Jerusalem Temple” in Gemeinde ohne Tempel/Community without Temple. Zur Substituierung und Transformation des Jerusalemer Tempels und seines Kults im Alten Testament, antiken Judentum, und frühen Christentum (ed. Beate Ego et al.; WUNT 118; Tübingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1999) 267–84.

On the sectarian covenant, see e.g., CD 3.13, 8.17–18, and on the formation and maintenance of sectarian boundaries, see e.g., CD 3.15–17; see further Collins, “The Construction of Israel,” 26–30, for discussion of the implications of this new covenant. On the use of the Damascus Document as a historical document, see Michael A. Knibb, “Exile in the Damascus Document,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament [JSOT] 25 (1983) 99–117, and further, Philip R. Davies, The Damascus Covenant: An Interpretation of the ‘Damascus Document’ (Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplements [JSOTSup] 25; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1982) 21–26, 41–47; idem, “CD and the History of the Essenes: A Reconsideration in Light of Criticism” in idem, Behind the Essenes: History and Ideology in the Dead Sea Scrolls (BJS 94; Atlanta: Scholars, 1987) 33–49. Davies treats the text as a purely literary artifact but offers more positive conclusions regarding its use in reconstructing the history of the ‘Damascus’ sect. Although Davies denies the possibility of salvaging a cogent historical framework for the ‘Damascus’ sect's origins, he acknowledges its value as an indicator of the Qumran community's sectarian identity (idem, The Damascus Covenant, 202–4; cf. idem, “The Prehistory of the Qumran Community,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Forty Years of Research [ed. Devorah Dimant and Uriel Rappaport; STDJ 10; Leiden: Brill, 1992] 116–25, at 120–21, where he directly associates the ‘Damascus’ sect with the Essenes). For further demonstration of the inconsistent historiographical and literary conventions of the Damascus Document, see Philip R. Callaway, The History of the Qumran Community: An Investigation (JSPSup 3; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1988) 99–133. Even those skeptical of directly identifying the Qumran community as Essenes often acknowledge that the Damascus Document seems to offer insight onto the foundation of the Essene sect; see e.g., Albert I. Baumgarten, “Who Cares and Why Does It Matter? Qumran and the Essenes, Once Again!,” DSD 11 (2004) 174–90, at 189–90.

The leaders of the Qumran community, for instance, attempted to reinforce their group's communal discipline by reiterating elements of what they believed to be their parent sect's ideological platform as set forth in the Damascus Document. For illustrations of the Qumran community's commitment to their fundamental sectarian ideology as expressed in their social discipline, see e.g., Steven D. Fraade, “To Whom It May Concern: 4QMMT and Its Addressee(s),” RevQ 19 (2000)507–26; Maxine L. Grossman, Reading for History in the Damascus Document: A Methodological Method (STDJ 45; Leiden, Brill, 2002) 127–61; James C. VanderKam, “Those Who Look for Smooth Things, Pharisees, and Oral Law,” in Emanuel: Studies in Hebrew Bible, Septuagint, and Dead Sea Scrolls in Honor of Emanuel Tov (ed. Shalom M. Paul et al.; VTSup 94; Leiden: Brill, 2003) 465–77. On the assumption and development of the laws of the Damascus Document by the Qumran community, see Charlotte Hempel, “The Laws of the Damascus Document and 4QMMT,” in The Damascus Document: A Centennial of Discovery, Proceedings of the Third International Symposium of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature, 4–8 February, 1998 (ed. Joseph M. Baumgarten et al.; STDJ 34; Leiden: Brill, 2000) 69–84; Sarianna Metso, “The Relationship between the Damascus Document and the Community Rule,” in Joseph M. Baumgarten et al., ibid., 85–93. Certain laws of the Damascus Document also appear in the Temple Scroll, although it is unlikely that this document originated within the Qumran community; see the comments of Lawrence H. Schiffman, Sectarian Law in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Courts, Testimony, and the Penal Code (BJS 33; Chico, Calif.: Scholars, 1983) 13–14, 17.

Josephus B.J. 7.216–217. Josephus reports that Vespasian instructed the Roman administrators of Judaea simply to return or perhaps to sell all the land back to its original owners (

), although this decree applied specifically to properties that had been confiscated rather than to the entire country. For discussion, see Benjamin Isaac, “Judaea after A.D. 70,” JJS 35 (1984) 44–50 (reprinted in idem, The Near East Under Roman Rule: Selected Papers [Supplements to Mnemosyne 117; Leiden: Brill, 1998] 112–19). See also Jack Pastor, Land and Economy in Ancient Palestine (London: Routledge, 1997) 160–65, who cites an early rabbinic legal mechanism known as the sikarikon which involved the resale of confiscated or abandoned Jewish property to other Jews as evidence for the frequency of this practice in the period following 70 C.E.(see e.g., m. Gittin [Git.] 5.6; t. Git. 3.10, and cf. Josephus, B.J. 6.114–115). It seems more likely, however, that the socio-rhetorical context behind this law is the period following the end of the Bar Kokhba revolt in 135 C.E.; for discussion, see Isaiah M. Gafni, Land, Center and Diaspora: Jewish Constructs in Late Antiquity (JSPSup 21; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1997) 68.

On the destruction of Jerusalem, see Josephus, B.J. 7.1–4, and on the displacement of Jews from cities and towns that had been ravaged by the wars, see e.g., B.J. 4.438, 4.444, 4.448, 4.488, Vita 422. For a general socioeconomic overview of the broader province of Judaea following the war, see Martin Goodman, “Judaea,” in The Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 11: The High Empire, a.d.70–192 (ed. Alan K. Bowman et al.; 2d ed.; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000)664–78, at 664–65.

Cf., however, the incident mentioned in note 6 above, which seems to refer to a specific instance of persecution against an Essene community. Philo's claim that the Essenes did not acquire large tracts of land (Prob. 76) is of little consequence, as the Romans’ confiscation of a Jewish property appears to have depended on its owner's participation in the revolt rather than on its monetary value.

Josephus (B.J. 2.137–149) provides a detailed account of the Essenes’ institutional order, and much of his testimony has been reinforced by corresponding evidence from Qumran; for a thorough discussion of the parallels, see Todd S. Beall, Josephus’ Description of the Essenes Illustrated by the Dead Sea Scrolls (Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series [SNTSMS] 58; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988) 73–99, although cf. VanderKam, The Dead Sea Scrolls Today, 88–89, for key points of divergence between the two sets of data. For a thorough treatment of the ideological scheme underlying the Qumran community's institutional order, see in general Schiffman, Sectarian Law in the Dead Sea Scrolls; cf. Moshe Weinfeld, The Organizational Pattern and the Penal Code of the Qumran Sect: A Comparison with Guilds and Religious Associations of the Hellenistic-Roman Period (NTOA 2; Fribourg: Editiones Universitaires Fribourg, 1986), who unfortunately tends to neglect the impact of ideology upon the group's communal discipline. See Berger and Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality, 53–60, who trace the origins of social institutionalization to a process whereby individual social actors reciprocate typification for one another's previously habitualized behavior. When independent social actors express mutual approval of one another's actions, the common ground furnishes the basis for the subsequent development of fixed patterns of behavior that are directed toward a common agenda. The pursuit of this common agenda motivates the maintenance of the behavior upon which the social institution was founded. Accordingly, it is unrealistic to expect that the Essenes would have ceased simply to behave like Essenes unless they were compelled to desist from doing so by external forces.

On the implications of resocialization, see Berger and Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality, 157–63, who suggest that this process would require one to reinterpret the past, or at least his or her previous understanding of the past, “to conform to the present reality, with the tendency to retroject into the past various elements that were subjectively unavailable at the time” (ibid., 163). A major hurdle in one's adoption of an alternate version of social reality the ability to physically segregate one's self from the inhabitants of the social world that he or she is seeking to leave behind (ibid., 158). Naturally, the pace at which they were capable of making such a departure from their sectarian tradition would have varied from one Essene to another.

The Essenes’ general avoidance of involvement in local politics distinguished them from the Pharisees and Sadducees, who the early Christians sensibly perceived as antagonistic to their innovative interpretations of Jewish tradition. The early Christians seem likewise to have ignored the introverted Essenes, whose social reticence posed no challenge to their own sectarian interests. For the characterization of the Essenes as social introverts, see Saldarini, Pharisees, Scribes, and Sadducees, 72, as well as Albert I. Baumgarten, The Flourishing of the Jewish Sects, 13, who ascribes the same sociological profile to the Qumran community.

Goodman, “Sadducees and Essenes after 70 CE,” 347, implies that the terminus ante quem for the disappearance of the Jewish sects is the mid-fourth century, when Epiphanius asserts that they had since ceased to exist (Pan. 19.5.6–7). I think that it is likely that the viability of Essene sectarianism declined in proportion to the gradually increasing success of the rabbis’ agenda for social homogeneity. It is difficult to determine precisely when the rabbinic movement began to achieve widespread influence over the broader Jewish populace, although the developments that most likely accelerated this process were Rome's endorsement of the Jewish patriarch and the consequent institutionalization of rabbinic civil law, ca. early third century C.E.(see Martin Goodman, “The Roman State and the Jewish Patriarch in the Third Century,” in The Galilee in Late Antiquity [ed. Lee I. Levine; New York: Jewish Theological Seminary of America, 1992] 127–39), and the initial stages of the christianization of the Roman Empire, ca. mid-late fourth century C.E.(see Schwartz, Imperialism and Jewish Society, 179–202). The former development, however, which coincides with the codification of the Mishnah and the end of the rabbinic movement's tannaitic period, likewise signals the end of the rabbinic editors’ attribution of typically Essenic behavior among the minim. Although certain of the earlier references to Essenic behavior are subjected to subsequent exegetical development in later rabbinic literature, there is no evidence that the continued occurrence of such behavior later than the tannaitic period. It therefore seems likely to me that the sect dissipated within a few generations of the destruction of the Temple.

Consequently, I find no merit in the suggestion that the manuscripts of the Damascus Document recovered from the Cairo Genizah indicate a continuous tradition of Essenism into medieval times, pace Magen Broshi “Anti-Qumranic Polemics in the Talmud,” 599–600 (repr. idem, Bread, Wine, Walls and Scrolls, 222). While I can offer no better explanation of the appearance of the medieval manuscripts, an alternate explanation of the phenomenon is suggested by a number of ancient and medieval testimonies to the discovery of scrolls in the Dead Sea region. For instance, in the early ninth century, the Nestorian Patriarch Timotheus I wrote a letter referring to “books of the Old Testament and others in the Hebrew script” discovered in a cave near Jericho, which attracted the attention of local Jews, and the tenth century Karaite historian Jacob Al-Qirqisani referred to books had been recovered from a cave by Jewish sectarians who proceeded to model their own behavior on the rules of the ancient sect described therein. It is possible that the copies of the Damascus Document recovered from the Genizah were produced by individuals, who had access to these early precursors the Dead Sea Scrolls. For a recent discussion of these and other references, see Jeffrey H. Tigay, “‘Archaeology’ of the Bible and Judaism in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages,” in The Archaeology of Jordan and Beyond: Essays in Honor of James A. Sauer (ed. Lawrence E. Stager et al.; Studies in the Archaeology and History of the Levant 1; Winona Lake, Ind.: Harvard Semitic Museum/Eisenbrauns, 2000) 490–97, at 491–94.

See discussion in Steven D. Fraade, “Navigating the Anomalous: Non-Jews at the Intersection of Early Rabbinic Law and Narrative,” in The Other in Jewish Thought and History: Constructions of Jewish Culture and Identity (ed. Laurence J. Silberstein and Robert L. Cohn; New York: New York University Press, 1994) 145–65, as well as Stern, Jewish Identity in Early Rabbinic Writings, 215–23.