Summary of Enochic-Essene Theory Seminar

We spent a good deal of this seminar reviewing the basics of Boccaccini's reconstruction of the rise of Essenism and the place of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the Essene movement. I will not go through the details here, but you can see an abstract in my online piece "Enochians, Essenes, and Qumran Essenes", which also summarizes some criticisms of Boccaccini's position. And for some theological differences between "Zadokite" and "Enochic" Judaism, see my online paper "Jewish Pseudepigrapha and Christian Apocrypha: (How) Can We Tell Them Apart?". (Scroll down to the section on "The Problem of 'Common Judaism.'")

We also reviewed briefly the basic elements of the "Groningen hypothesis," which are also summarized in my earlier online lecture on the Pesharim.