STEPHEN GORANSON responds to Rachel Elior regarding the existence of the Essenes:

If I may reply to Prof. Elior: How many Second Temple Period Hebrew manuscripts include Perushim and Zaddukim? Fewer than include the self-designation 'Osei-haTorah? Prof. Elior asserts "the absence of the Essenes from the Hebrew language" and asserts that that self-designation is "too general and not specific enough to denote a particular group"--and yet, there it is! Defying Prof. Elior's declaration that it does not exist. They knew not her rules. No Hebrew speakers used it? The Qumranites did. Dozens of later scholars did (E.g., Isaak Jost writing in Israelitische Annalen didn't know Hebrew?). That 'osey hatorah and ma'ase hatorah are unique to Qumran in extant ancient Hebrew mss makes these all the more characteristic in self-designating Essenes. Similarly, Essenes existed, though Prof. Elior has established that she would prefer that it were not so. Wanting them to go away may not help historians explain the evidence. Common words have been used for many religious designations; e.g., Amoraim, Tannaim, Haredim, Karaites, Gnostics, Society of Friends, Taoists, Gnostics, Kabbalists, Muslims, Methodists, Cathari... The Essene Teacher was a priest; not all priests were Sadducees; no either/or. Elior first calls Josephus unreliable, then uses absences in Josephus as if proof, as if his Greek readers wanted complicated calendar discussion. Those early scholars got the Essene identity right--of some of the scrolls; they didn't claim Essenes composed all of them. But the Essene "Wicked Priest" was Alexander Jannaeus, rather than the earlier Jonathan that Prof. Vermes proposed. The Essene Teacher was a priest; not all priests were Sadducees. For evidence of that see http://www.duke.edu/~goranson/jannaeus.pdf.