Some Marginalia reviews

THREE RECENT REVIEWS FROM MARGINALIA:

Jodi Magness on Joan E. Taylor’s The Essenes, the Scrolls, and the Dead Sea

"In this monograph, Joan Taylor makes a strong case in support of the “Essene hypothesis,” identifying the inhabitants of Qumran as Essenes who deposited the Dead Sea Scrolls in the nearby caves. Taylor devotes the first half of the book to a close reading of ancient authors on the Essenes (not just Philo Judaeus, Flavius Josephus, and Pliny the Elder, but others such as Dio Chrysostom). In the second half of the book, she discusses Qumran and the Dead Sea region, and the Dead Sea Scrolls."

Magness is less enthusiastic about the second half of the book. Past PaleoJudaica posts on the archaeology of Qumran are collected here, and posts relating to the Qumran "community" (whatever that may mean) are collected here.

Eva Mroczek on David A. deSilva’s The Jewish Teachers of Jesus, James, and Jude: What Earliest Christianity Learned from the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha

"The fields of Early Judaism and Christian Origins have progressed beyond arguments about the influence of Judaism upon Jesus or Christianity. The task now is more richly to describe early Judaism as a diverse world that includes Jews of many stripes, including followers of Jesus. DeSilva’s textual analyses point in this very direction. But his analytical categories and methodological starting points undermine what is no doubt a well-meaning attempt to speak to a theologically-motivated audience about something they are only now beginning to be able to hear."

Helen Bond on Chris Keith and Anthony Le Donne’s Jesus Criteria and the Demise of Authenticity

"How, then, are we to go about reconstructing the historical Jesus without the traditional criteria? This will undoubtedly be the challenge for the next few decades."

More from Helen Bond on the historical Jesus here.