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| Science & Technology |
| Archaeological Find: Essenes Were Horribly Infested With Worms |
| 2006-11-15 |
| Following directions in the Dead Sea Scrolls, archeologists have found the latrines used by the sect that produced the scrolls, discovering that efforts to achieve ritual purity inadvertently exposed members to intestinal parasites that shortened their lives. The young male zealots who established their sect at Qumran chose a life of austerity and isolation, but they could not have foreseen the hardships created by their religiously imposed toilet practices, researchers said Monday. "They paid a high price for their holiness," said archeologist James D. Tabor of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, one of the coauthors of a paper appearing in the international journal Revue de Qumran. |
| Posted by:Anonymoose |
| #8 (Ignore the fact that the Sabbath was Saturday - poetic license invoked.) The Christian sabbath is on Sunday, GORT -- your statement works beautifully as it stands. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2006-11-15 19:00 |
| #7 Now Zenster owes ME a new keyboard. |
| Posted by: no mo uro 2006-11-15 17:53 |
| #6 Essenes Were Horribly Infested With Worms All that awaits is a causal link to the Diet of Worms. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2006-11-15 14:11 |
| #5 The group was not allowed to defecate on the Sabbath -- thus I believe we can now trace the near universal aversion to Mondays to it's genesis. (Ignore the fact that the Sabbath was Saturday - poetic license invoked.) |
| Posted by: GORT 2006-11-15 12:23 |
| #4 the scrolls were copies produced by a small sect, generally called the Essenes, who lived at Qumran. Small sect? Numerically smaller than the other two sects at the time, yes: the Sadducees, who followed exactly the ancient rituals of the Temple in Jerusalem, led by the Kohens of the priestly family, and the Pharisees, led by the rabbis, who tried to discern the reasons for those rituals and devise modern ways to satisfy the reasons without the need for animal sacrifice and the literal "eye for an eye" that the Sadducees insisted upon (thus the invention of prayer services and the concept of payment for lost wages). The Essenes, on the other hand, awaited imminent arrival of the Messiah, who would establish God's kingdom on earth through the sword... and they were to be his conquering army. Their own writings, when not concerned with the minutia of their exhaustive purity rituals, were eschatologies much like those found in the New Testament. They disappeared along with the Sadduccees following the Roman destruction of Jerusalem, and I for one do not regret it. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2006-11-15 12:06 |
| #3 Excalibur - you owe me a new keyboard!!!!!!!!!!!! |
| Posted by: Yosemite Sam 2006-11-15 12:04 |
| #2 LOL! |
| Posted by: Mark E. 2006-11-15 12:02 |
| #1 I think there is something wrong with me. I read the article, looked at the scroll photo and suddenly imagined a GOATSE version. |
| Posted by: Excalibur 2006-11-15 10:43 |