Why Bother?

I know to people outside of the academic community, scholarly inquiry seems a little vague, totally boring, and possibly unnecessary. I mean, don't we all clearly know history? Just look at the history books we all read in 4th grade! Hello! It's all there!

This is what I'm talking about. In case you're not totally familiar with Biblical scholarship, etc, let's just say this is a very tightly knit, closed world. Feminist Biblical scholarship has managed to edge in on the fringes, but scholars tend to utilize the same documents to bring new interpretations to light.  However, never an interpretation like this! ANY Biblical scholarship states without a doubt that the Essenes existed. This is the premise, other interpretations and extrapolations can arise from this fact. I think this is about as shocking as a prominent American historian claiming there never was any sort of pre and post Revolution political and intellectual community of Founding Fathers discussing the plan for this new country. Granted, we can discuss their motives, argue they were sleazy for sleeping with their slaves, or over and under-play their relevance, but they existed! 

Scholarship, and continuous, new investigation into the sources, the interpretations, the legitimacy of sources is so, so necessary. Simply looking at recent history involves considering what happened in previous history to bring about the events. Every new investigation by a new person brings a new point of view. For the scholar Rachel Elior to state this adamantly, whether she is ultimately true or not, at least shakes up the school of thought. Schools of thought like the Romanian Orthodox view of Moldavian Orthodox History- a perfect, unbroken lineage from the Apostle Andrew (directly from the mouth of Jesus Himself) to the pre-Romanian people, the perfect Orthodox rite. 

The premise of Prof Elior's thesis is that the only source for this community of Essenes is that of a single historian. So many historical facts and events were handed down to us by just one historian or one diary entry or a few documents of conflicting content.  She aptly points out that the other historians who 'support' the story were all just quoting each other. This is hardly an unknown situation in historical documentation.

Whether the windblown Old Testament community will be able to refute her statements or not, this still shines as a perfect example of why academic inquiry continuously proves necessary.  No documents are perfect, no source of interpretation is without bias, thus the cut and dry with cute illustration information you read in 8th grade history is a constantly evolving world. 

Wait until I drop MY bombshell on the Romanian academic world.