Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Ignorant Gnostic · 05-17-2010, 12:56 PM

For further information, see here.

Toto · 05-17-2010, 01:44 PM

We prefer that threads contain some discussion beyond a mere link. Is there something about this you would like to discuss?

XKV8R · 05-17-2010, 02:40 PM

'ignorant gnostic' is one of the aliases used by joel golb in support of raphael golb. see http://robertcargill.com/2010/01/28/...ress-evidence/

bc

Ignorant Gnostic · 05-17-2010, 05:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Toto

We prefer that threads contain some discussion beyond a mere link. Is there something about this you would like to discuss?

No, I have nothing to particular to say about it, I merely thought the article was of interest, in that it appears to demonstrate that it is possible to put together a museum exhibit presenting the two DSS theories in a neutral manner. As it says:

Quote:

By incorporating new archaeological finds and recent scholarship, the exhibit is the first to fully present two competing theories: Were the scrolls written and collected by an ultra-religious Jewish group living in the desert? Or were the manuscripts smuggled out of Jerusalem on the eve of the Roman invasion in A.D. 70 and hidden for safekeeping in the wilderness?

Since this appears to be an interesting development in the area of DSS museum exhibits, one would imagine that many people would be interested in discussing it.

Feel free to remove my post if it does not meet the site's standards.

mountainman · 05-17-2010, 06:29 PM

The article is interesting for its discussion as to the various theories concerned at identifying the people who authored, gathered and buried these manuscripts "out of town" at a "remote site" probably as an attempt to preserve these manuscripts from one or more parties who would seek to destroy it. The early "Essenes theory" for example (see bolded bit below) is now not a "favorite" with the book makers.

Quote:

But most of the scrolls are not Scripture. They include never-before-seen Jewish religious writings and texts like Enoch and Jubilees, which became part of the Roman Catholic, but not Protestant and Hebrew, canon. And there are many documents that seem to be written by an unnamed Jewish sect that rejected the leaders of the Jerusalem Temple.

"They believed the End of Days was imminent," said Alex Jassen, an assistant professor of early Judaism at the University of Minnesota and a Dead Sea Scrolls scholar who also acted as an exhibit adviser. "They were the die-hards who said, we are going to go live in the desert, where we will not be subjected to what they call the 'polluted Temple.' Now, who these guys are, that's the million-dollar question."

Early scholars thought they were the Essenes, a group referred to by several Roman-era writers. Excavations in the 1950s at the nearby ancient Israeli settlement of Qumran turned up inkwells and other artifacts that seemed to support the idea of a community of celibate, male scribes. But Fleming of the Science Museum believes the Essene theory is "unraveling."

"Really there is no serious evidence, in my mind," he said.

Handwriting analysis suggests the manuscripts were written by several hundred people, too many to have lived in one location. And the texts represent more than one community's point of view.

Jassen subscribes to a variation on this theory - that a religious group lived and wrote at Qumran but also brought manuscripts from other groups and places. When the Romans threatened their community, they hid their library in the caves.

"I think the evidence seems to be pretty strong that this is a unified collection that represents the distinct library of a community of ancient Jews who were quite devout in their observance of Jewish law and ritual," he said.

Ignorant Gnostic · 05-17-2010, 06:58 PM

This portion is also interesting:

Quote:

But what about the Copper Scroll? Perhaps the most mystifying scroll found in the caves was written on actual copper. It seems to describe treasures from the Temple and to give directions to where they are hidden.

[...]

Wise believes the Copper Scroll was sneaked out of Jerusalem along with other Dead Sea Scrolls in A.D. 70, just before the Romans quashed a Jewish revolt and destroyed the Temple.

"The city was falling, and it was very predictable what would happen because it had happened in the past," Wise said. "The Romans would pillage the Temple. And they would take away all this plunder - gold and silver bullions, and coins, and precious books and valuable items, including the breastplate of the high priest.

"All this would be lost. So they made a plan, and this plan would be known to very few. They spirited the material out in tunnels - tunnels we know existed - under the Temple and out beyond the walls of the city, out beyond the Roman lines and out into the wilderness."

[...]

[And] there also is growing skepticism about whether a group of scribes actually lived at Qumran. Israeli archaeologists who recently finished a new round of excavations believe it was a fortress and later a pottery-manufacturing center.

"If a sect was living there, they were making a lot of pottery," Fleming said.

DCHindley · 05-17-2010, 07:52 PM

Its not as crazy as it may seem. When it was certain that the Americans would attack Baghdad and Saddam would fall, he sent his sons to the National Bank of Iraq and withdrew in the name of the government $900,000,000 (US), and hid $780 million in makeshift vaults on one of Saddam's palace compounds, plus another cache of $112 million hid in dog kennels on the grounds, all of it in $100 bills, stuffed in 200 aluminum cans containing $4,000,000 each, and $92,000,000 in loose cash. It looks like they didn't have time to hide it around the country before the end came.

However, I am not so sure about the secret tunnels leading out from under the temple to points beyond the Roman pickets. There were surely tunnels under the temple mount, some of which are still there and relatively unexplored (several European explorers went spelunking in some of them in the 1800s, up to their waders in offel and sewage). Nowadays there are jurisdictional issues (under the Muslim dome of the rock) and concerns that excavations might weaken the mount or be a pretext for a surprise attack to take the temple mount over. Anyhow, if there were tunnels, why did not any of the defenders of the city take the passage out, especially Simon bar Giora?

Wars of the Jews 7:26-35 26 This Simon [son of Gioras], during the siege of Jerusalem, was in the upper city; but when the Roman army was gotten within the walls, and were laying the city waste, he then took the most faithful of his friends with him, and among them some that were stone cutters, with those iron tools which belonged to their occupation, and a great quantity of provisions as would suffice them for a long time, and let himself and all them down into a certain subterranean cavern that was not visible above ground. 27 Now, so far as had been dug out of old, they went onward along it without disturbance; but where they met with solid earth, they dug a mine underground, and this in hopes that they should be able to proceed so far as to rise from underground, in a safe place, and by that means escape; 28 but when they came to make the experiment, they were disappointed in their hope; for the miners could make but small progress, and that with difficulty also; insomuch that their provisions, though they distributed them by measure, began to fail them. 29 And now, Simon, thinking he might be able to astonish and elude the Romans, put on a white frock, and buttoned upon him a purple cloak, and appeared out of the ground in the place where the temple had formerly been. 30 At the first, indeed, those who saw him were greatly astonished, and stood still where they were; but afterward they came nearer to him, and asked him who he was. 31 Now Simon would not tell them, but bade them call for their captain; and when they ran to call him, Terentius Rufus, who was left to command the army there, came to Simon, and learned from him the whole truth, and kept him in bonds, and let Caesar know that he was taken. [...] 35 This rising of his out of the ground did also occasion the discovery of a great number of others of the seditious at that time, who had hidden themselves underground.

It doesn't look to me like anyone had ready access to tunnels out of the city, or Simon would have taken advantage of them, and so many would not have subsequently been found in the underground tunnels that did exist.

American Obama haters have nothing over the crazyness of Middle Eastern politics, especially in Jerusalem.

DCH

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ignorant Gnostic

This portion is also interesting:

Quote:

But what about the Copper Scroll? Perhaps the most mystifying scroll found in the caves was written on actual copper. It seems to describe treasures from the Temple and to give directions to where they are hidden.

[...]

Wise believes the Copper Scroll was sneaked out of Jerusalem along with other Dead Sea Scrolls in A.D. 70, just before the Romans quashed a Jewish revolt and destroyed the Temple.

"The city was falling, and it was very predictable what would happen because it had happened in the past," Wise said. "The Romans would pillage the Temple. And they would take away all this plunder - gold and silver bullions, and coins, and precious books and valuable items, including the breastplate of the high priest.

"All this would be lost. So they made a plan, and this plan would be known to very few. They spirited the material out in tunnels - tunnels we know existed - under the Temple and out beyond the walls of the city, out beyond the Roman lines and out into the wilderness."

[...]

[And] there also is growing skepticism about whether a group of scribes actually lived at Qumran. Israeli archaeologists who recently finished a new round of excavations believe it was a fortress and later a pottery-manufacturing center.

"If a sect was living there, they were making a lot of pottery," Fleming said.

Ignorant Gnostic · 05-17-2010, 08:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DCHindley

[...]

However, I am not so sure about the secret tunnels leading out from under the temple to points beyond the Roman pickets. There were surely tunnels under the temple mount, some of which are still there and relatively unexplored (several European explorers went spelunking in some of them in the 1800s, up to their waders in offel and sewage). Nowadays there are jurisdictional issues (under the Muslim dome of the rock) and concerns that excavations might weaken the mount or be a pretext for a surprise attack to take the temple mount over. Anyhow, if there were tunnels, why did not any of the defenders of the city take the passage out, especially Simon bar Giora?

[...]

It doesn't look to me like anyone had ready access to tunnels out of the city, or Simon would have taken advantage of them, and so many would not have subsequently been found in the underground tunnels that did exist.

DCH

Could be. But see this article on a tunnel excavated a few years ago.

spin · 05-18-2010, 09:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ignorant Gnostic

This portion is also interesting:

Quote:

But what about the Copper Scroll? Perhaps the most mystifying scroll found in the caves was written on actual copper. It seems to describe treasures from the Temple and to give directions to where they are hidden.

[...]

Wise believes the Copper Scroll was sneaked out of Jerusalem along with other Dead Sea Scrolls in A.D. 70, just before the Romans quashed a Jewish revolt and destroyed the Temple.

"The city was falling, and it was very predictable what would happen because it had happened in the past," Wise said. "The Romans would pillage the Temple. And they would take away all this plunder - gold and silver bullions, and coins, and precious books and valuable items, including the breastplate of the high priest.

"All this would be lost. So they made a plan, and this plan would be known to very few. They spirited the material out in tunnels - tunnels we know existed - under the Temple and out beyond the walls of the city, out beyond the Roman lines and out into the wilderness."

[...]

[And] there also is growing skepticism about whether a group of scribes actually lived at Qumran. Israeli archaeologists who recently finished a new round of excavations believe it was a fortress and later a pottery-manufacturing center.

"If a sect was living there, they were making a lot of pottery," Fleming said.

Wise is pretty certainly wrong about the texts being snuck out of Jerusalem circa 70 CE. The texts themselves do not represent a selection from that era. Most if not all of them were older. Putting aside the theory-driven palaeographic sequences (already tacitly shown to have no basis, but no-one wants to go there, though if you want to think about it, try dating the practice alefbeth that Cross dated to before the end of 1b, a now meaningless temporal indicator), C14 sugests most of the texts were before the turn of the era and an analysis of the Hebrew by Ian Young in a DSD a few years back showed that the biblical texts at Qumran were nowhere near as stable as those from Masada, which were supposed to be near contemporary, but which Young argues were clearly later than the Qumran biblical texts.

There is no reason to think that the selection of texts from Qumran represents a collection from 70 CE. It is unadulterated conjecture.

spin

spin · 05-18-2010, 10:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ignorant Gnostic

But see this article on a tunnel excavated a few years ago.

Pure speculation. They could save scrolls from under the Romans and spirit 700 of them off to Qumran when the countryside was in the hands of the Romans, but they didn't save themselves. Just imagine the procession to get all those scrolls out of Jerusalem. This is as silly as Schiffman's theory of libraries in caves like #4.

spin

05-17-2010, 12:56 PM	#1
Ignorant Gnostic Junior Member Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: East Coast Posts: 11	DSS exhibit in St. Paul For further information, see here.

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05-17-2010, 01:44 PM	#2
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	We prefer that threads contain some discussion beyond a mere link. Is there something about this you would like to discuss?

05-17-2010, 02:40 PM	#3
XKV8R Regular Member Join Date: Mar 2008 Location: ucla, southern california Posts: 140	'ignorant gnostic' is one of the aliases used by joel golb in support of raphael golb. see http://robertcargill.com/2010/01/28/...ress-evidence/ bc

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