Minimalist

While I agree with Golb's basic point I think he misses the fact that Nat Geo did make this fairly clear. Other than Jodi Magess, no one really defended the "monastery" concept. Most of the show was dismissive of it. This amounts to quibbling by Golb who has seen scholars come around to his point of view and doesn't seem to know that he's winning.

spin

I don't think you are close enough to the issues in analyzing the video. Behind the Cargill front (and I'd guess if you scratch him lightly, he'll come out with some form of sectarianism) there are a lot of Essene supporters. Jan Gunneweg seems to be a staunch supporter. He's one of the scientists featured in the show. The Dead Sea water in the ink analysis and the local goats analysis are attempts to place the writing of scrolls at Qumran -- all beside Magness's unabashedly unscholarly approach to the issue. While there is a lot Essenism lurking behind the documentary, when you get out into the real scrolls world you get a lot more. And when they are not saying "Essenes", they're saying "the sect", because obviously there was, wasn't there? But that's what hasn't been demonstrated.

I have some sympathy for Golb who has been fighting this stuff for over three decades. His is a scholarly approach against the status quo that is not off the wall (think of Babs Thiering and Bob Eisenman). Functionally ostracized in the scrolls world for that time, how should he feel when ideas he has championed all that time are suddenly presented in public without any acknowledgment of his efforts? That is a political choice of course, but I'd say that Golb has been hardly done by. Academia here is a shameless ass-licking bed of prostitution, where acolytes suck up to the current dogma in order to stake their claims to a bishop's throne and anything contrary to that dogma is looked on as anathema.

I agree that it is good that some people are now willing to contemplate the ideas Golb has long supported, but there should be at least a little recognition.


spin

Minimalist

It is true that Golb is under a bit of a cloud because of his son's actions and while this is hardly fair I doubt that he is all that popular at the moment.

This whole thing reminds me of the debates in paleontology about T-Rex being a hunter or a scavenger. One crowd screams "HUNTER!!!" another crowd screams "SCAVENGER!!!" while, if you look at modern predators they hunt but don't mind picking up a freebie if the opportunity presents itself.

The conclusion reached - and I have my doubts about the dramatic depiction - is that it is not ESSENES!!! or "NO ESSENES" but a combination. That's probably about the best that can be expected and marks progress of a sort, unless Rachel Elior can prove her claims that there were never any "Essenes."

These things take time. Science is not religion. It should not deal in dogma.


BTW, the goat thing was a pretty compelling piece of evidence PROVIDED they can show that the samples were not contaminated by being stored in a Qumran cave for 2000 years. Right now....that's a big "if."

spin

Perhaps you know of a time in the last 30 years when he has been popular.

We'd be waiting a while there.

Well, that's the story.



Have you looked at the range of where the wild ibex are found?

N/A


spin

Minimalist

Yeah - but there is a difference between scholarly dissent and a criminal indictment.

I agree, she has a huge hill to climb. There's a prof named Goranson who has made the point that Pliny's reference to the Essenes goes back to a manuscript written by Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa when he was governor of Syria in 15 BC.
En Geddi was sacked by the Parthians when they invaded in 40 BC and if there were "Essenes" living there they may well have fled south for a while to avoid the Parthian version of urban renewal.


I'm a bit more skeptical about the probable contamination than doing an animal census two millenia ago. Yuval Goren has done too much work discrediting forgeries on the basis of microscopic geologic evidence to automatically assume that it this finding is incorrect, but, as I said the stuff was stored right in Qumran for a long time and exposed to the environment.

Besides, who is to say that located right next door to Magen and Peleg's "Pottery Factory" there wasn't CRAZY SHLOMO'S HOUSE OF PARCHMENT "meeting all of Jerusalem's parchment and ink needs since Pompey defiled the temple!"

To be serious for a moment, the one thing that is always glossed over is the fact that the scrolls were written in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. Right off the bat that suggests different origins.

Anyway, even if the parchment came from Qumran that doesn't necessarily make the rest of the story true. It just means that someone with a herd of goats used their skins to make parchment. To be completely fair, if you take Josephus' discussion of the Essenes as primarily involved in animal husbandry they would be far more likely to make parchment than to sit around copying scrolls. Nothing in his description makes the Essenes seem particularly "bookish."
Oh well, I shall continue to watch this unfold. Somehow, I feel as if Magen and Peleg are closer to the reality of the site. It had multiple uses over a period of time.

meow

Quite a difference indeed. Professor Zahavy has some new comments on this.

Toto

Oops -

meow

Good work, Toto! But the comments I was referring to weren't submitted by anyone, rather I was referring to Professor Zahavy's own comments, e.g.:

spin

Umm, Pliny talks of Ein Gedi being below them. They obviously weren't in Ein Gedi. But who would misrepresent the evidence to say they were?

I hope you looked at the hidden text. The ibex data could have been from animals which lived anywhere within that range.

I don't know what it suggests really. Aramaic texts were mixed with Hebrew texts in the Qumran caves. Greek fragments mixed in with the Hebrew. You find non-religious texts among the Bar-Kochba texts with all three languages mixed.

There are various theories about the site, some of which overlap and don't contradict. Qumran as a pottery supplier, Qumran as a "manor house" supplying various commercial products, Qumran as a balsam or perfume processing center, Qumran as a commercial "entrepot".

The site might suggest multiple uses at the same time. The only thing this certainly doesn't suggest with all the impure commercial activities is that the site was a center for religious sectarians with a strict need for purity.


spin

Minimalist

Correct. Also a fort or, perhaps better called an "observation post" because of its small size.

The Pliny reference is confusing, no doubt. Does he mean that they lived on the hills above the town? The town had a spring though and any fresh water source was valuable. Given a choice, why would any group move away from the water?

I did look at the hidden text but before worrying about that it seems they MUST deal with the question of contamination. Occam's Razor, you know. If they are asserting this as a be-all and end-all argument, they are as nutty as Elior looks at the moment.