spin

I have no trouble with scrolls. I find it fascinating how people fall over themselves to stuff scrolls into the fray when one doesn't know how the scrolls got into the caves and what relation the scrolls have to the settlement.

The question is what you know, ie, as I have to explain it, what the evidence actually indicates, and work from there.

The scrolls themselves says that their leaders were sons of Zadok, then sons of Aaron and sons of Levi. This is the pecking order of the Jerusalem temple and the scrolls writers were not big on denying torah, so we need to talk bloodline comments seriously.

Nobody's talking about eliminating evidence except you. When you don't know how to deal with evidence, you hold it in abeyance until more comes along or new developments in interpretation of what we have permits. It's not eliminated. It's there ready to be used. It's just not confusing the issue with irrelevancies of shoehorning.

If you would like to consider the scrolls can you do so when there may have been more copies of Deuteronomy among the scrolls than there were people living at Qumran?

Rubbish. You start with what you know. You cannot get around it. You don't know how to interpret the scrolls in the context of the settlement, so tossing in the scrolls means talking nonsense. Tossing them out means removing evidence. They are there and must be dealt with, but a means of dealing with them is not yet available. So do you talk through your hat by funneling your interpretation of the site through the scrolls or do you remember that you have these texts waiting for suitable clues for their relevance to the archaeology?

Calling the inhabitants sectarian is like classifying them by color of underwear. It might be useful, but how could you possibly know as things stand?

It is banally stupid to waste time on what you cannot know.

This is more of the same, so just repeat the basics of what I said above.

Everything gets so simplified. It has to be one thing or the other -- as though it were a binary taxonomy. This mentality is boring.

I'd keep it under your belt if I were you.

Who cares until you clarify the archaeological evidence? You must deal first and foremost with the physical evidence and what it says in itself.

Would you like to consider someone coming to Qumran to dump their trash?

You mean the one that feeds water into the internal system or some other??

How did the scrolls get into the caves that were mentioned as having been found by the Nestorian Timotheus? Or by Origen who used scrolls found in a jar near Jericho? If there was a trend of placing scrolls in caves at a time of danger, then Qumran could have been such a destination.

We have at least two functional scenarios to account for the scrolls. Either they were directly related to the inhabitants or they weren't. If the former they may simply have been brought to the site by the inhabitants or they may have been produced by them, though the latter should be excluded by the fact that there were hundreds of scribal hands involved in their production. If the latter it's probable that there was a general deposition of scrolls in the vicinity of Jericho on some occasion. There may of course be other scenarios.

If you cannot choose a scenario based on the evidence, then you have no way of knowing that your use of the scrolls in interpreting the site has any value. Live with it. The scrolls are there and await relating to the site.


spin

spin

IIRC not one scroll found by archaeologists was in a jar. No jars or fragments of them were found in caves 4 or 5. Cave 1 had scrolls and jars. We simply have the report my the known finder that there was a scroll in a jar. That's it. That's where the notion of scroll jars comes from -- a report from a locus that had been tampered with.


spin

Minimalist

How about the librarian (for want of a better word.) Let's be serious, how many centuries had it been since any city had resisted a determined Roman siege? Advance the time frame a bit if you like to 70 AD. (Let's assume that moving sacred documents in 67 would have been considered "defeatist.") By 70 the Romans had retaken the north, put Vespasian on the throne and were preparing to finish off the revolt. It would not take too much foresight to want to gather up whatever documents could be found and put them somewhere safe(r). The fact that the scrolls were stored in locally procured pots merely heightens the impression that the decision was taken quickly and with little prior preparation.

Josephus gives an idea of conditions inside the city at the beginning of the Roman assault and it is a picture of growing anarchy among the various factions of zealots. I can certainly see a priest or other temple official deciding that it was time to start moving the sacred books out of harm's way.

http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/t...phus/war5.html


Josephus - The Jewish War Book V, Chapter 1

Moreover, in Josephus' discussion of the Essenes, from Antiquities of the Jews, Book XVIII, Ch 1, 5

There is nothing in this to indicate a community of monks sitting at desks copying documents. In fact, he specifically states that "they entirely addict themselves to husbandry" which is the raising of livestock.

It just seems to me that the link between Qumran and the scrolls is merely geographical and the overall political situation furnishes all the practical reason that anyone would need for wanting to hide something in the desert.

DCHindley

One might want to look at Josephus' accounts of the 2 years leading up to the final assault on Jerusalem:

Vespasian, in charge of the 10th and 15th legions, had mopped up a deserted Jericho around June of 68 CE (no mention is made of the fortress of Cyprus just a few miles away) and set up garrisons there. The inhabitants of Jericho had fled into a “naked and barren” mountain range along the western edge of the Jordan valley, which incidentally is where Qumran is located.

Moreover, during the lull in Roman military activities between June 68 and June 69, Simon bar Giora had overrun the villages in the mountains and set himself up as a sort of king from Nain in the north to the Ackrabatene toparchy at the southwest edge of the Dead Sea. Simon also managed to take over Idumea and Hebron.

During this period, Simon bar Giora enlarged caves at a valley called Paran where he made use of them “as repositories for his treasures...and many of his partisans had their dwelling in them; and he made no secret of it that he was exercising his men ... for the assault of Jerusalem.”

That sounds like the Qumran area to me. The scrolls, IMHO, may have been part of his "treasure" (i.e., what was important to those groups who were following him as a leader).

Simon was not dislodged from his haunts north and south of Jerusalem until Vespasian’s forces (now including the 12th legion, and Cerealis, who commanded the 5th legion) managed to do so after June 69 CE.

DCH

Minimalist

Anything is possible, including the possibility that Josephus was inventing stuff to provide a more colorful narrative to his future (Roman) audience.

Still, this seems to suggest that Paran was much further south in the region of Kadesh Barnea in Sinai.

http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/b/burc.../complete.html

XKV8R

while i don't agree with the main thesis of the article, pfann makes a good point here:

"The proposal by N. Golb and others that the Dead Sea Scrolls, being nearly one thousand in number, were actually the last remains of the great Temple library rescued from Jerusalem is not particularly helpful. To support this suggestion, they would first need to provide a sensible explanation as to why such a large portion of the library was represented by documents which clearly condemn the present Temple leadership, the Pharisees and the Sadducees, as “Sons of Darkness” and “the lot of Belial.” At the same time, they would have to explain the absence in the caves of Qumran of scrolls originating from the Pharisees and Sadducees. This thesis would lead one to believe that the Temple leadership preferred reading the literature of their enemies and not their own literature."

Stephen J. Pfann, "A Table Prepared in the Wilderness: Pantries and Tables, Pure Food and Sacred Space at Qumran," 159-78 in Qumran: The Site of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Archaeological Interpretations and Debates. Proceedings of a Conference held at Brown University, November 17-19, 2002 (ed. Katharina Galor, et al.; vol. 57 of Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah; Leiden: Brill, 2006), 160, fn. 1.

and i can't remember where i read this...

"Pfann correctly points out that while one would be hard pressed to explain a collection of self-condemning literature (long before the modern notion of objective self-deprecation and self-critical journalism), one would be even under a greater burden to explain why none of the literature (with perhaps the exception of the Hymn to Jonathan) speaks positively of the Temple or its priesthood. The disproportionate percentage of literature that speaks negatively of those purportedly doing the hiding or preserving the literature, coupled with the statistical absence of any positive literature about the temple is, quite plainly put, highly improbable statistically, if not impossible."

Minimalist

If it were a library created by a dissident group why would there be even a minor portion representing documents which did not condemn the present leadership?

That seems out of character for "dissident" groups.

spin

Pfann sucks. Seeing that the scrolls identify their leaders as the temple priesthood (sons of Zadok, etc.), can you think of when the temple priesthood wasn't in the temple? Do try. And just think about it: why would a group that was truly against the temple have visions set in the temple? Why would they have a list of temple treasures? Why would a stringently torah adherent group call their leaders the "sons of Zadok" if they weren't? For that matter why would they maintain priestly rosters?

Umm, what are the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifices? Jews couldn't perform ritual sacrifices anywhere else but in the temple precincts. Who writes a text on the ashes of the red heiffer? What's the temple scroll all about? Isn't MMT concerned with protecting temple purity? I suppose that was written by sectarians fantasizing about the temple. And I guess the important position held by the high priest [KHN H:R)$] in the War Scroll isn't indicative of the writer's support of the temple.

And what happened to the discussion of Qumran archaeology?


spin

XKV8R

oh so many things to say in response to your previous post...

...like the temple scroll is pro jerusalem temple??? really? it's an alternative temple for she'ol's sake! it conflicts with everything the temple did, offering an alternative calendar, rituals, etc. etc. etc.

but agreed. let's get back to archaeology.

my only point is that the scrolls are part of the context. but let's not delve too much into the contents, at least not yet.

you'll notice that my use of dr. pfann's quote speaks to the scrolls being a part of the context of qumran, and that attempts to remove the scrolls (as objects first and foremost) from the equation of the scrolls is inappropriate. especially if one is going to argue that things outside of the walls of qumran (like the north and south trash dumps, the date press, the cemetery, rujm el-bahr, kh. mezin, ein feshkha, etc.) are a part of 'qumran in context.' according to magen and peleg, apparently the temple on mt. gerizim is part of the context of qumran as well, since there are like 15 mentions of it in the ~70 page preliminary report.

point is, the scrolls are objects like everything else.

DCHindley

I do not think that the "valley called Paran" of _War_ 4.512 is the same as the "place called Paran" of _Ant_ 3.300. In the OT, the wilderness of Paran is generally oriented towards the region called Idumea, particularly Beer-Sheba, and this is what is probably meant in the passage from _Ant_. However, if Simon was storing his treasures and billeting his soldiers in caves in preparation for an expected assault on Jerusalem, why not assume that caves in the "valley called Paran" and "others" in _War_ were relatively near to Jerusalem, not way down south in Akrabattene territory south of the Dead Sea or the borders of Idumea where he was also active.

Wars of the Jews 4:511-513 511 He then overran the Acrabattene district [south end of Dead Sea], and the places that reached as far as the Great Idumea; for he built a wall at a certain village called Nain [certainly not the one in Galilee, so presumably unknown*], and made use of that as a fortress for his own party's security; 512 and at the valley called Paran, he enlarged many of the caves, and many others he found ready for his purpose; these he made use of as repositories for his treasures, and receptacles for his prey, 513 and therein he laid up the fruits that he had gotten by rapine; and many of his partisans had their dwelling in them; and he made no secret of it that he was exercising his men beforehand, and making preparations for the assault of Jerusalem.

Antiquities of the Jews 3:300 300 When Moses had led the Hebrews away from there to a place called Paran, which was near the borders of the Canaanites, and a place difficult to be continued in ...

*FWIW, I was wrong to think Simon bar Giora controlled territory in Galilee. I think I got that idea fom the reference to the fortified town of Nain, but that town clearly had to be in the border areas between Judea and Idumea.

DCH