spin

There isn't much in the way of content in the above article.

I agree that using palaeography as a guiding factor is wrong.

The article does not consider the fact that all modern contaminants will make samples appear to be younger than what they are. A long list of contaminants has been published in one of the more famous collections of DSS articles (I think the Flint and VanderKam DSS after 50 years). John Allegro stated he used castor oil on his texts, which includes 4Q171 (the Psalms Pesher), one of the texts carbon-dated. (C14 was not a perceived option then.)

There are two basic issues:

1. is the raw information correct (this is where contamination plays a role), and

2. is the callibration curve correct (this is up for discussion as new data come in) .

Atwill and Braunheim don't seem to deal with the implications of #1 well. Changing the raw data through further cleaning, etc., will only make the texts older. The accuracy of the callibration curve is the best thing going for them. However, the changes generally won't provide the sort of shifts that they need for their defence of Eisenman and co. The last recallibration shifted a few texts off spikes in the curve, so changes seemed more hopeful, but another such recallibration could just as easily put them back on spikes.

As Pesher Habakkuk seems to reflect the bulk of C14 dates, the authors should consider that the at risk text 4Q171 is the anomalous dating, rather than pHab. This would be more consistent with the data.

For info from the horse's mouth, here is AJT Jull's write-up of the Arizona tests in PDF format.


spin

spin

Actually, I think they were hidden away before Herod. The bulk of C14ed texts are 1st c. BCE. A cache of texts should represent the time they were deposited or else one has to justify why not and such a justification needs to be better than "it suits my theory". Scrolls were perishable with use. This is why they were consistently being copied; scrolls less used normally lasted longer, so in a cache less used scrolls would more likely date early. More frequently used texts, as shown for example by their numerous copies, would date closer to deposit time.

The texts were hidden for safekeeping. Nobody refound them until a particular accident happened. They were therefore relatively well-hidden. The people who used Qumran as a production centre didn't know anything about caves 4 and 5, though some of the others were visited in antiquity. Cave 1 was discovered by 1947. It took several years before cave 4 came to light, even though archaeologists had worked at the Qumran settlement for a few seasons.

There is no reason to think that the later inhabitants, those of Period 2, knew anything about the scroll deposit.


spin

offa

In reading Josephus I have come to the conclusion that "Galilee"
included the Qumran area as an outpost and that this "Galilee"
had nothing to do with the area to the north around Lake Galilee.

Herod was made governor of Galilee and the robbers that Herod cleaned
out of the caves with the 'cliffs and sheer drop offs out of their
mouths' were these caves carved in the cliffs around Qumran.

In other words, I think the schooling that Herod receceived was from
this area and that he was aware of (some of) the Scrolls.

You are not going to find the caves described by Josephus anywhere
in the topography of modern day (if there were such a thing) Galilee.

With the correct identities given to locations in the "holy land"
then one can perceive a different setting and more accurately
"date" the Scrolls.

offa