A significant article that has been little-noted in online Qumran discussion:
Israel Carmi, "Are the 14C Dates of the Dead Sea Scrolls Affected by Castor Oil Contamination?" Radiocarbon 44 (2002) 213-216. Carmi presents a four-point critique of K.L. Rasmussen et al., "The Effects of Possible Contamination on the Radiocarbon Dating of the Dead Sea Scrolls 1: Castor Oil," Radiocarbon 43 (2001) 127-32. Prof. Carmi's Conclusions: "1. The extant corpus of dates of the Dead Sea Scrolls is robust and does not indicate a problem with castor oil contamination. 2. The experiment of Rassmussen et al. (2001) has no relevance to the extant dates of the Dead Sea Scrolls." best, Stephen Goranson Durham NC _______________________________________________ g-Megillot mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mailman.McMaster.CA/mailman/listinfo/g-megillot