On June 6, in comments concerning the paper on the dating of the scroll deposits, Stephen Goranson claimed that I had made a mistake on a detail in a different paper. Goranson wrote on June 6: "Another example of a bold, yet unfortunate statement, in Doudna's online J. of Hebrew studies v. 5 (2004) article on the "'yahad'" ostracon. That a letter on Alexander Jannaeus bronze coins requires a big revision of the Cross paleography. (That paleography is of course fair game for criticism.) Anyone who has worked with these coins knows how poorly some were made and copied and reused. OK to cite j. Naveh's IEJ 18 (1968) "Dated Coins of Alexander Jannaeus." But not OK to make sweeping statements that no one challenged any of this without merely consulting Yaacov Meshorer's standard book (page ref. on request, not at hand) which indeed removes one of Avigad's two dates. And was the year 25 in Hebrew special anyway?" Not so. In the section of the JHS paper which Goranson is criticizing (quoted below) I made no claim that a single letter (!) on Alexander Jannaeus coins required a revision of Cross's paleography. (Where did that claim of Goranson come from?) The issue is an inscription of 17-plus letters attesting a type of writing--Cross's "vulgar semiformal", which Cross defined as a derivative of what he called "Herodian formal"--prior to when, in Cross's system, that type of writing is supposed to exist. I noted that Naveh's identification of "vulgar semiformal" writing on Alexander Jannaeus coins had never been "contested or refuted"--yet, strangely, has never made any impact on over 35 years of Qumran palaeographic datings published since then. (It is as if this publication of Naveh had never happened, as far as the history of Qumran scholarship is concerned.) What Goranson is talking about is some dispute over one coin's date *within* Alexander Jannaeus's reign, on a coin which is still an Alexander Jannaeus coin. That is of no concern or issue to the point, and is not what I was referring to as not having been challenged. The issue is not which year in Alexander Jannaeus's reign, but that "vulgar semiformal" square formal Hebrew writing is known on Alexander Jannaeus coins--of whatever year--at all. On June 7 Goranson repeated: "Here is another example of heedlessness to evidence which does not fit a preconceived conviction. Doudna asserted that no one had challenged Avigad's work on Alexander Jannaeus bronze coin dating. I offered to provide the reference to a basic work that Doudna should have consulted before making such a bold sweeping declaration, a work which precisely dismissed one of Avigad's two dates. But no interest was manifested. Ya'akov Meshorer, Ancient Jewish Coinage, v.1 p.80 ... no interest in unwelcome information ... " (etc. etc.) Again Goranson thinks the issue is the year within Alexander Jannaeus's reign of an Alexander Jannaeus coin, which is not the issue at all. It also is not clear whether Goranson means Avigad, or has by mistake written Avigad but meant Naveh. In my discussion in JHS I never refer to any work of Avigad on Alexander Jannaeus coins; I never mention Avigad at all. On June 12, moving over now to the ANE list, Goranson again repeats the same charge. Goranson writes on ANE, June 12 (https://listhost.uchicago.edu/pipermail/ane/2004-June/013521.html ): "... unfortunate misinformation ... special pleading ... inaccuracies... omission of evidence ... special pleading ... Doudna claimed in a JHS article cited online that no one challenged Avigad's dating of Alexander Jannaeus coins, when the leading relevant numismatist did precisely that in his classic Ancient Jewish Coinage v. 1 p. 80 ... inaccuracies ... omission of evidence ... special pleading... how many examples will suffice ..." Here is what I wrote in section 13 of my article "KhQ1 and KhQ2 found in the Cemetery of Qumran: A New Edition", in the _Journal of Hebrew Scriptures_, vol. 5, number 5 (http://www.arts.ualberta.ca/JHS/Articles/article_35.pdf ). "On palaeographic grounds Cross/Eshel claim to know a 38-year maximum range of possibility for the writing of KhQ1/KhQ2. They write: 'The script on the ostraca is Late Herodian. Cross has defined 'Late Herodian' as the period between 30-68 CE. The ostraca are penned in a vulgar, semi-formal style, with an occasional cursive lapse.' ... Cross/Eshel refer to 'palaeography, which places the ostracon in the mid-first century CE', as if this is a fact. But there is a methodological problem in Cross's palaeographic datings of texts in Vulgar semiformal. According to Cross, 'the Vulgar semiformal is a crude, simplified derivative of the Herodian formal character.' A premise in Cross's system is that 'Herodian formal' and its derivative, Vulgar semiformal, started c. 30 BCE. [The footnote at this point: Cross 1961, "Development of the Jewish Scripts", p. 173: "The term _Herodian_ is used here and throughout our paper to apply to the era 30 B.C. to A.D. 70 .... At the same time it applies fittingly to a stage of the formal script, which, owing to the emergence of a complex of new characteristics at the end of the Hasmonean era, has its own style and integrity ..."]. No evidence was ever set forth that the scribal writing hands termed 'Herodian formal' started that late (i.e. at the start of the Herodian period), but the assumption that this is so has influenced hundreds of palaeographic datings of Qumran texts in DJD editions. This belief, without positive evidence, has been impervious even to directly contradicting information. For example, in 1968 Naveh reported Vulgar semiformal Hebrew writing on Alexander Jannaeus coins of 83 and 78 BCE--before the Herodian period. According to Cross, Vulgar semiformal is derivative from 'Herodian formal'. But if 'Herodian formal'/Vulgar semiformal were in routine use decades earlier than they are supposed to have begun to exist in Cross's system--as the Alexander Jannaeus coins testify--then there is no basis for certainty that true dates of Qumran texts in 'Herodian formal' are as late as their published palaeographic dates. Curiously, although Naveh's 1968 report has never been contested or refuted, it seems never to have affected a Qumran text palaeographic dating in any DJD edition published in the decades since then. And in a footnote I quote the relevant section of Naveh 1968: "The [coins'] inscription is in the Jewish (so-called square Hebrew) script and in the Aramaic language. It consists of MLK' 'LKSNDRWS, and the word $NH followed by the numberals K and, more often, KH. These are dated coins of the 20th and 25th years of Alexander Jannaeus, corresponding to 83 and 78 B.C. respectively ... the legend is written in the 'vulgar semiformal' in Cross's terminology ... The closest parallels to these letters are to be found on ossuaries. As the latter are generally attributed to the Herodian period and as the earliest known vulgar semiformal examples do not antedate this period, the palaeographical significance of this dated Hasmonean inscription is quite obvious" (J. Naveh, "Dated Coins of Alexander Jannaeus", _Israel Exploration Journal_ 81 [1968], 20-25 at 21-23). The issue is the inscription, the reading MLK' 'LKSNDRWS, in square Hebrew letters--in "vulgar semiformal"--that goes around the perimeter of these coins. Whether they are from Alexander Jannaeus's year 20 or 25, or some other year of Alexander Jannaeus, does not matter. What is undisputed and has never been contested is Naveh's identification of Vulgar semiformal writing on Alexander Jannaeus coins. Naveh's article refers to many such Alexander Jannaeus coins with this inscription in collections, not just two. Avigad's name appears nowhere in Naveh's article, nor does Avigad's name appear in my discussion of the point. Stephen Goranson's comments miss the point and make an issue of something which was not my meaning and has nothing to do with the point. Greg Doudna
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