----- Original Message ----- 
From: "philip davies" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Monday, December 20, 2004 9:17 AM
Subject: Re: [Megillot] J. Post on Qumran (problematic)


> The key problem is, and always has been, the connection between site
> and scrolls. We have  a few pieces of evidence in favour:
>
> 1. inkwells (this is to keep Stephen happy)
> 2. leather tabs from cave 8
> 3. Pliny

Philip,
here a variation of the theme:

1. usual tools of a branch office, part of a perfume production facility
and/ or date and/or balsam plantage - herein belongs the flushing bassins
(?; German: "Schlemmbecken") for the fine clave, suggested already earlier
by Zangenberg and others as well as a fair chance for a smithy.

2. uncertain; was cave 8 in fact sealed? and if not - what does a tab
actually prove?

3. Pliny's Natural History is a nice work with touristy ambitions, without
being qualified for historical authenticity; cf. Bob Kraft's article on
Essenes and Jews in Pliny, DSD 8/2001 (to be uploaded if required).


I think the all-important question is: "how did the yahad understand the
term exile". It's hardly enough to camp in paramilitary fashion in the
neighbor's garden to call such a protest action "exile into the wilderness
of nations" - for neither is the garden wild per se, nor is the neighbor an
alien, his garden abroad. Please think twice please...
Not by chance I've referred to the Isaiah-Trail doctrine (Is 40.3) of the
apparently widespread "Threat Song against Assur"-roadmap (Is 10.5-12.6) to
the exile of "the rest that returns".

Be that as it may, we are contemporary witnesses of the first true schism in
the DSS research. All I can see in the moment is a retreat of the old
"mother faction" on all sides - but this could be a mere temporary
phenomenon. However, I do not share Zangenberg's excessive optimism


_Dierk

_______________________________________________
g-Megillot mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://mailman.McMaster.CA/mailman/listinfo/g-megillot

Reply via email to