----- Original Message ----- From: "Stephen Goranson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, December 22, 2004 1:55 PM Subject: [Megillot] Qumran history, again
[snip] > If we look at the stone reliefs Titus had made after the war we see > propaganda, surely, but based on real looting. And didn't Josephus himself get > a Jerusalem scroll from his new-found friends? In War 5.496-7 we read of Roman > worries that, despite seige, supplies might be smuggled *into* the city. The > city the zealots expected to hold. In N. Golb's book laden with errors (e.g., > on Herod coins; on reading 4Q448; on Pliny as if personally in Judaea and as > if his [source] text reflects postwar account), we see imagination (p.145-6) > that mule trains then could spirit *away* scrolls. Yet there is no material or > textual evidence that the Qumran scrolls arrived in such a scenario. None. > Only hope, or preference, sustains this illusion. [snip] A professional siege is an utmost serious thing of ancient warfare, and once fully deployed none of you would ever be able to escape alive with his family and the contents. But you might continually believe unevaluated in Josephus' retrospective window-dressing. However, donkey caravans accompanied by some herders, civilians and (perhaps) small detachments of warriors would have left the dangerous area of a soon to be besieged city already at the stage of approximation of the enemy vanguard. I have suggested late 38 BC, the dawn of the 2nd siege of Jerusalem by Herod's army, reinforced by two Roman legions, directly after the failed siege of Samosata by Antonius (vs. Nikolaos of Damascus' humbug); the previous history (sic!) is high probably subject of 4Q161 frg 5-9 (that on" hope, or preference [that] sustains this illusion"). NB the variant of Pompey's siege 63 BCE fails to meet the criteria due to the army route taken by the Romans - along the Jordan River towards Jericho (sic!). _dierk _______________________________________________ g-Megillot mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mailman.McMaster.CA/mailman/listinfo/g-megillot
