In my g-megillot post of Aug. 14 ("Jannaeus, etc. --Straight
Questions") I incorrectly said at "Question Two"
that I had repudiated the 63 BCE date (for end of Ib/end
of scrolls)--in favor of a later date for end of Ib/
end of scrolls--in 1999. That is not correct. I should
have said 2001.
I argued the erroneously-early 63 BCE terminus date
on ANE and megillot as late as the first half of
2001. My first public correction that I can locate was on
Orion June 14, 2001. My volume _4Q Pesher Nahum: A Critical
Edition_, 2001, made the correction completely clear.
On Dec. 3, 2002 on ANE I told Goranson
that I had abandoned the 63 date for "two years now"
[actually 1-1/2]. In Ian Young's 2002 DJD 9/3 article
on the fluidity/freezing of the biblical text as
it applies to the dating of the Qumran caves biblical mss,
Young cites me as arguing for a date later in the
1st century BCE (p. 380 n. 41).
Therefore I erred in saying that Goranson has been attacking
the 63 BCE date for six years after I published
the correction. In fact it has been only four years.
I apologize for the error.
Obviously I wish I had gotten the right date for the end of
Qumran Ib from the beginning--but of course the date of the
end of Ib (or whatever Ib may be renamed) appears to remain
unresolved even now. The end of Ib appears to be the key
date of interest with respect to the latest date of scroll
deposits, whenever it is. The Qumran field has the text deposits
dated wrongly to the end of II, at the First Revolt. That
is a bogus fact without any actual evidence. At *best* it is
plausible (not proven), and at worst it is simply
wrong; never having existed in the first place except in the
imagination of de Vaux (just one more of a number of honest mistakes
he made) and the juggernaut of uncritical scholarly repetition that
followed.
I think the matter will be a bit more clearly focused with the
imminent publication of the Brown University Qumran archaeology volume
from Brill. Goranson has in the past claimed that no one at that
conference was convinced by my paper. Goranson's claim on this point
is factually untrue, on the basis of a communication
I have received. More importantly, however, in my article
I make a specific call for archaeologists to state whether they
consider text deposits as late as the 1st CE to have the status
of a fact (as distinguished from perceived possible), and why.
As text scholars (mostly) on this list, we should pay careful
attention to how this question is answered by the archaeologists.
Let me make a prediction: with the possible exceptions of
Broshi and Hanan Eshel, I seriously doubt any archaeologist
involved with Qumran will commit themselves, at this point,
to such a firm statement, along with a specific explanation for
the statement. My Brown conference article is an attempt to force
the issue: to smoke the archaeologists out, to make them answer
the question: are Qumran text deposits as late as 1st CE an
archaeological fact, or not? And why?
I have now taken this question right into the heart of a forum of
archaeologists dealing with Qumran. The question is as relevant
as can be. Ian Young has already made a detailed argument--so far
unanswered--that the differences between fluid and frozen biblical text
between Qumran and Masada point very strongly, if circumstantially,
to the Qumran text deposits ALL being EARLIER than those at Masada.
It will be interesting to see how the archaeologists
respond to this question. (Hint: look for the epistemology...)
Is the dating of Qumran text deposits as late as 1st CE,
which for so long has been thought to be a fact, in fact, a fact?
Greg Doudna
Bellingham, Washington
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