Russell, First of all, thanks for your thoughtful post.
Different from the moist Hermon region, the climate is though dry enough in the Trachonitis, for the average annual rainfall there (< 8 inches) corresponds more or less to that of the Qumran area before the great deforestation action in connection with the Roman siege of Massada. The archaeological chances are thus given - the political are not. The ancient ruins of Qasr el-'Abd - the 'Palace of the Slave' - and the adjacent caves of 'Arâq el-Emir, 'the Cliffs of the Prince' are indeed located in the fruitful Wadi as Sîr, the Wadi 'of Sheepfold' on the road to 'Ammân.Unfortunately, the masonry is clearly of Roman type, though the ruined tower may have been an earlier outpost or part of HyrcanosTobiyah b. Joseph's fortess as described in Josephus' Hasmonean apologia. The ice is thus thin for all DSS interested, as thisn as that of my earlier identification of Onias III's exile not in Daphne near Antioch at the Orontes as to be read in Macc and thus easily to be recited, but in the homonymous location at the Lake Semechonitis in the Paneas Mts. that separate Galilee from the Damaskene (the literally 'Land of Damascus') and the 'Arabah ha-Goyim, the 'Wilderness of Nations'. Acc to 1QM 1.2, this wilderness is by no means identical with the 'Wilderness of Judea', the latter is simply to be understood as the concentration area in front of Jerusalem of those exiles who return from the former - to wage war under the command of the 'Prince of the Community' (4QpIs/a), a synonym for the Bethleheminite 'Sceptre', the Davidic 'Messiah of Israel' that is guided by (the Torah supplements of) the priestly 'Star' over Bethlehem, the Doresh ha-Torah in CD. However, I can easily follow your track, at least up to the Tobiad crossing in the 'Arabah that leads to the mentioned Wadias Sîr. But that has clearly something to do with the different chosen time-frames. My understanding of John the Baptist at the ford of the Jordan in the 'Arabah is just a symbolic one: Like any good carnival barker he attracts many potential participants at the entrance to the Isaiah trail - and not from within the show. These people simply have to make the dangerous exodus from Israel first. And that this was indeed dangerous in John's days results from the literary fate of Theuda (Yehuda) and his retinue. This brings me back to the terms 'Land of Damascus' and 'Wilderness of Nations' in connection with the Serekh texts (whereto 1QM does not belong!). It is already clear today that these texts have a substantial literary nucleus that originally belonged to the Serekh of predecessor movement, viz that of the Mechoqeq, acc. To CD the authoritative Doresh ha-Torah before the coming of the renegade Teacher of Righteousness. Once it is clear that programmatic texts show less if no local colour at all, one immediately has to ask what you exactly mean with 'Judean Outlook' in the Serekh texts in contrast to ' Exile's Outlook' in the Pesharim or related texts. The alleged 'mistakes' made by the Mechoqeq Movement are ambiguous, a final sympathy for the devil of establishment may be one, the refusal to walk on the 'Isaiah Trail' perhaps another. Hard to say, for investigations of the policy of the Mechoqeq Movement are not yet made, though I tend towards a deeper philosophical relation between this mysterious movement and certain literary reflections on Essenes in Josephus - the image that has caused many scholars to believe in a simple, almost childish appearing equalization of Yahad and Essenes. However, my Isaiah Trail painting is not that new, it's already from the last millennium, but still I guess what, for example, the figurative Jesus or the historical ToR actually had to deal with 'Sons of Bethlehem', the Exodus theme, the religious disc at the Jordan ford, the devilish wilderness thereafter and - with much later actionism in Galilee (where else?). _Dierk _______________________________________________ g-Megillot mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://mailman.McMaster.CA/mailman/listinfo/g-megillot
