On the spigot, see G. Doudna, _Redating the Dead Sea
Scrolls found at Qumran_, (Qumran Chronicle special issue
Dec. 1999), pp. 22-26.
I am preparing a correction on one point, however. I now
think some internal references within the texts may postdate
63 BCE by a little, and am preparing for publication
an argument for a later deposit date, though still 1st century
BCE/ Qumran Period Ib. I will not discuss the particular
later date or my reasons for it prior to publication.
My new argument will be in basic chronological agreement,
though with a very different approach and interpretation,
to the spigot cut-off demonstrated by Michael Wise in
_The First Messiah_ (1999), pp. 249-251 and list at
334-335 n. 47). Wise lists what he identifies as 29 dateable
historical allusions from 14 texts between 174 BCE and
37 BCE. (I do not accept all of Wise's identifications
individually, but I certainly agree with Wise on many of
them and on the significance of the pattern.) Wise writes:
"The texts mention just a handful of second-century BCE
people and happenings, and these they saw from a
first-century BCE perspective. Also, the allusions evidence
the interest of the writers in the war with Rome [of Pompey],
together with the events running up to it and those of the
aftermath. Eighteen of the references are to this period
(62 percent of the total identifiable events). The war and
attendant Roman invasion were the engine of the Society's
message ... The writings of [the Teacher of Righteousness's]
followers contain _not a single identifiable allusion to any
event of the first century C.E._ [italics Wise's]. That silence
means that not even one writing of [the Teacher of
Righteousness]'s movement can be shown to have originated
after the turn of the eras ... The silence is ominous. Vital
crisis cults continually reconfigure earlier ideas to fit the
new circumstances brought about by prophetic
disconfirmation ... we would expect to find them writing
new texts in the first century C.E. We do not."
(Wise 1999: 249-251)
Wise concludes from this observation and data that the
'yachad' died in the 1st century BCE--because if it
continued to exist, Wise reasoned, new text compositions
should have continued and some later historical allusions
should have turned up in the Qumran finds. (Wise still
holds to a First Revolt deposit date for the copies,
however.)
To answer your question directly Stephen, here are 10
dateable proper name readings involving 6 names and
5 texts (counting all 4QMishC fragments as 1 text), from
the first half of the 1st century BCE. This does not count
the pesharim, sobriquets, uncertain proper name readings,
or other types of historical allusions, all of which give various
forms of further agreement with the picture from the secure
proper name readings below.
3 Alexander Jannaeus (103-76 BCE). 4Q448, 4Q523.
1 Demetrius III (88 BCE). 4QpNah.
2 Alexandra Salome (76-67 BCE). 4QMishC.
1 Hyrcanus II 'the king' (67 [or 63-40] BCE). 4QMishC.
2 Aemilius Scaurus (65 [or 63 or 62] BCE). 4QMishC.
1 Peitholaus (55-53 BCE). 4Q468e.
----- nothing later ---------
I do not however regard anything now in the published literature
as securely falsifying Ian Hutchesson's 63 BCE date (which is
to be distinguished from relative and subjective evaluations of
probability). Ever since days at Cornell in the early 1990's I have
had the strong conviction that the Qumran field is a century too
late on these Qumran text deposits. I was not able to pursue that
at Cornell; I was at Copenhagen. I proposed a 1st century BCE
deposit of all of the scrolls on this list, Orion, on Nov. 28, 1996
(it is in the Orion archives) and in print in 1998 at the end of my
radiocarbon article in Flint and VanderKam I (the 'single
generation' hypothesis, in which I proposed that most scribal
copies among the Qumran texts are contemporary, from the
latest-end generation of all of the scribal copies; that that
generation was in the 1st century BCE; and that all of the
scrolls went into the caves at Qumran at that time).
All discussions up to this point should be regarded as process;
attempts to arrive at the truth of the matter.
Greg Doudna
For private reply, e-mail to "Greg Doudna" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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