Dear Joe,
You wrote: >My attempt to define the site of Qumran, Ain el-Ghuweir and posssibly >Zissu's site in Jerusalem as Essene is based mainly on demographics, i.e. >the lack of women with the exception of one at Qumran and the lack of young >children at all of the three sites. This is your analysis of the matter -- but not the only analysis --, in which you disagree with Roehrer-Ertl over the classification of the bones long in his hands. At the same time, you reject -- apparently out of hand -- the finds in the cemetery of three women made by Solomon Steckoll, who you note was not an archaeologist but more of a journalist and of whose work you have the opinion that it is totally unreliable. In dismissing both Roehrer- Ertl and Steckoll you might end up with data that reflects the demographics you now have in mind, but I personally would like to know more. Your complaint with Roehrer-Ertl was that the heights of the remains of three bodies he declared female were 159, 159 and 163cm, which are well above the average height for women of the period (150cm), but quite normal for males of the time (160cm). This makes sense, but is it sufficient to overturn the learned opinion of a specialist in the field whose acquaintance with the bones has been since in 1991? Is it not true that your contact with all the bones was for brief periods over less than a week? The treatment of Steckoll in footnote 56 on page 240 of your article seems only to be an ad hominem dismissal of the man leaving the work untouched. (Puech of course is (yet again) welcome to his opinion, here of Steckoll.) You make the complaint that Steckoll's work in the cemetery was illegal, but at the time he started his operation there, the territory was under the control of the Jordanian government, and Steckoll actually had permission from that government to perform his work. It was only after the 1967 war that Qumran past under the control of Israel and all such cemetery digs were disallowed. Nonetheless, there are three women accredited to graves in the central part of the cemetery, as published in a journal of repute, the Revue de Qumran. Steckoll's efforts were of such low esteem that he was allowed to publish another article in the same journal. >My argument with Golb et al is that the problem facing Qumran scholars is >basically an anthropological/archaeological one whereas nearly all the >interpertations have been made by textual scholars which is why the obvious >has been overlooked. I need to add here that it was people without a basic anthropological/archaeological background who first suggested the Essene Hypothesis, people who were prepared to overlook the inconsistencies in Pliny to use him in support of the Essenes at Qumran -- when Pliny clearly says that the Essenes "fled" the littoral of the sea and where do we find Qumran? on the littoral! The Hirschfeld site above Ein Gedi fits neatly into the description found in Pliny as naturally Ein Gedi is below it and it seems more likely than Qumran to have been a poor religious retreat. So, there is nothing at all to tie the Essenes to Qumran, except for tendentious readings of scrolls and perhaps your demographic analysis, but it in no way directly suggests any particular group. (And the reason why I previously mentioned Golb was because you spent your time attacking his positions rather than doing the job of considering the evidence for the Essenes, an action that wan't done in the section you headed "Discussion: Is Qumran Essene?". One would have expected something to follow which attempted to resolve the question.) >As for the large number of copies of certain texts which you cite, I believe >that many scholars today would agree that not only were many of these >scrolls not Qumranic in origin but may have been stored there in the caves >for safe keeping. This of course opens up an interesting area of arbitrarness. How does one know that any of the scrolls belonged to inhabitants of Qumran? It cannot be assumed and it hasn't been shown. I also support the notion that the scrolls were stored in the caves, however. Let me mention here my own analysis of the scrolls deposit: in 63 BCE the Sadducees were in possession of a number of fortresses (and/or other military sites), which at that time included Qumran -- not as a fortress, but an ancilliary establishment (it has an extremely strategic position directly on the coast from Hyrcania, in line of site of Machaerus and Jericho, and commanded a view of the shipping on the sea). With the wind of Pompey's arrival and the strong possibility of an apocalyptic war, valuable texts (as indicated by the Copper Scroll) were gathered in Jerusalem and sent to sites around the country, including Jericho and Qumran. Long before the storage process could be finished the process had to be abandoned (due to the need to defend Jerusalem) and the bulk of the scrolls were sealed in cave 4, where they lay until the 1950s. >The pottery analysis of several scrolls jars would seem to >belie this assertion. Lastly, as for literacy, it would be hard to imagine >that the men of Qumran would not be literate on the basis of what is known >about the sect. What would make you think such an idea? In America today there is a *functional* illiteracy rate of over 20%. This is with obligatory education for everyone. As to the Essenes all indications we have of them point to a poor background: denial of familial ties, wearing of clothes in rags being acceptable, despising of riches, (at least according to Josephus), and there is nothing in any of the ancient accounts to make one think that they were overendowed with readers. The few dozen people at Qumran worked in their shops. The analysis of Qumran as an early Roman Manor house by Hirschfeld seems reasonable, at least after the building of the acqueduct. (In fact in his comparison of numerous similar sites around Israel, he concluded that "There is no evidence from the excavations or in the historical sources that the Essenes inhabited the site of Qumran at any time." He is, of course, correct, though he could have made the statement generic as "a religious group" and not just "the Essenes".) As a productive centre, Qumran's population would have had their "productive" work to do. There is no reason to believe that the Qumran inhabitants were of the elite who belonged to schools in which they could learn the process of reading and writing (and Ben Sira indicates how much of an elite they were), or could dedicate the time necessary to learn to read. I remember reading an article about literacy in Judea, though I don't have the details at hand -- perhaps someone else has read it. It suggests a very low literacy rate. Why should this not also be true of the Essenes, who were after all of a class of people from whom one wouldn't expect people with the necessary education? Ian For private reply, e-mail to "Ian Hutchesson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ---------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from Orion, e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: "unsubscribe Orion." Archives are on the Orion Web site, http://orion.mscc.huji.ac.il. (PLEASE REMOVE THIS TRAILOR BEFORE REPLYING TO THE MESSAGE)
