Biblical Hebrew Forum

[James Read <J.Read-2 AT sms.ed.ac.uk>]

Hi,

Quoting dwashbur AT nyx.net:

> On 31 Aug 2009 at 23:06, James Read wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > Quoting dwashbur AT nyx.net:
> >
> > >
> > >
> > > On 31 Aug 2009 at 7:42, James Read wrote:
> > >
> > >> Yeah,
> > >>
> > >> I think you're right David. There seems to have been quite a lot
> > of
> > >> this kind of thing. Too many conclusions from so little evidence.
> > We
> > >> basically have a library of manuscripts kept in a safe location.
> > It
> > >> could well have been just one very zealous individual hoping to
> > keep
> > >> the scrolls safe from some kind of disaster.
> > >>
> > >> I think some have even suggested that this may have been an
> > early
> > >> Christian fleeing from a besieged Jerusalem that put the
> > scrolls
> > >> there
> > >> in a safe place. Some of the texts even seem to have Christian
> > ideas
> > >> in them. Like the wicked priest and the righteous teacher. I
> > know
> > >> there is a lot of debate over who the wicked priest is and who
> > the
> > >> righteous teacher is but it has to be admitted that there are
> > >> parallels to be found with Christian teachings.
> > >
> > > James,
> > > The parallels are such as might be found in most any
> > offshoot-Judaic
> > >  sect, especially with
> > > regard to morality etc.  The whole wicked priest thing is so vague
> > > that I don't base anything
> > > at all on it; the pure fact is, we haven't a clue what they
> > meant.
> > >
> >
> > Yeah. Sure. It has also been suggested that this may be a reference
> > to
> > Maccabean usurpment. I suppose any theory is as good as any as
> > nothing
> > is conclusive. In an attempt to get the discussion back on track
> > about
> > the usage of Hebrew though it certainly would help in the matter of
> > dating the DSS is we knew who was being spoken about.
>
> Rather than look at such documents, I prefer to think about the   
> corpus as a whole.  Given
> the general prevalence of biblical texts, the frequent archaizing   
> even to the point of using
> pre-exilic script, and the total lack of "common" documents, I think  
>  we're looking at
> somebody's collection of various books that they tried to hide   
> around the time of the Roman
> war.

What about the possibility that the documents are not all from the  
same period? Like any library can contain older and new books. I think  
this could be even more so for a collection like this in such ancient  
times.

> > > As for the idea that this was a single person, Christian or
> > > otherwise, fleeing Jerusalem to try
> > > and keep a corpus of books safe, I can't go that way.  If we had
> > > found a moderate number of
> > > documents in one or two caves, maybe.  800 documents in 11 caves?
> > I
> > >  think not.
> >
> > Sure. I see what your saying. That's a lot of documents for one
> > person
> > to carry right? And why didn't he put them all in one cave? So is
> > your
> > guess a small Hebrew speaking community living in isolation?
>
> Nope.  I lean toward Golb's idea of somebody's library, possibly   
> even the Jerusalem
> Temple's, that some group tried to save from the Roman destruction.   
>  I won't go to the wall
> for it, but it's the explanation that makes the most sense to me.

Yeah! I read about that one too. It does make sense from many angles.  
But then why the document that makes such a big deal about a wicked  
priest?

James Christian


> Dave Washburn
>
> http://www.nyx.net/~dwashbur
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