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  • From: James Read <J.Read-2 AT sms.ed.ac.uk>
  • To: dwashbur AT nyx.net
  • Cc: Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] How Long was Hebrew a Living Language?
  • Date: Tue, 01 Sep 2009 00:53:06 +0100

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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