Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Stephen Goranson <goranson AT duke.edu>]

1)  Y. Magen and Y. Peleg proposed that Qumran was a pottery export site and 
said clay in pool 71 was used. Samples of that clay have now been analysed, 
and they do not match tested Qumran pottery. "This information goes straight 
against" the Magen Peleg proposal, according to scientists J. Gunneweg and M. 
Balla in Holistic Qumran: Trans-Disciplinary Research of Qumran and the Dead 
Sea Scrolls (Leiden, 2010) 39-61, quote on p. 49.

2) If The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Full History vol. 1 1947-1960 (Weston Fields; 
Leiden, 2009) is correct, then numerous purchased mss may possibly be 
incorrectly assigned, i.e., have incorrect cave designations.  If that is 
true, among the consequences:
a) Some fragments published in DJD XXXIII as unidentified Cave 4 fragments 
may possibly belong with mss from other caves.
and
b) Further caution might be called for toward various multiple cave origin 
proposals.

Stephen Goranson
http://www.duke.edu/~goranson