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Re: Yet another thought on the library
On Mon, 1 Apr 1996, Ian Hutchesson wrote:
> If for the sake of argument we allow the existence of a library in Cave 4,
> we still have to confront the existence of documents in all those other
> caves that were clearly not "libraries". Let's cut Cave 4 out of the
> discussion and ask why were documents placed in other caves (which were even
> more difficult to access than Cave 4). It's clear from some of the caves
> that the texts were carefully placed there; jars would suggest preservation.
Forgive me if this has already been discussed, but is there any
kind of thematic tendencies in any of the caves/jars? (Or, in a different
way--is there a sort of "primitive dewey decimal system" going on?)
I don't know how much book (or scroll) destruction went on in
those days, but (hypothetically) if a succession of groups inhabited Qumran, would they
destroy manuscripts that they found there, or would they tuck them away
into a cave (as long as the subject matter didn't offend them too much)?
This is not, of course, a scholarly hypothesis; just a couple of
questions that popped into my head over the whole library controversy...
Thank you,
Adam C. Bacon
Comparative Religion
University of Washington