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Re: Walls not a fortress make
Is there evidence that the Romans destroyed texts at other sites? I do
not know what group might not have liked the Qumran group. I simply do
not understand why the Romans cared about texts.
-David.
I do not wish to be rude, but is this discussion not a bit
amateurish? Soldiers destroy, intentionally or unintentionally (and
they sometimes simply like like naughty children to destroy, think of
Bosnia as a recent reminder) - so
people housing a library or wanting to preserve scrolls would - of
course - try in times of war to preserve as much as possible. There
is no need for a conscious political campaign with the intention of
destroying manuscripts. On the other hand, the Romans hardly loved
anything Jewish at the end of the Jewish-Roman war.
But to be back on the point: akthough there may be no evidence of a
conceived politically conducted destruction of manuscripts,
manuscripts would nevertheless be 'endangered' items in times of war.
NPL
Niels Peter Lemche
Dep. Biblical Studies
University of Copenhagen
Phone: 45 49 13 81 24
Fax: 45 49 13 81 28
e-mail: npl@teol.ku.dk