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Re: Walls not a fortress make

On Wed, 3 Apr 1996, Jonah Wahrman wrote:

> I think you are correct, Jim. You reminded me of various mosaic floors I
> have seen in Israel, such as in the synagogue floor in Na'aran (near
> Jericho), and in other places, where iconoclasts had removed the images
> of animals and/or humans leaving just the outline of the image intact.
> It was enough for these persons to destroy, in these cases, just the
> image to satisfy some internal philosophy concerning images. The Romans
> may have destroyed manuscripts, along with buildings, just because they
> belonged to Jews
> --Jonah Wahrman
> 
Jonah,
     You know of a mosaic synagogue floor from pre-70 CE? Besides that 
question, it would likely have been common practice to remove colored 
tiles from damaged floors to reuse on others. These were not plastic 
tiles, you know. They were stone. It would have been far easier to 
collect the colored tiles from a damaged mosaic than to cut new ones 
after finding the appropriate rocks. Hence, it is not surprising that you 
should see damaged mosaic floors devoid of their images, because the 
images were made up of colored stone tiles.
	
As for the destruction of MSS, I think that it is safe to say that there 
is no evidence of the Romans destroying MSS anywhere other than at 
Qumran. This does not rule out the possibility that the Romans destroyed 
the texts in cave 4, but does leave the chance that they did not do this 
at Qumran. How can the destruction, the mutilation, of the scrolls be 
dated. Is there datable pottery or coinage on top of the scrolls in the 
caves? Are we dealing with scrolls that date pre-70 that were destroyed 
circa 70 CE? Or are we dealing with pre-70 CE scrolls that were destroyed 
pre-600 CE or pre-1000 CE? What is the evidence beyond the obvious 
connection with the destruction of the site? I know that for most 
scholars, the connection provides the answer. I was simply wondering 
whether or not there was evidence within the caves that proves this.

David K.