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Re: DSS Course (monastery theory)
As neither the current documentary evidence nor the current archaeological
evidence seriously supports the monastery theory, it only complicates
interpretation of both. I cannot say definitively that the theory is wrong,
but I have my personal doubts. The theory was propagated under the auspices
of a number of Catholic fathers in the early fifties and all other ideas
were ridiculed by the monopolizers of the texts, making it extremely
difficult to show there were problems.
I would think the discussion has adequately been dealt with by Maxine
Grossman and Judith Wegner both on 5/3.
Ian Hutchesson
>>It will be hard to find "up to date" theories as the texts have not that
>>long ago been liberated from the Christian monopoly that propagated the
>>monastery theory.
>
>If I may interject, while I also remain somewhat grumpy about the long
>suppression (as I see it) of the Dead Sea Scrolls under the Christian
>monopoly, still neither the original archaeologist who advanced the
>monastery idea, nor the two most recent advocates (Broshi and Eshel) are
>Christians. I remain puzzled (and undecided), first at *whether* the
>monastery idea is as implausible as many scholars represent (none of the
>arguments seem compelling yet), and secondly, what it would mean if the
>strict halakhically Torah-observant (distinctively *un*-Christian) Qumran
>sect were monastic.
>