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one thousand scribes
Up to now I've been reluctant to commit myself to any particular
historicising scenario, for the reason that I think scholars did so
all too readily back in the 50s, and once such a scenario is in place
all subsequent data is at its mercy, instead of being allowed to
suggest its own interpretation. In general, I think we ought always
to envision several different options; this would reduce dogmatism
about the understanding of the data.
In this case, though, I will go along with Greg on at least one
issue, namely the fact that the documentation provides abundant
evidence of production by a large number of scribal hands. This
could, as some have suggested, be the result of long inhabitation of
the "complex" with a century or more of scroll production. But this
theory would not, as I have pointed out, account for the following:
there are at least two *orthographical systems* represented, i.e.,
Qumran Hebrew orthography and Biblical Hebrew Orthography; moreover,
there are at least *three* Hebrews represented, namely Biblical
Hebrew, Qumran Hebrew and Proto-Middle (which some call Mishnaic, but
it's a misnomer, as it recurs in the Copper Scroll and in 4QMMT)
Hebrew, at least two Aramaics (the Biblical Aramaic of Daniel is not
the same as the Late Aramaic of the Genesis Apocryphon, and neither
is identical with that of Tobit and Enoch; for that matter, the
Aramaic orthographies show considerable diversity as well), plus
Greek.
So much linguistic and orthographic diversity demands the assumption
that the documents came from multiple sources, and it makes nonsense
of the assumption that a small, closely-knit quasi-monastic
environment produced it all.
As for Greg's assumption that all the documents were deposited at the
same time, well, this needn't have been the case. The apparent
chronological spread of the age of the documents could be as much as
200 years or more, and I don't think people continued to use animal-
skin documents in a desert environment that long, owing to cracking
and drying of the medium. Of course, this is a supposition that would
require some empirical investigation; but it might suggest that the
deposition of the documents took place over a long period of time,
for whatever reason.
Fred Cryer
Assoc.Prof./Research
Univ. of Copenhagen
FC@teol.ku.dk