[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: One Thousand Scribes
PWEGNER@BROWNVM.brown.edu wrote:
>
> >If the Qumran site was not a "residence" but instead a
> "headquarters" or place to go for purification, every Essene in
> the country could have been required to go there. It may very
> well have been a transient Essene "motel." <
>
> Qumran is simply too far away for men who would have had to purify themselves
> after every nocturnal emission (if they followed Lev. 15-16 or some equivalent
> rule of their own). Particularly in the case of celibate men, I'm betting that
> that phenomenon occurs considerably more than once a month!
>
> It makes no sense that this was the only (or even the primary) purpose of
> the buildings at Qumran. The mikveh was obviously there because the people
> were there for some other primary reason, and had to build it because of their
> strict purity rules.
That makes sense to me! What I am calling into question, and a
purification ritual being just an example, is that the "sectarians"
at Qumran were in permanent residence rather than a transient "turn
over"
of Essenes making a required "pilgrimage" to Qumran for some reason.
The question of whether this group was celibate is not established
given the burials there. Perhaps the Moreh ha-Zedek was buried there
which gave the site some special significance to the sect.
Jack Kilmon
jpman@accesscomm.net