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Re: One Thousand Scribes

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From: "Greg Doudna" <GD@teol.ku.dk>
Organization: Teologisk Fakultet
To: orion@pluto.mscc.huji.ac.il
Date: Fri, 8 Nov 1996 10:12:35 GMT +100
Subject: Re: One Thousand Scribes> 
Greg Doudna wrote
...
>Uwe Glessmer's post suggesting a calendar section 
>appeared in a particular position in an exemplar of the
>Community Rule corresponding to 1QS 10 is also 
>interesting.  (But can this suggestion be established beyond 
>conjecture, Uwe Glessmer?)

I answered already to Marty with reference to the article of S. Metso
[(1993) JJS 303-308], because she has argued mainly from the perspective of
"hard facts" of material reconstruction (according to the "Stegemann
methode"). I share this opinion with her. Additionally I have argued on the
level of the contents in an english article now published in "Qumranstudien"
from the SBL-Meeting 1993 (eds. Fabry / Lange / Lichtenberger). There I have
discussed the evaluation of the reference to Isaiah 40,3 by modern authors
and their controversial understandings:
1. The growing development of the different Serekh-manuscripts supports the
symbolic interpretation of the "time of wilderness" (see discussion Golb /
Brooke).
2. The "prepation of the way" is allready in Maleachi 3 connected with the
separation of just and wicked (important is TORA and the expected "day of
YHWH").
3. To understand this eschatological "time (of separation)" is for the
MASKIL the key to the decipherment of the words written in cryptic in 4QS^e
1 III 3-4: "Israel" and "men of (deceit)". This "mystery" is interpreted "as
is written" in Is 40,3 - focussed to the keyword "time". This occurs twelve
times in 1QS IX,12-24 // 4QS^e 1 III to IV,8, which follows in 4QS^e
directly after the Is 40,3-citation in 4QS^e 1 III 4-5) without the
secondary section of 1QS VIII,15-IX,11.

So my argument is: the contents of the preceeding section in 4QS^e makes it
more than a mere conjecture, to see the keyword "time" as the link to the
calendrical part 4QOtot. This is not only the physical and direct
continuation, but also a logical one to be written on the same scroll. But
this gradual probability is not 100%, because no overlapping fragment remained.

But I think, also for your, my and others ideas about the "libabry"
character of the mss the understanding from 4QS^e is important, especially
if Milik´s early dating of its literary age in mid second century BCE is
right. This is before the Ib-phase when the intensive building of the
settlement starts.

        But for my view, it would be too simple, to make exclusive
alternatives: the library is imported _or_ is written in this locality. The
multiplicity of mss and scribes can be brought together with the hard facts
of the settlement (ink wells and cylindrical jars as "mss-container"),
"purity-environment" and burial-places. 
        If a group was separated (and the tensions grew up to the civil war
under Janneaus !) from the temple - but was conservative to this background
- the common heritage would not be distinguishable (including its facilities
of mss-preparation and distribution as well as the existing older
multiplicity of different texts - and e.g. calendrical approaches). Under
this perspective the question, whether mss are re-produced or imported
(which can not be answered at the moment, perhaps in future with the help of
DNA-analysis?), has for me a secondary weight.

UWE
=========================================
PD Dr. Uwe Glessmer
Lockkoppel 2
D-22391 Hamburg
Tel: 0049-40-536 76 29
FAX: 0049-40-536 53 84
e-mail: glessmer@theologie.uni-hamburg.de