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Re: orion 4QMMT (c)

   The inscriptions were dated by FM Cross to around 250 BC at Arak
el-Emir. This is also supported by the lack of Persian Period remains
found at the site, not even a sherd. These caves were probably carved out
by Joseph Tobias, and the site was refered to by Zenon as
ZurBeitt...(damaged). Personaly I see the family as being Samaritan, that
is Jews who remained in Palestine and intermarried with the gentile
population after the Babylonian conquest. I suspect a dynastic marriage
that allowed them to obtain the Ammonitis with an Ammonite royal family.
But this is speculation. Certainly Tobiah the Ammonite and his son
"purified" their pedigree by marrying into powerful Jewish families.
Joseph Tobias's uncle was Onias II. 
   Unfortunatly your source is very out of date. If you can read French
read the recent works of E. Will and F. Larche on Arak el-Emir and Paul
Lapp's excavation reports (English).
    Thanks anyway
But to keep things on topic I do believe that Maneleus was an aspect of
"The Wicked Priest" as I suspect this was simply a reference to all the 
Hellenizing High Priests. And that Maneleus was one of the Tobiad
brothers, son of Joseph Tobias. I supported his relationship with the
Tobiad family in my paper through his brother Simeon, a "Benjamite" and
the "prostates".This non-Levite family obtained the high priesthood by
bribing the Seleucid King. This was recorded in Second Maccabees, and to
some extent Josephus. But Josephus seems to cover it up by saying that
Maneleus was a son of Onias.


Brad Harrison
KU Leuven

On Thu, 22 May 1997, David W. Suter wrote:


> This deserves a better response than it's been getting.  I was 
> investigating the Zenon papyri last evening and noted in Tcherikover, 
> _Corpus Papyrorum Judaicarum_ (Magnes/Harvard UP, 1957) 1:116, a 
> reference to two inscriptions on a rock at 'Arak el-Emir (identified by 
> Tcherikover as the likely site of the Tobiad estate) reading 
> Tubiah (+WBYH), which Tcherikover, following Maisler ("The House of Toubais" in 
> Tarbiz, xii. 109ff, in Hebrew) suggests is to be dated to around 500 BCE 
> based on paleography.  This would suggest that the various references to 
> Tobiah's and Tob'el reflect a family extending back several 
> centuries.  Tcherikover also would classify the family as Jewish, based 
> on the form of the name Tobiah (TWB plus YH), which make me wonder if the 
> way Nehemiah treats a Tobias in Neh 2:10 as an "Ammonite slave" isn't a 
> reflection of Judean party (not sectarian) politics rather than an 
> indication that the family was Ammonite.
> 
> David W. Suter
> Saint Martin's College
> Lacey, WA 98503
> dsuter@catadon.stmartin.edu
>