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Re: orion minim; Ib and II dating

Stephen Goranson wrote:

>I see no point in long exchanges based on misinformation.

Dear Stephen,

Thanks for not spreading too much this time as well. I really don't
understand how you can keep making such comments about Essenes based on so
little or drag Pliny out of his grave yet again.

>Mr. Hutchesson continues to insist on a seventy or so year gap in Qumran
>settlement, though very few Qumran mss are absolutly dated by internal
>evidence.

Can you show anything coherently pointing to a shorter period?

>Again I invite him to read J. Magness (DSD 2, 1995, 58-65) and
>other archaeological analyses and then to present the complete data.

What do you find so compelling about Magness's position other than it suits
the Essene hypothesis?

>Many of the Qumran loci were used for the same purposes in Ib and in II
>which points to the same group using them after the fire.

Fire? Perhaps earthquake? Perhaps everybody left the place? Perhaps nobody
decided to rebuild after the catastrophe? Perhaps someone was smoking in bed
(always a bad habit)?

>Again, the
>coin evidence, radiocarbon dating, pottery types and dates do not bear
>out his claim.

Yes, let's flee from the little hard evidence we've got. What do you make
out of the coin distributions, Stephen? Please see what can be eked out of
them other than that there was an extreme drop from Alexander Jannaeus's
time until the increase during the Roman "occupation" period of the first
century.

How do you want to use the C14 data, Stephen, when the majority of datings
we've got are early, a few suit you and a few suit noone. We are aware that
it is not a totally exact science and errors do arise. When the bulk of
dates go early that shows the trend. Do you want to go beyond that? If so, why?

You have been claiming for a long time without any backing evidence that the
hard evidence doesn't give a good possibility for a long gap. Please do more
than just state it once again without evidence.

>Pliny's source (Marcus V. Agrippa, I think [JJS 45, 1994,
>295-98]) wrote about Qumran as inhabited during this proposed gap. 

It's very hard to make too much out of the implications of the Pliny quote.
It's written as a contemporary record. When was Pliny's work written?
Between the end of the Jewish war and the eruption of Vesuvius.

Pliny's description of the location of the Essene group is hardly that of
Qumran: Qumran as a locality has sense with relation to Jericho and not Ein
Gedi which is much further away and harder to get to. One went to Ein Gedi
not via Qumran but due south. Besides this simple problem of location (Ein
Gedi having nothing directly to do with Qumran), one has to make a special
reading of Pliny's hos en geddi, which is yet another unjustified leap into
faith.

You know the implications of the Drori conclusion regarding Qumran: that the
complex water system was almost certainly financed by the Hasmoneans, and
that as part of a defensive system. Essenes don't come into it -- at least
prior to 63 bce!?

If you want, we can look at other problems of Pliny's statement being
referred to a religious group living in Qumran. You have been strangely
silent on the issue before, when it's been mentioned.

(Besides, what are those 20 or so huts up above Ein Gedi?)

>(Yes Ezekiel is
>about the temple. Was it then necessarily written in Jerusalem?)

Would you care to advocate that it wasn't?   (-!

Yours,

Ian