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Re: orion Re: Ib and II dates
Stephen Goranson wrote:
> To me the Qumran inkwells look more like Roman period ones than Hellenistic.
What do Hellenistic inkwells look like? Are any published
for the region by which you can support this statement?
> De Vaux, Laperrousaz, Milik, and Cross, who were at the dig, and others,
agree on > evidence of a fire in 1st cent. BCE.
What is the reference for Cross? (I don't see a 1b fire in
_Ancient Libr. of Qumran_.) I don't think Laperrousaz and Milik
had more than De Vaux in print on this point. Larger issue: how
does one evaluate claims from authority which cannot be verified?
> J. Magness wrote:"...'scroll jars' are not attested at Qumran in any
pre-31 BCE contexts. > In fact, the presently available evidence
indicates that they are found only in period II
> contexts at Qumran . . . (ASOR 1996 > newsletter abstract.)
If established through argument and evidence this would indeed
argue strongly for a Period II deposit date for the Scrolls. But
after reading all of Humbert and Chambon and all of De Vaux I
cannot see how a claim for indication of exclusive Period II
dating of all, or any, scrolls jars at the site can be made on
the basis of existing information. As a counterexample, for
Locus 2 De Vaux reported finding a "scrolls jar" buried completely
in the lowest, i.e. 1b, floor. There were 1st CE coins on the
floor and around the jar. Looks to me like the coins are dating
not the floor or the jar (as reported by De Vaux) but rather the
latest people using the floor. The jar (it seems transparently
to me) looks like it went in 1b. Do you know how J. Magness deals
with this? Greg Doudna