[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: orion Cave 7 Fragments


According to Jack Kilmon:
> 
[...]
> letter of Jeremiah (7Q2).  Just what HAS been done on the dating of
> these
> fragments, palaeographically or otherwise?

I don't think there's very much that *can be done. Paleographically
speaking, judging from Greek papyri found in Egypt, and its differences
from the papyri at Herculaneum, there are two problems. 

First, the 7Q fragments may be as different from Herculaneum and Egypt as
those two are from each other, and 
Second, if there is a great resemblance in Greek script between 7Q
fragments and Egyptian examples, there is still the problem that in the
period 100 bce to 100ce, there is very little development of the scripts.

See the discussion in the DJD volume on the Greek Minor Prophets Scroll,
ed. by Emanuel Tov, with comments by Robert Kraft and paleographical
analysis by P. J. Parsons.

The Greek Minor Prophets scroll from Nahal Hever : 8 Hev XIIgr / by
     Emanuel Tov, with the collaboration of R.A. Kraft and a
     contribution by P.J. Parsons. Oxford : Clarendon Press; 
     New York : Oxford University Press, 1990. Discoveries in the
     Judaean Desert 8.

>     O'Callaghan believes only 7Q4 (putative 1Tim 3:16-4.3) and 7Q5
> (putative Mk 6:52-53) as, in his mind, certain.  I have examined 7Q5
> and am not able to make a judgement based on the paucity of words,
[...]
>     O'Callaghan's assertions have all but been abandoned by the
> scholarly community at large...but is this paucity of data on the
> 7Q fragments indicative of a "rush to judgement?"  Perhaps
> these studies on the 7Q fragments have been done and I have just
> missed them.  Anyone have a reference?

Jack, I don't have a reference on C14 studies; in addition to O'Callaghan
and Thiede and Stanton, the Cave 7 fragments have been studied by Emile
Puech, of the Ecole Biblique. His findings were published in Revue
Biblique at the end of 1995. If I recall correctly, he has some
paleographical comments on at least the 7Q5 fragments.


>    Jack Kilmon (jpman@accesscomm.net)

Sigrid Peterson  University of Pennsylvania  petersig@ccat.sas.upenn.edu