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Re: orion Cave 7 Fragments

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dwashbur@nyx.net wrote:

> Jack Kilmon wrote:
> >     Although 7Q5 is intriguing, identification with Mk 6:52-53 rests
>
> > solely on
> > a paucity of words.  If O'Callaghan's "Qumran New Testament" were
> only
> > 7Q5, some serious discussion among scholars could be appropriate
> with
> > reference to alternative possibilities..but O'Callaghan lost me with
> his
> >
> > claims of 7Q7 (Acts 27:38); 7Q10 (2 Peter 1:15); 7Q4 (1 Tim
> 3:16-4:3).
> > Christian writings in DSS has been fodder for conspiracy stories for
>
> > years
> > in spite of the obvious anachronism.  2 Peter hails from the early
> 2nd
> > century
> > CE and given the latest possible date of deposit, a "Mark fragment"
> > would have
> > to be the autograph.
>
> A big part of O'Callaghan's (and now Thiede's) complaint about such
> responses is that they are form/source critical assertions, not
> paleographical ones.  If in fact these fragments did turn out to be
> what O'Callaghan says they are, then such judgments would either have
> to be re-evaluated (i.e. tossed out) or held in spite of paleographic
> evidence to the contrary.  While I have no opinion either way on the
> Cave 7 fragments, I do think that O'C has a legitimate gripe here.
> He made his suggestions based on paleography, and it seems reasonable
> to me that refutation of them should follow the same track.
>

    One aspect of this discussion is enlightening in that I see very
little
information on Cave 7 texts in most of the DSS published corpus.  I
have been operating under the assumption that this cache was
contemporaneous,
and of the same source as the other caches.  Very fragmentary Greek
texts..and *only* Greek...a fragment of Exodus (7Q1) and perhaps an
apocryphal
letter of Jeremiah (7Q2).  Just what HAS been done on the dating of
these
fragments, palaeographically or otherwise?
    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,
but I have not seem 7Q4..which if it preserves 5 stanzas...would be
significant.  *If* 7Q4 is Timothy and 7Q5 is Mark, and *if* these
Greek papyri were deposited at the same time during or just before
all Roman hell broke loose in 68CE, they would pretty well have to
be fragments of the autographs...or 1st generation copies from the
autographs.
    If, however, these fragments date, palaeographically or by MSA,
to later than the Roman destruction, there could not only be a
stronger case for their being NT material..or source material...
but would establish that these caves were being used as cache
locations for a longer period of time than previously considered
and, perhaps, by more than one group...whether or not one of
those groups were Palestinian Christian.
    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

--
D’man dith laych idneh d’nishMA nishMA
   Jack Kilmon (jpman@accesscomm.net)


 http://users.accesscomm.net/scriptorium