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Re: orion Hirschfeld implications

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fred cryer wrote:
> 
> Once again, Jack--
> Pliny knows nothing of any scrolls, and there is no indication his holy men
> had any library whatsover. Apples and oranges...

	That Pliny does not mention that the Essenes had a library does not
mean that they did not.  Almost certainly they did.  I am not sure
whether
you are questioning whether the DSS were the property of the Essenes or
whether they were maintained at Qumran.  I realize there are other
possible alternatives but the evidence at this time seems to indicate
that the DSS belonged to the Essenes or a closely related group.  Did
they
come from Qumran, however?  That is another issue.  The evidence does
seem circumstantial...the ink wells and the so-called "scriptorium" and
some scroll jar-like shards.  The tables from the scriptorium are odd in
that they do not seem to have been constructed for someone to sit
comfortably
for the tedious task of copying scrolls.  I have many questions about
these
tables.  It would seem to me that years of copying scrolls on a table
would
leave some evidence of such by microanalysis of the surface.  I do not
know
whether such an examination has been done.

	I have always been more inclined to pose the possibility that
the library came from the Essene Quarter of Jerusalem, but who am I
as an interested layman, to argue with the consensus of so many fine
scholars who have had more hands on experience?

	I also have never been able to get a clear picture of how
many individuals were resident at Qumran.  When I visited the site
I could see no more than 200 individuals *if* the extensions to the
original site were constructed in the 1st century BCE and the residents
lived around the site in huts (as found by Hirschfeld at En-Gedi)
or in tents.  I still have more questions than a set position on this
issue.

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