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Re: orion ostracon in Qadmoniot

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Stephen Goranson wrote:
> 
> The entire issue of Qadmoniot vol. 30, no. 2 (114) 1997 [just arrived in
> North Carolina] is devoted to Dead Sea Scrolls. One article, by F. M. Cross
> and E. Eshel (p. 134-6), is on the much-discussed Qumran ostracon. It
> includes a defense of their reading of line 8 and gives illustrations of
> other yods, chets, and dalets, some of them from Masada.

	I will need to take a trip to Rice U and read this in the next
couple of days.  I just have so much difficulty accepting the "n-shaped
het" which looks like every other alef on the shard, as a het simply
because
other scribes, not this one, used n-shaped hets.

	Let me pose a question which assumes a number of things under
debate.  I will assume that Hirschfeld's "camp" is Essene and also
that Qumran was an Agrarian "motherhouse" maintained by Essenes.  I will
assume that Hirschfeld's "balsam bottle" is indeed that.  Balsam was
a very precious, much-in-demand "money crop" that was grown in the 
vicinity of Jericho.  Seemingly, these plants were not easily cultivated
and required some special horticultural knowledge and technique.  These
Qumran Essenes had to support themselves in some way and the location
is good for balsam cultivation in the en-Gedi area.  OK...now back
to the ostracon.  If ln)d--h is a correct reading...or a syntactical
form of "bottle" to make it a verb...how about "bottling?"...is it
possible that Honi will buy the land from Eleazar......

"...when he <kmlytw> completes the bottling"  ??

	The ostracon might tie in Hirschfeld's theory to connect
the "camps" to Qumran where the actual processing and bottling
may have taken place.  Since the bucks rolled in when the balsam
was bottled, Honi..perhaps a cultivator...could afford to buy
his land from old Eleazar.

	Aint it fun to build history in lacunae? (g)

Jack

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