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Re: orion Where....& "bottle"?

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Stephen Goranson wrote:
> 
> Dear Jack,
>         If, for conversation's sake, we would accept your reading of the
> disputed last four letters of line 8 in the ostracon, questions would still
> remain. Would the word you translate as "bottle" be spelled, in Herodian
> times, with a yod rather than, or in addition to, an aleph? Isn't the word
> a reference to a leather sack or bottle, such as a wine-skin, or skin for
> milk or water? Is the word used for a glass bottle? Would you think balsam
> was kept in leather containers? Do you know of texts which parallel your
> suggestion?
> sincerely,
> Stephen Goranson
> goranson@duke.edu

	Well, I am just thinking out loud here but I am taking the "yod"
under the v-shaped ink blot as a nun, the "n-shaped het" as an aleph
which resembles every other aleph on the shard and the eared upright
in the lacuna as a dalet.  The presence of the L at the begining of the
word could be the infinitive construct tied to the unusual root n)dh...
sort of like l$bt in Deut. 13:13.  Since this root for bottle  is
unusual and
I would expect either xmt or nbl for a wineskin, it could refer to
a glass bottle.
	Let's look at a possible scenario. IF the En-Gedi sites are
related to Qumran and these bottles were found at both sites...we
do know that this was the area for the cultivation of Balsam.(Josephus
Ant.xiv.iv; x.iv).  Balsam was a medicinal herb as well as used for
incense and perfume.  The Essenes were known as herbalists..they
are located smack-dab in the middle of "Balsam country."  These people
had to support themselves and I would vote that they were cultivators
and processors of Balsam.  If this is the case, and the ostracon is
a deed of conveyance of cultivation land (either to Honi or to Eleazar) 
that will be transacted on the completion of the bottling...of the
balsam
....when the bucks roll in...well, you can see where I am going.

Jack

>       I have been wodering about this also.  I think it
> >fits more with the thesis that Qumran was an Agrarian center
> >and the inhabitants may have been cultivists and processors
> >of Balsam.  This would tie in the En-Gedi site where the Balsam
> >plants were cultivated to Qumran, perhaps where it was processed
> >and bottled.  This makes interesting one of the alternative
> >readings of the Ostracon where the proposed "yxd" reading was,
> >in fact ln)d..[h] "bottle."  If wkmltw is "when he completes"
> >perhaps we are missing the ending in the lacuna that would
> >suggest "bottling."
> >
> >Jack
> >--
> >D’man dith laych idneh d’nishMA nishMA
> >   Jack Kilmon (jpman@accesscomm.net)
> >
> >
> > http://scriptorium.accesscomm.net

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