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SV: orion Qumran habitation dates
By an oversight, I failed to acknowledge Stephen Goranson as the author
of the post with questions to which I was responding concerning Qumran
habitation dates. To add a further comment:
The main points that stand out to me concerning Qumran habitation are
(a) a lot of grounds to suppose interruption in habitation in the 1st
BCE-1st CE era (though this point is disputed by a few), and (b) De
Vaux's original reasons in assigning dates to the interruption of
habitation simply seem to me to be without good basis (and then have
been inherited in modified form by others since). For example, De Vaux
set a date for rehabitation at the time of Archeleus based on a find of
an Archeleus coin. But the logic is faulty, for the Archeleus coin may
have been dropped by someone in the 60's CE, and have nothing whatever
to do with anyone at Qumran in the time of Archeleus. J. Magness has
offered alternative dates, but I question, e.g. Magness's basis for
assuming that Qumran was inhabited at 31 BCE. It looks like there was
an earthquake that did some damage to the buildings at Qumran that year,
but on what basis is it known that Qumran was inhabited, as
distinguished from formerly inhabited, when this happened?
The coin picture in general if mapped on a graph seems to have a large
amount of Jannaeus coins, then going from practically nothing rising to
a peak in the 60's CE at the time of the Revolt and then a destruction
which interrupted habitation at that point. From this picture, people
there in the 60's CE can be verified, but how much earlier than the 60's
CE can habitation be verified from these coins? And if coins won't
establish how long habitation goes back before the 60's CE, what else
can be brought forth which does give this kind of information?
Hope this clarifies a little--
Greg Doudna
Copenhagen