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Re: orion Leather, parchment, hides and skins
>From what I've seen at the Rockefeller so far...
The scrolls are sewn with loosely twisted linen thread (based only on
those samples I've examined under a microscope - a more exhaustive study
should be carried out)
I've seen only carbon based ink (probably derived from soot, grey to
black with some white, perhaps salt inclusions) and rarely isolated
lines in texts in red ink otherwise written in carbon inks. The search
for "Red letter editions" should not limited to Qumran (see Egyptian
texts (as mentioned before), the Deir Alla plaster inscriptions and many
later manuscript traditions in codex form)
If an animal is clean and has been ritually slaughtered then its meat
and other usable parts (including skins) are considered "fit" for
consumption or use. If the flesh is properly prepared and blessed then
it can be consumed. (If the animal whether clean or not has been killed
by any non-prescribed manner, or dies on its own, it is contageously
unclean. And there is nothing that can be done to render its parts to be
fit for use or consumption.)
In the scrolls, a problem arises with parts of animals which have been
included in a blessing which includes a pronouncement of the Divine
Name. What is one to do with the leftovers? Skin, hair and viscera can
be burned. However, as at Qumran (locus 130 etc.), the bones must be
buried in a clean place out of reach of animals (especially dogs, cf.
MMT).
Thus the famous New Testament quotation, which acknowledged this legal
issue of the day, but derived from it a philosophical (or perhaps even
allegorical) principle:
"Don't throw what is holy to the dogs!"
Stephen Pfann