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Re: orion-list Golb on 63 BCE
According to Greg Doudna:
>
>
> (2) While I agree with Golb that the Copper Scroll found in association
> with the literary texts in Cave 3 is a very good argument for a common
> wealth-and-texts hiding scenario, and a context for this as prompted by
> an expected siege of Jerusalem is very plausible, there is nothing
> intrinsic to such an analysis which favors 70 CE over 63 BCE.
The archeological evidence on finds from the *Second* Revolt (for the
evidence, though not the conclusions I draw here, see Yigael Yadin's book
BAR KOKHBA: the rediscovery of the legendary hero of the second Jewish
revolt against Rome. New York, Random House [c1971]--this evidence
suggests that people *moved to caves to live and fight, as complete
families, including children. In such a move, they took their texts as
well as their wealth. In some instances they left carefully buried
archives and belongings behind them, to be retrieved later.
The scale is not that of the Copper Scroll, of course. We don't, however,
have any clear evidence of the wealth-and-texts scenario that compares
with the textual and archeological evidence that we *do have regarding
*moving* into caves, with planning and forethought. Caves seem unwholesome
and forbidding environments that no one would inhabit because of the
centuries of bat guano that has accumulated in the centuries since they
were occupied.
[. . .]
Cave 3 is at least three kilometers from Khirbet Qumran, and from Cave 4.
It is possible that it was inhabited independently of Khirbet Qumran, by
a group who knew the traditions of scrolls and caves and the desert.
>
> Greg Doudna
> Copenhagen
>
Best,
Sigrid Peterson UPenn petersig@ccat.sas.upenn.edu
For private reply, e-mail to petersig@ccat.sas.upenn.edu (Sigrid Peterson)
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