[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: RE: orion-list Orion-List 63 BCE & all that

On Thu, 16 Sep 1999 11:46:01 -0700, dsuter@stmartin.edu writes:
>
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Rochelle I. Altman [mailto:risa@mail.hol.gr]
>> Sent: Thursday, September 16, 1999 9:51 AM
>> To: orion@mscc.huji.ac.il
>> Subject: Re: orion-list Orion-List 63 BCE & all that
>> 
>> 
>> On 1999-09-15 orion@mscc.huji.ac.il said:
>>    >I know of Origen and his Hexapla and so on and that he had a
>>    >great many sources from the time but does he cite Cave sources?
>> 
>> Origen added three columns to his Psalter - making it an Enniapla. He
>> is quoted as stating that the last (the third of the three additions
>> and the ninth of the total) came from a jar in the desert. There are
>> two possible reasons for this assertion: 1) it did, in fact, come from
>> a jar in the desert; or 2) scrolls and jars in the desert were well
>> enough known to add authority to this 9th version... and Origen was
>> looking for authority to add weight to his arguments with the Rabbis.
>> For further reading and/or specific refs, see:
>>    Crouzel, Henri. _Origen_. (_Orig'ene_) trans. by A.S. Worrall. San
>>         Francisco: Harper & Row, 1989.
>>    Trigg, Joseph Wilson. _Origen_. London;NY: Routledge, 1998.
>> There are also references to Origen's comment on the jar scroll to be
>> found in psalm commentaries from the early church, medieval, 
>> and modern
>> works... Jerome, in his numerous descriptions and discussions of Paula
>> and her (ideal) villages, refers to scrolls and caves in the 
>> desert. The
>> marginal entries on the Isaiah scroll are late - ca. 5th-7th 
>> century. The
>> break-in through the wall of Cave 1 after the public 
>> announcement of the
>> 'find' indicates local knowledge of the caves.
>> 
>
>There is more.  Eusebius, in his Ecclesiastical History (6.16.1), adds to
>his account of the Origen material the report of a find of Hebrew and Greek
>manuscripts, including a Greek Psalms manuscript, at Jericho in a jar.  At
>the beginning of the ninth century, Timotheus I (a Nestorian patriarch)
>reported a find by Jews of manuscripts in a cave near Jericho.  There has
>been some discussion of whether such a find underlies some of the material
>in the Cairo Genizah (the Damascus Document, for example) and explains the
>characteristics of the Kairites.  

   I knew of these both.  The latter is well discussed by Hugh Schonfield.
   The first confirmed for me that the Massoretic text was still being 
   revised during the Severan era.  I expect I'll include that detail 
   when I revise my book.

>There is also the story of the Shapira affair in the nineteenth century.  An
>antiquities dealer, Wilhelm Moses Shapira, reported the finding by the
>bedouin of an ancient manuscript of the book of Deuteronomy near the Dead
>Sea.  The manuscript was displayed at the British Museum as the oldest
>manuscript of the Bible, but declaired a forgery by Charles
>Clermont-Ganneau.  Shapira eventually commited suicide.  The manuscript was
>sold for ten pounds and disappeared.

   So we don't knw.


>David Suter
>Saint Martin's College 

   TNX for the details...

Tom Simms






For private reply, e-mail to Tom Simms <tsimms@mailserv.nbnet.nb.ca>
----------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe from Orion, e-mail to majordomo@panda.mscc.huji.ac.il with
the message: "unsubscribe Orion." For more information on the Orion Center
or for Orion archives, visit our web site http://orion.mscc.huji.ac.il.