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RE: orion-list peacemakers, etc.
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-----Original Message-----
From: RLWinnetka@aol.com
To: orion@mscc.huji.ac.il
Sent: 12/23/99 9:02 PM
Subject: Re: orion-list peacemakers, etc.
Frankly, I would assume that most of the hoards recovered were private
property and not religious property; I have not determined what portion
of
the total monetary stock would have been held by religious bodies (the
Temple, Essenes, Christians, etc.). I would be interested in any
suggestions
on this point.
************************************************************************
My suggestion is that the discussion of the copper scroll and the hoard of
coins found at Qumran needs to get beyond speculation and take account of
work on the economy and the use of money in first century Judea. A possible
starting point would be Hanson and Oakman's Palestine in the Time of Jesus,
which started some of my students to thinking in a course I was teaching on
the Scrolls last spring. A discussion of the use of money in the first
century should limit some of the choices that are getting batted around
here. The temple treasury seems to have served both to support the
religious establishment and as a bank for more commercial purposes (1 or 2
Maccabees -- I forget which off of the top of my head -- notes that a threat
to the temple treasury would deprive the Tobiads of their property). It
strikes me that, whatever one might conclude about the collection of the
scrolls as a whole, the treasure implied by the Copper Scroll, if real,
could only be associated with the temple. The hoard found at Qumran
likewise strikes me as unusual -- a representation of wealth of some sort
rather than ready cash for commercial transactions -- but then I'm violating
my own complain about speculation.
David Suter
Saint Martin's College
For private reply, e-mail to "Suter, David" <dsuter@stmartin.edu>
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