The theory first proposed by Ian Hutchesson that all of the scrolls in the caves at Qumran were deposited as a hiding in 63 BCE in the context of the arrival of Pompey is alive and well. Hutchesson presented this theory first on Orion in 1997, and in print in I. Hutchesson, '63 BCE: A Revised Dating for the Depositation of the Dead Sea Scrolls', _Qumran Chronicle_ 8 (Nov 1999): 177-194. (The term 'depositation' coined by Ian refers to the process of depositing in all of the caves as an event, which the word 'deposit' does not quite convey.) Hutchesson has been invited by the organizers of international SBL to present on the 63 BCE theory at the conference in Rome in July, and I understand an article from a senior scholar familiar from many publications in the Qumran field, discussing and reacting to Hutchesson's theory sympathetically is either in preparation or perhaps already in press. It was on this forum back in 1997 that Hutchesson first set forth this proposal (along with two other electronic lists simultaneously). Citing the proper names in 4QMishC which cluster in the years immediately around Pompey, and the absence of secure references to dateable personal names after Pompey, Hutchesson proposed that the Qumran scrolls were a hiding in the context of a Roman invasion (as commonly thought), but that the Qumran field may have been looking at the wrong Roman invasion (late 1st CE) instead of perhaps the correct one (63 BCE). In this alternative model the palaeographic hands represented at Qumran are part of a diverse spectrum of simultaneous scribal writing of various kinds and scribal schools functioning simultaneously, the product of a collection of texts gathered from diverse sources, on analogy with contemporary language dialects, rather than the stepped-sequence datings with exclusive, narrow chronological slots of the Cross 1961 script charts. It is a slight reform in the palaeographic dating estimates in several classes of scripts on the order of decades, which is practically nothing when looked at with perspective, i.e. it is a proposal of almost hairline adjustment in a few datings rather than any significant revolution in palaeographic dating. The Qumran field already has all of the scrolls in composition ending c. mid-1st BCE (the Copper Scroll being about the one exception, with a distinct isue debated in the Qumran field concerning whether the CS is to be regarded as part of, or different from, the other text deposits). The 63 BCE theory (or some close variant thereof, i.e. a Gabinius theory) would bring the dating of the deposits and the copies into line with the end of the production of new compositions. This is an alternative to present prevailing assumptions of about a century of scribal copying of existing texts without new compositions at all until the time of the First Revolt in the 1st CE (apart from CS). Hutchesson proposes that the scrolls are from the Sadducees with Aristobulus II, who controlled the site of Qumran at the time of Pompey's arrival, and that this would be the end of the most important period of habitation at Qumran. Qumran was of course reinhabited with people after this time (there is a fire at First Revolt; there is Bar Kochba-era presence early 2nd BCE), but in this theory these later habitations would be subsequent and discontinuous with the habitation which ended with the Roman arrival of 63 BCE. The later habitations at Qumran would not have introduced new literary text scroll deposits (although they could have discovered some of them and taken some of the texts). The original hiders, in Hutchesson's argument, were killed in Jerusalem in the takeover by Pompey, and the valuable manuscripts were never recovered by their original owners. Hutchesson does not regard the Essenes as involved in the scrolls or their deposits, nor does he regard Qumran as the referent of Pliny. It is a 'Sadducee' theory proposal, as Hutchesson presents it. Hutchesson acknowledges a significant debt to Norman Golb's Jerusalem-origin theory for the scrolls, but proposes a Jerusalem-origin of 63 BCE to be the correct Jerusalem-origin, rather than a First Revolt Jerusalem-origin (Golb's dating). Greg Doudna For private reply, e-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ---------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe from Orion, e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: "unsubscribe Orion." Archives are on the Orion Web site, http://orion.mscc.huji.ac.il.
