Dear Stephen,
You wrote:
>In my view, this 63 proposal (as written in Qumran Chronicle and orion) has
>been disproven multiple times by several confluent streams of evidence.
>Briefly, these include archaeology, C14, paleography, and history,
With the exception of "history", this is the same list you have consistently
repeated and consistently failed to support. If you would care to state clearly and
with supporting evidence some reasons why you give this list, I will be happy to
respond, but there's nothing to respond to in claims like the above which do not
contain a rationale.
>as well
>as the extreme lengths pursued to exclude Essenes from the Qumran site and
>mss.
Actually, I see the problem in reverse. No-one has actually done the serious work of
justifying all this Essene interference in the Dead Sea Scrolls. I've asked you so
many times to make a well-supported defence of (your version of) the Essene
hypothesis, but it is like trying to get a well-supported defence of your Essene
etymology.
>For example, the C14 data have been read by Doudna as a single "shotgun"
>blast pattern, but that requires really one moment of "generation" of the
>mss (appropriate really only for one sample, e.g., one piece of skin, not
>many mss)--a hypothesis (or series of hypotheses) not only unproven but, in
>my view, exceedingly improbable--in order to exclude late date ranges as
>outliers. Later paleographic dates have not been better explained as
>pre-63.
What do you do, Stephen, with the Gezer Boundary Inscriptions, which feature
so-called "late-Herodian" features, when the archaeologist who unearthed the latest
one argues strenuously for a late 2nd c. or early 1st c. BCE date?
What do you do with 4Q448, edited by Eshel, Eshel and Yardeni, which the authors
have dated to the reign of Alexander Jannaeus, yet has certain clearly Herodian
features, such as the looped yod & waw, and a medial mem in cursive form? (IEJ 42,
p.223ff)
(Do you note the tendency for certain "Herodian" features to appear pre-63 BCE?)
If you advocate an end to 1b in 9/8 BCE, doesn't this distort Cross's
palaeographical sequence which depends on the practice alphabet having been written
around 31 BCE?
Etc.
You are, however, now aware that there are numerous points of contention regarding
the palaeographic sequence used as a basis for dating Qumran scrolls.
>Most of the Qumran pottery is later, etc.
Is this like arguing that the Statue of Liberty can't be old because all the
buildings you can see from there are new?
It might be interesting to know though if you are talking about Qumran pottery in
general or that found in the caves? The former is simply irrelevant, while the
latter doesn't seem to be correct.
>Historically, Essenes were on the north-west Dead Sea shore in Herod the Great's
time,
"Historically" is not an appropriate word here, when there are three parts of this
statement which are under contention:
1) "north-west" isn't indicated in the text and reflects manipulation
of the text;
2) "on the .. Dead Sea shore" is simply wrong, for Pliny explicitly
states that the Essenes fled the shore (litora, acc. pl); and
3) "in Herod the Great's time" is unfounded, given that Pliny's
source is unknown and that Pliny seems to show post-war knowledge.
You are assuming your conclusion.
>while non-toparchy Ein Gedi was destroyed, etc.
I have already posted evidence that Ein Gedi had a large structure which was in use
in the first century thought by its excavators to have been an official building,
eventually destroyed during the Jewish War.
Ian
15/06/01
For private reply, e-mail to "Ian Hutchesson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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