Dead Sea scrolls study raises new questions over texts' origins • Hacker News Board

Re: Dead Sea scrolls study raises new questions over texts' origins

#21

Post by wl » Mon, Sep 09, 2019, 1:29 PM UTC

ilimilku wrote: post #17

The "big picture" background here is that the scholarly consensus, established prematurely before all but the scrolls in the 1st cave were found, was that they belonged to an Essene "monastic" settlement at the ruins of Khirbet Qumran nearby. This has been challenged in a number of ways, yet the consensus of the local, Essene origin remains in tact. A Jerusalem origin hypothesis was developed principally by Norman Go…

Specifically, one of the more likely theories is that a good number of these scrolls were deposited in the desert by various religious communities for safe keeping before the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE.

Re: Dead Sea scrolls study raises new questions over texts' origins

#22

Post by ilimilku » Mon, Sep 09, 2019, 1:36 PM UTC

wl wrote: post #21

ilimilku wrote: post #17

The "big picture" background here is that the scholarly consensus, established prematurely before all but the scrolls in the 1st cave were found, was that they belonged to an Essene "monastic" settlement at the ruins of Khirbet Qumran nearby. This has been challenged in a number of ways, yet the consensus of the local, Essene origin remains in tact. A Jerusalem origin hypothesis was developed principally by Norman Go…

Specifically, one of the more likely theories is that a good number of these scrolls were deposited in the desert by various religious communities for safe keeping before the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 CE.

Yes, there was one article published a number of years ago (the author's name escapes me), who did a good job of parsing out the various communities that could have been responsible for certain caves, priests, Zealots, etc. I'm not sure it got much traction, but I found the exercise intriguing.

Re: Dead Sea scrolls study raises new questions over texts' origins

#23

Post by dayofthedaleks » Mon, Sep 09, 2019, 2:11 PM UTC

dr_dshiv wrote: post #13

This sent me down a little rabbit hole. I love the history of this time. Shwep.org is a great, great source of inspiration and history. I just got this Kindle book to satisfy my dead sea scroll interpretations, even though the author is a bit antiauthoritarian! He apparently had a direct influence on the public release of the scrolls. "Breaking the Dead Sea Scrolls Monopoly: A New Interpretation of the Messianic Move…

'Shwep.org'

Is this a typo? Domain does not appear to exist.

Re: Dead Sea scrolls study raises new questions over texts' origins

#24

Post by mrpara » Mon, Sep 09, 2019, 2:23 PM UTC

ilimilku wrote: post #17

The "big picture" background here is that the scholarly consensus, established prematurely before all but the scrolls in the 1st cave were found, was that they belonged to an Essene "monastic" settlement at the ruins of Khirbet Qumran nearby. This has been challenged in a number of ways, yet the consensus of the local, Essene origin remains in tact. A Jerusalem origin hypothesis was developed principally by Norman Go…

Not a historian so I may be missing something, but how would one possibly differentiate between the origin being the Dead Sea or Jerusalem based on things like materials used? I mean, Jerusalem and the Dead Sea are less than 35km apart (according to google). Even thousands of years ago, it would have been a non-issue to transport materials or techniques between these two locations. I can't imagine that our knowledge of scroll-making at the time is so specific that we could possibly rule out a craftsman taking a camel from one location to another.

Re: Dead Sea scrolls study raises new questions over texts' origins

#25

Post by JoeAltmaier » Mon, Sep 09, 2019, 2:32 PM UTC

mrpara wrote: post #24

ilimilku wrote: post #17

The "big picture" background here is that the scholarly consensus, established prematurely before all but the scrolls in the 1st cave were found, was that they belonged to an Essene "monastic" settlement at the ruins of Khirbet Qumran nearby. This has been challenged in a number of ways, yet the consensus of the local, Essene origin remains in tact. A Jerusalem origin hypothesis was developed principally by Norman Go…

Not a historian so I may be missing something, but how would one possibly differentiate between the origin being the Dead Sea or Jerusalem based on things like materials used? I mean, Jerusalem and the Dead Sea are less than 35km apart (according to google). Even thousands of years ago, it would have been a non-issue to transport materials or techniques between these two locations. I can't imagine that our knowledge…

Agreed. An ancient document storage pit was found (in Iraq?) which was the records of a merchant over several generations. It included trading records from many surrounding settlements. From the time of Hammurabi.

Re: Dead Sea scrolls study raises new questions over texts' origins

#26

Post by duxup » Mon, Sep 09, 2019, 2:42 PM UTC

mrpara wrote: post #24

ilimilku wrote: post #17

The "big picture" background here is that the scholarly consensus, established prematurely before all but the scrolls in the 1st cave were found, was that they belonged to an Essene "monastic" settlement at the ruins of Khirbet Qumran nearby. This has been challenged in a number of ways, yet the consensus of the local, Essene origin remains in tact. A Jerusalem origin hypothesis was developed principally by Norman Go…

Not a historian so I may be missing something, but how would one possibly differentiate between the origin being the Dead Sea or Jerusalem based on things like materials used? I mean, Jerusalem and the Dead Sea are less than 35km apart (according to google). Even thousands of years ago, it would have been a non-issue to transport materials or techniques between these two locations. I can't imagine that our knowledge…

Yeah the scale of trade always seems to surprise everyone. It's hard for me often to understand how folks draw the archaeological lines here.

Materials could have been traded and the scrolls written near the Dead Sea ... or even folks from the Dead Sea traveled to Jerusalem, used local materials and made some scrolls, and traveled back.

Re: Dead Sea scrolls study raises new questions over texts' origins

#27

Post by philk10 » Mon, Sep 09, 2019, 2:54 PM UTC

dayofthedaleks wrote: post #23

dr_dshiv wrote: post #13

This sent me down a little rabbit hole. I love the history of this time. Shwep.org is a great, great source of inspiration and history. I just got this Kindle book to satisfy my dead sea scroll interpretations, even though the author is a bit antiauthoritarian! He apparently had a direct influence on the public release of the scrolls. "Breaking the Dead Sea Scrolls Monopoly: A New Interpretation of the Messianic Move…

'Shwep.org' Is this a typo? Domain does not appear to exist.

Guessing it's https://shwep.net/

Re: Dead Sea scrolls study raises new questions over texts' origins

#28

Post by gus_massa » Mon, Sep 09, 2019, 3:13 PM UTC

mrob wrote: post #5

tomohawk wrote: post #3

Click bait title

I'll call out click-bait when I see it, but I don't see it here. "Dead Sea scrolls study finds salts used in construction are not common to region" is not particularly meaningful to non-archaeologists. I think the important point is the increased mystery, and "raises new questions" is a reasonable way to phrase it.

I actually like your version of the title better :).

This is a technical forum, and people is expected to understand this and understand that if the salt is uncommon there is something unexpected. [I didn't know that is was common to cover the parchment with salts, but it's not so hard to understand the relation anyway. IANAA]

And it's almost the subtitle:

> Dead Sea scrolls study raises new questions over texts' origins

> Salts used on Temple scroll are not common to Dead Sea region, researchers find

Perhaps the mods will agree to change it.

Re: Dead Sea scrolls study raises new questions over texts' origins

#29

Post by BurningFrog » Mon, Sep 09, 2019, 4:12 PM UTC

INTPenis wrote: post #9

Doesn't really mean anything if the materials aren't local to the region. People in bronze age scandinavia were trading for copper with the mediterranean so there was a "global" trade network already in place.

> People in bronze age scandinavia were trading for copper with the mediterranean

Sorry to make a minor point, but while the goods scandinavian and mediterranean goods travelled that far, doesn't mean the people did.

Perhaps more likely, each was traded a dozen times with someone 50km away, and the goods reached people the manufacturer had no idea existed.

Re: Dead Sea scrolls study raises new questions over texts' origins

#30

Post by ilimilku » Mon, Sep 09, 2019, 4:16 PM UTC

mrpara wrote: post #24

ilimilku wrote: post #17

The "big picture" background here is that the scholarly consensus, established prematurely before all but the scrolls in the 1st cave were found, was that they belonged to an Essene "monastic" settlement at the ruins of Khirbet Qumran nearby. This has been challenged in a number of ways, yet the consensus of the local, Essene origin remains in tact. A Jerusalem origin hypothesis was developed principally by Norman Go…

Not a historian so I may be missing something, but how would one possibly differentiate between the origin being the Dead Sea or Jerusalem based on things like materials used? I mean, Jerusalem and the Dead Sea are less than 35km apart (according to google). Even thousands of years ago, it would have been a non-issue to transport materials or techniques between these two locations. I can't imagine that our knowledge…

It's a good point, and the distinction is not one that most historians would deal with being more scientific in nature. However, in the long and heated debate about the scrolls' origins, scientific analysis of the scroll and jars has been offered.