Jürgen Zangenberg Slide Collection
The Dead Sea Scrolls were found in caves near the Qumran ruins.
Posted on 08/15/2006 5:09:35 AM PDT by Pharmboy
Jürgen Zangenberg Slide Collection
The Dead Sea Scrolls were found in caves near the Qumran ruins.
New archaeological evidence is raising more questions about the conventional interpretation linking the desolate ruins of an ancient settlement known as Qumran with the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were found in nearby caves in one of the sensational discoveries of the last century.
After early excavations at the site, on a promontory above the western shore of the Dead Sea, scholars concluded that members of a strict Jewish sect, the Essenes, had lived there in a monastery and presumably wrote the scrolls in the first centuries B.C. and A.D.
Many of the texts describe religious practices and doctrine in ancient Israel.
But two Israeli archaeologists who have excavated the site on and off for more than 10 years now assert that Qumran had nothing to do with the Essenes or a monastery or the scrolls. It had been a pottery factory.
snip...
Dr. Magen and Dr. Peleg said that, indeed, the elaborate water system at Qumran appeared to be designed to bring the clay-laced water into the site for the purposes of the pottery industry. No other site in the region has been found to have such a water system.
By the time the Romans destroyed Qumran in A.D. 68 in the Jewish revolt, the archaeologists concluded, the settlement had been a center of the pottery industry for at least a century. Before that, the site apparently was an outpost in a chain of fortresses along the Israelites’ eastern frontier.
“The association between Qumran, the caves and the scrolls is, thus, a hypothesis lacking any factual archaeological basis,” Dr. Magen said in an article in the current issue of Biblical Archaeology Review.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
UA confirms Dead Sea Scrolls predate Christianity"A commentary on the first two chapters of the biblical Book of Habakkuk was one of the 18 texts dated at the UA lab. 'The fact that this particular scroll (the Habakkuk commentary) dates to before the Christian era tends to eliminate the possibility that a follower of Christ could have written it,' Jull said yesterday. There is a 95 percent probability that the parchment from the Habakkuk commentary dates to between 150 B.C. and 5 B.C., Jull said. 'Some of the papyrus samples bear exact written dates within the text itself. These dates match those determined by the carbon-14 measurements,' the Israel Antiquities Authority stated in a news release. 'The reliability of paleography as a dating method is thus confirmed.'"
by Jim Erickson
Heh...
"By the time the Romans destroyed Qumran in A.D. 68 in the Jewish revolt..."
Why bother to wipe out a "pottery" factory???
??????????????????????
I thought they were just one of many different Jewish sects existing at the time, like the early Christians.
It is common for utopic communities to have a trade for their support.
[excerpts]
http://virtualreligion.net/iho/dss.html
1956 -- Rabin publishes article suggesting that the Copper scroll was written by zealots who buried the Temple treasure.
1963 -- Yadin begins excavation of Masada. Copies of Hebrew ben Sirach & the Songs of Sabbath Sacrifice found in Cave 4 of Qumran discovered in Masada synagogue built by zealots.
Another excellant observation.
I don't know if Qumran was connected directly with the Dead Sea SCrolls or the Essenes, but I DOUBT it was merely a "pottery factory" or the Romans wouldn't have wasted their time wiping it out. They were busy supressing a revolt.
The Ancient Egyptians believed the god Khnum formed men out of clay on his potter's wheel.
I don't think we can assume a connection between CHrist an Qumran on that basis alone.
I think its VERY hard to believe in a connection between a modern organization and Solomon and his builders.
If anything, I think there might be a connection between the masons and the Knights Templar.
I read a book by Hirschfeld some time ago in which he essentially debunks the Exodus, Solomon and the Davidic kingship and just about everything in the old testament.
I don't find him convincing. I think he has a personal agenda.
The Romans didn't have to deal with Unions.
Lots of archaeologists and historians (even in Israel) reject any historical or archaeological basis for Old Testament events. This isn't surprising, because that is the agenda. I'd point out that the Frenchman who dreamed up the idea of an Essene community at Qumran also had an agenda, and that there's simply no (as in zero) evidence that the idea is correct.
When I think of a mesa I think of Masada, which is 20 miles south.
"I'd point out that the Frenchman who dreamed up the idea of an Essene community at Qumran also had an agenda, and that there's simply no (as in zero) evidence that the idea is correct."
Probably.
But again, that doesn't make it a "pottery factory". Also there is no definitive connection between the Essenes and the Dead Sea scrolls, but there is no doubt that SOME kind of non-main stream Jewish group was involved there, no?
I recall reading somewhere that there were references to the Hebrews in Ancient Egyptian incriptions as conquered people. They have also found some incriptions referencing a Davidic line of Kings in Israel.
According to Egyptologist Dr. Breyer, there are MANY indication in the Old Testament that, whoever the author, he or they were VERY familiar with Ancient Egypt.
Yep. Sorta famous, too. The Abbey of Getheseme was founded by Catholic contemplative Robert Merton. It serves as home for a host of monastics, all of whom have some sort of job. They put out some kind of famous rum cake, I think, that's sold worldwide. They've got a whole farm operation going to support the Abbey.
The rum might interest you, since the Tavern does. :>)
But Bardstown's also famous for Maker's Mark and Stephen C Foster and My Old Kentucky Home.
Pretty much like today's Christians.
Masada is certainly a more dramatic mesa.
But mesa is basically just a flat table top like area raised some distance above the surrounding terrain.
"clay-laced water"???????????????
Uh, with all due respect, what in the world does that phrase mean? From what little I know about pottery making, "clay-laced water" seems a bit odd. I know that you mix water and clay until it's moldable, but that would (I think) be way too thick to flow through "an elaborate water system". Additionally, "clay-laced water" (again, I think) would tend to gum up the works after a short time. Altogether this explanation does not pass the sniff test with me...
I hope the article below will help.
The Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the Essenes, the three most powerful of the Jewish sects, were cordially united in sentiment respecting all those fundamental points which constituted the basis of the Jewish religion. All of them, for instance, rejected with detestation the notion of a plurality of gods, and would acknowledge the existence of but one almighty power, whom they regarded as the Creator of the Universe, and believed to be endowed with the most absolute perfection and goodness. They were equally agreed in the opinion, that God had selected the Hebrews from amongst all the other nations of the earth as his peculiar people, and had bound them to himself by an unchangeable and everlasting covenant.
With the same unanimity, they maintained the divine mission of Moses; that he was the ambassador of Heaven, and consequently that the law delivered at Mount Sinai, and promulgated by his ministry was of divine original.
It was also the general belief among them, that in the books of the Old Testament were contained ample instructions respecting the way of salvation and eternal happiness; and that whatever principles or duties were inculcated in those writings, must be reverently received and implicitly obeyed. But an almost irreconcilable difference of opinion, and the most vehement disputes, prevailed among them, respecting the original source or fountain from whence all religion was to be deduced.
Both the Sadducees and Essenes rejected with disdain the oral law, to which the Pharisees, however, paid the greatest deference. And the interpretation of the written law, yielded still further ground for acrimonious contention.
The Pharisees maintained that the law as committed to writing by Moses, and likewise every other part of the sacred volume, had a two-fold sense or meaning; the one plain and obvious to every reader, the other abstruse and mystical. The Sadducees, on the contrary, would admit of nothing beyond a simple interpretation of the words, according to their strict literal sense. The Essenes, or at least the greater part of them, differing from both of these, considered the words of the law to possess no force or power whatever in themselves, but merely to exhibit the shadows or images of celestial objects, of virtues, and of duties.
So much dissension and discord respecting the rule of religion, and the sense in which the divine law ought to be understood, could not fail to produce a great diversity in the forms of religious worship, and naturally tended to generate the most opposite and conflicting sentiments on subjects of a divine nature.
http://www.wayoflife.org/articles/jones04.htm
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