http://groups.yahoo.com/group/qumran_origin/message/5479 "(..) The repeated efforts of scholars since Karl Heinz Rengstorf and Norman Golb, like Alan Crown, Lena Cansdale, Yitzhar Hirschfeld and Juergen Zangenberg to dissociate the manuscripts from the compound are untenable. The suggestion that Temple archives or just various Jerusalem archives were taken to Qumran as a hiding place is not borne out by the circumstances in which they were found. The overwhelming majority of the books (Cave 4 alone contained over 2/3 of the lot) were not stored as manuscripts ought to be stored; they were found lying on the floor. Cave 4 might have been the community's storage room vandalized by Roman soldiers. The few scrolls found carefully stored, like those of Cave 1, were stored in a cylindrical jar the like of which was not found among the myriads excavated in Jerusalem. The rabid hatred towards the Jerusalem Temple and its personnel expressed in the scrolls precludes the possibility that these compositions could have belonged to the Temple. (..) The reviewers are of the opinion that it is possible to prove on the basis of archaeological finds alone, even without the aid of the wealth of the manuscripts, that in the last 150 years of the Second Commonwealth Qumran was occupied by a monastic community." David Christainsen Newton, Mass. USA Other posts:
• The Lonnqvists argue for a connection between the Therapeuts and
Qumran
• Archaeology: What an Ancient Hebrew Note Might Mean / "Christianity Today" • Earliest Known Hebrew Inscription Bolsters Biblical Account of David's Kingdom • The world's first charter of human rights - the Cyrus cylinder • Jordan wants the Dead Sea Scrolls back from Israel • Qumran was an Essene monastery based on Broshi/Eshel review of Magness • Egypt tombs suggest pyramids not built by slaves • Discussion of when DSS ToR lived on basis of 4Q171; what archaeologists should know • Nym-shift from Crunch to Meteorologist; What archaeologists should know about Essenes, be they at Qumran or not • The archaeological evidence, such as it is, for the Historical King David • Relation between DSS & NT is decisive for understanding that First Christians associated with Zealots |