No title

ISSN: 0006-0895

OF

lop

VOLUME40 NUMBER3

1977 SEPTEMBER

...

the Essenes, a community of complete

happiness,situatedbesidethe Dead Sea in the interior of Palestine somewherenear Sodom itself.-Dio

Biblical Archeologist is published quarterly (March, May, September, December) by the American Schools of Oriental Research in cooperation with Scholars Press. Its purpose is to provide the general reader with an accurate scholarly yet easily understandableaccount of archeological descoveries, and their bearing on the biblical heritage. Unsolicited mss. are welcome but should be accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope. Address all to Biblical editorial correspondence Archeologist, 1053 LSA Building, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109. Address business correspondence to Scholars Press, P.O. Box 5207, Missoula, MT 59806.

Published with the financial assistance of ZION RESEARCH FOUNDATION Boston, Massachusetts A nonsectarian Protestant foundation for the study of the Bible and the history of the Christian Church

Copyright @ 1977 American Schools of Oriental Research. Annual Subscription: $10.00. Current single issues: $2.50. Printed in the United States of America, Printing Department, University of Montana, Missoula, MT 59812.

Editor: David Noel Michigan

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Freedman,

University

of

Editorial Committee: Frank M. Cross, Harvard University Edward F. Campbell, Jr., McCormick Theological Seminary John S. Holladay, Jr., University of Toronto H. Darrell Lance, Colgate-Rochester Divinity School

Credits:

Qumran:Thematerialremainsof the Communitysuggest

a well-organized life-style, which is confirmed by the literatureas well. In order to avoid excessive contact with outsiders, the covenanters produced most of what they needed at the settlement itself.

Photographs of Juba II (p. 127) from Portraits of the Greeks, used with permission of Phaidon Press, London. All other photographs by John C. Trever, Claremont, CA. Photograph on p. 116 @John C. Trever, 1970. Photographs on pp. 102, 103, 105, 107, 110, 112-113, 118, and 119 ? John C. Trever, 1972. Drawings and maps by Kent P. Jackson, Ann Arbor, MI.

Second Class Postage paid at Missoula, MT 59812 and additional offices

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BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST

Jerome Murphy-O'Connor

100 THE ESSENES IN PALESTINE A fresh look at the covenant people of the Dead Sea Scrolls, their origin, their history, and their literature.

David Graf

125 THE PAGAN WITNESS TO THE ESSENES The Essenes, known almost exclusively from Jewish sources, caught the attention of two exceptional pagans-Pliny the Elder and Dio of Prusa.

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LETTER TO THE READERS

98

POLEMICS AND IRENICS

99 NEWS FROM THE FIELD 130 THIRTY YEARS AGO 132 COLOPHON

THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS - RETROSPECTIVE

Letter to the Readers

The recentpublication of three major works on the Dead Sea scrolls serves to remind us of one of the most important and exciting archeological discoveries of modern times. As so often happens, the initial discovery was made entirely by accident, the nature and import of the material being grasped later and by others. All this began thirty years ago - in the summer of 1947 - at a critical time in the modem history of the Near East. Because of the high tensions in Palestine at the time when the British Mandate was drawing to a close and communications across the hardening defacto lines had all but broken down, news of the discovery leaked out slowly and in piecemeal fashion. By the beginning of 1948 the significance of the manuscript find from what would be called Cave I was recognized by a handful of leading scholars. The full dimensions of the extraordinary discovery became clear in time: seven relatively complete manuscripts approximately 2000 years old, containing texts of the Hebrew Bible and related literature,written in Hebrew and Aramaic. The survival of leather scrolls of such antiquity in Palestine was so unexpected that many scholars doubted their genuineness or their age or both, and the controversy, which proved to be irrelevant and pointless, nevertheless continued for years. What was immediately startling and remains impressive after thirty years is the discovery of extensive biblical documents and fragments about 1000 years older than any previously known manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible. Excerpts from the initial reports of this incredible discovery in Biblical Archeologist by G. E. Wright and the Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research by W. F. Albright convey the excitement and the early evaluation of the materials by these eminent scholars. The current crop of publications includes a three-

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volume work by Yigael Yadin on the notorious Temple Scroll, a comprehensive study of the Enoch literature by J. T. Milik, and the first volume of a long-awaited series on the discoveriesfrom Cave 4 - this one by the late R. de Vaux and the aforementioned Milik. Yadin'sthree-volumework on the Temple Scroll is of the greatest significance for Qumran studies, both because the Scroll itself may be the most important of all the documents (and not just because it is the longest, although that is a factor), and because Yadin has been working on scroll materials for many years and is recognized as a leading authority in this field. His extended treatment of the War Scroll is the definitive work on the subject and his publication of the documents from Cave I secured by his father, E. L. Sukenik, is a model of its kind. The Temple Scroll adds substantially to our knowledge of the Qumran people and their attitude toward their fellow Jews, especially in the area of the holy: the Temple, its precincts, and the city in which it stood. The Temple of the Scroll is not the Temple in Jerusalem but a future sanctuary to be built there by God for the benefit and worship of the faithful, namely the Qumran group. The details will concern scholars for years to come, but the whole will shed enormous light on the conflicts among the various Jewish groups and their complex relationship to the temple cult. We welcome the first volume in the official Qumran series on the discoveries in Cave 4, which yielded the largest number of manuscript fragments, also in the worst condition. This volume deals with the circumstances of the discovery and the details of exploration and excavation. We look forward to the publication of the documents as soon as possible. The volume on the Enoch literatureby Milik is of the greatest importance. This elusive corpus occupies a unique strategical position in the extensive Jewish literature of the periods under discussion, since it has significant affinities with contemporary canonical and apocryphal books and with early Christian documents. The figure of the Son of Man, which plays such a

SEPTEMBER 1977

conspicuous role in the NT, appears in the so-called Parables or Similitudes of Enoch, and the latter has been regarded as a source of the former. Strangely enough, among the varied fragments of Enoch uncovered in the caves of Qumran, not a single excerpt from the Similitudes has turned up, leading some scholars to suppose that this part of the Enoch corpus is late and possibly dependent upon the Christian use of the term Son of Man, rather than the reverse. We are deeply indebted to Milik for his comprehensive survey of the Enoch corpus, including especially the detailed study of the Qumran fragments. This brings us to a propitious moment at which to review the work on the scrolls to date. After thirty years and countless articles and books by numerous scholars and others, what can be said about the present state of affairs? The record is mixed, as generally happens in human undertakings;extraordinary circumstances bring out the best and the worst in scholars, depending upon the quality of their persons as well as their works, and like a magnifying glass, expose virtues and vices for all to see. In the face of a huge quantity of manuscript materials, much of it so fragmentaryas to requirethe utmost ingenuity and patience in the work of preservation and restoration, the greatest part of the task was completed successfully years ago. The original team of scholars entrusted with the task of sorting and assembling, analyzing and synthesizing, has done its work well. Publication of results has been less successful and much of the surviving material has yet to appear in print. With the publication of the Temple Scroll, practically all of the major texts are now available to scholars and students. Many of the smaller fragments have also been published, but the glaring omission is Cave 4: it contained more material - all in fragmentary condition - than any other cave; while the task of sorting and piecing together, studying and interpreting was doubtless the most difficult of all, still after 25 years (the materials from Cave 4 came to light in 1952) we would expect that the materialswould all be available for study. When it comes to more general treatments, an amplitude of studies and interpretations has appeared. While many controversies persist among scholars, especially about details, the broad outlines have been fixed by and for the great majority, and the status of the question has been stabilized for some time. The date and provenience of the scrolls, the character and general history of the Qumran community, the background and setting in Jewish and Near Eastern history during the Hellenistic-Roman period - all these are a matter of widespread agreement, and it is possible for J. MurphyBIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST

O'Connor to offer a synthesis on the basis of all available evidence, which we are pleased to publish. Looking backward, some of the evaluations and expectations expressed in print and orally now seem extravagant and misguided. What is more surprising is how well some scholars gauged the real importance and impact of these discoveries even on the basis of the initial partial finds and reports. Criticalquestioning, a necessary and valuable adjunct of sound scholarship, served to screen out some wild speculations and to channel serious inquiry, but persistent skepticism, indulged in by a small group of scholars, proved unrewarding. The genuine antiquity of the scrolls, the identity of the people of Qumran and the caves, their role in the history of the Jewish community, and significance of their writings for the understandingof contemporary Jewish thought - all these have been established beyond cavil. After thirty years, three points stand out: (1) The scrolls have made a major contribution to the study of the Hebrew text of the Bible. They come from a critical period in the history of scribal transmission, before the fixing of the proto-Massoretic text, probably in the Ist century C.E, but after the development of the major textual families. Thus among the scrolls are found examples of the principal text-types, and it is possible in some instances to recover or reconstruct much earlier, and often better, Hebrew texts than anything previously available. For one or two books we are talking about the state of the text in the 3rd or 4th century B.C.E.,an extraordinary and hitherto unexpected development. In the process, we have come to a new appreciation of the value of the LXX - the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible - in its various recensions and editions, as ultimately providing one of the oldest and best of the texttypes. (2) The scrolls along with the excavation of the community center at Qumran supply contemporary evidence and documentation of one of the principal groups in Judaism during the last 2 centuries B.C.E.and the Ist century C.E.The Essenes, their history, thought, worship, and life can now be recovered in a direct way far beyond anything provided by Josephus, Philo, and Pliny about this rathermysterious group. From their own writings - Manual of Discipline, Thanksgiving Psalms, Commentaries on biblical books, and many other works - we gain a firsthand picture of the Essenes and a good deal of incidental information about the other branches of Judaism and the Jewish community with whom they were in contact and often in conflict. As firsthand testimony of religious faith and practice in this period the

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value of the materials which have been preserved is inestimable. (3) The scrolls provide rich background material for understanding the growth and development of different Jewish groups during the Ist century C.E.,and they shed light on the literarycorpora which emerge from the crises and struggles of that century. When the revolts had been suppressed and the many divergent groups had been reduced by destruction or compression or consolidation, the survivors could be traced to their origins and the character and content of their thought to these earlier sources. The scrolls provide many points of contact with early Christianity, emergent Rabbinic Judaism, and not least, that more shadowy phenomenon we know as Gnosticism which permeated the whole Mediterraneanarea and infiltrated in varying degrees the fabric of both Judaism and Christianity. Its roots, too, can be found in part at least in the Qumran documents. To sum up, the Qumran experience should be regarded as a scholarly success, somewhat qualified by certain shortcomings. In view of the circumstances of discovery and the way in which the materials dribbled into responsible hands, in almost every case only after passing through many others, we are lucky that so much has survived and been made available and accessible. We may deplore the fact that the discoveries in all the manuscript caves but one were made by amateurs and that conditions were scientifically controlled only after most of the documents were gone. But nothing much can be done about the beginning of such enterprises; discovery itself can hardly be regulated in advance, and happily restraints are as yet and probably always will be insufficient to prevent the chance find. Further along in the process, however, the responsibility of scholars can be recognized and defined more exactingly - and that has to do with the publication of new finds. The question is whether the traditional pattern is appropriate and acceptable any longer, especially with regardto great and important finds - that is, whether the precedure whereby a single scholar, or a small group can or should have the exclusive right to study and publish inscriptional materials at their own pleasure and discretion, thus effectively barring the scholarly community and ultimately the public from access to such materials. It is clear that once the new materials reach responsible hands, the owner or scholar assigned to work on them has a serious responsibility concerning the documents. Traditionally, it has been the view that such a scholar or scholars should have exclusive control of the materials until he or she had completed the process of

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assembling, studying, and preparing the materials for publication. It was expected that the scholar in question would devote himself or herself assiduously to the work until it was completed - and that there be no undue delays and certainly no deliberate obstruction. Needless to say, different scholars have responded to these assumptions and expectations in different ways, and their performance has varied from the extreme of prompt and efficient (sometimes less than effective) publication to endless procrastination and delay. It can be said fairly that such a monopolistic system, which depends solely on the willingness and ability of the individual scholar to meet the expectations of his colleagues, has not proved successful, especially when the mass of data is great and the difficulty and/ or complexity of the deciphermentand interpretation require extended application. In recent years especially, the length of time between discovery and general publication of major finds has increased notably. It seems to me that a frank discussion of the issue is long overdue and that a new approach to the question should at least be considered. There can hardly be any dispute that those responsible for new discoveries should have the right to publish them. Furthermore, it makes for an orderly procedure if the official publication of the materials is assigned to particular, qualified scholars. In addition, ample time must be allowed for thorough study, extended analysis, and full treatment of the materials. Every effort should be made to expedite the official publication for the benefit of other scholars and ultimately of the interested public. However, imposing arbitrary or even flexible deadlines, while desirable, has not resulted in prompt dissemination of the data and is not likely to, since often a great deal of time is needed for adequate assimilation of the information and treatment of the problems. There is no reason, however, why the procedures outlined above should also include exclusive monopolistic control of the primary material by one or two scholars assigned to study the documents. On the contrary, the goals to which we all subscribe and aspire will be gained much more quickly and efficiently if the materials are made available in photographic reproduction or facsimile as soon as possible to the entire scholarly community. In that way, the designated scholar would not be working in isolation (always detrimental to the best scholarly results) or in secret with a few colleagues, but he would have the benefit of the wisdom and ideas of the whole community, and his own work could proceed that much more quickly and effectively. There is no reason why the so-called "official"publication must be the first to appear - much better if it were to

1977 SEPTEMBER

come at the end of a process of disclosure and refinement. It is a well-established fact that the decipherment and interpretation of documents proceed much more rapidly and successfully when many scholars are involved in the work then when few or one are. Therefore I propose that newly discovered inscriptions and documents be presented in a suitable format - namely, photographs, hand-copies, and preliminary transcriptions as soon after discovery as is physically feasible. Some time may be needed simply to sort and assemble fragments, or to unroll and copy or photograph damaged materials or those which are otherwise difficult to handle. But it should be possible to reproduce the texts within one year of discovery at the outside. In that way the world of scholarship would be much better served than it is now and needless roadblocks in the way of research would be removed. The history of scholarship in our field, which is much affected by archeological finds and especially new inscriptional materials, would be a much happier account of progress, not marred by endless frustration on the part of those who do not have access to pertinent data simply because someone else has exclusive rights in the matter, were such a plan followed. I do not expect that there will be unanimity on this subject and realize that there are many views and opinions

about a very vexing subject. We will be glad to hear from contributors and subscribers, scholars and non-scholars, and will report on reactions as well as provide equal time and space to the opposition. Let us hear from you. D. N. Freedman

N.B. I write as a guilty party, since I was assigned responsibility for the Leviticus Scroll from Cave 11 about ten years ago. There have been some diplomatic and other complications, but basically, the reason this document has not been published is that I was overloaded with other obligations and commitments which claimed my time. That is not an excuse, and I should either have published the scroll or returned it to the team for reassignment. Many if not most scholars harbor optimistic delusions about what they can and will do in the way of productive writing, and even after observing many colleagues fall into the pit, I have followed the same primrose path. We badly need a society like AA for "assignment addicts" who take on many more responsibilities than they will ever discharge successfully because they are unable to refuse and have a hopelessly unrealistic notion of their capacities and their work rate.

. next time in

.

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST

The Ark and Atrahasis

. How old is the wood which the Navarra expedition found on "Mt. Ararat?" Lloyd R. Bailey, in "Wood from 'Mt. Ararat':Noah's Ark?",examines the tests run on the wood recoveredby Fernand Navarra in his search for Noah's ark, concluding that the radiocarbon analysis points to a date no earlier than the 7th-8th centuries A.D.

...

Does the Atrahasis legend help us understand the Biblical account of the flood? In comparing and contrasting the two accounts, Tikvah Frymer describes how the Atrahasis narrative of the flood provides a structure for re-interpreting and reevaluating the flood stories in Genesis.

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST

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Polemics and Irenics

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGISTwelcomes correspondence from its readers and will make every effort to print those letters, particularly, that bring new evidence or fresh opinions to bear on key issues. The editors reserve the right to edit for brevity and clarity.

Comments on (continued)

the

"New" Biblical Archeologist

It was a joy for me to receive a letter in late March, from 1977, Emily D. Wright, who was in a very real sense co-editor with her husband G. Ernest Wright of the early volumes of the BA. Her letter tells something about all that, and I think you will want to share it with your readers. Her picture of the new BA as a grand daddy which has been tippling at the fountain of youth is a fine tribute to the new staff. As one who worked with BA during its "middleyears",I heartily second her praise! We stand in a great tradition. Edward F. Campbell, Jr. (editor and co-editor of BA, 1959-75)

For some time now people have been writing and asking or remarking about the New BA. I didn't really know what they were talking about - supposing it to be nothing more than the red letter or full front page picture on the old format. Now that I behold the really, really, new BA, I can't believe my eyes! Nor can I believe it is Vol. 39! It seems only yesterday that my husband of seven months came bounding into the room (Millar Burrows' office and the only office ASOR had) with the first copy of our first "child" - hot off the "press!"We couldn't believe it really was. I don't think the "proper" Prof. Burrows was as overjoyed as we - at that bemused

"cherub"of the Renaissance on a publication (?) of the ASOR. But he was indulgent. Looking back, I still don't see how Ernest managed it so soon after our arrival - he had only begun the job at ASOR on Jan. 1. And all the previous fall, we had been laboring in Haverford to get the Ain Shems stuff in order for publication (and he was still writing text). Well there it was! To whom would we send it? And who would do the sending?(Guess who!) And once they'd seen the sample issue, would anybody buy it? And where was the money to come from for publicity? Incredibly, people did subscribe, and month by month we watched the subscription lists grow - requiring ever more subscription forms and bills to be cranked off the mimeograph machine. In less than a year, we were on our way to Chicago and McCormick (then "Presbyterian") Seminary. But with no one but Gladys Walton to run the New Haven office, we could not leave our "baby" there. So it went with us to ChalmersPlace. Imagine the logistics of editing (and mostly writing) in Chicago, a publication that was then duplicated in Ann Arbor and returned to our house, there to be inserted in special envelopes from another printer, hand-addressed, with bills enclosed as needed, sorted and tied for mailing. Meanwhile, the bookkeeping and address changes for all this were in New Haven, still! (And in those days, rarelydid anyone risk the expense of a long distance phone call). I have a vivid picture of me, far into the night, writing, writing until my hand wearied. And another mental picture of me, very large in front, sitting Indianfashion in the middle of the study floor at 842, surrounded by piles of addressed BA's - sorting them by states and cities - and inevitably misaddressing some and inserting bills with copies whose recipients had already sent their money to New Haven, unknown to us, and who would be very put-out at being billed again! Well, so it continued, until there was not only George, but David arriving to be coped with. At that point, I yelled "quits." Besides, by then the baby magazine had grown into a boy-sized journal in need of an addressograph. And now this! The "boy" has become a "grand daddy" - but a strange looking grand daddy. It has the look and color of extreme youth! Whose creation is this? To all of you on the Editorial Board and to whomever this grandmother's congratulations should go, please send them. For this rejuvenated BA certainly comes closer to following the original intent of the founder than the old BA did, for many a long year. Emily Wright SEPTEMBER1977

News from the Field

Excavations in Jenin One hundred ten kilometers north of Jerusalem is Jenin, a city identified with biblical En Ganim. The mound in the center of the city has been threatened by modern building. Only six dunams of the upper tell survived the construction of the bus station in 1962, and shops are beginning to nibble at the edges of the mound. From April through October in 1977 a small team from the Albright Institute in Jerusalem and Birzeit University attempted to rescue some history from two small plots on the east and west edges of the tell. Beginning at street level and excavating down more than 4 m., two major periods were well documented-the end of LB II and the end of EB I. The upper mound was not excavated but it is evident that Iron I and II is there cut into by a large Omayyad building of the 8th century A.D. The ceramic evidence for both EB I and LB II was sealed under the deep deposits of fallen brick wall. Following the 13th-century destruction, on the east side of the mound there was a much less impressive occupation. The main feature of the EB I level on the west side of Jenin was a reasonably well-preserved apsidal house and courtyard. The city council of Jenin has agreed to establish a corner of the city park for historical monuments and to reconstructthis earliest house at Jenin in the park. A. GLOCK DIRECTOR OF JENIN EXCAVATION

Tell Halif-Biblical Rimmon (?) A unique ceramic vessel of the late Iron Age was discovered in a tomb excavated at Tell Halif, Israel, during the 1977 season of the Lahav Research Project. The vessel, a shallow bowl ornamented in the center by a BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGIST

single raised pomegranate (rimmon in Hebrew), has no known parallel. The bowl supports the theory that Tell Halif is the site of biblical Rimmon, which is mentioned in Josh 15:32as part of the inheritance of the tribe of Judah and in 19:7 as part of the inheritance of Simeon. During the Byzantine period Eusebius mentions the existence of two large Jewish villages in this region: Rimmon, probably located at the site of Khirbet Umm erRammamin (in Arabic, "The Mother of the Pomegranates") 1 km. south of Tell Halif, and Tilla (at Tell Halif, which according to early maps was occupied by the Arab village Khirbet Tilla). After the abandonment of the site at Tell Halif during the late Iron II period (ca. 700 B.C.E.) the resettlement of the region took place first at Umm er-Rammamin, which borrowed the ancient name of the neighboring site. When the tell was resettled later and the name was already taken, it was renamed Tilla (Aramaic, "The Tell"). The excavations at Tell Halif are carried out by the Lahav Research Project under the direction of Dr. Joe D. Seger, in affiliation with the American Schools of Oriental Research, the Hebrew Union College, and the Joe Allon Center for Regional Studies. The project is and involved in the historical, archeological, environmental study of the region surroundingTell Halif. During the first two seasons excavations were conducted in three fields where architectural elements of the Early Bronze, Late Bronze, Iron II, and Byzantine periods were uncovered. A survey of minor sites around the mound revealed the settlement patterns outside the walled city and helped to identify water and land resources. A study of the recent occupation by the Ramadin bedouin tribe in caves around the tell, which is complemented by interviews with remaining settlers, supplies the latest chaper of the history of Tell Halif. A fuller, illustrated report of the first two seasons of excavation at Tell Halif has been prepared by Joe D. Seger and Oded Borowski to appear in the next issue (December 1977) of Biblical Archeologist. ODED BOROWSKI EMORY UNIVERSITY

New Department of Antiquities Director in Jordan Dr. Adnan Hadidi, formerly Associate Professor of Archeology and Chairman of the Department of History and Archeology at the University of Jordan, has replaced Mr. Yaqoub Oweis as the new Director-General of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan. Dr. Hadidi completed his B.A. in Ancient History and Archeology at the American University of Beirut, his M.A. in Near Eastern Archeology at the University of London Institute of Archeology, and his Ph.D. in Classical Archeology at the University of Missouri. JAMES A. SAUER

ACOR DIRECTOR

99

THE

ESSENES

IN

PALESTINE

J. MURPHY-O'CONNOR

The origin of the Essene movement and the community at Qumran has been the topic of scholarly debate since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947. Now a reconstruction of the sect's history is made possible through careful reexamination of the Scrolls, the external witnesses, and the archeology of the settlement.

The history of the Essenes is tied to three key figures who appear in the Dead Sea Scrolls as the Teacher of Righteousness, the Wicked Priest, and the Man of Lies. In the language of spy stories these are cover-names, and the fundamental problem is to discover the historical figures whose identities lie hidden behind these cryptic designations. It is doubtful if deliberate mystification was intended. At the time of the writing of the Scrolls, the identities of these figures were well known. Our difficulties are created simply by our remoteness from the events. The situation is analogous to an African trying to deal with texts concerning the Irish Rebellion in 19161920 in which the principal personages appear as the Chief, the Big Fellow, and the Blacksmith. To someone close to the events these are immediately identifiable as Eamon de Valera, Michael Collins, and Sean McKeown Jerome Murphy-O'Connor, O. P., a native of Cork, Ireland, has been Professor of New Testament and Intertestamental Studies at the Ecole Biblique in Jerusalem since 1967. Since receiving a Th. D. at the University of Fribourg (Switzerland) in 1962, he has held several positions, including at the universities of Heidelberg and Tiibingen. In addition to numerous articles and books, he edited Paul and Qumran (London, 1968).

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respectively, but the African would have to piece together the clues that the texts provide concerning their charactersand activities. We are in the same position with regard to the Scrolls, and the only procedure available is to createa portraitof each of the three figures and then try to relate these outlines to known historical personages. The field of investigation is limited by a number of factors. All of the archeological evidence indicates that the Scrolls were placed in the caves near Qumranprior to the destruction of the Essene settlement by the Romans in A.D. 68. This date, therefore, provides a definitive terminal point. None of the figures in question could have lived after this date. A second factor pushes the terminus ad quem still further back. The handwriting of the documents which are most important for a reconstruction of the history of the Essenes permits them to be dated within fairly narrow limits. The Rule (1QS) was copied in the period 100-75 B.C., the Pesher on Habakkuk (1QpHab) and the Pesher on Nahum (4QpNah) in the period 40-20 B.C.,and the Pesher on Psalms (4QpPsa) in the period 30 B.C.-A.D.20. We must also include the Damascus Document (CD) of which the only published version is based on manuscripts of the 10th and I Ith centuries A.D. found in Cairo. Eight copies of this

SEPTEMBER 1977

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