The Size of the Burial Collection

       As noted above, we do not have the full corpus of manuscripts that were buried in the natural caves, and we do not know how many more manuscripts originally existed in the artificial caves. These caves were disturbed. However, the potential size of the original burials is crucial for any historical reconstruction. All our conclusions about what was in the caves in terms of the manuscript repertoire are based on randomly surviving items. It is now determined that there is evidence of around 800 manuscripts, and around 660 different texts. This is its minimum extent, with over 400 texts coming from Cave 4Q. In terms of archaeology, apart from when there are unusual cataclysmic circumstances like the sealing of Pompeii in 79, it is not the case that excavation reveals an entire corpus of whatever existed at a particular time, in any particular place.

       The maximum extent of the scrolls corpus remains unclear, but there were definitely more scrolls than we currently have positive evidence for. As noted above, from the very earliest excavations of Cave 1Q by de Vaux and Lankester Harding, it was clear that materials had been disturbed in antiquity.[94]         

       To stress this point, a couple of further examples will suffice. Cave 3Q was a large cave but the inner chamber had collapsed, leaving only a cavity 3 m. by 2 m., prolonged by a straight ascending gallery.[95] Cave 3Q once clearly contained manuscripts, but these were taken away long ago, with only fragments indicating their existence. It seems that after they were initially deposited, the entrance was sealed shut, as in the case of other manuscript caves.[96] Then, at some stage, there was an earthquake, which resulted in the collapse of large sections of the cave. Importantly, Joseph Patrich reports that this collapse occurred before the pots were smashed. Patrich’s team moved stones and boulders to check if any sherds were located under these, and found none, so he concluded that the cave was visited in antiquity only after this earthquake. However, when the explorers of 1952 found Cave 3Q, the way into the cave was sealed shut with blocks of stone, though potsherds that had fallen from the entrance gave a clue to the archaeological team that they should break through this sealing to enter the cave. That they found sherds outside and under the entrance blocks indicates that the way into the cave was sealed up after the earthquake and after the destruction of the pottery jars, following a second deposit of something in the cave. Following the year 70 C.E., the first strong earthquake to be recorded in extant literature was around the year 130 C.E.[97] We can then conclude that after this time the cave was entered and the entrance re-blocked. The second sealing of the cave is one of the most interesting issues for the dating of the Copper Scroll, since on the basis of archaeology it could have been placed there prior to a purposely-done second sealing: the two rolls of the Copper Scroll were isolated into a kind of niche, not under the cave collapse. It is hard to imagine that anyone would have sealed the cave for a second time when only pottery, potsherds and tiny manuscript fragments remained in it: a second sealing implies a second deposit. Strangely, an early newspaper report tantalisingly states that the Copper Scroll was found with Bar Kochba coins,[98] but this has never been mentioned again.

       Cave 4Q was also disturbed in antiquity, and may have contained more manuscripts. The manuscript fragments of Cave 4Q on the original floor of the cave were coated with marl sediment which had built up and solidified over a long time. But long before this the manuscripts were used as scrap paper, as has been argued by Hannah Cotton and Erik Larson, who note that 4Q460, Frag. 9/4Q350 one side has a Hebrew text of and the other side is a cereal list in Greek with 2nd-century features.[99] This indicates that someone checking off cereals in storage used an old scroll to jot down what was there: “After the list was written and the items were checked off, it was apparently of no further use and was allowed to remain on the floor of the cave together with hundreds of other texts that were not reused.” This is a rather astonishing statement, and means that some of the later inhabitants of Qumran, from Period III or later, may have used the cave for storing cereals - a factor that needs to be remembered when interpreting the archaeology. It also points to a non-Jewish author, since no Jew would write a cereal list on the back of a Hebrew text containing the tetragrammaton.[100] Any number of manuscripts lying in the artificial caves may have been used as scrap, or else just kicked out of the cave entrance.

       How many other unreported scroll discoveries and interferences might there have been? As noted, the discoveries mentioned in extant literary sources indicate at least two occasions when there were scrolls found and taken away. But these are instances that just happen to be recorded and survived for posterity within the written record. As we have seen, the archaeology of the caves has indicated that most of the caves in the hills to the west of Qumran were disturbed in antiquity, or suffered damage from collapse, as evidenced by broken, strewn pottery.[101]

       People may have broken into numerous caves. From the fourth century to the Middle Ages, the area of the coast of the Dead Sea and the Judaean wilderness was home to wandering Christian ascetics (cf. Egeria, Itin. 10: 9) and lauras and monasteries were established.[102]  Caves in the vicinity were also inhabited at certain times by anchorites. A cave situated above ‘Ain Turaba and near ‘Ain el-Ghuweir was occupied in the Byzantine period.[103] De Vaux noted Byzantine sherds in Cave 23, which is located just above Qumran near the aqueduct route.[104] At Khirbet el-Yahoud (=Kh. Mazin), 3 km. south of Ras Feshkha, there is evidence of Byzantine settlement. At Ain Feshkha, to the south of Qumran, there is evidence of Byzantine occupation in the southern enclosure: Loc. 20.[105] It was made into a dwelling of some kind: the walls were repaired with blocks, the threshold was raised, the inside walls were faced with a coating of pebbles dug up from the pavement of Period II, and an earth floor was prepared. Pottery sherds from this level are Byzantine. A Byzantine lamp and juglet were found in a layer of silt against the north wall of the enclosure.

       In his work, The Spiritual Meadow (Pratum Spirituale), written c. 600, John Moschus refers to a gardener who grew vegetables for the anchorite community of Mardes (or Marda) which was located on the hill of Khirbet Mird, ancient Hyrcania. Moschus wrote:

There is a mountain by the Dead Sea called Mardes and it is very high. There are anchorites living in that mountain. They have a garden about six miles away from where they live, near the edge of the Sea, almost on its banks. One of the anchorites is stationed there to tend the garden. At whatever hour the anchorites wish to send to the garden for vegetables, they put a pack-saddle on the ass and say to it: “Go to the one who tends the gardens and bring us some vegetables”. It goes off alone to find the gardener; when it stands before the door, it knocks with its head. The gardener loads it up with vegetables and sends it away. You can see the ass returning alone each time, but it only serves those elders; it supplies the needs of nobody else.[106]

A Byzantine mile was approximately 1485 m. and Ain Feshkha is located 9 km. away from Kh. Mird, which could be understood as a distance of about six Byzantine miles.

       Moschus also mentions other sites along the Dead Sea and anchorites who “grazed” there, such as Abba Sophronios “the grazer,” who “grazed around the Dead Sea. For seventy years he went naked, eating wild plants and nothing else whatsoever.”[107] An elder named Cyriacos from the laura of Mar Saba went down to an unidentified place named Coutila: “He stayed for a little while ‹there› beside the Dead Sea; then he started back to his cell.”[108] The route from Mar Saba along the Wadi en-Nar takes you to Kh. Mazin, but Cyriacos could have gone anywhere along the north-western Dead Sea shore from there. Whatever anchorites visited Qumran, it is unlikely that they left much in the archaeological record, but in taking shelter in caves, the anchorites should always be borne in mind as a disturbance factor when considering material here. People living and visiting the monasteries of the Judaean desert and lower Jordan Valley greatly expanded the road system to ensure connection between localities that were at first remote and in unknown territory for those that went there.[109] There are Byzantine coins found in Loci 42 and 76 in Qumran which indicate that people other than grazing anchorites (without cash in hand) visited the site in the fifth to six century. Who knows what they found. This discussion is simply meant to stress that the probability of cave disturbance and manuscript discovery in the Byzantine period is great.

       At the end of the Byzantine period in the region, with the Persian invasion of 614 Arab invasion of 640, and severe raids from Bedouin through the Ayyubid period, the number of anchorites and monasteries decreased. In due course the region came to be under the control of Bedouin, who grazed herds in the wadis, and used caves for shelters. But prior to this time, for hundreds of years, the region was used by people who would have had an exceptional interest in biblical manuscripts, especially if they were in Greek. This needs to be born in mind as we assess what remains.

       In terms of the disturbance of caves west of Qumran, we simply do not know how many scrolls were taken away long ago, or left to perish. If it was a common practice to open them in situ to see whether they were worth taking, then pieces might well have fallen at this time and been eaten by rats, others may have had some use in monasteries which themselves suffered destruction from raids during early Islamic times. It is a sad but obvious feature of history and archaeology that most of the artefacts from former times, bar a minute fraction, have gone.

       All this indicates that the total number of scrolls buried in caves around the site of Qumran in antiquity was anything above the present count of800 manuscripts, to a maximum that is anyone’s guess. If 200 manuscripts of Psalms alone could be uncovered at the time of Patriarch Timothy, that surely represents a grand figure designed to show just how many manuscripts were discovered. There would have been, at one time, thousands of scrolls buried by the Dead Sea. This in itself makes a rapid hiding scenario logistically rather difficult, but it also points to the size of the originating collection.

       What library would have been large enough to account for our evidence? One might think of a city library. The Pergamum libraries had apparently 200,000 volumes, at the time of Antony (Plutarch, Antony 58). The largest library of the ancient world had far more than double this figure. Callimachus’ Pinakes, listing the works of the libraries of Alexandria, apparently indicate that there were 530,000 scrolls.[110] Was there anything comparable in Judaea?

       This originating holding would make sense as being broadly Essene. The argument has been well-made by numerous scholars and remains the most plausible solution for understanding many features of the scrolls.[111] As Hanan Eshel has explored, the scrolls themselves - particularly the pesharim, CD and 4QMMT - indicate that it was not the collection of people who were normally in charge of the Temple, but rather of people who had a problematic relationship with many of the Hasmonean line (i.e. the Temple authorities), who saw themselves in some way as the true Israel who had been alienated from rightful rule.[112] It would therefore be very strained to identify the originating holding as the Temple library; it would much better be classified as belonging to a major school of Judaism who insisted on having their own legal autonomy, with a court apart from that convened by the High Priest, as both Philo and Josephus define the Essenes as having (Philo, Prob. 89-91; Josephus, War 2: 145).

In my view, the vastness of the scrolls preservation-burials (which indicates a correspondingly vast originating holding) can only be explained by thinking broadly of the entire Essene school, over a period of time, not narrowly in terms of one single library hidden at one single point in time.[113] Our one important parallel here is the Mountain of Quranic Light in Pakistan, where sacred texts are brought for burial from thousands of different Muslim communities in the region. Our evidence from Josephus and Philo is clear that the Essenes lived in numerous communities throughout Judaea. They comprised over 4000 members (Philo, Prob. 75; Josephus, Ant. 18.20); Philo uses the word ὅμιλος, “crowd” or “throng” ( Prob. 91) to describe their numbers, as also μυρίους, or “multitudes” (Hypoth. 11.1): “they dwell in many cities of Judaea, and many villages, and in great and much-populated throngs” (Hypoth. 11.1, cf. 11.5). They live in large groups “in every town” (Josephus, War 2: 124), and also move around visiting each other (War 2: 125), with a sense of common fellowship. In every single one of the Essene communities there had to be some kind of library, since the Essenes are characterised as being especially concerned with their scriptures: they display “an extraordinary interest in the writings of the ancients” (Josephus, War 2: 136, cf. War 2: 159; Ant. 13: 311); they study the laws of their fathers - which they see as divine - at all times “but particularly on the Sabbath day” (Philo, Prob. 80-81). With over 4000 Essenes living all over Judaea, there would have been hundreds of small libraries.[114] In other words, only by thinking “outside the box” in order to see the large collective can we account for this particular: a corpus that exhibits considerable diversity - for example in different versions of the Serekh and Damascus texts - as well as strong bonds of unity. This is then not one library, as such, though scriptures for all Essene communities might well have been manufactured in one production centre; this is a collection from many communities. In the social upheavals, destructions and crises of the first century B.C.E., especially in the time of civil war and revolt, we may have numerous reasons why these many communities were left with old, heterodox, redundant or damaged scrolls they wished to remove. But, whatever the case, in the Dead Sea scrolls, preserved and buried with such care near to Qumran, we have physical evidence for the extraordinary devotion of the Essenes to their scriptures and their tendency to go to extreme lengths to vouchsafe strict obedience to the law, in avoiding the charge of any negligence whatsoever in preserving the name of God.

Conclusion

       In conclusion, the genizah theory cannot be supported as such, but rather needs to be reconfigured and qualified. The Dead Sea Scrolls that we possess are the result of preservation-burials of manuscripts after processing at Qumran, during which time the temporary store area (genizah) - with workshops - was in the marl caves.

       I have argued the following: (1) in the natural Caves 1Q-3Q, 6Q and 11Q the cylindrical jars have a clear association with exactly the same kind of jars found at the site of Qumran; (2) the artificial marl terrace Caves 4Q-5Q, 7Q-10Q are connected with the occupation area of Qumran; (3) scrolls were buried in the cylindrical jars of the natural caves after being sealed in jars with in bitumen-impregnated linen, sometimes being wrapped in such linen, with the jars topped with a bowl-shaped jar lid, after which the cave entrance was sealed - this indicates burial with a view to preservation; (4) burial of manuscripts also possibly took place in the Qumran cemetery, particularly in the area close to the buildings, evidenced by “empty” graves; (5) the artificial caves south of the plateau, particularly Cave 4Q, may constitute a genizah, or temporary store, for manuscripts prior to processing and burial (a process that was interrupted), but the very fragmentary state of these is not original to their deposit here; (6) the dating of the manuscripts appears also to support a theory that the artificial caves - at least - largely contained old manuscripts; (7) the possible extent of the original scrolls corpus buried in caves was huge, since caves may well have been substantially cleared in antiquity, particularly during the Byzantine period, as well as being damaged so that scrolls were consumed by rats; (8) since the character of the scrolls themselves suggests that this corpus is Essene, and the Essenes had a great many communities all over Judaea which required libraries for the study of their scriptures, then this wide, Essene collection is the originating holding for these manuscripts, not one single library alone.

       .

* I would like to thank Michael Stone, Jodi Magness, Geza Vermes, Jean-Baptiste Humbert, Dennis Mizzi, Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra and Sidnie White Crawford for their comments on drafts of this paper and also Shimon Gibson for visiting Qumran with me and discussing many aspects of the site. I would like to thank also the respondents and others at the Qumran session of the SBL in New Orleans, November 23rd, 2009.

[1] John C. Trever, The Untold Story of Qumran (Westwood, N.J.: F. H. Revell, 1965), 25.

[2] Eleazer Sukenik, The Dead Sea Scrolls of the Hebrew University (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1955), 17. Sukenik published two volumes in Hebrew titled, Megilot Genuzot mitokh Genizah Kedumah shenimtse'ah beMidbar Yehudah [Hidden Scrolls from the Genizah Found in the Judaean Desert], 2 vols. (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1948/1949).

[3] Solomon Schechter and Elkan N. Adler, “Genizah,” in Jewish Encyclopaedia (ed. Isidore Singer; New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1901-6), vol. 4, 612-13. Adler was told in 1888 that most of the manuscripts - called shemot because of the name of God - were buried in the Jewish cemetery of Basatin and “not the least important part of the Taylor-Schechter collection has come from the graveyard.”

[4] Sukenik, Dead Sea Scrolls, 29. See also Synesius, Dion 3.2 and Solinus, Collectanea 35: 1-12.

[5] Henri del Medico, “L’État des manuscrits de Qumran I,” Vetus Testamentum 7 (1957) : 127-38; id. L’Énigme des manusrits de la Mer Morte (Paris : Plon, 1957), 23-31.

[6] Godfrey R. Driver, The Judaean Scrolls: The Problem and a Solution (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1965), 386-91; id. “Myths of Qumran,” The Annual of Leeds University Oriental Society 6 (1966-68), 23-48 at p. 28. He modified his opinion from initial rejection of the genizah hypothesis, viz. “it was not attached to any synagogue and manuscripts stored in it would have been at the mercy of every curious searcher who could find a way into it, e.g. wandering shepherds or fugitives from justice, and the manuscripts found in it, though not new, are obviously in a state not of advanced decay but of very fair preservation,” The Hebrew Scrolls from the Neighbourhood of Jericho and the Dead Sea (London: Oxford University Press, 1951), 49-50. At this point he believed in the quick hiding scenario.

[7] “It has been supposed that this was a ‘genizah’, a place to which books beyond use were relegated in the course of time, but these scrolls of different age, carefully packed in the jars in the same period, are not scrapped pieces; these are archives and a library, hidden in a critical moment.” Roland de Vaux, “Post-Scriptum: La Cachette des Manuscrits Hébreux,” Revue Biblique 56 (1949), 234-237, at p. 236.

[8] De Vaux, Archaeology, 103.

[9] Norman Golb, Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls? (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995), 274.

[10] K. H. Rengstorf , Hirbet Qumran und die Bibliothek vom Toten Meer (W. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1960), id. [Eng. ed.] Hirbet Qumran and the Problem of the Dead Sea Caves (Leiden: Brill, 1963).

[11] George Brooke, Qumran and the Jewish Jesus: Reading the New Testament in the Light of the Scrolls (Cambridge: Grove Books, 2005), 68.

[12] David Stacey, “Seasonal Industries at Qumran,” Bulletin of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society 26 (2008), 7-30, at p. 24.

[13] The suggestion that caves 4Q-5Q served as a genizah for the Qumran community has also been argued by Stephen Pfann, “Reassessing the Judean Desert Caves: Libraries, Archives, Genizas and Hiding Places,” Bulletin of the Anglo-Israel Archaeological Society 25 (2007), 147-70.

[14] Pfann, “Reassessing the Judean Desert Caves,” 153.

[15] Emanuel Tov, Hebrew Bible, Greek Bible, and Qumran: Collected Essays

(Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008), 172-74; Hannah M. Cotton and Joseph Geiger, Masada II: The Yigael Yadin Excavations 1963-1965 Final Reports/the Latin and Greek Documents(Washington D.C.: Biblical Archaeology Society, 1989).

[16] Jodi Magness, The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2002), 79-89, ed. “Why Scroll Jars?” in Religion and Society in Roman Palestine (ed. Douglas R. Edwards; New York/London: Routledge, 1994), 146-61.

[17] See Rachel Bar-Nathan, “Qumran and the Hasmonaean and Herodian winter Palaces of Jericho: The Implication of the Pottery Finds on the Interpretation of the Settlement at Qumran,” in Qumran, the Site of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Archaeological Interpretations and Debates (eds. Katharina Galor, Jean-Baptiste Humbert and Jürgen Zangenberg; Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2006), 264-77. I thank Gideon Hadas for information on the recent discoveries at En Gedi, and see http://www.planetnana.co.il/ghadas/season5.mht.

[18] DJD III, 12-13 and see, for many important comments on this material, Magness, “Qumran, the Site of the Dead Sea Scrolls: A Review Article,” in RQ 22/4 (2006): 642-64, esp. at pp.662-3.

[19] Bar-Nathan, “Qumran and Hasmonaean Winter Palaces,” 275.

[20] Dennis Mizzi, “The Archaeology of Khirbet Qumran: A Comparative Approach.” (Ph.D. diss.,Oxford: Unpublished, 2009), 120-24.

[21] For a full list of these jars found at the site, see Gregory L. Doudna, “The Legacy of an Error in Archaeological Interpretation: The Dating of the Qumran Cave Scroll Deposits,” in Qumran, the Site of the Dead Sea Scrolls, (eds. Galor, Humbert and Zangenberg; Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2006), 147-57, 155-7.

[22] Shimon Gibson, pers. comm.

[23] Magen Broshi and Hanan Eshel, “Residential Caves at Qumran,” DSD 6 (1999): 285-323.

[24] See the results of the caves survey in Maurice Baillet, Józef T. Milik and Roland de Vaux, Les “Petites Grottes” de Qumran, DJD III (Oxford: Clarendon, 1962), 13-15, 18-24, and also Joseph Patrich, “Khirbet Qumran in Light of New Archaeological Explorations in the Qumran Caves,” in Methods of Investigation of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Khirbet Qumran Site: Present Realities and Future Prospects (ed. Michael O. Wise, Norman Golb, John J. Collins, and Dennis G. Pardee; ANYAS 722; New York: New York Academy of Sciences, 1994), 73-95 and Lior Wexler (ed.), Surveys and Excavations of Caves in the Northern Judean Desert (CNJD) - 1993, 2 vols. (‘Atiqot 41; Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 2002). Note that the numeration given by de Vaux to the scroll caves has a letter “Q”, so that Cave 1Q = survey Cave 14 (in the cave survey), 2Q = Cave 19, 3Q = Cave 8 and 6Q = Cave 26. Patrich’s survey labelled caves differently to de Vaux; his “Cave 13” and “Cave 24” are not the same as de Vaux’s, while his “FQ37” is de Vaux’s “Cave 37” but is identified in a different place. Many caves were used by Judaean refugees in the First and Second Revolts, see Hanan Eshel, “On the Ongoing Research of the Refuge Caves in the Judean Desert,” in Hanan Eshel and Roi Porat (eds.) Refuge Caves of the Bar Kokhba Revolt. Vol. 2 (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society), 1-9 (Hebrew). This is a very important topic in terms of regional cave use, and it is possible there may be occasional overlaps, with caves being initially used for scroll storage and subsequently, shortly afterwards, used as refuge caves, which would confuse the archaeological picture.

[25] G. Lankester Harding, “The Dead Sea Scrolls,” PEQ (1949): 112-116, at 113. For scroll counts see Emanuel Tov, The Texts from the Judaean Desert. Indices and an Introduction to The Discoveries in the Judaean Desert Series (DJD XXXIX; Oxford: Clarendon, 2002). I am grateful to Sidnie White Crawford for this reference.

[26] Harding, “Dead Sea Scrolls,” 114.

[27] Ibid. 114-15. Though the bundling is itself curious, see below.

[28] “Nests of rats containing some pieces of material, some portions of leather and an inscribed fragment,”DJD III, 7.

[29] Roland De Vaux, “Fouille de Khirbet Qumran, ” RB 63 (1956): 532-77, at pp. 573-77 ; Archaeology, 51. See also the items shown at http://www.schoyencollection.com/dsscrolls.htm#5095_1 from the Shøyen collection: the linen wrapper for the Temple Scroll and palm stylus. The large jar from Cave 11Q is apparently still in “Kando’s shop” in Jerusalem. Additional linen pieces from 11Q were found in the innermost crevice during Joseph Patrich’s excavation, see Patrich, “Qumran Caves,” 90. See too Farah Mébarki and Emile Puech, Les manuscrits de la Mer Morte (Rodez: Rouergue, 2002), 31.

[30] Contra Florentino García Martinez, “Cave 11 in Context,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Texts and Context (ed. Charlotte Hempel; Leiden: Brill, 2010), 199-209, who reads de Vaux’s words as indicating permanent long-term habitation, though this is not indicated at all by de Vaux himself. In noting that the cave was “plus habitée” (“Fouille,” 534) de Vaux was commenting on a small amount of broken pottery from three different periods: the Chalcolithic, the Iron Age, as well as the items from the period of Qumran. Cave 11Q was clearly a useful shelter (for shepherds, or people using it as a hideout), in previous periods, until Qumran inhabitants placed jars within it and briefly encamped. See also: Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra, “Further Reflections on Caves 1 and 11: A Response to Florentino García Martinez,” in Hempel (ed.), 211-20, who rightly states that “it is difficult to imagine ... a prolonged period” of habitation. “[c]ave 11 is quite far from the [Qumran] site (almost 2 km. as the crow flies) and does not have water ... storage, cooking and eating vessels.”

[31] William Reed, “The Qumran Caves Expedition of March 1952,” BASOR 135 (1954): 8-13 at p.13; DJD III, 8.

[32] Otto Eissfeldt, “Der gegenwärtige Stand der Erforschung der in Palästina ... Handscriften,” Theologische Literaturzeitung 74 (1949), cols. 595-600.

[33] There is also the report from the 10th-century Qaraite Yakub al-Qiriqisani who indicates a belief that there existed magariyya, “cave-dwellers” responsible for manuscripts found in a cave, but there is no indication where these manuscripts were found, see Lena Cansdale, Qumran and the Essenes: A Re-Evaluation of the Evidence (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], 1997), 84; Norman Golb, “Who were the Magariya?” JAOS 80 (1960) : 347-59.

[34] Roland de Vaux, “Exploration de la Région de Qumrân,” RB 60 (1953): 540-561, at p.560. Hartmut Stegeman has suggested that Cave 3Q, where the Copper Scroll was discovered, might be a contender. Hartmut Stegemann, The Library of Qumran: On the Essenes, Qumran, John the Baptist and Jesus (Eerdmans: Grand Rapids, 1998), 68-9.

[35] DJD III, 26-31; DJD VI, 9-20; Roland de Vaux, Archaeology and the Dead Sea Scrolls (Oxford: The British Academy, 1973), 52-3.

[36] DJD III, 34-35.

[37] See Magness, Archaeology of Qumran; id. “Why Scroll Jars?.”

[38] I am grateful to Sidnie White Crawford for sharing a paper with me in which she has independently argued the same thing: “Who Hid the Qumran Scrolls in the Caves?”

[39] Edmund Wilson, The Scrolls from the Dead Sea (London: W. H. Allen, 1955), 9, so also Trever, The Untold Story, 25. 

[40] G. R. Driver, The Hebrew Scrolls from the Neighbourhood of Jericho and the Dead Sea (London: Oxford University Press, 1951), 7.

[41] De Vaux, “Post-Scriptum,” 235. Harding identified this as “wax”: “Dead Sea Scrolls,” 114.

[42] Harding, “Dead Sea Scrolls,” 114, corrected in DJD I: 7, 39.

[43] I am grateful to Jean-Baptiste Humbert for supplying me with these photos. Mirielle Bélis, “Des Textiles: Catalogues et Commentaires,” in Khirbet Qumran et 'Ain Feshkha II: Études d'anthropologie, de physique et de chemie (eds. Jean-Baptiste Humbert and Jan Gunneweg; Novum Testamentum et Orbis Antiquus, Series Archaeologica 3; Academic Press, Éditions Saint-Paul, Fribourg, Suisse/Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen, 2003), Pl. II, 4-6, described pp. 224-5. See also: ead. “Les manuscrits de Qumrân: Comment se sont-ils conservés?" L’Archéo-thema : Revue d’archéologie et d’histoire 2 (May-June, 2009), 41-45.

[44] “The indications obtained have shown that those responsible for the deposit implemented a method designed to protect the manuscripts from the attacks of time and parasites,” Mireille Bélis, “Les manuscrits de Qumrân,” 42.

[45] Ibid. 42-44.

[46] Magness, “Why Scroll Jars?” 154-5.

[47] Bar-Nathan, “Qumran,” 277: “its lid is very easy to remove and, therefore, is not suitable for storing food ... the cover (bowl-lid) is easy to remove and not intended to keep products sealed.” Five ordinary jar stoppers have been found associated with dates and a storage jar in Patrich’s Cave 13, see Patrich, “Qumran Caves,” 91.

[48] I am very grateful to Robert Kraft for bringing this to my attention at the Qumran Session at the SBL Annual Meeting in New Orleans, November 2009 and for sending me links to pictures and the catalogue of the University of Pennsylvania. Item 38-28-45 is a scroll of “papyrus/bitumen”, actually with a casing of bitumen-impregnated linen in which the scroll was held, see http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rak/ppenn/museum/cartonnage/38-28-45-DSCF4560.JPG. Another papyrus has the bitumen and linen attached: 29-86-498, see http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rak/ppenn/museum/cartonnage/29-86-498-both.JPG and see 29-87-560 which is a piece of bitumen cartonage from Dra Abu el Naga. http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/rak/ppenn/museum/oldegypt/29-87-560-DSCF4571.JPG. In Egyptian antiquity scrolls could be buried within the bitumen-impregnated linen casing of mummies, as with the Ebers Papyrus, found between the knees of a mummy in Thebes. The practice of scroll preservation would then have been known from Egyptian precedents.

[49] For this see Diodorus Siculus, Hist. 19: 99: 3; Galen, De Simpl. Med. 9: 2: 10; Josephus, War 4: 481. Ze’ev Safrai, The Economy of Roman Palestine (Routledge: London, 1994), 187-8; Philip C. Hammond, “The Nabataean Bitumen Industry at the Dead Sea,” Biblical Archaeologist 22 (1959): 40-8.

[50] M. Har-El, “The Route of Salt, Sugar and Balsam Caravans in the Judaean Desert,” GeoJournal 2/6 (1978): 549-56.

[51] See also Vitruvius 110. The Piacenza Pilgrim (Itin. 10/166) also records that “sulphur and pitch are collected” on the shore of the “Salt Sea.” Bede, Loc. Sanct. 11/317 notes that bitumen is collected from the surface of the water by those going out in boats. Daniel the Abbot writes that the pitch rises to the surface and then “lies on the shore in great quantity” (38). The medieval Descriptio locorum (31-2) describes the alum (alumen), tar and bitumen being gathered.

[52] Bitumen was important in ancient medicine (see Josephus, War 4: 481, Pliny, Nat. Hist. 35: 51 [178]), and proximity to this resource for additional uses at the site may also have been a consideration, see: Joan E. Taylor, “Roots, Remedies and Properties of Stones: The Essenes, Qumran and Dead Sea Pharmacology,” JJS 60 (2009): 226-244, at p.237.

[53] Aref Abu-Rabia, A Bedouin Century: Education and Development among te Negev Tribes in the 20th Century (New York: Berghahn Books, 2001), 57. J. L. Kelso and Alfred R. Powell, “Glance Pitch from Tell Beit Mirsim,” BASOR 95 (1944)” 14-18 at p. 17. If animal fat was used, this might explain why animal parts were boiled in pots at Qumran, since fat would have risen to the surface and been scooped off for further use.

[54] The quick hiding scenario of one date, 68 C.E., has also been questioned on other grounds recently by Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra, “Old Caves and Young Caves: A Statistical Re-evaluation of a Qumran Consensus,” DSD 14 (2007): 313-33, who notes that the average palaeographical dates of manuscripts in caves 1Q and 4Q are earlier than caves 2Q, 3Q, 5Q, 6Q and 11Q. A similar differentiation between older and younger caves has been made by Pfann, “Reassessing the Judean Desert Caves,” but Pfann differentiates the earlier group on the basis of yahad terminology as 1Q, 4Q, 5Q, 6Q and the later “Zealot” group as 2Q, 3Q, 11Q and Masada texts.

[55] I am grateful to Michael Stone for discussing this with me, and for his paper, “The Cedar in Jewish Antiquity,” read at the Talmudic Archaeology Conference, University College London, June 22-24, 2009. Stone noted here that Romans used cedar oil to prolong the longevity of manuscripts (Pliny, Nat. Hist. 13: 13; Horace, Ars. Poet. 331), since this oil or resin had strong anti-fungal and anti-bacterial agents. He has been interested in exploring whether cedar oil was used on the scrolls, but there may not be a sufficient residue of a distinctive chemical signature in order to verify this hypothesis.

[56] Marcus Jastrow, A Dictionary of the Targumim, the Talmud Babli, the Yerushalmi and the Midrashic Literature (New York: Title Publishing, 1943), 258.

[57] DJD I: 25.

[58] I am grateful to Daniel Machiela for pointing this out to me at the SBL Qumran session at New Orleans, 25 November, 2009, and see Daniel A. Machiela, The Dead Sea Genesis Apocryphon: A New Text and Translation with Introduction and Special Treatment of Columns 13-17 (Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah, 79; Leiden: Brill, 2009).

[59] John Trever, “Completion of the Publication of Some Fragments from Qumran Cave 1,” RQ 5/18 (1965): 323-44 at pp.330-34.

[60] I am grateful to Florentino García Martínez for his assessment of the “beautiful” original condition of the Temple Scroll at the SBL Conference in New Orleans, November 2009.

[61] Pfann, “Reassessing the Judean Desert Caves,” 159-61. For the linen, see Bélis, “Textiles,” 236, Pl. III: 1-7). Pfann’s theory is that the deposits in both 3Q and 11Q were made by Zealots of the second century C.E., but this would not fit with the pottery.

[62] However, the Temple Scroll is actually significantly damaged in its first fourteen columns. Given significant damage over the centuries (see Johann Maier, The Temple Scroll [Sheffield: JSOT Press; 1985), 1), how sure can we be of the original state of leather and writing? 

[63] M. Battles, Library: An Unquiet History (New York: W. W. Norton, 2003), 192-3.

[64] Minna Lönnqvist and Kenneth Lönnqvist, “Parallels to Be Seen: Deir el-Medina Jars Containing Manuscripts,” The Dead Sea Scrolls in Context: Integrating the Dead Sea Scrolls in the Study of Ancient Texts, Languages, and Cultures: An International Conference Organized by the University of Vienna and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (Vienna, February 11–14, 2008).

[65] The jar itself was smashed and not recovered, but the bowl lid remains in the Coptic Museum, Cairo. James Robinson noted, after examining this: “The diameter at the outer edge is 23.3-24.0 cm., with a diameter inside the bowl of 18.2-18.7 cm., adequate to close a mouth large enough to admit the codices, whose broadest leaves, in Codex VII, measure up to 17.5 cm. There are a few black tarlike stains about 2.0 cm. from the outer edge on the under side of the rim, perhaps vestiges of a bitumen used to seal the bowl into the jar. Thus, the jar probably could not be opened readily to investigate its contents, which would explain why it was broken by its discoverers. This would also explain the excellent state of preservation of a number of the codices ...” James M. Robinson, “The Discovery of the Nag Hammadi Codices,” Biblical Archaeologist 42/4 (1979): 206-224, at pp. 213-4.

[66] James M. Robinson, ed., The Nag Hammadi Library in English, (rev. ed. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1988), 21-22.

[67] Henry Poole, “Report of a Journey in Palestine,” Journal of the Royal Geographical Society 26 (1856): 55-70, at p.69.

[68] Charles Clermont-Ganneau, “The Jerusalem Researches III,” PEFQSt (1874): 80-84 at p.81, see Joan E. Taylor, “Khirbet Qumran in the Nineteenth Century and the Name of the Site,” PEQ 134 (2002): 144-164, Fig. 10.

[68] Solomon Steckoll, “Preliminary Excavation Report in the Qumran Cemetery,” RQ 23 (1968): 323-52, at p. 327-8.

[69] Jean-Baptist Humbert and Alan Chambon, Fouilles de Khirbet Qumran et de Ain Feshkha I (346 and see photo 453, Fig. XXXIII.

[70] Steckoll, “Preliminary Excavation Report,” 327-8.

[71] Ibid. 328. Note that the graves of this area have now been completely obliterated on the surface as a result of tourism and bulldozing outside the wall area.

[72] Hanan Eshel, Magen Broshi, Richard A. Freund and Brian Schultz, “New Data on the Cemetery East of Khirbet Qumran,” DSD 9 (2002), 135-165, at. p.142, and Figure 2.

[73] Yitzhak Magen and Yuval Peleg, The Qumran Excavations 1993-2004: Preliminary Report (Jerusalem: Israel Antiquities Authority, Judaea and Samaria Publications 6, 2007), 45-46; id. “Back to Qumran: Ten Years of Excavation and Research, 1992-2004,” in Galor, Humbert and Zangenberg, The Site of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 98.

[74] Olav Röhrer-Ertl, “Facts and Results Based on Skeletal Remains from Qumran Found in the Collectio Kurth: A Study in Methodology,” in Galor, Humbert and Zangenberg , The Site of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 181-93.

[75] Humbert and Chambon, Fouilles de Khirbet Qumran, 349.

[76] Magen Broshi and Hanan Eshel, “Three Seasons of Excavations at Qumran,” JRA 17 (2004), 325; Broshi and Eshel, “Residential Caves.” The northern caves were also used in Period III, since numerous nails from Roman sandals have been found along the pathways, see Broshi and Eshel, “Residential Caves,” Pl. 2, 4, and Joan E. Taylor, “Kh. Qumran in Period III,” in Galor, Humbert and Zangenberg, The Site of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 133-46, pp. 140-41.

[77] I am grateful to Sidnie White Crawford for this suggestion.

[78] De Vaux, Archaeology, 100, n. 3.

[79] Hannah Cotton and Erik Larson, “4Q460/4Q350 and Tampering with Qumran Texts in Antiquity,” in Emanuel: Studies in Hebrew Bible, Septuagint, and Dead Sea Scrolls in Honor of Emanuel Tov (Shalom M. Paul, Robert A. Kraft, Eva Ben-David, Lawrence H. Schiffman, Weston W. Fields; Leiden: Brill, 2003): 113 -125, at p. 124.

[80] Frank Moore Cross, The Ancient Library of Qumran, rev. ed. (New York: Anchor, 1961), 27, n. 32.

[81] Rachel Hachlili, Ancient Jewish Art and Archaeology in the Land of Israel (Leiden: Brill, 1984), 192-3.

[82] Shamma Friedman sees the rabbis as altering a concept that involved transfer of sanctity from the holy scriptures to the hands: “The Holy Scriptures Defile the Hands - the Transformation of a Biblical Concept in Rabbinic Theology,” in Minḥah le Naḥum: Biblical and Other Studies Presented to Nahum M. Sarna in Honour of his 70th Birthday (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1993), 117-32 and see Jodi Magness, “Scrolls and Hand Impurity,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls: Texts and Context (ed. Charlotte Hempel; Leiden: Brill, 2010), 89-97: “[A]ltough scroll wrappers are found at Qumran, sectarian legislation provides no indication that they considered scroll containers, straps, and wrappers as defiling, in contrast to the rabbis” (p. 96). For other discussions of the issues here see Martin D. Goodman, “Sacred Scripture and ‘Defiling the Hands’,” Journal of Theological Studies 41 (1990): 99-107, esp. p.102; Chaim Milikowsky, “Reflections on Hand-Washing, Hand-Purity and Holy Scripture in Rabbinic Literature,” in Purity and Holiness: the Heritage of Leviticus (eds. M. J. H. M. Poorthuis and J. Schwartz; Leiden: Brill, 2000), 154-59; Timothy M. Lim, “The Defilement of the Hands as a Principle Determining the Holiness of Scriptures,” Journal of Theological Studies 61 (2010): x-xx.

[83] DJD III, 31.

[84] Randall Price, “New Discoveries at Qumran,” World of the Bible News and Views 6/3 (2004) (online edition); id. “Qumran Plateau,” Hadashot Arkheologiyot: Excavations and Surveys in Israel 117 (2005) (online edition): “The Western Square was on a direct line with Cave IV on the opposite, facing plateau. A probe drilled in 1996 meant to locate and identify subsurface anomalies discerned on the seismic survey at a depth of 16 m, which is the approximate elevation of the entrance to Cave IV. ... Our initial excavation from surface to a depth of 1.5 m revealed sparse potsherds and a single jar handle in topsoil, a shaped stone, probably a grinding stone, in a pebble fill just below topsoil, isolated bitumen deposits that might have been used as fossil fuel and several bone fragments in a sandy layer below the pebble fill.”

[85] Doudna, “Legacy of an Error.”

[86] Bar-Nathan, “Qumran,” 263-77.

[87] Stökl Ben Ezra, “Old Caves,” 331; Magness, Archaeology, 85-87.

[88] Stökl Ben Ezra, “Old Caves,” 329, n. 62. However, he suggests it may have been used as a genizah in Period II, see id., “Further Reflections,” 212.

[89] See Doudna’s critique of palaeographical dating in “Legacy,” 152-3. Palaeographic dating can rely on circular argumentation and assume short ranges in dates for styles that may result from individuality. It does not take into account archaising tendencies or the styles of old scribes that persist even when younger scribes might write differently. There is an insufficient “control” group against which palaeographical dates can be tested. For an important challenge to dating see Stökl Ben Ezra, “Further Reflections,” 217-20, suggesting manuscripts dated to the first century CE may in fact be older.

[90] Johannes van der Plicht, Kaare L. Rasmussen, Jens Glastrup. Joan E. Taylor and Gregory Doudna, “Radiocarbon Datings of Material from the Qumran Excavation,” in Khirbet Qumran et 'Ain Feshkha II: Études d'anthropologie, de physique et de chemie (eds. Jean-Baptiste Humbert and Jan Gunneweg; Novum Testamentum et Orbis Antiquus, Series Archaeologica 3; Academic Press, Éditions Saint-Paul, Fribourg, Suisse/Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen, 2003),193-196; Tom Higham, Joan E. Taylor and Dennis Green, “New Radiocarbon Determinations from Khirbet Qumran from the University of Waikato Laboratories,” in Humbert and Gunneweg, Khirbet Qumran, 197-200; Joan E. Taylor and Greg Doudna, “Archaeological Synthesis of the New Radiocarbon Datings from Qumran,” in Humbert and Gunneweg, Khirbet Qumran, 201-205.

[91] Ada Yardeni, “A Note on a Qumran Scribe,” in New Seals and Inscriptions, Hebrew, Idumean and Cuneiform (ed. Meir Lubetski; Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2007), 287-98.

[92] Doudna, “Legacy,” 152-3.

[93] Hanan Eshel, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Hasmonean State (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 2008).

[94] DJD III, 14. De Vaux was initially able to identify the pottery - jars and bowls - as coming from the end of the Hellenistic period, to the second century B.C.E to the beginning of the first century C.E.; Roland de Vaux, “Post-Scriptum,” 234.

[95] Roland de Vaux, “Exploration,” 555, 557; DJD III (1962), 7-8, 201, cf. Reed, “The Qumran Caves Expedition;” DJD III (1962), 7-8, 201.

[96] “Its mouth had been blocked and the Bedouin did not know of its existence,” de Vaux, Archaeology, 95; id. “Exploration,” 555.

[97] D. H. Kallner-Amiran, “A Revised Earthquake-Catalogue of Palestine,” IEJ 1 (1950- 51): 223-246, at p. 225.

[98] Report in the New York Times, Tuesday, April 1st, 1952, less than 2 weeks after the discovery. This article was based on the report by the Religious News Service from Jerusalem, March 31, 1952 and appeared on p.13, col. 6, see Judah Lefkovits, “The Copper Scoll-3Q15: A New Reading, Translation and Commentary,” New York University Ph.D., 3. De Vaux was not present at the time the Copper Scroll was found. The team was led by Henri de Contenson of the École Biblique, and included W. L. Reed. However, later, de Vaux (“Exploration,” 553), indicated that no coins were found in any of the caves.

[99] It is a so-called opisthograph in that the writing on the recto and verso are independent

[100] Cotton and Larson, “4Q460/4Q350,” 122.

[101] DJD III, 3-41, and see above.

[102] See Yitzhar Hirschfeld, The Judean Desert Monasteries in the Byzantine Period (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992); John Binns, Ascetics and Ambassadors of Christ, The Monasteries of Palestine, 314-631 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 100-101.

[103] Ian Blake, “Chronique archéologique,” RB 73 (1966):, 566.

[104] DJD III: 23.

[105] De Vaux, Archaeology, 72, 74; id. “Fouilles de Feshkha,” RB 66 (1959): 225-55, at pp. 253-4, Pl. VII.

[106] Chap. 167. Translation by John Wortley from John Moschus, Pratum Spirituale PG 87, col. 3026 in The Spiritual Meadow of John Moschus (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications, 1992), 137. The monastery of Castellion was established in the ruins of Hyrcania by St. Sabas, c.492. Mardes was a laura founded in 425.

[107] Pratum Spirituale 159, Wortley, Spiritual Meadow, 131, cf. Abba Gregory, Moschus, Pratum Spirituale 139 (Wortley, Spiritual Meadow,113).

[108] Moschus, Pratum Spirituale 53 (Wortley, Spiritual Meadow, 42).

[109] Hirschfeld, Judaean Desert Monasteries, 206-12.

[110] Nina Collins, The Library in Alexandria and the Bible in Greek (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 100, citing the Plautine Scholium of Johannes Tzetzes.

[111] Geza Vermes, The Dead Sea Scrolls in English, (4th edition, Harmondsworth: Penguin,1995), 20-40; James VanderKam, The Dead Sea Scrolls Today, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010), 97-126, inter alia, and see now Kenneth Atkinson and Jodi Magness, “Josephus’s Essenes and the Qumran Community,” JBL 129 (2010): 317-42.

[112] See Eshel, Dead Sea Scrolls and the Hasmonean State.

[113] Note that the identification of the connectedness of scrolls buried in the caves on the basis of the appearance of a single scribal hand (see Yardeni, “A Note on a Qumran Scribe”) does not necessarily imply one single library. Rather, while a scribe’s work might have been associated with a library or single patron, it could also be dispersed into different libraries or private collections. What this scribal hand indicates is a remarkable link between the origin and final resting place of scrolls; the intermediate period remains open to different models, but the evidence must imply that the scribe was working for people who would ultimately gather together his manuscripts, i.e. that there was group cohesion in regard to manuscripts. If scribes worked at Qumran (see Ira Rabin, Oliver Hahn, Timo Wolff, Admir Masic and Gisela Weinberg, “On the Origin of the Ink of the Thanksgiving Scroll (1QHodayot^a),” DSD 16 [2009]: 97-106) then they were returned to source. They comprise a group holding, which may yet have been dispersed into different smaller units. The duplication of manuscripts may also indicate this.

[114] If we take 20 men (not including families) as constituting an average population of an Essene community, we would have two thousand small libraries required to facilitate their group readings, but groups may well have been smaller, cf. 1QS 6: 6 “And where there are ten, they will not lack a man among them who will study the law continually day and night ...” This statement itself indicates just how many scrolls may have been required overall.