Talk:Qumran/Archive 1

merchant outpost?
I'm of a mind to scrap or heavilly rewrite the final paragraph : it is clear PoV pushing of a minority view. Very few scholars hold that the settlement had anything other than a religious purpose. Whilst the Essene hypothesis has its problems, and there is increasing dissent for this view, the dissent is not over the general religious function of the site, rather than the identification of the group as being specifically "Essene" (as we understand the term from reference to our sources).

For a recent oft-cited detailed survey of archeological scholarship at the ruins themselves, see : Magness, J, The Archeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls (Grand Rapids, MI. : William B. Eerdmans Pub., 2002) 0802845894

Before I do scrub the entire paragraph, any objections?

Tobermory 09:38, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

I agree it is a minority view, but it may be worth leaving a mention of it just to illustrate the difficulty of the archaeological evidence? After all, the relation of the Scrolls and the Qumran site nearby is still debated. I have mentioned Qumran finds in a section under Temple in Jerusalem, and the argument for a Zadokite Temple there, so it is perhaps useful to show that the extreme opposite has also been held. --ADMH 23:33, 18 May 2006 (UTC)

I think not only the last paragraph should be rewritten, but in the light of that also other sections of the entry. E.g. the dates 150-130 are disputed (cf. Magness), and one cannot at the same time in the last paragraph question the traditional interpretation but uphold references as statements to ritual baths, etc. in previous paragraphs. The best would be to refer explicitly to different models of interpretation, namely one according to the hitherto consensus theory, and a multitude of other recently posed new ones. On the other hand, one should not state that "very few scholars hold that the settlement had anything other than a religious purpose." Most scholars, myself included, favour the religious community theory, because it is a building brick of the entire consensus theory. However, I have the impression that many colleagues acknowledge weaknesses of the conventional interpretation and do not categorically dismiss other views.

22 October 2006 Eibert Tigchelaar

--

I agree that it would be better to preserve the final paragraph in some form. One needs to talk about the impact of the research of the Donceels who brought to light several archaeological indications that the site has been inadvertantly misrepresented. Pauline Donceel-Voute attempted to explain some of these indications by seeing Qumran as a villa. Jodi Magness has shown that the interpretation is unlikely, though she hasn't actually dealt at all with the indications that disturbed Donceel-Voute. We are still left with quality wares made at Qumran, the production of glass wares, architectural elements such as columns which don't fit in a religious community. These do not fit into the notion of a religious establishment. There are several kilns on the site (I count at least seven, though not all in use at the same time) and much unused pottery has been found, so the production of pottery in commercial quantities seems fairly conclusive.

We can no longer accept the notion that the pottery in locus 86/89 was for ritual use in the hypothesized dining room next door, for there were far too many items (at least five for each of the hypothesized diners). The notion that we have a dining room in locus 77 needs to account for the fact that the kitchen on the site was at the other side of the settlement, so there really is nothing going for the dining room interpretation of locus 77, which looks like a common store room going on other sites in the region.

What we need to do I think, is start from the substantive evidence that can be garnered from the site, an approach which Magness lacks, as she thinks it is reasonable procedure to bias the archaeology due to the belief that the scrolls reflect a direct connection with the site, a so far unfounded belief.

I must admit that the dates 150-130 are quite unrelated to any of the archaeological analysis published for the site. The earliest of the period we are interested in, leaving aside the Iron Age settlement, is late in the reign of John Hyrcanus, as it was his coins that make the earliest sizable collection from the site. Roland de Vaux advocated that his period 1a reflected the time of John Hyrcanus. Most advocate that the site was built later, under Alexander Jannaeus. This is an attempt at economy of explanation of the site, but it requires one to date the kilns under the apron of the split cistern as coming from the Iron Age, which I think is unjustified. For me the most economical understanding of the foundation of the settlement at Qumran relates to the Hasmonean interest in occupying the Dead Sea area as a stage towards its defence. This foundation coincided with the production of pottery for Jericho and, later, other sites. Magness argues against the period of John Hyrcanus.

There are many things that are not as yet understood about the site, the first in importance as I understand it now, is water usage. There are several stepped cisterns at the site which are now generally assumed to have at least partially had cultic use for ritual ablution, yet given the extreme shortage of water in the region and the site's obvious attempt to capitalise on the greatest water conservation possible, interpreting the large cisterns as miqwa'ot seems strained. Another thing that needs to be made clear is the discussion about how many people the site could sustain, given the analysis of the site and its surroundings by Joseph Patrich and others indicates that there were not hundreds but tens of people living at Qumran. A smaller number should help to question the water usage of the stepped cisterns. It is also consistent with the notion that locus 77 was not a dining room. Still there are many issues to be clarified.

Ian Hutchesson, 25th October 2006

Further mods to be done
Things that need to be done (random thoughts):

1) 150-130 should be more like 120-90, ie under John Hyrcanus or Alexander Jannaeus.

2) A lot of the Essene material should not be in the article, as it is mostly institutionalised speculation and has little directly to do with the site.


 * I added dissenting views to the Qumran-Essene Theory, including a reference to a recent paper by Norman Golb at the University of Chicago. Chrisbak 03:17, 23 April 2007 (UTC)

3) More of the modern history of the site, including early dig info.

4) Cemetery needs to be discussed dealing with Sheridan, Roehrer-Ertl and Zias. This is ugly.

5) More details of Magen and Peleg's work is necessary. (In Galor 2006)

6) Link to Roland de Vaux.

7) Shelves in caves speculation needs to go. Just wishful interpretation of unequal weathering of rock layers inside cave 4.

(And the Jericho entry needs some info about the Hasmonean and Herodian efforts there, so that Jericho can be better linked to Qumran.)

Got any more things that need to be done? --Ihutchesson 11:58, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Lonnqvist
I sent this to the editor who moved the Lonnquist material from "Religious site" to "Recent archaeological analyses":

I'm writing about the Lonnquist spatial studies for the Qumran page. Although it may have been done by an archaeologist, it has nothing directly to do with archaeology, as it is clearly site interpretation and doesn't belong in a section which deals with archaeology.

There are enough problems in providing neutral material that will be useful to all readers, but the Lonnquist stuff is not accepted by archaeologists. Could I take it back out of that section? If so, how can it be included in the Qumran page?

When I separated the material into headings, I put the Lonnquist studies under "religious site" with the materials it was already attached to, which I thought was reasonable as its aim is to show the site must have been religious. - If nothing is heard, I hope to be able to put the Lonnquist material elsewhere.

--Ihutchesson 06:45, 11 December 2006 (UTC) - I would like to ask if Ihutchesson holds Phd in Archaeology? There are several schools in Archaeology, and the Lonnqvist paradigm is Scientific Archaeology approved by those archaeologists who understand spatial analyses and GIS. There are several European professional archaeologists who support the Lonnqvist theory, so do not make quotation marks with American - Israeli archaeologists with all the archaeologists in the world.

European archaeologist - I'm sorry, but if you'd like to argue in support of the Lonnqvist conclusions, I'd be happy to read it. Your final sentence after the "so" is obscure to me. --Ihutchesson 14 March 2007 - INTERNATIONAL STATEMENTS RECEIVED ON THE BOOK:

The theory by Minna and Kenneth Lönnqvist has been listed as one of the five major theories concerning the nature of the Qumran community by Professor Emanuel Tov. (E. Tov, Controversies around the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Helsinki Collegium, spring 2003, and published in Teologinen Aikakauskirja, Teologisk Tidskrift, i.e. The Theological Journal, Vol. 5, 2003, pp. 387-400). Emmanuel Tov Professor, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel The Editor-in-Chief of the Qumran Scrolls publication project

“..it is the first of 5, since it goes deeper into the background”

Jack M. Sasson Werthan Professor of Jewish Studies and Hebrew Bible, and former Director of Jewish Studies, Vanderbilt University, Former President of Society of Biblical Literature (SE Branch), former President of Society of Biblical Literature (SE Branch), former President of American Oriental Society

“Votre travail, indépendamment de la manière dont il est reçu, représente une contribution originale aux études qumraniennes.” “Your work, apart from the manner how it has been received, represents an original contribution to the Qumran studies.”

Jean-Baptiste Humbert O.P., École Biblique et Archéologique Française, Jerusalem Final Editing of the Archaeology of Kh. Qumran & ‘Aïn Feshkha Director of Publication “Yours is indeed an innovative and enlightening hypothesis, which strikes directly at the mainstream conception of fairly unilinear religious evolution (i.e. that Qumran is the ‘missing link’ between post-exilic and rabbinic Judaism, or alternatively, the ‘missing link’ between normative Second Temple Judaism and Christianity). Your case is argued methodologically and I admire your efforts.”

Neil Asher Silberman Author of several books in the field of archaeology Director of historical interpretation for the Ename Center for Public Archaeology and Heritage Presentation, Belgium Contributing editor to Archaeology magazine

“A comprehensive book on Qumran, represents a comprehensive archaeological survey of the site and area in addition to drawing on a wide range of written and material data from several sources. A particular role is ascribed to the so-called Tomb of Jason and to the role of symbolism in the community.” Klaus Randsborg Professor, World Archaeology, University of Copenhagen, Denmark Editor-in Chief, Acta Archaeologica

“A serious piece of work”

Ezra Zubrow Professor, Archaeologist University of Buffalo, New York, USA University of Cambridge, UK

“This monograph is based on an archaeological re-evaluation of relevant monuments (e.g. the tomb of Jason in Jerusalem) and introduction of Egyptian astrology. Also demography is analysed based on available material. The work reconsiders traditional interpretations of the phenomenon including new aspects mentioned above...they contribute to the important debate on Qumran. Chosen methods seem to be relevant and bringing results.”

Ingolf Thuesen Professor, Near Eastern Archaeologist Director of Carsten Niebuhr Institute Institute for Middle Eastern, Asiatic and Eskimological Studies University of Copenhagen, Denmark

“It introduces a new critical and controversial view about the nature and the origins of the Qumran scriptures and settlement. They raise many crucial questions about earlier Qumran interpretations and provide new alternative interpretation that makes sense....the book has global impact and, as the title suggests, attempts to establish a new paradigm.”

Milton Nuñez Professor, Archaeologist Director, the Archaeological Laboratory at the University of Oulu, Finland

“Suffice to state that the High Priest Onias (exiled to Egypt) and so-called Tomb of Jason in Jerusalem, which the Lönnqvists ascribe to Onias and his brother Jason and see as reflecting an Osirian tomb type, known from the Deir el-Medina region in Egypt, are important in the argument. ... it has opened new and important interpretations of the evidence.” Gullög Nordquist Dean of the Faculty Professor, Mediterranean Archaeologist Institute for Archaeology and Antiquity University of Uppsala, Sweden

“A most excellent book, which I believe warrants a much wider circulation. This immensely important scholarly book gives clear-cut evidence for a linkage back from Qumran to Ancient Egypt. It should be essential reading for anyone interested in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Qumran or indeed the Bible itself.” Robert Feather Metallurgist Author of The Copper Scroll Decoded London, England

One doesn't say anything by citing book testimonials.

Besides, Humbert is the only one who has certain knowledge of Qumran and he's already committed himself to his sacred space theory.

--Ihutchesson 13:36, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Your claim above was that the Lonnqvist theory does not find any support among archaeologists, so one needs to bring evidence to the contrary which is provided in book testimonials citations. As far as Humbert is concerned, his sacred space views are in agreement with those of the Lonnqvists (see Lonnqvist & Lonnqvist 2002 and Humbert 2006: 36).

European archaeologist

Pay a scholar and s/he is likely to talk about what you want. Give me positive scholarly citations in peer reviewed journals and you may have a point. Otherwise, nothing.

--Ihutchesson 03:20, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Insertions defending Qumran-Essene hypothesis in portion on "Critiquing the Qumran-Essene hypothesis
Jossi, your lengthy quotation from Magness will be met with equally lengthy quotations from Hirschfeld, Magen and Peleg, refuting her claims. Hirschfeld indicates that similar pantries and dining areas have been found in many archaeological sites in Israel and that they were the places where the slaves of the soldiers ate their meals. (Hirschfeld devotes something like 80 pages to demonstrating that the site was a fortress--it looks like you have not read his book.) Magen and Peleg discuss the animal bones at length and show there is nothing "sectarian" about them. Magen and Peleg show that only a few of the cisterns were ritual baths, and all Jews used such baths. (It looks like you have not read this material either even though it is available on-line.)

So I suggest you either remove the lengthy quotation from a book by the most doctrinaire defender of the old theory, putting it in its appropriate spot without the words "came to the defense," or be prepared for a war of quotations here.Critical Reader (talk) 18:15, 26 November 2007 (UTC)


 * I think that you really need to cool off. I am not interested in engaging with you on these terms. ≈ jossi ≈ (talk) 04:11, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm entirely cool, I simply believe your insertions are manifestly inappropriate in this portion of the article (remember NPOV?), and therefore they will have to be responded to. Don't say I didn't warn you before doing this, but in the end Dr. Magness will come out looking like a fool (or unfortunately worse) because of the basic points she misrepresented--implying, for example, that there is something unique about the dining arrangement found at Qumran, when in fact it have been commonly found in many archaeological sites in Israel. I'm trying to prevent this from becoming a feud--what we had was good enough, but with your pro-Essene insertions in this section (rather than in the previous one where they belong) you are opening a can of worms.Critical Reader (talk) 06:00, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I have now inserted material from four Israeli archaeologists (including the key specialist on pottery) rejecting Magness. I have also reorganized some of the material. I have deleted the following sentence:

David A. Fiensy, cites A. Dupont-Somer, N. Avigad and E. L. Sukeink, F. M. Cross, D. Flusser, H. Stegemann, G. Vermes, J. Fitzmeyer, J.C VaderKam, Edrdmans, F. G. Martinez, J. H. Chareslworth, and C. M. Murphy for the view that the Qumran sectarian where Essenes, N. Golb for "the view that the scrolls represent Judaism in general and not a sect", and Schiffman for the view that the scrolls were written by Sadducees.

Please explain why the sentence is pertinent here.Critical Reader (talk) 20:55, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Material in introduction from F.F. Bruce
There was some antiquated material added to the third paragraph mined from the opinions of F.F. Bruce in a book written in 1956. It talked of the "Kitti'im cemetery" amongst other things, presenting Bruce's old speculations as facts. I've reverted it to the last clean version (08:28, 24 April 2009), which I have subsequently fixed up.

It would be good if someone needs to present scholarly speculations, that they clearly mark them as speculations, they are sure they are not superseded speculations, and they hopefully supply a few indications of alternative speculations. Thanks. --Ihutchesson (talk) 00:37, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
 * agreed. thanx.--XKV8R (talk) 00:46, 3 August 2009 (UTC)

Comment
This is a great article, it should be promoted as a featured article. One note, given the attention and controversy regarding the cemetery, it might be nice to give this area its own section in the article. I will add more later. ''Em-jay-es 21:20, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

This map is wrong showing En Gedi outside the green line (i.e. in the West Bank instead of Israel). Please fix this. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.110.220.98 (talk) 05:02, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

A few changes
The statements (apparently authored by Robert Cargill) that Norman Golb "suggested" Qumran was a fortress and "suggested" the scrolls came from Jerusalem are subtly defamatory; I have changed them to "developed the theory" and "concluded." See Golb's comment on Cargill's allegation that he merely "suggested" Qumran was a fortress, in his review of the "Virtual Qumran" film (pp. 6-7).

I have also introduced a brief paragraph explaining that Golb, Hirschfeld, Magen and Peleg all conclude that there is no organic connection between the scrolls and Qumran, and that the scrolls came from the Jerusalem region. Clearly the question of whether the Dead Sea Scrolls were written by a sect living at Qumran is pertinent in an article about Qumran. The way Mr. Cargill had formulated things, readers were left with the false impression that Golb is an isolated figure in Dead Sea Scrolls research. Critical Reader (talk) 01:55, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
 * i am just now re-reading some of raphael's comments from nearly two years ago. given this year's events, the 'subtly defamatory' comment is a bit ironic in retrospect, no? ;-) --XKV8R (talk) 00:49, 3 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I don't quite know what's going on here, but "Critical Reader" is wrong if he or she thinks that Golb either "developed the theory" that Qumran was a fortress or that the scrolls came from Jerusalem. The former was from Bar-Adon; the latter was K.H. Rengstorf. --Ihutchesson (talk) 20:44, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
 * ian, 'critical reader' was raphael golb, ng's son. he would use aliases to insert comments favorable to dad, and spent the rest of his time slamming many that disagreed. 'critical reader' was banned for sock puppetry, and the ip addresses used matched those of the larger smear campaign. see http://www.who-is-charles-gadda.com for details. golb is pending trial for other acts committed during the campaign. and you are correct, there were many before ng that suggested/developed a fortress theory. --XKV8R (talk) 21:03, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the clarification. --Ihutchesson (talk) 07:00, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

questioning the section on the lonnqvists in the heading q-e hypothesis
what is this paragraph doing here? (and the next one for that matter?) i'd argue that the paragraph about de vaux's interpretation be moved here. we need to ad some sentencs on milik, since hehad a little something to do with the hypo as well. then i'd suggest moving the interpretation and challenge section up, and the bronze coins section down, since it is a sub-set of the interpretation. objections? --XKV8R (talk) 06:56, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I don't know what to make of the Lonnqvist site analysis at all. Humbert also tries to read Qumran as symbolically religious, but it all seems to be people pulling rabbits out of hats, rather than doing archaeology. (But that's just my biases I guess.)
 * I moved the dispute section out of the upper part of the article because it was overtly confrontational and needed to be worked on heavily, the hype and the repetitions removed. The move separated de Vaux's interpretation of the site from that section, but I thought it was worth it for the move.
 * I'd like to see the whole thing abbreviated rather than expanded. It has really little to do with the archaeology of Qumran. What the article needs is more about the site and its features. Interpretations float on top of the site information. (And the scrolls have, so far, nothing directly to do with the archaeology of Qumran, so, for example, Golb's saying that the scrolls came from Jerusalem is a big "so what?".) I know we all like overarching explanations, but the Brown conference should have shown that there isn't one that reaches the whole Qumran archaeological community and as things stand the positions don't seem reconcilable. Rather than a blow-by-blow play-off, isn't a summary of this state of affairs sufficient? --Ihutchesson (talk) 08:36, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
 * i'd almost agree with you about the origin of the scrolls, but they are objects found near and around the site. if we're going to talk about the caves, the pottery found in them and at jericho, the basalt grinding stone, nails, arrowheads, linens, etc. all found outside of the walls of the settlement, they we should include the scrolls as objects found within the context of qumran as well (we shouldn't selectively eliminate the dss from the picture when we discuss everything else). sure, the idea that the dss are all from jerusalem and have nothing to do with qumran is far-fetched, but there are a lot of divergent opinions mentioned in the article (see lonnqvists above). but you're right, i'd love to have this article reflect more of the archaeology of the site and less about certain fringe theories held by non-archaeologists. --XKV8R (talk) 16:13, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Just so you know, I published an article in 1999 in QC (8:3) which accepted the notion that the scrolls are best understood as coming from Jerusalem. I haven't changed my mind on the issue. (This doesn't mean that the meagre fragments in caves 7-9 are part of the caching process seen in the further caves or Caves 4 & 5.) I see no other solution to explain the vast number of scribal hands, nor the high numbers of scrolls such as Deuteronomy (even the most literate community of a few dozen people wouldn't need 30 copies -- and there is no reason to assume high literacy).
 * As to the pottery in the caves, there is some reason to talk about it: we have pottery both at Qumran and in the caves and the comparison has been made in the literature. If you have an archaeological link between the scrolls and the settlement, then there would be a reason to deal with them as archaeology here, wouldn't you think? The contents of dumps outside the walls bring us back inside the walls, but how do the scrolls bring us back? Is the balsam jar relevant to Qumran?
 * People who want to write about theories related to the scrolls and their writers can do so in the Dead Sea Scrolls article. There's a lot of material about the site that can be presented here without getting bogged down in controversy. We don't even have a map of the site up yet, though it would be handy because it would allow us to talk about specific regions of the site and how it changed over time, the various issues such as evidence for an earthquake or the traces of a fire. The nitty-gritty archaeology is safer ground and would be more productive because it's stuff that everyone can benefit from. --Ihutchesson (talk) 17:00, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
 * - just so you know (in the spirit of full disclosure), i published an article and wrote a book this year about how the scrolls indeed can be seen as a product of the residents of qumran. i haven't changed my mind on that issue. i have a personal library, and it is not limited to books i wrote, nor is it limited to opinions and viewpoints i personally hold. sure, most of my library deals with subject matter near and dear to my heart, but not all. likewise, i do purchase the volumes of scholars with whom i adamantly disagree. the residents of qumran may have done the same. sure, there are some divergent opinions, but the bulk of the sectarian literature has a cohesiveness to it and is congruent with the existence of a teacher, a yahad community, jubilees, an unorthodox lunar calendar, etc. it is possible to explain how some divergent materials made it into the library/genizah at qumran, but is far more difficult to explain how and why a bunch disparate documents from jerusalem contain the cohesiveness of the ideals they possess, as well as the apparently self- or temple priesthood-condemning (depending on whether they came from the j'm library or several libraries) messages that they contain. as i argued in my book, it is also nearly impossible to explain how those scrolls got into qumran's backyard and into caves with qumran pottery if some army is still at qumran. ng tried to re-date the destruction of the site just to get around this inconvenient fact. there may be few remains of scrolls in caves 7-9, but there are remains (and date pits), and they can't get put there without going behind qumran's walls. if jericho and 'ain feshkha and other portable objects in and around the site are part of the context of qumran, why not the scrolls???
 * - all that is to say, the dss should be considered objects from the qumran excavations, and are rightly reflected as such here. you are correct, this should also be mentioned in perhaps more detail in the dead sea scrolls article, but they warrant mention here.
 * - i added the bar-adon reference to the biblio. he did say fortress before many of the others (keep in mind that we're still cleaning up much of raphael golb's mess here.)
 * - and didn't you and i spin around this topic on a message board in the past? ;-) --XKV8R (talk) 17:56, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
 * The reason why I mentioned that I went to print on scrolls from Jerusalem is your comment that "the dss are all from jerusalem and have nothing to do with qumran is far-fetched". I was tacitly asking you to tone down on the sort of comment that is not helpful to our task.
 * If I have to deal with texts because one finds it difficult to understand how texts critical to the powers in the temple were found among the DSS I would explain that at the time of Hellenistic crisis the temple was occupied by Menelaus and then Alcimus and their cronies, while the majority of the priesthood were forced to abandon the temple, going out to join Judas Maccabaeus. It is patently clear that there would be criticism of those unworthies in control of the temple. But at the same time among the scrolls you find a defence of temple and priestly purity (MMT), priestly visions of the temple (SSS), priestly rosters (mishmarot), temple liturgies, there is also a list of treasures that pertain to the temple, so temple and priesthood are central to a number of important works, but they are all simply ignored due to the allure of a few texts.
 * I see little hope for your hypotheses about what the residents of Qumran may have done getting beyond hypotheses. And going over analyses of the scrolls is not transparently relevant to Qumran. One might expect that in some artifical caves that were lived in there were one or two scrolls (though strangely without a sign of scrolls within the settlement). They in no way hint at the massive bundle of texts hidden in the erstwhile unused cave 4. How the scrolls got into cave 4 (and the other caves) is obviously not totally unrelated to the site of Qumran, but I've already explained the issue: it's related to the deposits of texts also found in antiquity in and around Jericho. Qumran was not the only place that texts were hidden. Origen tells us about one find from a cave and Timotheus tells us of another. Relating the scrolls deposits to a local phenomenon doesn't seem to me to deal with all the facts.
 * My interest here is to deal with the archaeology, and the history of the site, of Qumran not all the attempts to relate the scrolls to the site. I have no problem in some treatment of the matter, but when I came back to this article I saw that it was made the central issue and there was very little real development of the archaeology. I've already stated that I think this article should be about archaeology and the site, but if you want to continue to make the scrolls the central issue, then I'll have to leave you to it. --Ihutchesson (talk) 01:14, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
 * as i said, methinks you've made this argument to me before on iidb. we are in agreement that this article should be about qumran, its name, the site, its history, its significance, and its archaeology. part of its significance is its association with the dss, but detailed analysis of the scrolls should go there. you and i and the ten or so folks who have worked on this article collaboratively in a constructive manner should have no problem working together on it. all i am suggesting is that there is more to this site than its archaeology. however, the article can greatly benefit from our archaeological analysis and contributions. i look forward to working with you and all others that contribute in a constructive fashion. --XKV8R (talk) 01:42, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

I don't know what you are talking about with what youthinks. I acknowledge and have consistently acknowledged here that the scrolls need to be dealt with in an article on Qumran. It is expected. Their relationship is unclear however. You insist that part of the significance is the site's "association with the Dead Sea Scrolls", but what is that association? I doubt that even you cannot answer that question with any meaning. Archaeology is a rather practical subject. It is normally at its core descriptive; it provides the data for others to misuse. I'd like to see us stick to the data. There's a lot for us to do without further stewing over the scrolls. Can we return to helping improve the article now? --Ihutchesson (talk) 03:27, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
 * -yes, we should work on the article. otherwise, we'll just spend our time  s p i n ning our wheels. (it's ok. i learned a lot tracking raphael for 2 years, gathering every ip address, talking to every moderator and sys admin, and the da's office has far more power than i do.)
 * -this is more than an archaeology article. (that is asorpedia, and i'm working on that.) while you and i may lean towards emphasizing archaeology (given our education and publishing history), qumran is more than just its archaeology. it is indeed significant because of its association with the dss (whether you think it to be deserved or not). so yes, let us move forward with improving the article. i'm sure you'll tell me if i edit something you don't like and i'll do the same.
 * -i've added your article to the references section: Hutchesson, Ian, "63 BCE: A Revised Dating for the Depositation of the Dead Sea Scrolls," Qumran Chronicle 8 (Nov 1999): 177-194. i'll also mention this synopsis by greg doudna here. it's a good contribution. we obviously disagree, but we can agree to acknowledge each other's contributions.
 * -happy editing. --XKV8R (talk) 04:25, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Thing is, I don't see why you need to cite the QC piece in this article. And Doudna has moved a little later than 63 BCE. Oh, and I like your colors. --Ihutchesson (talk) 04:53, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

New section: Images of the Qumran site
I've just added a brief tour of Qumran based on the photos held by Wiki. It's not a wonderful layout, but Wiki images are a little difficult to layout, so I've had to put the whole section in a hidden table. There's plenty of room to expand the comments. (Useful) comments welcome. Is there anything that needs changing? Is there anything I need to footnote? --Ihutchesson (talk) 07:37, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
 * haven't seen anything like it on wiki. i like it. --XKV8R (talk) 15:48, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

on the round cistern
amen and amen. lol. i still don't see why some feel it is hasmonean. it is from the iron age.--XKV8R (talk) 15:51, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Cleanup notice
I've added a cleanup notice to the start of this article. It is in dire need of rewriting. Much of the section called Discovery is actually about the scrolls and can be better dealt with in the Dead Sea Scrolls article. Due to piecemeal editing there is repetition and view shifting. There is also a lot of sniping and arguing in the article.

Citations in the article are not consistent. (As I'm responsible for some of the in-text citations I can move them to footnotes.) The article now relatively long is rather lean on citations and content needs to be supported more rigorously. I think a lot of "Citation needed" notices may start to appear. --Ihutchesson (talk) 01:45, 3 August 2009 (UTC)
 * agreed. much of this article is what's left over from raphael's meddling and arguments. now that he's been exposed, i agree that we should clean the article up. i'll chip in too.--XKV8R (talk) 02:01, 3 August 2009 (UTC)


 * Hopefully fixed all my citations now, moving them into footnotes. --Ihutchesson (talk) 23:19, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Can the photo marked "Qumran settlement ruins" be placed at the site of Qumran? I don't recognize the angle at all. Note the vicinity of the mounds and the location of the cars. --Ihutchesson (talk) 18:43, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
 * i don't recognize it either, and neither is the landscape familiar. let's remove it and i'll make public some from my collection. we can replace it with those.--XKV8R (talk) 00:49, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I've removed the offending image. --Ihutchesson (talk) 23:19, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

i've added the following photos from my album/research. feel free to use them on the qumran page. i'll add some more as needed. anything specific anyone want?
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Qumran_L138_miqvah.jpg
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Qumran_L30_scriptorium.png
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Qumran_chronology_chart_3.jpg
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Qumran_cliffs.jpg
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Qumran_L97_stables.jpg (this file is a reconstruction)--XKV8R (talk)...


 * That's great. These are good additions to the repertoire of already available images. --Ihutchesson (talk) 23:19, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps I've been slack in my footnote style, but I don't see the point of citing full names for works, most of which are the materials found in the References section. This seems to be an unnecessary reduplication to me and makes the footnotes long and -- for me -- hard to find information in. The alternative that I've followed may seem convoluted in that one has to get the full name of the work from the references section. Is this lack of uniformity a problem? --Ihutchesson (talk) 07:00, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
 * we could make it all uniform. i see the references as an exhaustive list of references dealing with qumran, even if they are not used in the wiki article. the notes obviously are citations. i prefer being able to click on the note and be taken straight to the full biblio reference, instead of having to then jump down to the biblio, but that's just me. we could break it into two colums and make the text smaller. --XKV8R (talk) 07:18, 13 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Two columns look ok. --Ihutchesson (talk) 07:38, 13 August 2009 (UTC)


 * I looked at the images (above) and I thought that the chronology chart would be useful for the article, so I went ahead and added it.   ''Em-jay-es  15:54, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

New section on Qumran population
I've tried to run the gamut on relevant writings on the population of Qumran, but there is always something one doesn't know about. So, any further recent discussion on the population out there? Thanks.--Ihutchesson (talk) 12:25, 31 August 2009 (UTC)

New DSS template
I've created a navigation template for DSS topics (giving easy access to all DSS related topics) and included it in this article. Any suggestions for the template are welcome here. Thanks.--Ihutchesson (talk) 00:58, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Changes 23 August
1) Revision as of 12:06, 23 August by Coralapus

There were too many changes at once. If separate changes are made, the changes are easier to follow for other editors.

(Laperoussez was not relevant to the Fiensy comment and was removed. But the whole paragraph I took out as needlessly polemical.)

The Essene hypothesis did go virtually unchallenged, though, yes, a few such as Driver, Roth and Zeitlin did challenge. Their positions were silenced by 1960. --Ihutchesson (talk) 14:27, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I should note that none of these people were interested in Qumran, but the interpretation of the Dead Sea Scrolls.--Ihutchesson (talk) 20:51, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Please look for a link before removing it as dead. Often academic sites move things around. It's best to mark a link as dead, if you can't find it or don't have time to look, rather than removing it.

2) I've cut a lot of the material in the Qumran-Essene Hypothesis section, some of which was repeating of earlier material and the Fiensy comment seemed unhelpful. Some of the material relating to de Vaux has been moved back to the section on de Vaux's interpretation.

I don't really know what to do about the litany in the challenge to the hypothesis section. If similarities or groupings could be made of the material it would make for more interest. --Ihutchesson (talk) 14:27, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

3) Also removed the Stephen Goranson references at the bottom as not particularly relevant to the Qumran article and would be better suited for either the Dead Scrolls article or the Essene article.


 * [http://www.duke.edu/~goranson/jannaeus.pdf Stephen Goranson,"Jannaeus, His Brother Absalom, and Judah the Essene" gives evidence for the identity of three individuals mentioned in Qumran texts.
 * [http://www.duke.edu/~goranson/Essenes_&_Others.pdf
 * Stephen Goranson, (1999). "Others and Intra-Jewish Polemic as Reflected in Qumran Texts". in Peter W. Flint and James C. VanderKam. The Dead Sea Scrolls after Fifty Years: A Comprehensive Assessment. 2. Leiden: Brill. pp. 534–551, gives evidence that the English name "Essenes" goes back to various Greek spellings that go back to a Hebrew self-designation, 'osey hatorah, found in some Qumran texts.

--Ihutchesson (talk) 17:26, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Further revisions by Coralapus.
Sorry, Coralapus. I've hacked at your edits. I work on the notion of reducing argumentativeness in the article. This means I think one should state a view and provide some contrasting material where relevant. One should avoid "This is the case... But actually... Yet this is more accurate..."-type passages.

Also material added usually needs a secondary source.

I left the Stephen Goranson links this time although I don't think they are relevant here. But then again XKV8R has included an article of mine that I don't think is appropriate here. The page is about Qumran and its archaeology. Most interpretations of the site not by archaeologists are usually more about the scrolls than Qumran.

If you think my editing of your work has been tendentious, try to get another editor in to comment on it, so that we can avoid any unnecessary edits. Thanks for your understanding.--Ihutchesson (talk) 16:26, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Challenging de Vaux
Coralapus and I are in some conflict over this subject. I don't consider that before the early 1990s there was much challenge to the interpretation de Vaux followed. Here's my latest version (keeping the refs visible):


 * There were few substantial challenges to De Vaux’s interpretation for decades \ref\Among those who dissented were G. R. Driver and Solomon Zeitlin.\/ref\ \ref\ It should be noted that some who participated in the dig, including archaeologist E.-M. Laperrousaz, and text scholars J. T. Milik and F. M. Cross disagreed with some of de Vaux's conclusions.\/ref\ until the early 1990s, when archaeologists and other scholars began to question de Vaux’s conclusions and reinterpret the archaeological remains.

Here was the previous version:


 * There were many challenges to De Vaux’s interpretation for decades \ref\Among those who dissented were G. R. Driver and Solomon Zeitlin.\/ref\ and it an unfortunate myth that these began only in the early 1990s. In fact, even some who participated in the dig, including archaeologist E.-M. Laperrousaz, and J. T. Milik, and F. M. Cross disagreed with some of de Vaux's conclusions.

I'm not greatly impressed with the whole challenging the hypothesis section, but, if it is to stay, what are the views of other editors?--Ihutchesson (talk) 16:40, 25 August 2009 (UTC)


 * The passage has been edited again by Coralapus, so I'll await comment from interested parties before I touch this particular material again.--Ihutchesson (talk) 16:21, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

A False Myth and article errors It is a false myth that there was not significant criticism of de Vaux on Qumran before 1990. From my reading and archaeological experience I recall evidence to the contrary. In addition to sometimes massive critiques from Driver, Zeitlin, del Medico, Milik (translated by Strugnell 1957/1959), Cross, an 1984 paper by Ken Hoglund, Ph. Davies (BA 51 [1988] 203-7), Allegro, Steckoll, Charlesworth RQ 1980, and others, let's consider E.-M. Laperrousaz, an archaeologist who dug at Qumran. He wrote a massive book Qoumran, 1976, as well as many other publications (e.g. on problems in Q. history and archaeology RQ 10 [1980] 269-91; Supplement to Dic. Bible t.9 1979.) J. VanderKam reviewed EML's book in JBL 79 (June 1978) 310-11. JV called it a detailed analysis that demonstrates that Qumran archaeologists have no "unanimity." JV gives examples. E.g., EML's chronology differs from RdV's--and this certainly deserves a place in the article "Chronology Chart." EML argues at length (rightly or wrongly is a separate question) that occupation started ca. 104/3 BC. Was attacked by Hasmoneans between 67 and 63. Then abandoned. Reinhabited during Herod's reign, ca. 20 BC... Any reasonable reader will see that he significantly differs from de Vaux and that it is a false myth that de Vaux went unchallenged until 1990. The wiki article includes other errors, some of which Ian H. so far prevented from being fixed. Stephen Goranson Coralapus (talk) 10:42, 27 August 2009 (UTC)Coralapus


 * Thanks for your comments, Coralapus. I think the specific issue that we are wrangling about is one of perspective: you give more significance to earlier aberrations than I do. (I think the game fundamentally changed when de Vaux's materials came under close scrutiny, providing for the first time information that just wasn't available until the late 1980s when Robert Donceel was given the task of giving order to the material for publication. It is from that time that a range of very different positions from the past based on new hard evidence started to emerge.) VdK writing way back then couldn't have had much of a perspective available to him. It a bit like a town notables complaining about the horrors of rowdy local criminals before the mafia comes to the town. As I said (and this is basically also the opinion of the editors of the Brown conference collection) the game changed.
 * I think putting the issue down to a false myth versus your accurate information is not a useful dichotomy. I think your analysis is just wrong, but our aim here is to work to a resolution or compromise if necessary. This is why I tried to incorporate much of the material in a footnote and remove the opinion, which I thought was a fair compromise. I did not say that de Vaux's interpretation went unchallenged. After your modification, which I watered it down to "few substantial challenges" because I think your interpretation is an exaggeration that doesn't consider the impact that access to de Vaux's material caused.
 * I don't know what to say about the chronology chart. It's in a form that is difficult to manage.
 * All substantive new information added to the article needs to be footnoted, which I'm sure you can appreciate.
 * Some of my working methodology here: I am trying to work on this article as neutrally as possible. An internally argumentative article usually leads to confusing, hard to follow text: rightly or wrongly, that's why I removed some of your material. I try to avoid pov and will hack anything that seems that way to me.
 * Can we work out an approach to an article on the site and archaeology of Qumran that is acceptable to the both of us, one that doesn't try to sell a single line of analysis, one that tries to be accessible but informative to any Wiki reader? I think it's possible.--Ihutchesson (talk) 14:11, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Bronze coinage
This section is actually half about coins in general, suggesting that the general material shouldn't be under the heading. Also it seems argumentative without support. Coralapus added a "he claimed" after "Thirdly," which I converted into a request for a citation.

Coralapus, you also added a clause about the possibility that a hoard was deposited in after period II. I removed this because it appeared to be speculation and it was unsupported. Also it wasn't the place to put such information, but perhaps it suggests that we need to rework the coin section. XKV8R, where are you?--Ihutchesson (talk) 14:58, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Sept 5.
Coralapus, please read the cited material before changing related content. Some of your changes reflect a lack of knowledge of the content of what you are trying to revise. The stoneware referred to by Donceel-Voute is not liturgical in nature, but expensive fineware, that caused the Donceels to say that the finds were "astounding considering what has been said about the 'monastic simplicity' of the site." I haven't even found a comment from Magness attempting to contradict the Donceels' statement here.

As to "Challenging the Qumran-Essene Hypothesis" there is nothing POV about challenging something, but there is in making a claim ("Reconfirming") that doesn't reflect the current status quo: nothing has been reconfirmed.--Ihutchesson (talk) 22:30, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Attempting to find a more acceptable word for the section than "challenging" and trying to avoid titles that are long and/or POV, I have tried "Debating the Qumran-Essene Hypothesis".--Ihutchesson (talk) 02:07, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

The litany and Yardeni's scribe
Removed reference to Zeitlin, Driver and Yardeni, as these people were working not with interpretation of Qumran, but the Dead Sea Scrolls. I await some background to the claims that Laperrousaz, Milik and Cross had any fundamental disagreements with de Vaux as to the interpretation of the site.--Ihutchesson (talk) 20:51, 7 September 2009 (UTC)


 * It is still a mystery why Yardeni is being mentioned in the Qumran article. The claim seems to be that a scribe who copied a number of scrolls worked at Qumran, but nothing has been evinced to make the connection.


 * The litany of names of people who disagreed with de Vaux is in no sense informative. What did they disagree about? What are the references? How are they relevant to a discussion of the site of Qumran?--Ihutchesson (talk) 22:03, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Ian wrote that Zeitlin and others were "silenced by 1960." That is false myth, a misunderstanding of history of scholarship. Zeitlin died in 1976, protesting "hoax" till the end. In 1971 Sidney Hoenig wrote Solomon Zeitlin: Scholar Laureate (with a foreward by the president of Israel). N. Altman still writes a medieval scenario currently.Coralapus (talk) 12:13, 9 September 2009 (UTC)Coralapus
 * What has Zeitlin got to do with an analysis of the site of Qumran, the archaeology? Mentioning names without showing the relevance to the physical site is not helpful to the article. If you want to write about scrolls do so in the DSS article, but here you need to show the relationship with the site. The aim of articles at Wiki is to be informative: relevance is an important issue. One needs to see why something or someone is mentioned.--Ihutchesson (talk) 20:52, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Ian allows Golb comments about scrolls as if all from Jerusalem in a short time, as if a cross-section of current ideas, and puts Golb in the archaeology link section (as if). Yet Golb's claims (e.g. on phylactery variant texts as if showing diversity when current research suggests no norm yet existed) have **less** evidence than Yardeni's physical examination of physical evidence from physical Qumran caves, written with physical ink (some with high Bromine levels) and using physical inkwells. But Ian wants Golb in and Yardeni out! Also, the caves may not have all received deposits all at the end--Golb and Ian oddly following de Vaux here. See, e.g. J.Taylor's 2009 SBL abstract, or Pfann, or Stoekl Ben Ezra, or, yes, earlier scholars. Yardeni's article challenges the 500-hand out-of-a-hat claim, and challenges the probability that multiple unconnected far away libraries would be so linked in most caves by a single scribe. The scribe was probably not from Timbuctu. Ockham's razor: this scribe (penning sectarian texts in the midbar) is more simply recognized at Qumran than at multiple imaginary elsewheres dreamed up to satisfy ill-informed sense of grievance.Coralapus (talk) 12:13, 9 September 2009 (UTC)Coralapus
 * I did not put Golb into the article (and the whole "Debating" section is problematic to me). However, he is dealing with the usage of the site, the view as espoused by Bar-Adon that Qumran had military significance in the Hasmonean period. He, following Rengstorf, argues that the scrolls were imported to the site from Jerusalem, as Qumran could never have supported the quantity of scribal activity seen in the scrolls -- the theory about multiple libraries has little to do with this article. (Phylacteries are somewhat tangential to this article.)
 * A scribe copying several scrolls can just as easily do so in Jerusalem or Jericho or Qumran or some other place (though Jerusalem as the only center able to support large scale scribal activity is Occam at work). Scribal evidence in itself shows nothing about Qumran: one cannot say where the scribe worked. Did all the scribes of the scrolls work at Qumran? I'm sure you will answer "no". That means a link must be made between Yardeni's scribe and the site to show relevance. Many ostraca from the site along with the inkwells attest to scribal activity at Qumran. That is not in question. What is at question is what links the specialized scribe of Yardeni's identification with scribal activity at Qumran. Qumran is not the only place to have used inkwells or scribes. You still haven't made any connection between Yardeni's scribe and the site of Qumran.
 * And please try not to use rhetoric such as "dreamed up to satisfy ill-informed sense of grievance". It's simpler to stick with the issues.--Ihutchesson (talk) 20:52, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Ian, you ignored again the sectarian scrolls copied by this scribe, based on physical examination, and how the listable scrolls differ from a crosssection, contrary to sudden influx of mixed refugees, that some say they are in the midbar, high Bromine in some ink, and that you have misrepresented the history of scholarship. To add to the probabilities relevant for Occam's razor I have added Gila Kahila Bar-Gal's physical evidence for use of Nubian ibex skin. You can claim that was imported to Jerusalem, but such would be special pleading rather than Occam's razor. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 152.3.237.34 (talk) 10:21, 10 September 2009 (UTC) Coralapus (talk)
 * Seriously, do you think goats weren't found all over Judea at the time? Jerusalem the metropolis of the region would likely get skins from across the country. You may be discombobulated by the fact that the skins weren't from Jerusalem, but it doesn't help you one iota make a connection between Yardeni's scribe and Qumran. Editors have a simple task: use relevant material for the article. Here this means you have to link Yardeni's scribe to the site of Qumran. You haven't come close as I see it.--Ihutchesson (talk) 12:21, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Naturally if the skins actually were from Qumran the slaughter would make the site ritually impure to any pious Jew.--Ihutchesson (talk) 20:30, 10 September 2009 (UTC)
 * What is your source for this claim?Coralapus (talk) 12:20, 11 September 2009 (UTC)Coralapus
 * You know the discussion about the impurity imparted from the slaughter of one animal, the red heifer. Now see the despised trades listed in Jeremias, "Jerusalem...", p.304, including herdsmen and butchers, bloodletters and tanners. Besides the slaughter, the process of preparing skins requires dung and urine, and dung-collectors are another despised trade. With the strict toilet laws attributed to the Essenes obviously Qumran would be unfit to live in if skins were prepared there. Even writers of scrolls, tefillin and mezuzot, according to Jeremias (p.307), "never bring in their wake 'a sign of blessing' ie even the smallest blessing."
 * Again from Jeremias citing a list in b.Men 87a (p.47), "Rams are brought from Moab, lambs from Hebron, calves..." ie animals were routinely imported to Jerusalem. With parchment, preparation would probably occur near the point of slaughter and only the parchment may have been imported to Jerusalem. --Ihutchesson (talk) 20:05, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Does not answer the question about your claimCoralapus (talk) 10:45, 12 September 2009 (UTC)Coralapus
 * Then which claim are you talking about?--Ihutchesson (talk) 10:53, 12 September 2009 (UTC)

Coralapus, bibliographical references are necessary for substantive information in Wikipedia. And when you mention people the reader needs to understand the purpose, ie explanation is necessary.--Ihutchesson (talk) 11:54, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Coralapus, you don't make any case for the relevance of Yardeni's scribe. So she has found a single scribe who may have copied twenty texts. You have no way of indicating where that copying was done. The information about skins not coming from Jerusalem is totally meaningless to your argument. What you are presenting is a type of synthesis which isn't acceptable to Wikipedia rules. You are creating an argument by putting these two sources together (an argument in itself that has no tangible nexus). Can you at least elucidate your idea so that an independent reader would be able to understand your rationale? Repeating the same apparently incoherent thing is simply refractory.

Also you have not explained which claim you were talking about, when you apparently rejected the fact that maintenance and slaughter of animals and the preparation of vellum at the site of Qumran are cause for rendering the site ritually impure.--Ihutchesson (talk) 14:44, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Removed links
Can't justify these links being included: --Ihutchesson (talk) 07:46, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Finding and unravelling scrolls photos.
 * Qumran photos.

De Vaux's non-mention of a monastery
This information only makes sense in the article if someone argues in the article that de Vaux claimed Qumran was a monastery. As nobody has this factoid contributes nothing.--Ihutchesson (talk) 14:40, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

deleting pop culture section
i deleted the attempt at qumran in pop culture section. it appeared to be introducing a new section for the express purpose of promoting/advertising a singer/songwriter. --XKV8R (talk) 00:03, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Yardeni's Scribe - Third Opinion
As I understand it, the main objection to the inclusion of the disputed material is that it is not relevant to the topic of the article, namely the site known as Qumran. However, the statement "Yardeni analysed and listed dozens of Qumran manuscripts" appears to establish relevance (If I am wrong, please briefly explain why). As such, I see no reason to remove the content.

Some additional notes... The citation should be wiki-fied (see WP:CITE). Also, the entire debate section seems a bit like a laundry list. My opinion is that it should be shortened and made more encyclopedic by consolidating and/or cutting some of the material. --Elplatt (talk) 19:28, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for your time and comment.

There is an ambiguity in the term "Qumran". It is used 1) of the archaeological site and 2) as a compact geographical adjective for "Dead Sea Scrolls related", so use of "Qumran" doesn't necessitate #1. People never talk about "Dead Sea Scrolls studies", but "Qumran studies". "Qumran manuscripts" is a shorthand for "manuscripts found in the caves around Qumran". At the same time there has been a long tradition of reading the scrolls found in the caves into the archaeological site of Qumran. Part of the archaeological debate about the site is that it is not a correct procedure to assume that the scrolls and their characteristics reflect the site. There has been a longstanding analysis which puts the scrolls' origin in Jerusalem. Yardeni does not connect her scribe to the settlement at Qumran. She is merely talking about about manuscripts from caves. There is no reason to assume that the scribe worked at Qumran from Yardeni's statement. That's where the Bar-Gal information comes in: using the fact that skins weren't from the Jerusalem area to suggest that they were local to Qumran, synthesizing the two ideas.

The whole debate section is a minefield. That's why I put the cleanup template on the article. It is a laundry list. I've hacked out some of the less useful info as well as the polemical scribe issue, but its origin comes from an earlier debate that some editors had and it was originally called "Criticizing the Q-E Hypothesis".--Ihutchesson (talk) 00:01, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


 * It seems like there are a number of issues: 1. whether the caves around Qumran are within the scope of the article, 2. whether there has been some synthesis that violates wp:nor and 3. the relevance of the debate section. I suggest trying to establish a consensus on each of these points individually, and then improving the disputed text rather than keeping it all out, unless the consensus is that it is not relevant. --Elplatt (talk) 04:30, 15 September 2009 (UTC)


 * 1. The caves are only peripheral to the article which is essentially about the settlement, its archaeology and its interpretation.
 * 2. It has been my understanding that Coralapus is using the two facts regarding the scribe and the scrolls not from Jerusalem to advance his own argument. Coralapus says above, "To add to the probabilities relevant for Occam's razor I have added Gila Kahila Bar-Gal's physical evidence for use of Nubian ibex skin. You can claim that was imported to Jerusalem, but such would be special pleading rather than Occam's razor."
 * 3. The debate section is about archaeology, not scrolls, an issue that Coralapus has consistently missed.


 * Now to get him to respond here will be an interesting effort.--Ihutchesson (talk) 14:40, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Scrolls are archaeological. physical artifacts. hence the relevance of ink studies, DNA skin studies, paleography, C!$ dating, etc. Some of the caves are reachable only through the settlement. As the pottery in the caves is relevant, so too the scrolls. Ian is mistaken about the history of scholarship reception of de Vaux's interpretations. Ian is mistaken about ritual purity; goat bones are already known at qumran; goat is kosher. Ian operates on an a priori unscientific myth view that all the scrolls came from outside Qumran, despite a record number of inkwells, despitE scrolls mentioning they are in the midbar, desert. It is fact that 1,2 Maccabees and Esther are books not identified at Qumran. And fact that the many calendar and other texts never mention Hanukkah or Purim. I can add documentation for these objious facts, but they are not in dispute. A. Baumgarten showed Qumran non-acceptance of some hasmonean innovations. That dozens of scrolls from most of the caves were penned by what Yardeni calls "A Qumran Scribe" and that Tov describes "Qumran scribal practice" and that Nubian ibex is native to Qumran, and high Bromine in ink (of 1QH) are all indicators of scroll production 9of some not all scrolls) at Qumran. Occam's razor says it is a simpler explanation that that scribe was at Qumran, than, in Ian's a priori preference, from *multiple* unrelated libraries of refugees from far away, going past a Roman army seige somehow to Qumran. I have noted documented scientific facts which Ian prefers to censor because they tell against his a priori preference. I will replace them, annotate firther if seems helpful, and hope these scientific, so far here undisputed facts are not censored yet again by Ian, who is apparently unaware that archaeologists do not bracket off and ignore ancient texts found at a site, as at Qumran. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Coralapus (talk • contribs) 16:23, 15 September 2009 (UTC) My comment above (forgot to sign). If the Qumran mss came from many different unrelated libraries they would lack that shared scribe so highly reptresented, and the high proportion of sectarian Essene texts. (No Sadducee texts: Sadducees disbelieved in resurrection and named angels, present at Qumran, and were basically torah-only; there is only one mentioned Sadducees book known, a Book of Decrees, which is absent at Qumran). Qumran is not a representative crosssection of contemporary literature, as shown by absence of the books and holidays noted above.Coralapus (talk) 16:30, 15 September 2009 (UTC)Coralapus


 * Coralapus, it sounds like you are drawing your own conclusion which is against the WP:NOR no original research policy. It will be easiest to reach a consensus if you only seek to include conclusions that have been published and cite them properly.  Also, please try to resolve issues one at a time.  First and foremost, do you believe that the caves around Qumran are within the scope of this article? --Elplatt (talk) 17:31, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Responding to Coralapus (after an edit conflict with Elplatt!), --Ihutchesson (talk) 17:46, 15 September 2009 (UTC)
 * The nubian ibex is a common animal found throughout south-west Asia, including Jordan and Israel: in the Negeb, the Judean highlands and the Jericho/Dead Sea region.
 * Inkwells point to writing, though what sort of writing isn't guaranteed: several ostraca were found at Qumran, but not a sign of a scroll in the settlement.
 * Yardeni could just as easily have called the scribe A "Dead Sea Scrolls" Scribe. The use of "Qumran" in her descriptive title no more gets the scribe to Qumran than your nubian ibex.
 * I don't understand why he doesn't place this material in the Dead Sea scrolls article rather than in an article ostensibly about the site of Qumran.
 * Coralapus's tying together of Yardeni with the nubian ibex is to me clearly a novel synthesis.

Responding to Elplatt. Yes, I, like most scholars with relevant archaeological experience, consider the caves relevant to the site, part of the site. Some caves are only accessible through the site. Caves have pottery made at Qumran, as shown by Gunneweg with INAA tests and by form. I can give further reasons and can cite publications that agree. In fact, I ask what heeds further documentation. I wrote, for instance, that the Book of 1 Maccabees is absent at Qumran. I did not document that (yet) because it is common knowledge; there is no contrary view, but I can document that (e.g. by the DJD 39 list of text identities). Scrolls are artifacts, physical like jars, hence the relevance of published ink tests, and record number of inkwells, and ostraca with writing like that in the scrolls (as Lemaire published), and skin DNA texts, and C14 dating and so on. That high Bromine in ink shows writing by the Dead Sea is cumulative with other evidence, e.g., that Qumran is where Pliny's source said they (Essenes) were on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea (in the majority published view, both pre and post 1947). That the scrolls do not represent a cross-section of contemporary texts is fact, given the absent texts (e.g. I Maccabees existed then). Scrolls do not survive fire and flood at Qumran; they survived in caves; that is a red herring from IH. Factual evidence is accumulating showing writing of cave scrolls at Qumran. Ian simply has an a priori committment to a different scenario; hence he erases much of the factual, documented evidence I freely present for readers. These facts should not be censored. Occam's razor suggests it is simpler for dozens of Qumran mss to have come from Qumran, with Qumran scribal practice (as E. Tov described), and sectarian content, and saying they are in the midbar/desert, than from supposedly unrelated refugee libraries, far away, supposedly brought past a Roman army siege of Jerusalem. It is a matter of probability as to which best comports with the evidence.Coralapus (talk) 18:17, 15 September 2009 (UTC)Coralapus


 * Can you focus, Coralapus? Responding to your tangents:
 * If you want to now talk about cave pottery please read "The Provenance of Scroll Jars in the Light of Archaeometric Investigations" Michniewicz & Krzysko, in Humbert & Gunneweg, Kh.Q & Ain Feshkha II (2003): scroll jars were not of clay from Qumran.
 * I don't know why you'd expect I'd think that 1 Maccabees had to be found at Qumran. That's a focus issue. It's got nothing to do with the settlement of Qumran. But Esther is not found at Qumran. Neither is Nehemiah. Perhaps you can draw some startling conclusion from that.
 * You are misguided about Pliny, which I have shown doesn't help the Essene crew. The Essenes weren't on the shore of the Dead Sea, but away from it (and "shore" here means littoral, the whole coastal strip). Even Todd Beall doesn't understand that you can't separate a downstream "infra" by two paragraphs from its river reference. It's fine to plead authority when you don't have any evidence. Listen to Bob Kraft.
 * You have not responded to your problem trying to put goat herding, slaughter and skin preparation with dung and urine at Qumran, all of which render the location ritually impure. These guys had to crap away from their residence to maintain purity.
 * There are so many fonts evinced in the DSS, so Lemaire can't be too wrong if he finds similarities between those used in various ostraca with those in scrolls.
 * I understand that you have to plead for the scrolls to be related to the site because you have no evidence. Nubian ibex!
 * Do try to find a source that says what you personally argue. That way you aren't making yourself an authority.

--Ihutchesson (talk) 18:52, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

To Elplatt. I respond in two sections. First, on selected misunderatandings in what Ian wrote. Second and more important, why the text in question (possibly with small adjustments) belongs back in the article. 1) That scroll jars were made at Qumran (accepted by the majority--and whenever I say majority I will give bibliography if requested) is shown by Gunneweg in Bio- and Material Culture 2006. For the significance of the absence of these important texts and major holidays, Ian could try, for starters, A. Baumgarten, "Invented Traditions of the Maccabean Era" in the Hengel Festschrift, History-Tradition-Reflexion (1996) 197-210. On Pliny locating Essenes northwest of the Dead Sea (majority view, very detailed bibl. available) see most recently Joan Taylor, "On Pliny, the Essene Location and Kh. Qumranin" Dead Sea Discoveries 16 (2009) 1-21, who cites, among others, my "Rereading Pliny on the Essenes" at Hebrew U. Orion Center http://orion.mscc.huji.ac.il/symposiums/programs/Goranson98.shtml Ian misunderstands ritual purity; note, e.g. jars sealed with dung found by Magen and Peleg. I could expand this section considerably, but turn to 2) The Yardeni and Bar-Gal articles are both fully relevant and illuminating research. I suggest, for starters, that I replace them, with only the direct description of the articles, while we discuss the text about their inplications. Norman Golb claimed "500" scribal hands (I have all his publications, again bibl. on request); Yardeni's article raises serious doubts about that. The reasons I already expressed still obtain, and have not been removed (merely erased) by Ian: e.g. sectarian content, in the midbar, not a cross-section of important texts, with [wild] goat skin, record inkwell concentration, high Bromine ink, with connections between most of the scroll-bearing caves, by probability, by Occam's razor, increases view (already a majority view, bibl. on request) that some (not all) of the scrolls were penned at Qumran. It is entirely appropriate for an encyclopedia article to include this published research that helps to illuminate the material remains at Khirbet Qumran. To erase such information would be to vote for obscuring the material remains at Qumran. So Elplatt, can we begin by replacing the two articles and later, after more clarifying discussion--I can expand on any of the points here--supplying of bibliography or whatever else requested, more fully and documentedly explaining their implications. Okay? Any questions? ElplattCoralapus (talk) 11:20, 16 September 2009 (UTC)Coralapus


 * Wry smile: "Ian misunderstands ritual purity; note, e.g. jars sealed with dung found by Magen and Peleg." When one assumes one's conclusion one misses obvious things. Jars sealed with dung at the hands of those who have to defecate outside visibility of three thousand cubits doesn't help the case of inhabitants adhering to ritual purity. One cannot have it both ways, ie ritually unclean environment inhabited by those who practise ritual purity. Either vellum was regularly prepared at Qumran or there were hypothetical Essenes there. You cannot have both. Coralapus's desire to have both his pure sectarians and his scroll manufacture at Qumran is a failure. Herding animals is a desprecated act; slaughtering animals rendered one ritually impure; using dung and urine rendered one ritually impure; living in an environment that featured these things renders one ritually impure.
 * Both Gunneweg & Balla's and Michniewicz & Krzysko's analyses appear in the same publication, edited by Humbert & Gunneweg. One doesn't cancel the other. Assuming one does ignores the problems of using the findings.
 * Plugging away at the notion of sectarian texts overlooks Ph. Davies' discussion of Judaisms. There are differing Judaisms among the so-called sectarian texts, so they do not evince a single position. If they must be called "sectarian" one should not assume that they are all of the same sect. One shouldn't fall over one's terminology as was done with the use of "Qumran".
 * Yardeni eked out one hypothetical scribe. It doesn't change the analysis of numerous scholars that there are very many scribal hands involved in the copying of the DSS. One may remember the Orion discussions on searching for texts copied by the same scribe.
 * On Pliny, Taylor doesn't deal with the linguistic issue of separating the river reference from infra by more than two paragraphs. Can anyone cite a single similar example of such usage of infra? Thought not.
 * A Wiki editor does not construct arguments. They cite them. The editor is not an authority in Wiki. Different references cannot simply be stitched together as was attempted with Yardeni and Bar-Gal.
 * --Ihutchesson (talk) 19:34, 16 September 2009 (UTC)

I respond in two parts, 1) to Ian’s latest text and 2) to the issue at hand: two worthy research articles that Ian censored.

1) Ian’s six bullets in sequence:

a) It is generally agreed --even, I had thought, by Ian and me (!)-- that religious Jews lived at Qumran; for me Essenes, for Ian Zadokites. Both followed some ritual purity rules. Many people have temporary impurity.; that’s what ritual baths are for. Goats, to repeat, are kosher, both wild and domestic. Zeuner found “that some 408 out of 492 animal bones found in the first excavations in Qumran were identified as Caprinea” (cited from the Ian-censored Bar-Gal p. 48). Subsequent digs found more Qumran goat bones. “…the Qumran community may have hunted in the area” (p. 48). Now, Ian can sneer at the archaeological finding of Nubian ibex used as a writing surface, but that is material culture research, archaeology. Why obscure these facts?

b) I cited a more recent Gunneweg book. Why dispute what Magness and Bar-Nathan, pottery experts, agree on: scroll jars were made at Qumran, and Bar-Nathan wrote (already cited) that some came to Masada (not from Jerusalem, as in the Golb Cambridge HJIII article that you Ian, using a different name, emailed me about).

c) I may be mistaken, but I thought “Judaisms” was Neusner’s term rather than Davies, but I don’t wish to check his, what, 900 books? I’m not sure what your point is here. There were intra-Jewish differences, of course. And Zadokites in Talmud differs increasingly (diachronically) from Second Temple Sadducees.  I have shown the Qumran texts non-second-Temple-Sadducee in belief and practice, non-Pharisee, but Essene (plus commonly-shared beliefs and practices).

d) Yardeni is, don’t you agree, one of the top paleographers of Qumran and similar mss? That she concludes that dozens of texts from most of the caves (excluding all-Greek Cave 7 of course, and few-letter Caves 9 and 10) come from one “Qumran Scribe” (to use her words) is a significant research finding. Why censor it?

e) Examples of infra used as requested are already available in published literature, don’t you know? If you wish a repeat explanation of how Pliny deals with water movement and geography, I tell you (again) about the excellent book by Mary Beagon, Roman nature: the thought of Pliny the Elder / Mary Beagon. Oxford [England] : Clarendon Press ; New York : Oxford University Press, 1992., which does exactly what you request. If Elplatt requests, I will type here an excerpt.

f) I cited Yardeni and Bar-Gal. You, Ian, erased them. I offered to add them without bringing in, pending discussion attempt, Golb’s “500” scribal hand claim, published but unsupported, and the doubt cast upon that by Yardeni. And the relevance, which I can annotate and fully document, of the significant absence of very important texts and holidays: it is no small thing that 1 Maccabees, Esther, Hanukkah, and Purim are absent at Qumran. Why censor these facts?

2) Even with Ian acting to prevent these facts from being read, it remains fact that Yardeni and Bar-Gal have both published excellent, relevant research on Qumran archaeology that deserve a place in any respectable survey on the current state of research on Qumran archaeology. Does anyone here claim these articles are poor quality? Or irrelevant? I can expand, in commentary or in bibliography, on any relevant point if requested. I ask Elplatt and (if any) anyone else reading this to express an opinion on whether Yardeni and Bar-Gal have published research that deserves to be noted in Wikipedia “Qumran.” There is more relevant research that I can add (and interesting stuff in press, available before long), if Ian does not erase these contributions to learning.Coralapus (talk) 10:10, 17 September 2009 (UTC)Coralapus


 * a. The impurity issue won't go away by trying to present it as only a temporary matter. Sheep herding requires continuous maintenance. They can't be kept at a sacred site because at any time their defecation renders the site impure. The time consuming process of hand-preparing vellum involves the long use of urine and dung. There is a reason why it is a despised trade. It leaves you stinking and at Qumran water is the most valuable commodity there is. What provisions can you see at the site for washing so as not to ritually pollute the water supply? (As to Zadokites/Sadducees -- who are not relevant here --, they would have been at Qumran for a maximum of 7 years from the time of their appeal to Salome to their abandonment of the site and decimation in the temple in 63 BCE. I don't think any scrolls were produced by the inhabitants of Qumran. You're the one who wants scrolls copied at Qumran.)


 * b. I didn't talk about where the cylinder jars were made. I did say that the clay was not from Qumran according to the Poles.


 * c. You may be right about the source of "Judaisms", but it doesn't change the fact that Davies ran with it, pointing out the different Judaisms reflected in CD and 1QS for example. You have been lumping these together as examples of sectarian scrolls, hiding the assumption of the same sect.


 * d. I have no problem with Yardeni's scribe. I have a complaint that language can make people commit errors. Calling the scribe a Qumran scribe, meaning more than one in the corpus of the DSS -- if she does --, is certainly beyond what she can talk about. The shorthand "Qumran" confuses the discussion because of its ambiguity, 1) indicating things related to the DSS and 2) relating to the site. Yardeni's scribe certainly belongs in an article about the scrolls, but I see no reason in itself to be in an article about the site of Qumran.


 * e. I actually did the hard work of looking at all related uses of infra in Pliny and found that the vast majority have the river or sea coast at most a sentence away and a few times two sentences away. I found nothing similar in the rest of Pliny to the claim for our example.


 * f. Yardeni's scribe -- as I see it -- is about scrolls. That's all she can talk about, despite the unfortunate use of "Qumran". You are trying to use the combination of her scribe and Bar-Gal's Nubian ibex (which merely tells us something we already knew: ibexes weren't from Jerusalem) is an attempt by you to construct an argument in the article. This is expressly frowned upon by Wikipedia. You need to find someone who makes the argument in a journal or book.


 * The section on the debate needs to be pruned back, rather than expanded with further litany of names. I dread the process.--Ihutchesson (talk) 14:35, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

So far, we have a third opinion to discuss, revise, and post a revised notice of the two articles. The discussion has consisted partly of deflections from the subject at hand, rather than relevant observations. I try again, and ask for a third participant. Ian wrote of "vellum," but most DSS are not on vellum (11QPs a maybe?); nor strictly, speaking are they mostly parchment in the strict sense of the Pergamum process (though parchment is now used more broadly. Nor are they fully-tanned leather. DNA studies and careful descriptions of the writing surface should come before declarations about purity rules. Davies' views, that S and D are related but different are not central here; also, he does not deny sectarians, Essenes, at Qumran, at least in some works. Ian on "infra" is misleading (to be discussed elsewhere than on these 2 articles), but not central here (orion center tour this year: "Most likely Pliny is using the term “below” in the sense of “downstream,” so that his location of the Essene site matches the location of Khirbet Qumran.") Let me retuen to the articles, obe for starters. IF Yardeni is correct--and she is one of the leading DSS paleographers surely--approximately ninety (90) qumran mss are penned by one "Qumran scribe." These mss come from Qumran Caves 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8, and 11. Cave 7 is all Greek; Caves 9 and 10 are too poor in letters to analyze. In fact, subtract, from Qumran 900+ mss all those in Greek, paleo-Hebrew, cryptic writing, (semi-)cursive, and those fragments with too little writing to compare, and Yardeni's conclusion is remarkable and important. And surely relevant to Qumran archaeology, scrolls being artifacts, and the inked shapes being physically described. I will replace a note of these two relevant, valuable research articles, and I ask for support in rejection Ian's censorship. Above signed Coralapus (talk)Coralapus that is 4x Coralapus (talk) 11:52, 6 October 2009 (UTC)Coralapus


 * I find nothing constructive or new here.
 * I need to ask, is the comment about "lacking, for instance, 1 and 2 Maccabees, Esther, Purim, and Hanukkah" Yardeni's or yours? -- Ihutchesson (talk) 00:23, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Non Qumran external links
I've removed all the external links not directly related to the site of Qumran. As these were generally DSS related, I moved those not already present in the DSS article there. Hopefully, we can keep the external links on topic. -- Ihutchesson (talk) 15:57, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

More fun
Coralapus, please do not post tendentious material. For example, when you post the Gunneweg & Balla analysis you should also post the Michniewicz analysis as well. They are contradictory, but omitting one gives a deliberately wrong indication. The upshot of such posting makes for an article that is a battlefield, rather than informative.

Also, please do not post scads of foreign language in an article, nor cite references there. Such material should be in the footnotes.

The article as is had too much information, needs synthesizing without pushing an agenda, and thus makes it more useful for the average reader. The footnotes and references, the more plentiful the better, for those who have a deeper interest. You need to think of the reader. -- Ihutchesson (talk) 05:25, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Excluding relevant links contradicts the above-expressed view of giving readers more options. "Orion" means nothing to a new reader, without the annotation that they provide updated bibliography, including on archaeology. Justification for including links to two article has in fact already been given in the revisions, and is obvious to a fair reader.Coralapus (talk) 12:47, 1 November 2010 (UTC) Coralapus, S.Goranson


 * The revision notes is not a suitable locale in cases of conflict. Orion links are available in the Orion Center Wiki article, which is linked to at the bottom of every DSS related article. -- Ihutchesson (talk) 13:48, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Both [links to two articles] are plainly relevant. For example Rengstorf, (1964, already included), page 15 wrote: "What is the explanation of the fact that the Essenes, who, it is claimed, speak, among other things, precisely about themselves and their views and customs in the Dead Sea texts, but always use other names for themselves?" A fair reader will want to know that, from 1532ff Ph. Melanchthon and others in effect predicted the Hebrew source of their name, now in fact found as a self-designation in some of the scrolls, and that this has been accepted (to various degrees) by Wm. Brownlee, J. VanderKam, Catherine Murphy, Alison Schofield, Craig Evans, (S. Goranson), and others. If so "Essenes" appears at Qumran--relevant indeed. So, I am going to add the quote to the Rengstorf section with a footnote to the article that gives details. Coralapus (talk) 12:47, 1 November 2010 (UTC) Coralapus, S.Goranson


 * I'm sorry, but what have the Essenes to do with the archaeology of Qumran, the site, its structure, how it developed, what it was/is like? There are certainly better places to deal with the Essenes. We're dealing with pottery and inkwells here, not the contents of the scrolls, until they can be shown to be relevant to coins, walls and aqueducts. -- Ihutchesson (talk) 13:48, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

As for the Jannaeus article, it explicitly discusses the site of Qumran archaeology, visitors to it, and the events involving Jannaeus that led to its sectarian settlement. Any reader is free to evaluate these proposals--but to exclude them, to bracket them off as "Ian" proposes, does not serve readers nor open scholarly discussion. The article as it stands excludes significant relevant information because of tendentious editing by "Ian."Coralapus (talk) 12:47, 1 November 2010 (UTC) Coralapus, S.Goranson


 * Perhaps you could cite here in this discussion what you feel is relevant to the archaeology of the site or to an understanding of the site, for, as is, it seems to be a discussion attempting to locate the context of the scrolls in the life of Alexander Jannaeus and has little relevance to the site of Qumran. Why not be happy with the presence of your links in the Dead Sea Scrolls article (which they seem more suited for)? I don't edit that page, except on rare occasions. -- Ihutchesson (talk) 13:48, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Scrolls are physical objects, archaeology. You must not have read the articles if you miss Qunran site mentions, its visitors, its interpretation. A priori divorcing scrolls from the site has been shown to be tendentious. The article is biased in your editing. There are further improvements than can be made, if you can restrain your tendentious erasures, keeping relevant facts from readers. Let readers see relevant facts and major points of view so they can decide for themselves. Some other voices might be helpful now.Coralapus (talk) 14:13, 1 November 2010 (UTC)Coralapus


 * Please don't talk about tendentiousness. The C14 analysis, the ink analysis, the DNA analysis of scrolls are relevant here, not the contents of the scrolls. That is for scrolls articles. This is about the site of Qumran. -- Ihutchesson (talk) 16:18, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

Tangent regarding Essenes
I'm sorry, Coralapus, but what has the following to do with the site of Qumran?


 * Rengstorf (p. 15) asked: "What is the explanation of the fact that the Essenes, who, it is claimed, speak, among other things, precisely about themselves and their views and customs in the Dead Sea texts, but always use other names for themselves?" In fact, many scholars have concluded that the Hebrew origin of the name Essenes indeed appears as a self-designation in some Qumran scrolls.

I don't understand why you persist in mixing opinions about the contents of the scrolls with the actual site of Qumran. -- Ihutchesson (talk) 17:18, 1 November 2010 (UTC)

I might add that few people think that the origin of "Essene" is not Semitic. But that fact is not relevant to the site of Qumran--that's the topic here, not Essenes or their name's etymology. And citing yourself as reference simply gratuitous. There is plenty of room in more relevant topics for you to cite yourself. -- Ihutchesson (talk) 04:13, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

I quoted one of the reasons Rengstorf (already in the article) gave for his version of the Jerusalem-origin proposal. Then I give a link to a different view, one held by many scholars (unlike Rengstorf's proposal). Such is balanced treatment. No one needs to read the link if they don't want, but to exclude would be mere censorship and bias. Let readers know thse issues. Let readers make up their own minds. Do not bracket off and ignore vidence and debates merely because of your preferences.````Coralapus —Preceding unsigned comment added by Coralapus (talk • contribs) 12:38, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

It appears then that the addition has nothing directly to do with the site of Qumran and is as gratuitous as it is tendentious. A Wiki article is not the place to argue and jockey about your opinions. The whole section "Debating the Qumran-Essene Hypothesis" is a bloated mess of argument and needs severe pruning, rather than addition of more conflicting material. Things would be a lot easier if we stuck to dealing with the site of Qumran. Simply putting the material back doesn't foster consensus. Why is it helping the page, when it seems merely to add to the conflict? -- Ihutchesson (talk) 03:02, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Map source >> google earth
Why not start using google earth coordinates directly in wiki text? hi : ) 

A rewrite of part of the final paragraph
Here is a simple approach which preserves most of the paragraph:

"More recently the theory of Qumran being a religious settlement has garnered some criticism amongst archaeologists. The ruins at Qumran are considered by some to be a trading center or a commercial production center."

This book,, embodies the split in Qumran archaeology. Archaeologists are now analysing the site of Qumran rather than simply walking in the shadow of de Vaux. The book came out of an archaeological conference at Brown University in November 2002 and shows a rift between a conservative analysis following de Vaux and a number of analyses which suggest other possibilities.

Ian Hutchesson, 26th October 2006

BCE/CE vs. BC/AD (again)
following the extensive discussion on the Dead Sea Scrolls page, i'm making date references the scientific norm of BCE/CE. read the discussion there first.