The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English (78 page)

A number of badly damaged fragments of an Aramaic writing report events said to have occurred in the Persian court, thus recalling the biblical story of Esther. The script is dated to the second half of the first century BCE. J. T. Milik, in a very learned, but equally conjectural, manner, has reconstructed the background of the narrative, even restoring the name of Esther from an incomplete word beginning with the letters
aleph
and
samekh.
He has thus discovered an Aramaic
model
of Esther at Qumran, although no remains of the canonical Book of Esther have so far been found there. K. Beyer entitles the writing as Documents of Darius and classifies it as a legendary account relating to Darius I and Xerxes, kings of Persia, who apparently worshipped the God of the Jews.

For the
editio princeps,
see E. Puech,
DJD,
XXXVII (forthcoming). See also J. T. Milik, ‘Les modèles araméens du livre d'Esther dans la grotte 4 de Qumrân', RQ 15 (1992), 321-406; K. Beyer, Die
aramäischen Texte vom Toten Meer. Ergänzungsband
(Göttingen, 1994), 113-17.

... [and they li]sten to Patireza, your father... and amid the officials of the royal apparel ... to work in the service of the king in accordance with all that you have received ... In that hour the king could not go to sleep (literally, his spirit was stretched) [and he commanded that the b]ooks of his father be read before him. And among the books there was a scroll [the mou]th of which [was] s[ealed] with seven seals by the signet-ring of his father Darius the heading of which ... [Dar]ius the king to the officials of the kingdom, Peace. It was opened and read and in it was found: [... Dar]ius the King to the kings who will reign after me and to the officials of the kingdom, Pe[ac]e. It should be known to you that every tormentor and liar ...

III
The Most High whom you (Jews) fear and worship rules o[ver the whole e]arth. Everyone whom He wishes (comes) near. Bagasro ... Whoever speaks an evil word against Bagasro [will be] put to death for there is no-o[ne to destroy h]is good for [e]ver....

This is a brief list of false prophets, recorded in Aramaic and palaeographically Herodian in date. The first six names come from the Bible. The last two lines are completed by the editor as ‘[Hananiah son of Az]ur' (Jer. xxviii, 1) and ‘[a prophet from Gib]eon‘, interpreted as the continuation of the description of Hananiah (see ibid.). One may object to this reconstruction that all the previous names occupy a single line. The name of Yohanan ben Shim'on, i.e. John Hyrcanus I, son of Simon Maccabaeus, has been suggested by A. Rofe and E. Qimron. Hyrcanus I was thought to have been endowed with prophetic gifts (cf. Josephus,
Jewish War
I, 68-9;
Antiquities
XIII, 300), but the anti-Hasmonaean Qumran sect would have condemned him as a false prophet. This identification is distinctly possible, but owing to the fragmentary state of the line the reading is purely conjectural.

For the
editio princeps,
see M. Broshi and A. Yardeni,
DJD,
XIX, 77-9.

 

The lying prophets who arose in [Israel: Balaam [son] of Beor (Num. xxii-xxiv); [the] elder from Bethel (1 Kgs xiii, 11-31); [Zed]ekiah son of Ke[n]aanah (1 Kgs xxii, 11); [Aha]b son of K[o]liah (Jer. xxix, 21); [Zed]ekiah son of Ma[a]seiah (ibid.); [Shemaiah the Ne]hlemite (Jer. xxix, 24); ... ur; ... ‘on.

A badly mutilated fragment, dated to the first half of the first century BCE, lists the Temple servants or
netinim
referred to in the biblical Books of 1 Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah. The text is too broken to make good reading, but it proves that such lists were in circulation in late Second Temple times.

For the
editio princeps,
see M. Broshi and A. Yardeni,
DJD,
XIX, 81-4.

 

These are the
netin
[
im
] who have been identified by [their] na[mes]: Ithra and ... To[biah].

The Copper Scroll (3Q
15
), which has stimulated much curiosity and speculation, was found by archaeologists in Cave 3 during the excavations of 1952, but the metal had become so badly oxidized during the course of the centuries that the scroll could not be unfolded. It was therefore sent to Professor H. Wright Baker of the Manchester College of Science and Technology who, in 1956, carefully divided it into longitudinal strips and, in the same year, returned it to Jordan. It is part of the treasures of the Archaeological Museum of Amman. The Hebrew text, representing twelve columns of script, was published by J. T. Milik in 1962. It was preceded by a less trustworthy edition by J. M. Allegro,
The Treasure of the Copper Scroll,
London, 1960.

The inscription lists sixty-four hiding-places, in Jerusalem and in various districts of Palestine, where gold, silver, Temple offerings, scrolls, etc., are said to have been deposited. Allegro reckoned that the treasure amounted to over three thousand talents of silver, nearly one thousand three hundred talents of gold, sixty-five bars of gold, six hundred and eight pitchers containing silver, and six hundred and nineteen gold and silver vessels. In other words, using the post-biblical value of the talent as a yard-stick, the total weight of precious metal must have added up to sixty-five tons of silver and twenty-six tons of gold.

Who could have possessed such a fortune? Was there ever any truth in it?

The answer is in the negative, according to J. T. Milik. In his view, the exaggerated sums indicate that the scroll is a work of fiction and that its chief interest to scholars lies in the fields of linguistics and topography. He dates it from about 100 CE, thus ruling out any connection with the rest of the Qumran writings since the latter were placed in the caves not later than 68 CE.

The treasure was a real one according to other scholars, representing the fortune of the Essenes (A. Dupont-Sommer, S. Goranson) or the Temple treasure (J. M. Allegro, N. Golb, A. Wolters). According to Allegro, the Zealots were responsible for the concealment of the gold and silver and for the writing of the scroll. It has also been suggested that we are dealing here with funds collected for the rebuilding of the Temple after 70 CE, or with the hidden treasure of Bar Kokhba, leader of the second Jewish revolution against Rome in 132-5 CE.

Milik's argument would certainly seem to account for the vast quantities of treasure mentioned. It does not, however, explain two of the document's most striking characteristics, namely, the dry realism of its style, very different from that of ancient legends, and the fact that it is recorded on copper instead of on the less expensive leather or papyrus. For if it is, in fact, a sort of fairy-story, the present text can only represent the outline of such a tale, and who in their senses would have engraved their literary notes on valuable metal?

The contention that the treasure was a real one is supported by the very arguments which undermine Milik's. From the business-like approach, and the enduring material on which the catalogue is inscribed, it might sensibly be supposed that the writer was not indulging some frivolous dream. Again, in view of the fact that the Copper Scroll was found among writings known to come from Qumran, Dupont-Sommer and Goranson would appear justified in allocating the fortune to the Essenes. It requires, by comparison, a strong feat of the imagination to accept that all this wealth belonged originally to the treasure chambers of the Temple, and that it was placed in hiding, in a hostile environment, in 68 CE, before, that is to say, there was any immediate danger to the capital city of Jerusalem. Allegro bypassed this objection by presuming that, as Qumran was by then in the hands of the Zealots, it was no longer unfriendly to the Jerusalem authorities. But it has not yet been explained why the sack of the Temple and city should have been foreseen, and provided for, so early. In favour of the Temple treasure hypothesis, it is nevertheless possible to envisage that the Jerusalem sanctuary possessed such riches as these, whereas, despite Dupont-Sommer's undoubtedly true remarks concerning the apparent compatibility of religious poverty and fat revenues, it is still hard to accept that the Essenes, a relatively small community, should have amassed such disproportionate wealth.

This is all that can safely be said of the Copper Scroll at the present time. Further study of the original will allow scholars to improve many of the readings. Meanwhile students of Qumran are considerably in J. T. Milik's debt for his pioneering decipherment of an extremely difficult text.

For the
editio princeps,
see J. T. Milik,
DJD,
III, 199-302.

Further works to consult: A. Dupont-Sommer,
The Essene Writings from Qumran,
Oxford, 1961, 379-93; N. Golb, ‘The Problem of Origin and Identification of the Dead Sea Scrolls',
Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society
124 (1980), 1-24; S. Goranson, ‘Sectarianism, Geography and the Copper Scroll
', JJS
43(1992), 282-7; A. Wolters, ‘The Copper Scroll and the Vocabulary of Mishnaic Hebrew',
RQ
14 (1989-90), 483-95; ‘Literary Analysis of the Copper Scroll', in Z. J. Kapera, ed.,
Intertestamental Essays in Honour of J. T. Milik,
vol. 1, Cracow, 1992, 239-54;
The Copper Scroll. Overview, Text and Translation,
Sheffield, 1996; ‘Copper Scroll', in
Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls,
ed. L. H. Schiffman and J. C. VanderKam, Oxford and New York, 2000, 144-8.