

Re: Walls not a fortress make

>     You know of a mosaic synagogue floor from pre-70 CE?
There are no mosaic synagogue floors from pre-70.  In fact, apart from
Gamala, there are no undisputed pre-70 synagogues anywhere in Palestine
(see my recent article).
 Besides that
>question, it would likely have been common practice to remove colored
>tiles from damaged floors to reuse on others. These were not plastic
>tiles, you know. They were stone. It would have been far easier to
>collect the colored tiles from a damaged mosaic than to cut new ones
>after finding the appropriate rocks. Hence, it is not surprising that you
>should see damaged mosaic floors devoid of their images, because the
>images were made up of colored stone tiles.
Actually, there are several instances in Palestine of iconoclasm in both
synagogues and churches.  These are places where a large mosaic floor had
the human a/o the animal images removed or damaged (usually imperfectly)
while the rest of the mosaic was left in place.  These seem to have taken
place at different times, some perhaps as late as the moslem period.  This
cannot be chalked up to mere reuse of a few tiles.

>As for the destruction of MSS, I think that it is safe to say that there
>is no evidence of the Romans destroying MSS anywhere other than at
>Qumran. This does not rule out the possibility that the Romans destroyed
>the texts in cave 4, but does leave the chance that they did not do this
>at Qumran. How can the destruction, the mutilation, of the scrolls be
>dated. Is there datable pottery or coinage on top of the scrolls in the
>caves? Are we dealing with scrolls that date pre-70 that were destroyed
>circa 70 CE? Or are we dealing with pre-70 CE scrolls that were destroyed
>pre-600 CE or pre-1000 CE? What is the evidence beyond the obvious
>connection with the destruction of the site? I know that for most
>scholars, the connection provides the answer. I was simply wondering
>whether or not there was evidence within the caves that proves this.
>David K.

What is the evidence for Romans destroying manuscripts at Qumran?  The fact
of deterioration?  After 2000 years, that is not evidence of anything but
natural decomposition.

Paul V. M. Flesher
Religious Studies
University of Wyoming
Laramie, WY  82071-3353