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The Functions of the Caves and the Settlement of Qumran: Reflections on a New Chapter of Qumran Research Jürgen K

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The Functions of the Caves and the Settlement of Qumran: Reflections on a New Chapter of Qumran Research Jürgen K CHAPTER 13 The Functions of the Caves and the Settlement of Qumran: Reflections on a New Chapter of Qumran Research Jürgen K. Zangenberg Being the (almost) last speaker in this conference I feel pret the caves, too, in the assumption that the caves obliged to emphasize that I do not intend to summarize needed Qumran to be properly explained. If Qumran the results of my colleagues speaking before me, nor do was Essene, as the hypothesis shared by many I wish to utter the “last, final words” on a topic that is by colleagues claim, then the caves must stand in some far not fully researched. I am not going to do more than sort of genuine relationship with the Essene inhabit- express my own limited insights and preliminary reflec- ants of the site: as hiding places, storage spaces, liv- tions on this fascinating matter.1 ing quaters. But what happens if we turn this sequence around and first examine the caves before their interpretation is determined by their supposed 1 Initial Reflections relationship with the site of Qumran? I therefore think that the first task ahead of us is Let me begin with some exegesis of the title “The Functions to fully understand that the caves have their own his- of the Caves and the Settlement of Qumran” under which tory apart from, before and after Qumran, including Jodi Magness’ and my paper have been jointly scheduled. potential overlaps between the two. As an exegete trained to carefully read texts, I sense certain b) This brings me to my second observation. I am happy statements in the title that—unconsciously or openly— to see that the title speaks of “functions” in the plural. contain a number of assumptions. I would like to address Nobody has ever claimed that all caves had one and three of them, which I consider somewhat symptomatic the same function during their entire lives, either in for the previous and ongoing discussion. In this context I relation to the settlement or in their own respect. also wish to name a few tasks I see ahead of us on the way Roland de Vaux already emphasized the great physi- to intensified research on the Qumran caves: cal varieties of these grottoes, and their diversity regarding the finds from them. Some grottoes are no a) First of all, it is remarkable that the title “The Func- more than cracks in the limestone and unsuitable for tions of the Caves and the Settlement of Qumran” habitation, others are human-made and spacious; places the caves first and only then mentions the site some caves contained material from several periods, of Qumran. I hope this sequence is not only rhetoric, others hardly anything or nothing. This observation but expresses a hermeneutical principle. Starting was confirmed by several presenters during the con- from the caves is certainly to be welcomed, since it ference, too. It is therefore reasonable to assume that leaves trodden paths and opens the perspective for the caves had various functions, not all of which may alternative scenarios. Often enough, the settlement have had anything to do with Qumran. The focus on and interpretive models about its use and inhabit- the cave-Qumran relationship sometimes prevented ants have been used as hermeneutical lens to inter- scholars to think in longer trajectories when consider- ing the caves. But functions may have changed over- time, and some caves even had different functions for 1 This article is the expanded version of a paper delivered on different groups at one and the same moment. February 21 at the international conference “The History of the It, therefore, seems to me that we more than ever Caves of Qumran” in Lugano. I deliberately kept the oral form of before need to talk about the caves in the plural and this paper as far as possible to preserve its experimental, prelimi- avoid presupposing that they could be subsumed nary and introductory character. I wish to express my gratitude to professor Marcello Fidanzio and the Faculty of Theology of Lugano under one and the same roof—be it Qumran or not. for inviting me to the very fruitful and inspiring conference, as well And we need to accept that every cave may have had as to the many colleagues who shared their opinions with me about not only one, but various and varying functions dur- my paper. ing its lifetime. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/97890043�6508_0�5 196 Zangenberg c) The third observation is a direct consequence of the 2 History of Exploration previous two. I am somewhat confused by the expression “the caves” in the title and feel obliged to The surroundings of Qumran, including the caves, have ask: Which caves do we need to consider to under- been explored in three major steps, each following its own stand the phenomenon? Where should we draw the goals and agendas. line, which caves should we include and which ones exclude? Are we only to look at what people some- 2.1 Roland de Vaux and Colleagues times call “scroll caves” because their relationship to It took a good 5 years after the discovery of the first scrolls Qumran is thought to be particularly obvious?2 in the winter 1946/47 in 1Q and the start of excavations Often enough, the answer given to this question was at Khirbet Qumran in 1951 through Roland de Vaux, that an affirmative “yes!,” so people concentrated on the caves found the full attention of research. Only in 1952 1Q–11Q when considering the relationship of “the bedouin diggers and archaeologists became intangled in caves” with Qumran and saw the caves without what could be called the famous “scroll race,” moving from scrolls as odd kids on the block. But de Vaux already one cave to the other hunting for scrolls. knew that the “scroll caves” were the exceptions in a much larger number of grottos whose own relation- 2.1.1 Caves in the Limestone Cliffs ship with Qumran is far less conspicuous. Or should we concentrate on those caves in which a) Triggered by illicit bedouin excavations in 1Q3 and 2Q,4 fragments of “scroll jars” were found, or simply add Roland de Vaux between March 10 and 29, 1952 conducted them to the “scroll-caves” without further reason, a systematic survey of the cliffs west of Qumran in an thereby silently circumventing the problem that “scroll caves” and caves with “scroll jars” or fragments 3 Excavation between Feb 15 and March 5, 1949; a brief report of them are not necessarily identical, because some on the excavation is available in Roland de Vaux, “La grotte des “scroll-caves” did not contain “scroll-jars” and not all manuscriptes hébreux,” RB 56 (1949): 586–609; Gerald L. Harding, “scroll jars” were in fact found in “scroll caves”? So “Introductory, the Discovery, the Excavation, Minor Finds,” in what type of finds does make a cave “Qumran-rele- Qumran Cave 1 (DJD 1; ed. D. Barthélemy and J. T. Milik; Oxford: vant” and another not? What criteria do tie the Clarendon Press, 1955), 6–7 as well as Roland de Vaux on the pottery, “Qumran-relevant” caves together with each other in DJD 1:8–17; Stephen J. Pfann, “Sites in the Judaean Desert Where and at the same time distinguish them from “less rel- Texts Have Been Found,” in Companion Volume to the Dead Sea Scrolls evant” others? Microfiche edition (2nd rev. ed.; ed. E. Tov and S. J. Pfann; Leiden: Brill 1995), 109–19; Jean-Baptiste Humbert and Alain Chambon, eds., To avoid circular arguments, we consequently The Excavations of Khirbet Qumran and Ain Feshkha: Synthesis of need to change our perspective and move away from Roland de Vaux’s Field Notes (NTOA.SA 1B; trans. and rev. Stephen J. the “exceptions” 1Q–11Q (de Vaux), and instead turn Pfann; Fribourg/Göttingen: Éditions Universitaires/Vandenhoeck & to the variety of caves found in the entire region along Ruprecht, 2003), 96; Weston W. Fields, The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Full the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea. History. Vol. 1: 1947–1960 (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 94–95 and 110–13 emphasizes the general “lack of scientific control” and discusses the A brief summary of the methods and results of cave explo- possibility that there had in fact been two “caves 1” and not only rations and finds, therefore, seems appropriate. one from which the 1Q-texts had come. Yizhar Hirschfeld, Qumran in Context: Reassessing the Archaeological Evidence (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2004), 38 reproduces Harding’s map of 1Q (DJD 1: Fig. 1) and indicates that 1Q might already have been searched in antiquity (Qumran in Context, 39). Apart from pottery and manu- script fragments, 1Q also produced “a quantity of olive stones, date stones, palm fibre, and small and large pieces of wood were recov- ered,” as well as two fragments of a wooden comb (thus Harding, in DJD 1:7). No indication is given in what stratigraphic relationship these finds might have been to the scrolls. 2 See, e.g., Sidnie White Crawford, “Qumran: Caves, Scrolls, and 4 Excavated between March 12–14, 1952; report by Roland de Vaux, Buildings,” in A Teacher for All Generations: Essays in Honor of James “Archéologie,” in Les ‘petites grottes’ de Qumrân: Exploration de C. VanderKam (JSJSup 153; ed. E. F. Mason et al; Leiden: Brill, 2011), la falaise; Les grottes 2Q, 3Q, 5Q, 6Q, 7Q à 10Q; Le rouleau de cuivre 1:253–73 or—with a rather different direction—Stephen J. Pfann, (DJD 3; ed. M. Baillet, J.
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