From: Jack Kilmon (jkilmon@historian.net)
Date: Fri Apr 24 1998 - 20:08:35 EDT
Jim West wrote:
> At 08:53 PM 4/24/98, you wrote:
>
> >
> > It does appear that three fragments from Cave 7 (7Q4, 7Q5 and 7Q8) are from
> > New Testament documents.
> >
>
> This is absolutely false. And that is not just a matter of opinion. There
> is NO, I repeat, NO Dead Sea Scrolls expert who support the notion that NT
> documents have been found among the scrolls.
>
One needs to ask oneself that *if* documents that belonged to theJerusalem
N'tzarim (or Yeshuines, as I prefer) were found, what would
they be? Probably not in Greek, and certainly not resembling the
canonical NT literature. It's just too anachronistic. One of the fragments
from 7Q was identified by O'Callaghan as one of the Petrine epistles
that hail from the late 1st and early 2nd century.
The writings kept by the Jesus group could probably very easily go
unnoticed among the DSS. They would be the Testimentary literature
like Aramaic Levi, Enochian literature, Odes/Wisdom of Solomon,
perhaps some "sayings" unattributed.
25 years ago, when O'Callaghan thought he had discovered NT
writings in the 7Q Greek scraps, every scholar in the world was
still begging for access to the DSS and getting might suspicious that
there was some serious conspiratorial hanky-panky going on. There
was a lot less known of the dating of the DSS or even the archaeological
data which was unpublished...actually, still is. This was a time when
everyone was positive that the DSS contained Jesus' Diary, report
cards and letters home from college and that he was a blue-eyed
Presbyterian who spoke a little Greek and Elizabethan English.
In this regard I don't indict O'Callaghan for what his computer
program at that time identified as letters parsimonious to Mark.
It was wishful thinking with just a tad of evidence.
Anyway, I got a little windy but I support Jim in this. There were
no Christian NT writings in the DSS!!! Now, as to whether there
were "Jesus People" stuff? (g)
Jack
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