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Re: One Thousand Scribes



PWEGNER@BROWNVM.brown.edu wrote:
> 
> >If the Qumran site was not a "residence" but instead a
> "headquarters" or place to go for purification, every Essene in
> the country could have been required to go there.  It may very
> well have been a transient Essene "motel." <
> 

> Qumran is simply too far away for men who would have had to purify themselves
> after every nocturnal emission (if they followed Lev. 15-16 or some equivalent
> rule of their own).  Particularly in the case of celibate men, I'm betting that
> that phenomenon occurs considerably more than once a month!
> 
 
> It makes no sense that this was the only (or even the primary) purpose of
> the buildings at Qumran.  The mikveh was obviously there because the people
> were there for some other primary reason, and had to build it because of their
> strict purity rules.

	That makes sense to me!  What I am calling into question, and a
purification ritual being just an example, is that the "sectarians"
at Qumran were in permanent residence rather than a transient "turn
over"
of Essenes making a required "pilgrimage" to Qumran for some reason.
	The question of whether this group was celibate is not established
given the burials there.  Perhaps the Moreh ha-Zedek was buried there
which gave the site some special significance to the sect.

Jack Kilmon
jpman@accesscomm.net