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Re: orion Where were "they"?



On Sun, 22 Feb 1998, Jack Kilmon wrote:

> fits more with the thesis that Qumran was an Agrarian center
> and the inhabitants may have been cultivists and processors
> of Balsam.  This would tie in the En-Gedi site where the Balsam
> plants were cultivated to Qumran, perhaps where it was processed
> and bottled.  This makes interesting one of the alternative
> readings of the Ostracon where the proposed "yxd" reading was,
> in fact ln)d..[h] "bottle."  If wkmltw is "when he completes"
> perhaps we are missing the ending in the lacuna that would
> suggest "bottling."

One of the assumptions behind this argument may need further 
examination, and that is the idea that agrarian functions rule out a 
community center.  Temples in the ancient world were centers of economic 
activity.  I recently read an article about the temple of Ptah in Memphus 
in the Hellenistic era, which pointed out that the temple had a variety 
of economic functions, including metal-working and animal husbandry, so 
that the high priest was in effect the manager of a large estate, for 
which he was responsible to the king.  Being a center of agricultural 
production and a religious community are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

David W. Suter
Saint Martin's College
Lacey, WA 98503
dsuter@catadon.stmartin.edu