11 - Appendix

The Copper Scroll
The 'Prayer of Nabonidus'

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Appendix

While the major Scrolls—apart from such as may still be in the hands of the Bedouin—have now been made available there are still thousands of fragments from the Dead Sea caves which await publication. (*) The small band of devoted scholars who have been working on the documents in Jordan deserve all of our admiration for the skill and patience with which, over the years, they have endeavored to piece together these sorry scraps, and for their unremitting perseverance in the face of difficulties, political and other.

At the same time, it is perhaps permissible to say that the extremely slow rate at which the documents are being made available and the tendency to publish 'snippets' and excerpts in piecemeal fashion, together place a severe strain on the patience of their colleagues in many lands. It is perhaps permissible also to suggest that the interests of scholarship might be better served at this juncture if these scholars were to conceive of their charge as that of sorting, assembling and classifying the documents and then promptly publishing grouped photographs of them rather than of providing full-fledged first editions.

Meanwhile, even among the documents which have been published there are two which, though of considerable interest, do not yet admit of reliable translation, either because no photographs have been published, or else because they are too fragmentary. For the sake of completeness, these are summarized in the following pages.

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(*) A long, but incomplete, scroll presents, in the form of direct instructions by God, rules concerning clean and unclean, festivals, the structure and service of the Temple, and the role of the king. A preliminary description has been published by Yigal Yadin in The Biblical Archaeologist, 36 (1967), 135-39, but his edition of the text was not yet available at the time this book went to press. It is my hunch that the scroll may turn out to be a copy of the comprehensive Book of Study [Hgu] mentioned in the 'Zadokite' Document (x.6; xiii.2) and in the Manual of discipline for the Future Congregation of Israel (i.7).

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The Copper Scroll

In 1952 there was discovered in Cave III at Qumran three tightly rolled sheets of copper, engraved with writing. Unfortunately, the copper had become so seriously corroded that unrolling proved impossible. Eventually, however, by a remarkable feat of resourcefulness and skill, Professor H. Wright Baker, of the College of Technology at Manchester, England, succeeded in cutting the sheets into strips, so that the inscription could be read. It then became apparent that the three sheets belonged to a single document, prepared in the manner of a leather scroll, with rivets doing duty for sutures.

The document has turned out to be a register of buried treasure, purportedly hidden in various spots in and near Jerusalem and in an area extending from Hebron to Mount Gerizim and including the Valley of Qumran. No less than sixty-four deposits are listed, and in each case minute details are given of location and depth. The objects in question include: a silver chest, ingots of gold and silver, jars of all shapes and sizes, bowls, perfumes and—if the decipherment be correct—even vestments. In each case, the amount and value of the objects are explicitly recorded, and sometimes the entry is followed by a curious and enigmatic notation in Greek characters. It has been calculated that, by Old Testament standards, the total value of the treasure would have amounted to some 138 tons of precious metal!

The purpose of the Scroll remains a puzzle. There are three main theories. The first is that it is a record of the Qumran community's possessions which were cached in various places just before the Romans advanced upon their 'monastery' in 68 A.D. Against this, however, it has been objected that the amount of the treasure listed is prodigiously disproportionate to the probable resources of an ascetic brotherhood!

The second theory is that the treasure is that of the Sec-ond Temple, committed for safekeeping to the desert community when the sacred edifice fell, or was about to fall, to the Roman forces. But this too is not without its diffi. culties. According to Josephus, (War, vi.5, §2) the main treasure of the Temple was still in the building when it fell, and this happened in 70 A.D., whereas, according to the archaeological evidence, the Qumran monastery had already been abandoned two years earlier. Moreover, if the censorious references to the Jerusalemitan priesthood which we find in the Scrolls really represent a contemporary attitude, it is not very likely that those officials would have turned to the Qumran brotherhood for the safekeeping of their sacred vessels!

A third hypothesis is that the Scroll registers the treasure not of the Second but of the First (Solomonic) Temple, removed from Jerusalem when it fell to Nebuchadnezzar in 586 B.C. Opinion is divided, however, as to whether the list is factual or fictitious, seeing that accounts of somewhat similar character indeed appear in later Jewish legend.

Perhaps there is room for a fourth theory. May not the Scroll represent an unconscionable fraud (or even a cruel practical joke) perpetrated by some cynical outsider upon the naive and innocent minds of the ascetics of Qumran? The fraud (or joke) would have been founded upon time-honored legends about the buried treasure of the First Temple and have been calculated especially to appeal to the hearts and minds of men who were looking to an imminent restoration of the past glories of Israel. In support of this theory two significant points may be mentioned:

(a) In a Jewish legend concerning the concealment of the sacred vessels at various places in Babylonia, (*) it is stated expressly that a certain Shimmur the Levite and his colleagues, who were responsible for the operation, 'listed on a copper tablet the vessels of the First Temple which were in Jerusalem or in any other holy place'. Fictitious as this account may be, it yet establishes what the popular tradition was, and it is that tradition that a pretender (or practical joker) would have had to follow.

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(*) Masseketh Kelim, reprinted in J.D. Eisenstein's Osar Midrashim (1915), pp. 260ff.

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(b) Josephus tells us (Ant., XVIII.4, §§1-2) that during the administration of Pontius Pilate (26-36 A.D.), someone did indeed perpetrate such a hoax on the Samaritans, whose independent temple on Mount Gerizim had been razed by John Hyrcanus in 128 B.C. Samaritan legend said likewise that the sacred vessels had then been cached against the day when the promised Restorer would arise and mend their fortunes. (†) The hoaxer professed to be that deliverer, and rallied a large crowd of the credulous under promise of revealing where the buried treasure lay.

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[†] See: T. Juynboll, ed., Chronicon Samaritanum cui titulus est Liber Josuae (1843), pp. 303-4; M. Gaster, Samaritan Eschatology (1932), pp. 251, 271.

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Surely it is not farfetched to imagine that such a pretender may have made the rounds of credulous communities, armed, by way of 'credentials', with a document comprehensively listing hidden troves within their respective vicinities. Such a comprehensive document, covering 'at one swoop' the diverse enclaves of the faithful, and inscribed—in accordance with tradition—on copper, may well be what we have before us in our mysterious Scroll.

That the document was intended to be taken seriously and not simply as a piece of fiction is obvious from two considerations. First, it is incredible that anyone would have taken the trouble to punch out the text on copper if he had desired merely to tell a tale. Moreover, the document says distinctly that another copy was buried elsewhere in the country, and this shows clearly that it purported to be a genuine list.

Second-and this point seems strangely to have been overlooked-the curious notations in Greek characters are inexplicable on the assumption that the whole document was just a product of storytelling romance, latently, they were some kind of identification mark, and the only reason for introducing them could have been either that the document was indeed a genuine list of treasure, the ownership of each deposit being clearly indicated against future recovery, or that this was an extra touch designed to lend verisimilitude to a fraud.

Two transcriptions of the Copper Scroll have thus far been published, by J.T. Milik (‡) and John Allegro (§) respectively. But they differ so radically in almost every line that we must simply await photographs before any translation can be safely attempted.

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[‡] Revue Biblique, 66 (1959), 321-57; 550-75. Revised in Discoveries in the Judaean Desert, III (1963).
[§] J.M. Allegro, The Treasure of the Copper Scroll. London-New York, 1960.

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The 'Prayer Of Nabonidus'

The collection of Scroll fragments in the possession of the Government of Jordan has yielded three small scraps of a legendary narrative, written in Aramaic, relating how Nabonidus (called N-b-n-y), the last king of the Neo-Babylonian empire (556-39 B.C.), while residing at Teima, was afflicted with a grievous disease by the God of Israel. A Jewish adviser counselled him to 'render honor ... to the name of God Most High' and admonished him that Thou hast been smitten with this noisome fever ... for seven years because thou hast been praying to gods of silver and gold, which gods are but stock and stone, mere clay' ... The fragments, published with remarkable skill by J. T. Milik, (*) are, unfortunately, in too sorry a condition for much to be made of them.

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(*) Revue Biblique, 63 (1956), 407ff.

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