Now it's time to see if there are any connections between what we've been discussing and the Copper Scroll found at Qumran. (It's about time, you say?) The scroll, as has been previously mentioned, lists 64 sites where quantities of valuables were hidden. We'll look at two. [Parenthetical notations are Allegro's]
THE HINNOM VALLEY AND THE SHAVEHTwo items of the scroll refer to "The Plain," or Shaveh:
37. In the stubble-field of the Shaveh, facing southwest, in an underground passage looking north, buried at twenty-four cubits: 67 talents.
38. In the irrigation cistern (?) of the Shaveh, in the outlet that is in it, buried at eleven cubits: 70 talents of silver.
It must be said at once that it is by no means certain whether the scribe here intends Shaveh to be read as a proper name or to mean simply "plain." Possibly because either is possible he is here willing to risk the proper name. It is certainly as a proper name that Shaveh occurs in Gen 14:17 as the name of the valley (`emeq; see above, page 69) where the victorious Abram was met by the King of Sodom and was blessed by Melchizedek, "king of Salem." A later commentator has added the gloss that the Vale of Shaveh was the "King's Vale," which is reminiscent of the "King's Garden" through which Zedekiah escaped during a siege of Jerusalem by the Chaldeans (II Kings 25:4; cf. Jer 39:4 52:7). This garden lay at the south end of the southeastern hill, in the vicinity of the Pool of Siloam, so we should probably seek the Biblical Shaveh at the southern end of the Tyropoeon, or Outer Valley where it joins with the Hinnom and broadens out into a plain, or `emeq (figure 9). Interestingly enough, this finds some confirmation in an old Aramaic version of Genesis which explains the Shaveh as the "Plain of Vision," thinking no doubt of Isaiah's "Valley of Vision" which, as we have seen (page 85), really indicated our Outer, or Tyropoeon Valley.
The particular region referred to by our scroll apparently faced southwest, which must mean that the name Shaveh could be applied to the whole southern stretch of the Hinnom Valley, as far as the cistern called the Sultan's Pool (birket es-Sultan). The field concerned will have been near the site of this reservoir, on the eastern bank of the valley, and thus "facing southwest." It is precisely under this stretch of ground that there lies parts of the aqueduct which once brought water from Solomon's Pools at Etan to the Temple area (JA XVIII iii 2; ~60; JW II is 4; ~175). The aqueduct's course runs up by the western side of the Sultan's Pool, around its northern end, and then down this eastern stretch before curving round the southwestern corner of the city and across the Outer Valley to the Haram. Here is how Warren describes a stretch of this conduit shortly after it leaves our location: (pp 90-91)
We'll stop there. So Allegro identifies two of the sites with the Valley of Hinnom, the place of Jeremiah's potter's field, and no doubt that of Judas' as well. The field bought with the price of Christ may have been planned to have been bought in advance, by Jeremiah, through inspiration of God.
But, the reader must be asking, what about Anathoth? Doesn't the Copper Scroll conveniently say "And in Anathoth, in the field of Hanameel, buried at 10 cubits, the Lost Ark, the Holy Grail, the Urim and the Thummim?" Well, no. But let's consider some more items. Again, from Allegro, op cit, p 53:
ITEM 52. Below the Portico's southern corner, in the Tomb of Zadok, under the platform of the exedra: vessels for tithe sweepings, spoilt tithes, (and) inside them, figured coins.
ITEM 53. In the exedra of the cliff facing west, in front of the Garden of Zadok, under the great sealing-stone that is in its bottom: consecrated offerings. In -[according to Allegro, here is a scribal error]
Allegro assumes Zadok to be a veiled reference to either James the Just, since Zadok, or Tsaddik, can be translated Just, or possibly Joseph of Arimethea, because of the Garden mentioned. This is assuming, of all things, the faith of Christianity on the part of keepers of the Temple treasure. It must not be forgotten that Jesus was no friend of Temple priests, and that Christianity was destined to find its initial fulfillment not in Israel but in the lands of non-Jews. I'd have to say that the greatest impediment to assuming any contemporary connection between a scroll of Jewish temple treasure and Christianity is the Jews, who have been accused of lots of things, but not Christianity.
It seems far more likely that the Zadok mentioned here is a proper name, a man named Zadok, and perhaps the Zadok already mentioned in a previous chapter. To review briefly:
The words of Jeremiah the son of Hilkiah...(Jer 1:1)
And Jeremiah said, "The word of the LORD came to me, saying, `Behold Hanameel the son of Shallum your uncle...(Jer 32:6-7)'"
...Ezra the son of Seraiah, the son of Azariah, the son of Hilkiah, the son of Shallum, the son of Zadok...(Ezra 7:1-2)
...Zadok begot Shallum; Shallum begot Hilkiah, and Hilkiah begot Azariah...(I Chron 6:12-13)
...Azariah, the son of Hilkiah, the son of Meshullam, the son of Zadok...(I Chron 9:11)
...Seraiah the son of Hilkiah, the son of Meshullam, the son of Zadok...(Neh 11:11)
As mentioned before, the family of Zadok, Shallum and Hilkiah are not only temple priests, but also the family of Jeremiah, at Anathoth.
This, then, leads us to this conclusion: If the Zadok mentioned here is of the family of Jeremiah, he would probably be buried at or near Anathoth, and Hanameel could legally sell this land by right of redemption to Jeremiah. This places 2 locations in the scroll right in Anathoth. This may be our link.
This is not to mention the lands linked to Hakkoz, as cited by Professor McCarter. It also indirectly explains something else. If Jeremiah and Ezra can both claim the same lineage, of Zadok, Hilkiah and Shallum, then this copper scroll would have been only one, the most visible and sensational, proof of Jewish land ownership between the first two temples. Because that would mean that Jeremiah, or Baruch the son of Neriah, placed this and other title deeds in earthen vessels to last many days in a cave at Qumran. Perhaps Baruch and some of his followers were further commissioned to keep an eye on these items, establishing a small enclave in the rough terrain of the Dead Sea mountains, where they would be safe from the Chaldeans. When Ezra came back from the captivity 70 years later he would find some of the children of these men. Children?
We are told in Jeremiah chapter 40 that he is let go by Nebuzaradan the captain of the guard, in fear of Jeremiah's God. A remnant of Jews remain in Judea, with them the daughters of king Zedekiah whose sons were killed before his eyes. Jeremiah and these daughters, and others, are taken to Egypt (43:6), to Tahpanhes. "`Yet a small number who escape the sword shall return from the land of Egypt to the land of Judah...'(Jeremiah 44:28)" So Jeremiah has a small group of people with him, women included. When Ezra comes back, then, he is perhaps met by some of this remnant, who acquaint him with God's commission to his kinsman, and the title deeds to the lands. All except one, because the time is not yet ripe for the fulfillment of the deeper meaning of that one. That one must wait until 1952 to be discovered.
There are 2 main arguments that would likely be used to refute my hypothesis. I will begin with one used by Professor McCarter in his refutation of Manfred R. Lehmann's hypothesis that the treasure was accumulated between the First and Second Jewish Revolts from 70-132 a.d. in "The Mysterious Copper Scroll: Clues to Hidden Temple Treasure?" ("Bible Review," August 1992). In his refutation, Prof. McCarter states that "the script of the Copper Scroll belongs to the latter part of the Herodian period, roughly 25-75 C.E. In all probability the Copper Scroll, like the rest of the Qumran library, was deposited in Cave 3 before or very soon after the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E. (p 64)." However, as he argues earlier in this article, pages 38-39:
Now let me list the peculiarities and problems in working with this text. It is written in a form of Hebrew that has a lot in common with Mishnaic Hebrew (the Mishnah is an early rabbinical text assembled in about 200 C.E.), but is not identical to it. In fact, it is not identical to any Hebrew that we know, and is probably a village dialect of Hebrew. Although at this time Aramaic was the primary language in Judea, Hebrew was still spoken in villages, so that we may assume that the scribe who produced the Copper Scroll, whoever he may have been, was writing in his own dialect with all of its idiosyncrasies.
The spelling of individual words is often peculiar. We know a variety of spelling systems- a variety of kinds of orthography, as it is called- from the various Qumran scrolls and from other manuscripts, but no orthographic system quite matches the one used in the Copper Scroll. Sometimes this seems to be because mistakes are being made. At others, it may be that it is not a spelling peculiarity but a grammatical peculiarity with which we are not familiar.
Next, the script itself is unusual. Anyone who takes a sheet of copper and attempts to write on it with a stylus or some other sharp object would probably produce something quite different from his or her normal handwriting. Someone who, like our scribe, was accustomed to writing with brush and ink on a piece of leather, would find that his handwriting, when transferred to a metal surface, would be considerably distorted. In part, therefore, the handwriting is peculiar because the scribe is working on an unfamiliar material. In addition, however, it seems likely that this is not the hand of an expert scribe, such as those who wrote most of the leather manuscripts in the Qumran archive.
So, Professor McCarter here cites several difficulties in identifying the authorship of the scroll, yet he is able to refute Mr. Lehmann on an esoteric point of script-style differentiating one 62 year period from the 50 year period immediately preceding it. I have to submit the argument that script style is nothing more nor less than the copying of particular letter elements (curves and points and spacing) from one region to another, or within a region, and that as far as dating a manuscript it is altogether conjectural.
The second argument bound to be used against a theory that the Copper Scroll should be dated closer to the time of the First Temple will be the mysterious Greek letters contained within it. There are seven small sets of Greek letters in the scroll, which have yet to be deciphered. As Greek was not to become the language of learning in Judea for several centuries after the Babylonian captivity, it will be easy to argue that the existence of Greek letters renders any question of dating the scroll to the 6th century b.c. null, void and ridiculous. This would be true. Unless, of course, someone came along later and put those Greek letters in. Perhaps notations were made that these particular caches of treasure had been discovered. Perhaps they were verified as still being there. Perhaps these Greek letters, 2 or 3 at a time, are men's initials. Also interesting is that these seven letter groups occur in the first four columns of the scroll alone. There are none in the subsequent eight columns. Perhaps the unrolling of the scroll proved too much of a chore. Probably, whatever these letters represent, they can't be too important, or they would have been continued through the entire text. That they are keys to decipherment seems to us to be a blind alley. That they preclude an earlier date is just not true.
There will probably also be the argument that some form of carbon-dating proves the date of the scroll, but carbon-dating, of course, does not work on copper. The scroll is composed of unusually pure copper- 99% copper and 1% tin. As yet, no one has put out a scientific date for this particular scroll.
The gentleman whose thesis Professor McCarter refutes, Manfred R. Lehmann, published his thesis in the November/December 1993 "Biblical Archaeology Review" (pp. 38-43.) While I certainly disagree that the treasure was accumulated between 70 and 132 a.d., I do feel that his article serves my thesis, if we follow his facts and not his theory.
...I do not believe the [Qumran monastery] was inhabited by Essenes but by Sadducees. I also reject the treasure of the Copper Scroll as the Temple treasure. I do so because I believe the scroll itself gives us clues as to what the treasure was.
I believe this was Temple treasure collected after the Roman destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E.
According to Jewish law, the Temple taxes, as well as voluntary offerings, continued even after the destruction of the Temple. These offerings were collected in anticipation of the rebuilding of the Temple. The Temple had been destroyed once before, in 586 B.C.E. by the Babylonians, and 70 years later it was rebuilt. The same hope burned in Jewish breasts after the Roman destruction of the Second Temple. Thus, the Temple contributions were to be continued even though the Temple itself was in ruins. However, until this great day, the offerings had to be hidden and buried.
Mr. Lehmann goes on to cite the halakhic (Jewish legal) origins of the some of the offerings and tithes mentioned in the scroll, particularly citing the absence of sacrificial offerings and concluding that the Temple was therefore not in existence at the time. Now, recalling the 32nd chapter of Jeremiah, it was on the eve of destruction that Jeremiah redeemed the field in Anathoth. The sacrifice would have ended with the destruction of the Temple.
Unfortunately, not being a scroll scholar, I have needed to base my ideas on what they have written, and therefore I have no choice but to rely on them. I do not question their translations, or their facts, but only the knowledge base from which they allow themselves to draw conclusions. I do not see a concerted effort to deny the possibility that the copper scroll treasure is from the First Temple, only a nearly complete absence of effort to consider it. So I take their evidence used to point to the Second Temple, and try to redirect it toward the First. It is for the reader to judge if I am unfair.
I simply believe that my theory, as presented in this book, takes the facts into account and explains them best, at the same time eliminating many unfortunate questions and contradictions which arise with the placing of the scroll at the time of the Second Temple's destruction. By placing it at the time of the First Temple's destruction, we establish also an origin for the Qumran community which fits in neatly with the untied loose ends of the story of Jeremiah's return from Egypt. Following the return of the captives after 70 years, perhaps the remnant believed they should wait for the Messiah, having read Isaiah. Perhaps they became further acquainted with Daniel and Ezekiel, prophets of the captivity, and readied themselves for the temple envisioned by Ezekiel by establishing some codes and laws unique to their situation, come down to us in the form of the Temple Scroll. In the centuries to come, they would by nature of their isolation have a unique viewpoint on contemporary events, including the Maccabean revolt and subsequent relations with foreign rulers, none of which would please them, as the Messiah would not yet have come. When Jesus came, He would no doubt have known of them, even if He wasn't one of them. That He was or wasn't one of them one can claim based on one's interpretation of the years of His life not mentioned in the Gospels, but what is next to impossible to believe is that He was the Teacher of Righteousness mentioned in some of the scrolls. We give one reason why we believe this in the next and final chapter.