A New Dead Sea Scroll Discovered?

[maklelan]

Via Jim Davila at Paleojudaica, the IAA recently confiscated a papyrus during an operation that has a Hebrew text on it that may date to the first century of the Common Era. The document references "year four to the destruction of Israel," which could refer to 74 CE (after the destruction of the temple), or 139 CE (after the Bar Kokhba Revolt). Testing will be done on the unprovenanced papyrus to determine its antiquity, but it seem pretty legit to me. A hi-res photo can be downloaded here. The story is here. This is pretty cool.

[Doctor Steuss]

Daniel,

From scanning the article, it didn't appear to have a full translation. By "legal document," does that mean it is a document outlining some of the legal codes of the community, or does it mean that it is akin to a deed, or judicial ruling, etc.?

(Throwing myself on the graces of your translation skills)

[The_Monk]

First impressions- It's sloppy. doesn't look like the nice hands I've seen in the DSS, more like the hard-to-read Aramaic papyri from Elephantine. But I'm not an epigrapher...

[maklelan]

First impressions- It's sloppy. doesn't look like the nice hands I've seen in the DSS, more like the hard-to-read Aramaic papyri from Elephantine. But I'm not an epigrapher...

Yeah, it's definitely not a carefully produced religious text. It's definitely more like a Bar Kokhba letter or a something from Elephantine. I honestly can't make much of it because of how sloppy it is and how much bleeding has taken place, but from what I've read it appears to deal with a widow's relinquishment of some property. It mentions a bunch of names and some settlements from Judea.

[cinepro]

Rare 1400 Year Old Native American Records Written on Golden Plates were

Seized in an Operation

Palmyra Sentinel, September 30, 1827

The director of the Unit for the Prevention of Antiquities Robbery in the State of New York Antiquities Authority: â??It seems we are dealing with rare historic evidence regarding the Jewish people in their country from more than 1,400 years agoâ?.

A document thought to be an ancient text written on gold plates was seized yesterday (Tuesday) in an operation led by the Intelligence Office of the State of New York, Upperstate Region and the Undercover Unit of the Border Police in Palmyra, in cooperation with the Unit for the Prevention of Antiquities Robbery and the Archaeological Staff Officer in the Civil Administration.

[maklelan]

Thanks for injecting your antagonism into a conversation that had nothing to do with the Book of Mormon. I hope it succeeded in making you feel like a bigger person.

[cinepro]

Thanks for injecting your antagonism into a conversation that had nothing to do with the Book of Mormon. I hope it succeeded in making you feel like a bigger person.

Dude, it's not antagonistic. I was just thinking of how it would have been reported in a newspaper had the plates somehow been stolen from Joseph Smith and recovered by some local law enforcement agency, based on the article linked in the OP. It's more of a humorous "what if?" scenario.

[maklelan]

An update was just published here. Apparently the papyrus is a receipt written by Miriam bas Yaakov for her former husband's brother, Saul, declaring she had received all the money from her kesuvah, or prenup. They think it dates to four years after the end of the Bar Kokhba Revolt.

[volgadon]

And could we not use Yiddish transliteration? Bath and kethuva if you really have to.

[098]

Thanks for injecting your antagonism into a conversation that had nothing to do with the Book of Mormon. I hope it succeeded in making you feel like a bigger person.

That's ironically funny, considering that the poster's avatar is only a few feet tall.