How I Found a Fourth-Century B.C. Papyrus Scroll on My First Time Out!
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Footnotes
The Mishnah is the collection of Jewish oral laws compiled by Rabbi Judah the Prince in about 200 A.D.
The Talmud (tahl-MOOD) is a collection of Jewish laws and teachings comprising the Mishnah and the Gemarah (a commentary on the Mishnah). There are two Talmuds. The Palestinian (or Jerusalem) Talmud was completed in the mid-fifth century; the Babylonian Talmud, completed in the mid-sixth century, became authoritative.
See Paul W. Lapp, “Bedouin Find Papyri Three Centuries Older Than the Dead Sea Scrolls,” BAR 04:01, and Frank M. Cross, “The Historical Importance of the Samaria Papyri,” BAR 04:01.
Endnotes
These events are described in 1 Maccabees 16:11–16, and in Flavius Josephus, The Jewish War 1.2:3–4 and Antiquities of the Jews 13.8:1. In Maccabees the citadel is named Dok, but Josephus calls it Dagon.
For the history of this monastery see Otto Meinardus, “Notes on the Laurae and Monasteries of Wilderness of Judaea,” III, Liber Annus 19 (1969), pp. 305–327.
Ludolph Von Suchem, Description of the Holy Land, (London: Palestine Pilgrims Text Society, 1895), p. 115. My thanks to Nitzan Price for helping identify the coin.
Yigael Yadin, The Finds from the Bar-Kokhba—Period in the Cave of Letters (Jerusalem: Bialik Institute/Israel Exploration Society, 1963), p. 166.
Paul W. Lapp and Nancy L. Lapp, ed., Discoveries in the Wadi Daliyeh, Annual of the American School of Oriental Research 41 (1974).
Also present was Haggai Mishgav, a student of Professor Naveh. He is collaborating with me in publishing the older text.
Solinus, 35:4 no. 449, in Menahem Stern, Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism, vol. 2 (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1974), pp. 418–420.