Biblical Archaeology Review

Although many scholars associate the scroll with the Essene community, some doubt it was a real treasure, e.g., Jozef T. Milik, “The Copper Document from Cave III, Qumran,” The Biblical Archaeologist 19.3 (1956), pp. 60-64. For further, see Stephen Goranson, “Sectarianism, Geography and the Copper Scroll,” Journal of Jewish Studies 43 (1992), pp. 282-287; Al Wolters, “Literary Analysis and the Copper Scroll,” in Z.J. Kapera, ed., Intertestamental Essays in Honour of Jozef Tadeusz Milik (Krakόw: Enigma Press, 1992), pp.

For more detailed information on the sanctuary and the city on Mt.

There is only an indirect link between the Hebrew Bible and the sanctuary on Mt. Gerizim, and that link is the deity Yahweh. Yahweh was worshiped by the people who visited the sanctuary on Gerizim and by the authors of the Hebrew Bible, but there is no indication that the people on Gerizim were familiar with the Hebrew Bible. Nevertheless, the sanctuary on Mt. Gerizim is one of relatively few surviving Yahweh sanctuaries, and the Hebrew Bible is by far the most extensive and theologically informative ‘yahwistic’ text that we have.

A couple of stonecutter workshops have been excavated in the city on Mt. Gerizim, and they may have been independent businesses that were commissioned by the temple or by individual worshipers, but they may also have been temple-run and temple-owned.

See Delbert R. Hillers and Leonora Cussini, Palmyrene Aramaic Texts (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996).