Some fragments of the Dead Sea Scroll manuscripts were contaminated with castor oil in the late 1950s. We have conducted experiments in order to establish if the AAA pretreatment cleaning procedures conducted on Dead Sea Scroll manuscript samples in the last two dating series (Bonani et al. 1992; Jull et al. 1995) were effective in removing oil contamination. Our experiments show that not all oil contamination can be expected to have been removed by the acid-alkaline-acid (AAA) pretreatment, and that the radiocarbon ages previously reported therefore cannot be guaranteed to be correct. Any samples contaminated with castor oil were most likely reported with ages that are too young by an unknown amount.

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The publication in January, 1953, of fragments of an unknown recension of the Greek Bible gave the first unambiguous warnings of a revolution to come in the textual criticism of the Hebrew Bible. Earlier the publication of the great Isaiah scroll of Qumrân, Cave I (IQ Isaa), and later of the second fragmentary roll of Isaiah (IQ Isab), created noise and excitement, but none of the major text-critical schools was forced to shift significant ground. Champions of the Hebraica veritas who had increasingly dominated the field, especially in Europe, noted the close affinities of the scrolls with the traditional text. The failure of IQ Isa to produce a significant number of superior readings despite its antiquity embarrassed lingering survivors of the great critical tradition of the nineteenth century, and delighted biblical exegetes and historians who wished to ply their trade without entering the miasmal precincts of text-critical labors. Despite some attention paid to its occasional affinities with the Old Greek, most scholars, whether prompted by traditionalist prejudgment or sheer inertia, were pleased to label the text vulgar or even sectarian, avoiding thereby a serious reexamination of their text-critical theories.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. Fragments of an inscribed bowl were found in excavations at Qubir el-Walaydah directed byRudolph Cohen in 1977.2 The two joined pieces are numbered Sherd 34 and stem from Locus 11, Area B. The associated pottery, and the bowl itself, belong to the very end of Late Bronze II or to the beginning of Iron I. The inscription was skillfully engraved on the outside rim of the bowl after firing. It was written from left to right, individual words being separated by vertical dividers. Unfortunately the end of the inscription (on the right) is broken off and lost. The text reads as follows: Smp'l. 'y'l. . rlo0'? ] The graphemes which are preserved fully on the sherd are not in doubt. The tin, which appears This issue is published with the assistance of a grant from Lila Acheson Wallace.

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