Cave of Letters

[shmuel]

Last night on Nova on the local PBS station there was a show called "Ancient Refuge in the Holy Land". It was about the so called Cave of Letters, which was a place of refuge for Jews during the Bar Kokhba revolt. The controversial part was the idea put forth that it was also a place of refuge during the revolt of 66-70 and that vessels found there were vessels from the Second Temple.

S

Edited to correct show title

 

[shmuel]

The link for the offical site for the program

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/scrolls/about.html

Paticularly interesting to me was the information about Babatha

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/scrolls/life.html

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/scrolls/babatha.html

Babatha's letters were in Greek and Aramaic, which would indicate that Greek was used by Jews during this period along side Aramaic.

S

 

[insaneinthebrain]

It airs on my local PBS affiliate May 3, so I'll have to check it out.