שרידי ספרי המקרא ממערות המפלט מזמן מרד בר כוכבא

This study focuses on fragmentary Torah scrolls found in Bar Kokhba revolt refuge caves. Most of the Torah scrolls found in these caves match the physical standards of Torah, as defined in tannaitic and talmudic sources; the only exception is MurDeut, a Ḥumash that matches the standards for Ḥumashin. The extant fragments exhibit a range of up to four consecutive columns for each Torah scroll, and were not, as we might have expected, randomly dispersed. The fact that, in several cases, identical or closely associated fragments survived in different scrolls, led to the conclusion that this was not accidental. It appears that the external parts of a scroll had a better chance of survival in the desert environment. Because the external sections are usually the ones read last, with regard to Torah scrolls only read publicly, this allows us to identify the date of the last public Torah reading from the scrolls found in the refuge caves. The data point to a time range of approximately two months, including Passover. The historical conclusions are not unequivocal. We have no way of determining whether or not the refugees read the Torah scrolls in the cave; thus the above-noted time period could indicate when the refugees escaped to the cave, taking the Torah scrolls with them, or the date of the last public Torah reading in the caves before their capture by the Romans. A third possibility is that the date reflects the juncture at which the Torah scrolls were stored, in preparing the caves for use in an emergency. Notwithstanding this uncertainty, in considering the chronology of the Bar Kokhba revolt period, the time span reflected by Torah scroll fragments found in the refuge caves should be taken into account.