The survival rate of ancient literature

[Timotheus]

There are at least 4 theories as to how/when the Library burned. As far as I can tell, there is not clear consensus which is correct. It seems to me that the ashes ought to be found in a stratum that would make it fairly easy to determine at least the century, but I'm not a historian or an archeologist.

My personal opinion, not thoroughly researched, is that the first library burned during J.Caesar's war against Ptolemy, and was probably an accident. It's reported that Mark Anthony took scrolls by the hundred from Pergamum and had a library rebuilt using those "books" as a gift to Cleopatra, but many of the original volumes were lost irrecovacably. If this is true, the library was burned about a century before Jesus was crucified, and at least a three centuries before the church was an entity capable of ordering anything. Again, I apologize to the real historians, and am willing to be shown wrong in these statements.

Out of curiosity what would you base this on? Caesar did burn the Egyptian fleet but in a city where its library and the books within are really the heart of the city I would find it very illogical that the library was located close enough to the docks that the library would also be burnt.

Also in my experience most pieces I have read that want to blame Caesar are written by people with religious bias who are more interested in shifting blame away from the Patriarch and Christianity. I find it extra amusing because quite often its a dual-point arguement made that Caesar did it and who really cares because there wasnt that much stuff in the library anyway.