Difference between revisions of "Damascus Document" - New World Encyclopedia
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| + | The title of the document comes from numerous references within it to [[Damascus]]. It is a matter of debate whether this is a literal reference to [[Damascus]] in [[Syria]], or a metaphorical references to a great pagan city (as "[[Babylon]]" is in the [[Book of Revelation]]), or possibly even Qumran itself. Damascus had supposedly been part of Israel under King [[David]], and the Damascus Document expresses an apocalyptic hope of the restoration of a Davidic monarchy. | ||
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| + | The document prominently mentions a [[Teacher of Righteousness]], whom some of the Qumran scrolls treat as a figure from their past, and others treat as a figure in their present, and still others as a figure of the future. The document describes the group among whom the it was created as having been leaderless for 20 years before the Teacher established his rule over the group. This too is a subject of much debate, but historians generally date the Teacher to circa 150 B.C.E., largely due to the fact that the document states that he arrived 390 years after the Babylonian Exile. | ||
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[[Image:1QIsa b.jpg|thumb|One of the scrolls of the Book of Isaiah found at Qumran. The Damascus Document is considerably more fragmentary.]] | [[Image:1QIsa b.jpg|thumb|One of the scrolls of the Book of Isaiah found at Qumran. The Damascus Document is considerably more fragmentary.]] | ||
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| − | + | Even before the Qumran discovery of the mid-twentieth century, parts of this work had been known to scholars, through two manuscripts found during the late nineteenth century among the [[Cairo Genizah]] collection. These fragments are known as the "CD" ("Cairo Damascus") documents and date from the tenth and twelfth centuries. In contrast to the fragments found at Qumran, the CD documents are largely complete, and therefore are vital for reconstructing the text. | |
| + | |||
| + | Eight separate copies of the Damascus Document were kept in Qumran Cave 4 and an additional copy in Cave 5. These have been dated to the beginning of the Common Era, give or take several decades. Where the content of the Qumran fragments overlaps with Geniza manuscripts there is little variation between them. | ||
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| + | The relationship between the Damascus Document and the Community Rule remains a matter of controversy, although the two documents clearly share a great deal of sectarian terminology. | ||
| + | |||
| + | The Geniza versions begin with an exhortation speaks of the origins of the Essene movement. | ||
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| + | "The Community Rule" is this work's own title in one manuscript. It has also been called the "Manual of Discipline." The Community Rule describes a community similar to the Essenes as portrayed by historians such as Josephus and Philo. Like the Essenes, the Community Rule insisted on community ownership of property and provides rules for joining the community that are likewise similar to other descriptions of the Essenes. It speaks of a ceremonial meal to be shared only by ritually pure members and prescribes an oath to be taken by new members. It also seems to hold that only celibate men may become full members of the sect. | ||
| − | + | On the other hand, some scholars have argued that the Dead Sea Scrolls are not related to the supposed Essene community at Qumran. In these theory they form a depository of texts probably originating in Jerusalem, and were placed in Qumran for safe keeping when the Romans destroyed the Temple in 70 C.E.. | |
| − | + | ----------------- | |
| + | '''One view is that the Community Rule is a constitution for a celibate, quasi-monastic core group living at Qumran itself (a site that, on archaeological grounds, could not support more than a couple of hundred residents, if that). The Damascus Document is a constitution for a contemporary, larger group of followers with less rigorous requirements for membership: they married, had families, and conducted business with the outside world. Josephus mentions one group of celibate Essenes and another that married and had children. It is possible that the first corresponds to the group of the Community Rule and the second to the group of the Damascus Document. This interpretation requires a methodologically problematic (as per last week's lecture) harmonistic reading of the evidence and it fails to explain some of the most puzzling differences between the Community Rule and the Damascus Document (why, for example, does the Teacher of Righteousness appear in the latter but not the former?). | ||
| − | + | A second view, which I give in the form recently defended by Charlotte Hempel in The Laws of the Damascus Document, is that the Damascus Document is the constitution of a parent group that evolved over time into the group that produced the Community Rule. The Damascus Document contains a corpus of legal traditions widely accepted over the whole spectrum of Second Temple Judaism (the "halakhah stratum"), which has been adopted and incorporated into a "communal legislation stratum" by this parent group. The Community Rule is the constitution of a group that descended from the parent group and composed and redacted the Damascus Document. This theory raises the questions of why we have no variant versions of the Damascus Document if it went through a complex redaction, and how the variant versions of the Community Rule and 4Q265 can be fitted into the proposed evolutionary schema. | |
| − | + | Third, Philip R. Davies, like Hempel, believes that a real community lies behind the Damascus Document. There may also have been a real group that called itself the Yah9C.E., but the manuscripts of the Community Rule are private or library copies of a utopian document, one that reflects not a real community but an invented society inspired by antiquarian interests. Such utopian speculation is common in ancient Jewish literature. Consider, for example, Ezekiel's Temple, the Temple Scroll, the War Rule, and the Mishnah. If Davies's suggestion is true, it would require a radical rethinking of the whole field of Qumran studies.''' | |
== References == | == References == | ||
Revision as of 01:46, 31 May 2008
The Damascus Document, also called the Zadokite Fragments, one of the works found in multiple fragments and copies in the caves at Qumran, and as such is counted among the Dead Sea Scrolls. The current majority view among scholars is that the scrolls are related to an Essene community based there around the first century B.C.E. Because it gives specific insights into the unique religious attitudes of its writers, the Damascus Document is considered one of the most important sources for understanding the ancient Essene movement.
Historians believe that some of the Essenes isolated themselves in the wilderness near Qumran during the reign of Antiochus IV Epiphanes beginning around 175 B.C.E., in order to escape persecution.
The Damascus Document seems to have been written in stages between that time and 70 C.E., when the Essen community at Qumran community at Qumran was abandoned.
The first section of the Damascus Document consists concerns the community's religious teachings. It stresses devotion to Israel's covenant with God and an absolutely strict interpretation of Jewish Sabbath laws and other injunctions. The document also speaks of a Teacher of Righteousness, who is opposed by the Wicked Priest. Various theories have emerged concerning the identity and roles of these two antagonists. The document predicts that the age of the Messiah would begin 40 years after the Teacher death.
The Damascus Document's second section contains a set of regulations concerning community life and discipline that gives a sense of the Qumran sect's way of life as they prepared themselves for the Messiah's coming.
History
The title of the document comes from numerous references within it to Damascus. It is a matter of debate whether this is a literal reference to Damascus in Syria, or a metaphorical references to a great pagan city (as "Babylon" is in the Book of Revelation), or possibly even Qumran itself. Damascus had supposedly been part of Israel under King David, and the Damascus Document expresses an apocalyptic hope of the restoration of a Davidic monarchy.
The document prominently mentions a Teacher of Righteousness, whom some of the Qumran scrolls treat as a figure from their past, and others treat as a figure in their present, and still others as a figure of the future. The document describes the group among whom the it was created as having been leaderless for 20 years before the Teacher established his rule over the group. This too is a subject of much debate, but historians generally date the Teacher to circa 150 B.C.E., largely due to the fact that the document states that he arrived 390 years after the Babylonian Exile.
Even before the Qumran discovery of the mid-twentieth century, parts of this work had been known to scholars, through two manuscripts found during the late nineteenth century among the Cairo Genizah collection. These fragments are known as the "CD" ("Cairo Damascus") documents and date from the tenth and twelfth centuries. In contrast to the fragments found at Qumran, the CD documents are largely complete, and therefore are vital for reconstructing the text.
Eight separate copies of the Damascus Document were kept in Qumran Cave 4 and an additional copy in Cave 5. These have been dated to the beginning of the Common Era, give or take several decades. Where the content of the Qumran fragments overlaps with Geniza manuscripts there is little variation between them.
The relationship between the Damascus Document and the Community Rule remains a matter of controversy, although the two documents clearly share a great deal of sectarian terminology.
The Geniza versions begin with an exhortation speaks of the origins of the Essene movement.
"The Community Rule" is this work's own title in one manuscript. It has also been called the "Manual of Discipline." The Community Rule describes a community similar to the Essenes as portrayed by historians such as Josephus and Philo. Like the Essenes, the Community Rule insisted on community ownership of property and provides rules for joining the community that are likewise similar to other descriptions of the Essenes. It speaks of a ceremonial meal to be shared only by ritually pure members and prescribes an oath to be taken by new members. It also seems to hold that only celibate men may become full members of the sect.
On the other hand, some scholars have argued that the Dead Sea Scrolls are not related to the supposed Essene community at Qumran. In these theory they form a depository of texts probably originating in Jerusalem, and were placed in Qumran for safe keeping when the Romans destroyed the Temple in 70 C.E.
One view is that the Community Rule is a constitution for a celibate, quasi-monastic core group living at Qumran itself (a site that, on archaeological grounds, could not support more than a couple of hundred residents, if that). The Damascus Document is a constitution for a contemporary, larger group of followers with less rigorous requirements for membership: they married, had families, and conducted business with the outside world. Josephus mentions one group of celibate Essenes and another that married and had children. It is possible that the first corresponds to the group of the Community Rule and the second to the group of the Damascus Document. This interpretation requires a methodologically problematic (as per last week's lecture) harmonistic reading of the evidence and it fails to explain some of the most puzzling differences between the Community Rule and the Damascus Document (why, for example, does the Teacher of Righteousness appear in the latter but not the former?).
A second view, which I give in the form recently defended by Charlotte Hempel in The Laws of the Damascus Document, is that the Damascus Document is the constitution of a parent group that evolved over time into the group that produced the Community Rule. The Damascus Document contains a corpus of legal traditions widely accepted over the whole spectrum of Second Temple Judaism (the "halakhah stratum"), which has been adopted and incorporated into a "communal legislation stratum" by this parent group. The Community Rule is the constitution of a group that descended from the parent group and composed and redacted the Damascus Document. This theory raises the questions of why we have no variant versions of the Damascus Document if it went through a complex redaction, and how the variant versions of the Community Rule and 4Q265 can be fitted into the proposed evolutionary schema.
Third, Philip R. Davies, like Hempel, believes that a real community lies behind the Damascus Document. There may also have been a real group that called itself the Yah9C.E., but the manuscripts of the Community Rule are private or library copies of a utopian document, one that reflects not a real community but an invented society inspired by antiquarian interests. Such utopian speculation is common in ancient Jewish literature. Consider, for example, Ezekiel's Temple, the Temple Scroll, the War Rule, and the Mishnah. If Davies's suggestion is true, it would require a radical rethinking of the whole field of Qumran studies.
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- Broshi, Magen: The Damascus document reconsidered (Israel Exploration Society: Shrine of the Book, Israel Museum, 1992)
- Davies, P. R.: The Damascus covenant: an interpretation of the "Damascus document" (Sheffield, 1983)
- Ginzberg, L.: An Unknown Jewish Sect (E.T.: New York, 1976)
- Kahle, Paul: The Cairo Genizah (Oxford: Blackwell, 1959)
- Rabin, C.: The Zadokite documents, 1: the admonition, 2: the laws (2nd ed. Oxford, 1958)
- Reif, Stefan: Article "Cairo Genizah," in Encyclopaedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Oxford: OUP: forthcoming 1997) ed LH Schiffman and JC VanderKam
- Rowley, H. H.: The Zadokite fragments and the Dead Sea scrolls (Oxford: Blackwell, 1952)
- Schechter, S.: Documents of Jewish sectaries/ edited from Hebrew MSS. in the Cairo Genizah collection, now in the possession of the University Library, Cambridge (Cambridge: University Press, 1910) 2 v
- Zeitlin, Solomon: The Zadokite fragments: facsimile of the manuscripts in the Cairo Genizah collection in the possession of the University Library, Cambridge, England (Philadelphia: Dropsie College, 1952)
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