Category:Damascus Document (text)

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The Damascus Document (aka Zadokite Fragments; see online text) is a Second Temple Jewish document, now included in collections of Dead Sea Scrolls and Old Testament Pseudepigrapha.

Overview

The Damascus Document was already known before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, since two large fragments of the text had been found by Solomon Schechter in 1897 in the Cairo Genizah. The fragments were published in 1910 and named: "The Zadokite Fragments". With the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls many more mss. of the text became available.

The document divides into two parts:

• (a) The Admonition comprises moral instruction, exhortation, and warning addressed to members of the sect, together with polemic against its opponents; it serves as a kind of introduction to the second section.
• (b) The Laws regulates the life of the eschatological community, based on the teachings of the Teacher of Righteousness.

In contrast with the Rule of the Community (which seems to focus on a single community), the Damascus Document seems to be aimed to regulate the lives of the many Essene communities in villages and towns of Israel.

In Depth

• Damascus Document (text) -- editions and translations

• Damascus Document (research) -- survey of scholarly works

References

• Damascus Document / Charlotte Hempel / In: The Eerdmans Dictionary of Early Judaism (2010 Collins / Harlow), edited volume, 510-512

• Zadokite Fragments (Damascus Document) / Lawrence H. Schiffman / In: The Anchor Bible Dictionary (1992 Freedman), dictionary, 6:1036-1038

External links

• Wikipedia