Damascus script

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Fragment of Damascus script (4Q271) from cave 4

The Damascus script ( Damascus Document or Cairo-Damascus , abbreviation CD ) is one of the Dead Sea Scrolls . Part of the text was already known from the Cairo Geniza of the Ben Esra Synagogue and was published by Solomon Schechter in 1910 under the title “ Fragments of a Zadokite Work ”.

Surname

The work is about a community that lives in the "land of Damascus". It is uncertain whether it is the real city of Damascus or whether Damascus is a cipher for the exile that the members of the community have chosen.

Text transmission

Geniza Codices

From the Cairo Geniza there are single sheets of two codices CD A (two times four double sheets, i.e. 16 pages with a gap (lacuna) between page CD A viii and side CD A ix) and CD B (a large-format double sheet, i.e. two pages, designated as CD B xix and CD B xx). Both texts partially overlap. The end of page CD B xix and the entire page CD B xx fills the beginning of the gap in Codex CD A.

Scrolls

Fragments of a total of 10 scrolls from the Qumran text stock could be assigned to the Damascus script: 4Q266–273, 5Q12 and 6Q15. The new material that has become known in this way has to be classified before the beginning of CD A, partly it fills the extensive text gap that exists in CD A, partly it follows after the end of CD A.

structure

The Damascus script can be divided into two main parts: the warning and the collection of laws. The memorial contains overviews of the history of Israel since the Babylonian exile and draws lessons from it. The collection of laws consists of four blocks:

  1. Laws for the Instructor. Men with certain disabilities are not permitted to serve as priests or to read the Torah .
  2. Order for the Settlement of the Tribes of Israel. In part, this is not the Jachad limited Halachot how agricultural law or Sabbath laws, sometimes there are rules that apply only to the Jachad how the accession ceremony or the valid and Jachad offices.
  3. Order for the settlement of the camps. Jachad groups - families with women and children - are organized in camps ( machanot ) and are subordinate to a supervisor ( mevaḳer ).
  4. List of legal clauses. A catalog of punishments with clear references to the community rule of the Jachad. An exclusion ritual is carried out in the annual federal renewal ceremony.

subjects

The Damascus script is interested in a periodization of history, similar to the book of jubilees . Good and evil face each other, here the members of the “New Covenant”, there the “wicked”, led by Belial . It is expected that the end of the story will be near and the " Anointed One of Aaron and Israel" will perform. This has the priestly function to atone for the sin of the people.

390 years after the Babylonian exile, a group called the “New Covenant in the Land of Damascus” was formed. Although there is already the idea of ​​a new covenant between God and Israel in Jer. 31.31  EU , the Damascus script makes a higher claim. “Simply being a Jew is no longer enough (CD A xvi 1–2). One must also commit oneself exclusively to the beliefs of 'the New Covenant in the Land of Damascus' with an oath in order to be able to obtain atonement (CD A xiv 19).

In the Torah , the order of the Israelites' desert camp occupies a large space. The Damascus script, derived from this, develops the idea of ​​a camp in which the members live as families. Each camp is subordinate to a supervisor ( mevaḳer ) who trains the young people and instructs the adults. He also regulates everyday problems and checks candidates before they join the community, so he has extensive competencies. One does not find out how this office is filled.

Emergence

The Damascus script was created over a long period of time and had a complicated editorial history. The oldest example 4Q266 was made at the beginning of the 1st century BC. Written down in BC. The editing of the Damascus script is mostly in the period between 130 and 90 BC. It is assumed that the sources used are older. The text of the individual manuscripts is relatively stable, even if there are a few different readings in the Qumran fragments compared to the Geniza texts. The relationship between the Damascus script and the Community Rule is complex and not fully understood. It is clear that both works had a longer development process, some of which ran parallel and where there was influence in both directions. The final editing of the Damascus script looks back on the death of the repeatedly named " teacher of justice ".

literature

  • Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra: Qumran: The Dead Sea Texts and Ancient Judaism (UTB 4681). Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2016, ISBN 9783825246815 .
  • Géza G. Xeravits, Peter Porzig: Introduction to the Qumran literature . Walter de Gruyter, Berlin et al. 2015, ISBN 978-3-11-034975-7 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Géza G. Xeravits, Peter Porzig: Introduction to Qumran literature . Walter de Gruyter, Berlin et al. 2015, p. 159.
  2. ↑ Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra: Qumran: The texts from the Dead Sea and ancient Judaism , Tübingen 2016, p. 240 f.
  3. ↑ Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra: Qumran: The texts from the Dead Sea and ancient Judaism , Tübingen 2016, p. 241 f.
  4. ↑ Géza G. Xeravits, Peter Porzig: Introduction to Qumran literature . Walter de Gruyter, Berlin et al. 2015, p. 161.
  5. ↑ Géza G. Xeravits, Peter Porzig: Introduction to Qumran literature . Walter de Gruyter, Berlin et al. 2015, p. 162.
  6. ↑ Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra: Qumran: The texts of the Dead Sea and ancient Judaism , Tübingen 2016, p. 257.
  7. ↑ Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra: Qumran: The texts from the Dead Sea and ancient Judaism , Tübingen 2016, p. 242 f. Géza G. Xeravits, Peter Porzig: Introduction to the Qumran literature . Walter de Gruyter, Berlin et al. 2015, p. 160 f.