Vermes - The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English

Revised Edition

PENGUIN BOOKS

For M and I with love
and in loving memory of P

(1QS, 4Q25564, 4Q, 2867, 4Q, 5Q, )

Discovered in Cave 1, the eleven relatively well-preserved columns of this manuscript (1QS) were first published in 1951 by M. Burrows under the title The Manual of Discipline (The Dead Sea Scrolls of St Marks Monastery, II, New Haven). Important fragments of ten other manuscripts of the Rule containing a certain number of variant readings were also found in Cave 4 (4QSaj = 4Q25564), and two small fragments in Cave 5 (5Q=1QS II, 47 and quoting 1QS III, 45 and II, 19). Other citations of the Community Rule, especially the penal code from 1QS VII, may be found in the 4Q fragments of the Damascus Document (cf. 4Q, fr. 10 and , fr. 7) and in the hybrid SD (4Q). The latter quotes also from 1QS IV,VI and VIII. Finally, 4Q, fr. 16 includes a quotation from 1QS IV, 46. See also 11Q in DJD, XXIII, 4334, quoting 1QS VII, 23.

The 1Q manuscript bears the stamp of editorial modification. For instance, in column X the original I will conceal knowledge with discretion is corrected to I will impart knowledge with discretion. The section covered by columns VIIIIX was particularly subjected to alteration as indicated by corrections and interlinear additions in 1QS, but remarkably none of these appears in the 4QS manuscripts. The same section is considerably abridged in 4QSe=4Q, where the text jumps from 1QS VIII, 15 directly to IX, 12.

The Community Rule is probably one of the oldest documents of the sect; its composition may have originated around 100 BCE, and the Cave 1 copy itself is said to have been produced during the quarter of a century following that date. It seems to have been intended for the Communitys teachers, for its Masters or Guardians, and contains extracts from liturgical ceremonies, an outline of a tractate on the spirits of truth and falsehood, statutes concerned with initiation into the sect and with its common life, organization and discipline, a penal code, and finally a poetic dissertation on the fundamental religious duties of the Master and his disciples, and on the sacred seasons proper to the Community.

Literary analysis suggests that the main document begins at 1QS V, 1. This is where 4QSd (=4Q) starts. The preceding columns in 1QS IIV prefix to the Rule proper a liturgical text (1QS I, 1III, 11) and the probably independent tractate on the two spirits (1QS III, 12IV, 25). Among the 4Q manuscripts only 4QSb (=4Q) contains remnants of all the sections of 1QS. The other documents represent either 1QS IIV or 1QS VXI. 4QSe (4Q) substitutes, it seems, the text of 4QOtot (4Q) for that of 1QS XXI.

There are, to my knowledge, no writings in ancient Jewish sources parallel to the Community Rule, but a similar type of literature flourished among Christians between the second and fourth centuries, the so-called Church Orders represented by works such as the Didache, the Didascalia, the Apostolic Constitution.

The contents of 1QS may be divided into three main sections, but further subheadings appear in the text itself:

1. Entry into the Covenant, followed by an instruction on the two spirits (IIV).
2. Statutes relating to the Council of the Community (VIX).
3. Directives addressed to the Master, and the Masters Hymn (IXXI).

Some of the variant readings appearing in the Cave 4 manuscripts have been adopted in this translation, but the significantly different texts of 4QSd (4Q) and 4QSe (4Q) will be appended to 1QS.

For the editio princeps of 1QS, see M. Burrows et al., The Dead Sea Scrolls of St Marks Monastery Vol. II, Fasc. 2: Plates and transcription of the Manual of Discipline, 1951. Cf. also J. H. Charlesworth et al., eds., The Dead Sea Scrolls Vol. I: Rule of the Community and Related Documents, 1994, 151. S. Metso, The Textual Development of the Qumran Community Rule (1997).

I [The Master shall teach the sai]nts to live(?) {according to the Book} (4Q, ) of the Community [Rul]e, that they may seek God with a whole heart and soul, and do what is good and right before Him as He commanded by the hand of Moses and all His servants the Prophets; that they may love all that He has chosen and hate all that He has rejected; that they may abstain from all evil and hold fast to all good; that they may practise truth, righteousness, and justice upon earth and no longer stubbornly follow a sinful heart and lustful eyes, committing all manner of evil. He shall admit into the Covenant of Grace all those who have freely devoted themselves to the observance of Gods precepts, that they may be joined to the counsel of God and may live perfectly before Him in accordance with all that has been revealed concerning their appointed times, andthat they may love all the sons of light, each according to his lot in Gods design, and hate all the sons of darkness, each according to his guilt in Gods vengeance.

All those who freely devote themselves to His truth shall bring all their knowledge, powers and possessions into the Community of God, that they may purify their knowledge in the truth of Gods precepts and order their powers according to His ways of perfection and all their possessions according to His righteous counsel. They shall not depart from any command of God concerning their times; they shall be neither early nor late for any of their appointed times, they shall stray neither to the right nor to the left of any of His true precepts. All those who embrace the Community Rule shall enter into the Covenant before God to obey all His commandments so that they may not abandon Him during the dominion of Belial because of fear or terror or affliction.

On entering the Covenant, the Priests and Levites shall bless the God of salvation and all His faithfulness, and all those entering the Covenant shall say after them, Amen, Amen!

Then the Priests shall recite the favours of God manifested in His mighty deeds and shall declare all His merciful grace to Israel, and the Levites shall recite the iniquities of the children of Israel, all their guilty rebellions and sins during the dominion of Belial. And after them, all those entering the Covenant shall confess and say: We have strayed! We have [disobeyed!] We and our fathers before us have sinned and acted wickedly in walking [counter to the precepts] of truth and righteousness. [And God has] judged us and our fathers also; II but He has bestowed His bountiful mercy on us from everlasting to everlasting. And the Priests shall bless all the men of the lot of God who walk perfectly in all His ways, saying: May He bless you with all good and preserve you from all evil! May He lighten your heart with life-giving wisdom and grant you eternalknowledge! May He raise His merciful face towards you for everlasting bliss!

And the Levites shall curse all the men of the lot of Belial, saying: Be cursed because of all your guilty wickedness! May He deliver you up for torture at the hands of the vengeful Avengers! May He visit you with destruction by the hand of all the Wreakers of Revenge! Be cursed without mercy because of (4Q) the darkness of your deeds! Be damned in the shadowy place of everlasting fire! May God not heed when you call on Him, nor pardon you by blotting out your sin! May He raise His angry face towards you for vengeance! May there be no Peace for you in the mouth of those who hold fast to the Fathers! And after the blessing and the cursing, all those entering the Covenant shall say, Amen, Amen!