Oookay, so I have my copy.
I've gone through the intro and now I'm just starting the Damascus writings.
Does anyone have any advice they might give as to how to approach this? Or maybe what to expect?
thanks in advance
meagan
Dead Sea Scrolls
by BlackSwan of Memphis 5 Replies latest watchtower bible
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zeroday
Approach it all as fantasy because that's what it all is.
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Leolaia
The Damascus Document (or Covenant of Damascus as it is also called) is an important Qumran sectarian tract, and one of the few sectarian texts found outside of Qumran as well. The most interesting part for me is the very beginning which gives a description of the origins of the sect, dated some 390 years after Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem (in an apparent interpretation of both Daniel 9 and Ezekiel 4), i.e. during the reign of Antiochus III (c. 200 BC) when an apocalyptic anti-priesthood movement began to take shape (an event mentioned in Daniel 11, the Animal Apocalypse of 1 Enoch, and the Apocalypse of Weeks), embracing both Danielic and Enochic traditions and having both quietistic (i.e. Hebrew Daniel) and militant (i.e. the Animal Apocalypse) factions. According to the Damascus Document, twenty years after the movement started there arose the Teacher of Righteousness, the founder of the Essene community (and the Qumran community, which is a particular Essene group), and thus puts the start of the Essene movement at the time of Antiochus Epiphanes' persecution. It has been suggested that the Hasidim (= Hasideans) associated with the Maccabee warriors is the same group as the Essenes (Hasidim being the Hebrew name, Essenes being derived from the Aramaic equivalent), but this is not known for certain.
In the Damascus Document, the community (which describes itself as under a "new covenant") sees itself in conflict with the "Men of Mockery" and the "Wicked Priest". The Men of Mockery are the Pharisees. The Pharisees had similar origins as the Essenes, both deriving ultimately from a third century anti-priesthood movement which saw the official Zadokite priesthood as corrupt and which applied priestly holiness laws to the average person (hence the extensive halakha in the second half of the Damascus Document). The Essenes however disagreed with Pharisee interpretations and more importantly condemned the Pharisees for following the pagan Hellenistic lunar calendar instead of the traditional priestly solar calendar... this meant, from the point of view of the Essenes, that the Pharisees observed the Sabbath and fasts and holy days at the wrong time, and this put their worship out of harmony of the concurrent worship occurring in heaven. The Essenes instead believed that their solar calendar (found also in Daniel and 1 Enoch ... works associated with the apocalyptic movement) allowed their worship to be synchronized with heavenly worship. Thus, the description of the Men of Mockery is that they "turned aside from the paths of righteousness, and shifted the boundary marks that the forefathers had set up" (CD 1:14-16). If you have a volume of the complete Dead Sea Scrolls, you might want to check out the voluminous Qumran calendrical texts that formalize and discuss the Essene solar calendar.
The Wicked Priest is the Sadducee high priesthood, which is also condemned as apostate. The polemic is agaisnt the Hasmonean priest-kings who also rejected the old Zadokite calendar, who were guilty of much bloodshed, greed, and tyranny (depending on the king). The Essenes instead regarded themselves as the true "priests" and the true (spiritual) descendents of Zadok. They thus described themselves as a community of priests....a concept with especial similarity with 1 Peter 2:5, 9 and Revelation 1:6, 5:10, 20:6. The others are mislead by Belial who has blinded their eyes, and the Essenes believed in a dichotomous division of humanity between "Two Ways" of righteousness and wickedness, one being the paths of light and the other the paths of darkness (a similar concept is found in Matthew 7:13-14, the very Essene-like fragment about light/darkness and Belial in 2 Corinthians 6:14-15, and the Didache). Most of the rest of the Damascus Document (and the Community Rule as well) delineates the rules for practicing righteousness.
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robhic
Wow, I read the book, too, and was going to suggest a cocktail or two as a good ingredient when approaching that particular work.
But then Leo went and got all scholarly and my comment just seems insipid now...
Robert
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BlackSwan of Memphis
Thank you Leolaia for that I appreciate you taking the time out to write all that out. I'm printing it out to use tonight when I delve in.
Wow, I read the book, too, and was going to suggest a cocktail or two as a good ingredient when approaching that particular work.
But then Leo went and got all scholarly and my comment just seems insipid now...
Lol. Well, I know if the cocktail preceded that work, I think that I would end up tossing that aside and end up watching reruns of King of Queens . Still: good advice.
meagan
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inquirer
Leolaia
Far out I can tell you are into this history stuff Leolaia!