by Geza Vermes
Table of Contents
PENGUIN BOOKS THE COMPLETE DEAD SEA SCROLLS IN ENGLISH
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Preface
Introduction
A. The Rules
The Community Rule - (IQS, 4Q255-64, 4Q280, 286-7, 4Q502, 5QII, 13)
Community Rule manuscripts from Cave 4
Entry into the Covenant - (4Q275)
Four Classes of the Community - (4Q279)
The Damascus Document - (CD, 4Q265-73, 5Q12, 6Q15)
Damascus Document manuscripts from Cave 4
The Messianic Rule - (1QSa=1Q28a)
The War Scroll - (IQM, 1Q33, 4Q491-7, 4Q471)
The War Scroll from Cave 4 - (4Q491, 493)
The Book of War - (4Q285, 11Q14)
The Temple Scroll - (11QT=11Q19-21, 4Q365a, 4Q524)
MMT (Miqsat Ma‘ase Ha- Torah) - Some Observances of the Law - (4Q394-9)
The Wicked and the Holy - (4Q181)
4QHalakhah A - (4Q251)
4QHalakhah B - (4Q264a)
4QTohorot (Purities) A - (4Q274)
4QTohorot B-B - (40276-7)
4Q Harvesting - (4Q284a)
The Master’s Exhortation to the Sons of Dawn - (40298)
4Q Men Who Err - (40306)
Register of Rebukes - (4Q477)
Remonstrances (before Conversion?) - (4Q471)
B. Hymns and Poems
The Thanksgiving Hymns - (IQH, IQ36, 4Q427-32)
Hymnic Fragment - (4Q433a)
Apocryphal Psalms (I) - (IIQPs=IIQ5,4Q88)
Apocryphal Psalms (II) - (4Q88)
Apocryphal Psalms (III) - (11QapPs=11Q11)
Non-canonical Psalms - (4Q380-81)
Lamentations - (4Q]179,4Q501)
Songs for the Holocaust of the Sabbath - (4Q400—407, 11Q17, Masada 1039-200)
Poetic Fragments on Jerusalem and ‘King’ Jonathan - (4Q448 )
Hymn of Glorification A and B - (4Q491, fr. 11—4Q471b)
C. Calendars, Liturgies and Prayers
Calendars of Priestly Courses - (4Q320-30, 337)
Calendrical Document C - (4Q326)
Calendrical Document D - (4Q394 1-2)
Calendric Signs (Otot) - (4Q319)
‘Horoscopes’ or Astrological Physiognomies - (4Q186, 4Q534, 4Q561)
Phases of the Moon - (4Q317)
A Zodiacal Calendar with a Brontologion - (4Q318)
Order of Divine Office - (4Q334)
The Words of the Heavenly Lights - (4Q504—6)
Liturgical Prayer - (1Q 34 and 34 bis)
Prayers for Festivals - (4Q 507-9)
Daily Prayers - (4Q 503)
Prayer or Hymn Celebrating the Morning and the Evening - (4Q 408)
Blessings - (1QSb=1Q28b)
Benedictions - (4Q 280, 286-90)
Confession Ritual - (4Q393)
Purification Ritual A - (4Q 512)
Purification Ritual B - (4Q 4]14)
A Liturgical Work - (4Q 392-3)
D. Historical and Apocalyptic Works
Apocalyptic Chronology or Apocryphal Weeks - (4Q 247)
Historical Text A - (4Q248)
Historical Texts C-E (formerly Mishmarot C) - 4Q331-3)
Historical Text F - (4Q468e)
The Triumph of Righteousness or Mysteries - (1Q27, 4Q299-3011)
Time of Righteousness - (4Q 215a)
The Renewed Earth - (4Q 475)
A Messianic Apocalypse - (4Q521)
E. Wisdom Literature
The Seductress - (4Q184)
Exhortation to Seek Wisdom - (4Q185)
A Parable of Warning - (4Q302)
Sapiential Didactic Work A - (4Q412)
A Sapiential Work (i) - (4Q413)
A Sapiential Work (ii) - (4Q415-18, 423, 1Q26)
A Sapiential Work (iii): Ways of Righteousness - (4Q420-21)
A Sapiential Work Instruction-like Composition - (4Q424)
The Two Ways - (4Q473)
Bless, My Soul - (Barki nafshi, 4Q434-438)
A Leader’s Lament - (4Q439)
Fight against Evil Spirits - (4Q444)
Songs of the Sage - (4Q510-11)
Beatitudes - (4Q525)
F. Bible Interpretation
Aramaic Bible Translations - (Targums)
The Targum of Job - (11Q10,4Q157)
The Targum of Leviticus
Appendix
G. Biblically Based Apocryphal Works
Jubilees - (4Q216-28, 1Q17-18, 2Q19-20, 3Q5, 4Q482(?), 11Q12)
The Prayer of Enosh and Enoch - (4Q369)
The Book of Enoch - (4Q201-2, 204-12)
The Book of Giants - (1Q23-4, 2Q26, 4Q203, 530-33, 6Q8)
An Admonition Associated with the Flood - (4Q370, 4Q185)
The Ages of the Creation - (4Q180)
The Book of Noah - (1Q19, 1Q19 bis, 4Q534-6, 6Q8,19)
Words of the Archangel Michael - (4Q529, 6Q23)
The Testament of Levi (i) - (4Q213-114, 1Q21)
Testaments of the Patriarchs: the Testament of Levi or Testament of Jacob - ...
The Testament of Judah and Joseph - (4Q538-9)
The Testament of Naphtali - (4Q215)
Narrative and Poetic Composition (formerly ‘A Joseph Apocryphon’) - (4Q371-3)
The Testament of Qahat - (4Q542)
The Testament of Amram - (4Q543-9)
The Words of Moses - (1Q22)
Sermon on the Exodus and the Conquest of Canaan - (4Q374)
A Moses Apocryphon - (4Q375)
A Moses Apocryphon - (4Q376, 1Q29)
A Moses Apocryphon - (4Q408)
Apocryphal Pentateuch B (formerly ‘A Moses Apocryphon) - (4Q377)
A Moses (or David) Apocryphon - (4Q373, 2Q22)
Prophecy of Joshua - (4Q522, 5Q9)
A Joshua Apocryphon (i) or Psalms of Joshua - (4Q378—9)
A Joshua Apocryphon (ii) (Masada 1039—211)
The Samuel Apocryphon - (4Q160)
A Paraphrase on Kings - (4Q382)
An Elisha Apocryphon - (4Q481)
A Zedekiah Apocryphon - (4Q470)
A Historico-theological Narrative based on Genesis and Exodus - (4Q462—4)
Tobit - (4Q196—200
Apocryphon of Jeremiah - (4Q383, 385a, 387, 387a, 388a, 389—90)
The New Jerusalem - (4Q554-5, 5Q15, 1Q32, 2Q24, 4Q232, 11Q18)
Pseudo-Ezekiel - (4Q385, 386, 385b, 388, 385c)
The Prayer of Nabonidus - (4Q242)
Para-Danielic Writings - (4Q243-5)
The Four Kingdoms - (4Q552-3)
An Aramaic Apocalypse - (4Q246)
Proto-Esther (?) - (4Q550)
List of False Prophets - (4Q339)
List of Netinim - (4Q340)
H. Miscellanea
The Copper Scroll - (3Q15)
Cryptic Texts - (4Q249, 250, 313)
Two Qumran Ostraca
I. Appendix
Index of QumranTexts
Major Editions of Qumran Manuscripts
General Bibliography
General Index
THE STORY OF PENGUIN CLASSICS
PENGUIN BOOKS THE COMPLETE DEAD SEA SCROLLS IN ENGLISH
Geza Vermes was born in Hungary in 1924. He studied in Budapest and in Louvain, where he read Oriental history and languages and in 1953 obtained a doctorate in theology with a dissertation on the historical framework of the Dead Sea Scrolls. From 1957 to 1991 he taught in England at the universities of Newcastle upon Tyne (1957-65) and Oxford (1965—91). He is now Professor Emeritus of Jewish Studies and Emeritus Fellow of Wolfson College, but continues to teach at the Oriental Institute in Oxford. He
has edited the Journal of Jewish Studies since 1971, and since 1991 he has been director of the Oxford Forum for Qumran Research at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies. Professor Vermes is a Fellow of the British Academy and of the European Academy of Arts, Sciences and Humanities. He is the holder of an Oxford D.Litt. and of honorary doctorates from the universities of Edinburgh, Durham and Sheffield.
His first article on the Dead Sea Scrolls appeared in 1949 and his first book, Les manuscrits du désert de Juda,in 1953. It was translated into English in 1956 as Discovery in the Judean Desert. He is also the author of Scripture and Tradition in Judaism (1961, 1973, 1983); Jesus the Jew (1973, 1976, 1981, 1983); The Dead Sea Scrolls: Qumran in Perspective (1977, 1981, 1982, 1994); Jesus and the World ofJudaism (1983, 1984); The Religion ofJesusthe Jew (1993); and (with Martin Goodman) The Essenes According to the Classical Sources (1989); (with Philip Alexander) Discoveries in the Judaean Desert XXVI (1998) and (also with Philip Alexander) XXXVI (2000); An Introduction to the Complete Dead Sea Scrolls (1999, 2000); The Dead Sea Scrolls (The Folio Society, 2000); The Changing Faces of Jesus (2000); The Authentic Gospel of Jesus (2003) and Jesus in his Jewish Context (2003). He played a leading part in the rewriting of Emil Schiirer’s classic work The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (1973-87). His autobiography, Providential Accidents (1998), contains a vivid personal account of a life-long involvement with the Dead Sea Scrolls.
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First published in Pelican Books 1962
Reprinted with revisions 1965, 1968
Fourth edition published in Penguin Books 1995
Complete edition published by Allen Lane The Penguin Press 1997
Published in Penguin Books 1998
Revised edition 2004
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Copyright © G. Vennes, 1962, 1965, 1968, 1975, 1987. 1995, 1997, 2004
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The extracts on pp. 95 and 247 are reproduced by kind permission
of the Israel Museum, Jerusalem; the extracts on pp. 345, 401, 415,
459 and 537 are reproduced by kind permission of the Israel
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Preface
In the spring of 1947 a young Arab shepherd climbed into a cave in the Judaean desert and stumbled on the first Dead Sea Scrolls. For those of us who lived through the Qumran story from the beginning, the realization that all this happened half a century ago brings with it a melancholy feeling. The Scrolls are no longer a recent discovery as we used to refer to them, but over the years they have grown in significance and now the golden jubilee of the first manuscript find calls for celebration with joy and satisfaction. Following the ‘revolution’ which ‘liberated’ all the manuscripts in 1991 - until that moment a large portion of them was kept away from the public gaze - every interested person gained free access to the entire Qumran library. I eagerly seized the chance and set out to explore the whole collection. Today, after four and a half years of intense study, I feel confident that I can present the complete canvas of the Dead Sea Scrolls and disclose to the many interested readers the message of these ancient manuscripts about ancient Judaism and to a more limited extent about early Christianity.
In its successive editions this book has endeavoured to serve a dual audience of scholars and educated lay people. Over the years it has grown in size - it contained only 255 pages in 1962 - and I trust also in its grasp of the subject. While this translation of the non-biblical Scrolls does not claim to cover every fragment retrieved from the caves, it is complete in one sense: it offers in a readable form all the texts sufficiently well preserved to be understandable in English. In plain words, meaningless scraps or badly damaged manuscript sections are not inflicted on the reader. Those who wish to survey texts consisting only of broken lines, or of single letters and half-letters, should turn to the official series Discoveries in the Judaean Desert, in which every surviving detail is put on record.
In addition to the English rendering of the Hebrew and Aramaic texts found in the eleven Qumran caves, two inscribed potsherds (ostraca) retrieved from the Qumran site and two Qumran-type documents discovered in the fortress of Masada, and brief introductory notes to each text, this volume also provides an up-to-date general introduction, outlining the history of fifty years of Scroll research and sketching the organization, history and religious message of the Qumran Community. A Scroll catalogue, an essential bibliography and an index of Qumran texts are appended to facilitate further study and research.
Map 1: The area surrounding the Dead Sea, showing Qumran
Map 2: The Caves of Qumran
Has the greatly increased source material substantially altered our perception of the writings found at Qumran? I do not think so. Nuances and emphases have changed, but additional information has mainly helped to fill in gaps and clarify obscurities; it has not undermined our earlier conceptions regarding the Community and its ideas. We had the exceptionally good fortune that all but one of the major non-biblical Scrolls were published at the start, between 1950 and 1956: the Habakkuk Commentary (1950), the Community Rule (1951), the War Scroll and the Thanksgiving Hymns (1954/5) and the best-preserved columns of the Genesis Apocryphon (1956). Even the Temple Scroll, which had remained concealed until 1967 in a Bata shoebox by an antique dealer, was edited ten years later. The large Scrolls have served as foundation and pillars, and the thousands of fragments as building stones, with which the unique shrine of Jewish religion and culture that is Qumran is progressively restored to its ancient splendour.
Finally, it is a most pleasant duty to express my warmest thanks to friends and colleagues who helped to make this book less imperfect than it might otherwise have been. First and foremost, I wish publicly to convey my gratitude to Professor Emanuel Tov, editor-in-chief of the Dead Sea Scrolls Publication Project, for his generosity in answering queries and assisting in every possible way. My very special thanks are due also to Professor Joseph M. Baumgarten, who allowed me to consult his edition of the Damascus Document fragments from Cave 4 prior to their publication in DJD, and to my former pupil, Dr Jonathan G. Campbell, who did not shirk the onerous task of reading through and commenting on the rather bulky printout of this volume.
G.V
Preface to the Penguin Classics edition
Since the end of 1996, when the text of The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English was sent to the printers, eighteen further tomes of manuscript material have appeared in the series Discoveries in the Judaean Desert (DJD).Today, in January 2003, only three more volumes, two biblical and one non-biblical, still await publication before the 39-volume venture
, begun in 1955 with DJD I, reaches its fulfilment.
When reviewing The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in 1997, John J. Collins wittily predicted: ‘It is not inconceivable that a more complete edition may appear a few years hence.’ Yet even today’s revised and updated version remains in some way incomplete. It is without the scriptural texts found in the caves, which I never intended to include. Luckily these are now available in The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible issued by Martin Abegg, Peter Flint and Eugene Ulrich (Harper San Francisco, 1999). Neither have I attempted at any stage to present the English translation of every scrap devoid of significance (small, unconnected manuscript remains, broken sentences, single words, half-words or letters). However, I can state even more confidently than I did seven years ago that the reader will find in this volume all that is meaningful and interesting in the non-biblical Dead Sea Scrolls.
The introductory chapters and the bibliographies have also been brought up to date so that account is taken in them of all fresh material as well as of the continuous advance of Qumran research.
The publishers have decided to provide this book with a new niche: forty-one years after its first appearance in 1962 in the Pelican series, it will have its home from now on next to the great works of world literature in the Penguin Classics library.
I feel deeply honoured.
Oxford, January 2003
G.V
Chronology
I. Introduction