The Dead Sea Scrolls and Christian Origins

Two passges in the Damascus Document have normally been interpreted as referring to the “gathering in,” that is, the death, of the Teacher of the Qumran community. The first, CD 19:33-20:1, reads as follows:

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This passage is usually translated thus:

So all the men who entered the new covenant ³⁴in the land of Damascus
and (then) returned and (who) acted faithlessly, by turning away from the
well of living waters, shall not be reckoned in the assembly of (the) people
or recorded in their book from the day of the gathering in {erasures} of the
Teacher of the Community until the rising of a Messiah from Aaron and
from Israel.¹

¹. See M. Broshi, ed., The Damascus Document Reconsidered (Jerusalem: Israel Explo-
ration Society and the Shrine of the Book, 1992 ) 45-47. Cf. the editio princeps: S. Schechter,
Documents of Jewish Sectaries: Volume I, Fragments of a Zadokite Work; Volume II, Fragments
of the Book of Commandments by Anan (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1910; re-
printed in one volume with a prolegomenon by ]. A. Titzmyer; New York: Ktav, 1970) 1:101

². There in CD 19:35 one should read

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instead of ‘

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(see p. 23). See also
C. Rabin, The ‘Zadokite Documents (Oxford: Clarendon, 1954; 2d ed., 1958) 36-41. In CD
20:1 one should also read

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instead of

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compare CD 19:33 with 8:21.

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