Damascus Document

The Damascus Document (the Cairo Damascus document, CD) or Damascus Rule is one of the most interesting texts of the Dead Sea Scrolls because it is the only Qumran work that was known before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. It is a composite text edited together from different sections of a larger source, and scholars have attempted to place the different sections in a chronological order to generate a more complete work of the original using evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls.

There were a number of fragments from the scroll found in the Cairo Geniza before the Qumran discoveries. The Cairo Geniza was located in a room adjoining The Ben Ezra Synagogue in Old Cairo, which was gradually stuffed full of papers until it was discovered by European scholar Dr Solomon Schechter in 1897. He found over 190,000 manuscripts and fragments that were written in mainly Hebrew and Judaeo-Arabic.

The fragments were quite large, and a number of them matched documents found later in Qumran. They were divided into two separate sections, CDa, and CDb. Schechter dated CDa to the 10th century C.E and CDb to 11th or 12th century C.E. In contrast to the fragments found at Qumran, the CD documents are largely complete, and therefore are vital for reconstructing the text.

The fragments found by Solomon Schechter in the Ben Ezra Synagogue were originally called the Zadokite Fragments, but after the work was found at Qumran, the name was changed because the document had numerous references to Damascus. The way this Damascus is treated in the document makes it possible that it was not a literal reference to Damascus in Syria, but to be understood either geographically for Babylon or Qumran itself. If symbolic, it is probably taking up the Biblical language found in Amos 5:27, "therefore I shall take you into exile beyond Damascus"; Damascus was part of Israel under King David, and the Damascus Document expresses an eschatological hope of the restoration of a Davidic monarchy.

The combined text of CDa and CDb contains twenty columns of writing. As it has come down to us, two columns have been mislocated: columns 15 & 16 originally preceded col 9. Fragments of this text from Qumran include material not found in CD. The document divides into two parts, commonly called Admonition and Laws. Davies divides the Admonition into four sections: History, Legal, Warnings, a Supplement (which Wise refers to as exhortations). The Laws feature Oaths & vows, Sundry rulings (halakhot), Camp laws, and a fragment of Penal codes (more of which were found in the Qumran fragments).

...
Wikipedia