Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered - The Preterist Archive

important for deciphering the sectarian situation in the Jerusalem of this period.
The last document in this Chapter is equivalent to the last column of what we have been referring to
throughout this work as 'the Damascus Document'. We have been relying on the two copies of these
materials found in the Cairo Genizah by Solomon Schechter at the end of the last century. Columns
representing the first column of this document have now been found in the unpublished materials
from Qumran; they are not, however, the first column of the Qumran document, i.e. there is
indecipherable material belonging to an additional column or columns to the right of the material
paralleling the Cairo version on the unpublished plates. A good deal of the other Damascus Document
materials found among the unpublished fragments from Qumran do parallel the Cairo recensions;
therefore we have not included them.
This last column does not, though it alludes to passages and themes in the Cairo recensions.
Therefore, we have included it. We have also included it because it is so interesting and so well
preserved.
Revealingly, it is an excommunication text of the most heightened and unbending kind. It absolutely
embodies the ethos we have been delineating in this Chapter and concern for the Torah of Mores -
words it actually uses. It would certainly have been directed against someone of the mindset of a Paul,
had Paul ever been to the 'Damascus' the Qumran text so reveres.
35. The First Letter On Works Reckoned As Righteousness (4Q394-398) (Plates 13 & 14)
('Some of our Words concerning the Torah of God')
This text is of the most crucial importance for evaluating the Qumran community, mindset and
historical development. Parts of it have been talked about, written about and known about for over
three decades. Particularly in the last decade, parts have circulated in various forms, some under the
by now popular code 'MMT'. In turn, this is often incorrectly spoken of as 'some words of the Torah'.
This title would only be appropriate to the First Letter, but the allusion on which it is based actually
does not occur until Line 30 of the Second Letter. Its proper Translation would be 'some works of the
Torah' (italics ours). Where the history of Christianity is concerned, this is an important distinction.
Our reconstruction, transliteration and Translation here are completely new. We have not relied on
anyone or any other work, but rather sifted through the entire unpublished corpus, grouping like plates
together, identifying all the overlaps, and making all the joins ourselves. As it turns out, this is not
very difficult, as these group out fairly readily and are quite easily put together. Nor did we rely on the
recently published extended Claremont catalogue, because our work was completed before this
became available. We also added the calendrical materials at the beginning of the First Letter, which
have never been known in any form and are not unimportant, as we have seen, since the control and
regulation of society are often based on these.
What we actually have here are two letters, something like Corinthians 1 and Corinthians 2 or
Thessalonians I and Thessalonians 2 in the New Testament. It would appear from the multiple copies
of them, that these letters were kept and recopied as important Community documents. The addressee