Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered - The Preterist Archive

the Way in the wilderness'. The reference to being witnesses at the Last judgement (3.8-9) is also
paralleled word for word in these lines in the Community Rule. It strengthens the supernatural aspects
of the role of the 'sons of Zadok' in the Damascus Document and the spiritualized atonement imagery
generally that moves into Christian theory. The reference to 'Judgement' again at the end of 'the era of
Wickedness' in 3.10 further reinforces this.
The text ends with a complete elaboration of the prohibited degrees of marriage, including the
important law banning niece marriage (7.2-5), which we have analysed above, and which is so much
part of the legal approach and ethos in these texts. This law was probably understood as including
close cousins as well, which are not included in the extant text, and was rationalized on the basis of
not uncovering the nakedness of one's father or mother, brother or sister. The fragment completely
exhausts just about all the aspects implicit in this problem in greater detail than, for instance, either
the Temple Scroll or the Damascus Document. Again, it shows the great concern for this matter at
Qumran. To us, the application to Herodians, moreover, seems obvious.