Résumé
Résumé de Community Rule
À qui s’adresse-t-il ?
For readers curious about Second Temple Judaism, the Dead Sea Scrolls, or how a religious group governs itself. It suits history lovers and religious readers alike.
De quoi parle ce livre ?
The Community Rule is a rule book for a Jewish community that lived apart from the rest of society in the last centuries before the Common Era. Its Hebrew name is Serekh ha-Yahad, which means the Order of the Community. It was found in 1947 in Cave One near Qumran, on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea, and it is one of the first seven scrolls ever discovered there. The text sets out what members believe, how a newcomer is admitted, how the group eats, meets, studies and punishes, and how its members are to pray.
No author is named. Scholars date the Cave One copy to roughly 100 to 75 BCE, and they think the text itself grew over time, since later copies from Cave Four differ from it. Here you will hear what the scroll says, column by column, and what scholars still debate. It begins with a call to seek God and to live by a strict ideal, so that is where we start.
Dans ce résumé
- 1A rule book found in a caveFree
- 2Seek God and love the children of light
- 3Two spirits struggle within every person
- 4Joining takes years of testing
- 5Daily life is shared, ranked and disciplined
- 6The wilderness, the house of holiness and the hymn
Point clé 1 sur 6
A rule book found in a cave
The scroll known as 1QS was among the finds that Bedouin shepherds and scholars drew out of the caves above the Dead Sea from 1947 onward. It is a long strip of leather with about eleven columns of Hebrew text. The handwriting is neat, and scholars date this copy to roughly the early first century BCE or a little before. The text itself is older than the copy.
It was not alone. Fragments of about ten further copies turned up in Cave Four, and a small piece in Cave Five. These copies do not all say the same thing. Some leave out whole sections that the Cave One scroll contains, and some arrange the material differently. For that reason many scholars see the Community Rule as a work that was revised and expanded over generations rather than written at one sitting.
Who used it? Most scholars link the scroll with the community that lived near the ruins of Khirbet Qumran, and many identify that community with the Essenes, a Jewish group described by the ancient writers Josephus, Philo and Pliny. Others point out that the scroll speaks of the Yahad, the Community, as a movement that might have had members in several places. The scroll never uses the name Essene, so the link rests on comparison. The debate is lively and still open.
The Community Rule belongs with a family of related texts found in the same caves, among them the Damascus Document and the War Scroll. Together they show a movement that thought of itself as a faithful remnant of Israel. It believed that the Temple in Jerusalem and its leaders had gone astray. The Rule is the best guide we have to how that movement ran its own life.
That’s 1 of 6 key points.
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Questions about Community Rule
What is the Community Rule?
It is a Hebrew scroll from the Dead Sea caves that sets out the beliefs, entry rules, daily discipline, penalties and prayers of a Jewish community of the Second Temple period, usually linked with Qumran.
Who wrote the Community Rule?
No author is named. Scholars think several members or editors shaped it over generations, since copies from Cave Four differ from the Cave One scroll. Many link it to the Essenes, though that identification is debated.
Is the Community Rule in the Bible?
No. It is a sectarian rule book, not a text that Jewish or Christian communities received into their canons. It survived because the community that valued it left its scrolls in caves near the Dead Sea.
What does Serekh ha-Yahad mean?
It is the Hebrew name of the scroll. Serekh means order or rule, and Yahad means unity or community. Scholars use Community Rule or Rule of the Community in English, and 1QS as a short name.
How old is the Community Rule and is it hard to read?
The Cave One copy dates to roughly 100 to 75 BCE, and the text may be older. Its rules and lists are easy to follow.