Wednesday, March 27, 2013

THE WAR RULE SCROLL: TRANSLATION

1. ]Isaiah the prophet: [The thickets of the forest] will be cut [down
2. with an axe and Lebanon by a majestic one will f]all. And there shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse [
3. ] the Branch of David and they will enter into judgement with [
4. ] and the Prince of the Congregation, the Bran[ch of David] will kill him [
5. by stroke]s and by wounds. And a Priest [of renown (?)] will command [
6. the s]lai[n] of the Kitti[m]
Transcription and translation by G. Vermes

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War of the Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness

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The War Scroll, found in Qumran Cave 1.
The War of the Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness, also known as "War Rule", "Rule of War", and the "War Scroll", is a manual for military organization and strategy that was discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls. The manuscript was among the scrolls found in Qumran Cave 1 acquired by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and first published by Eleazar Sukenik in 1955.[1] The document is made up of various scrolls and fragments including 1QM, and 4Q491-497.[2] It is possible that The War of the Messiah is the conclusion to this document.[3] The 4Q491-497 fragments were published by Baillet in Discoveries in the Judean Desert, 7 and comprise a shorter recension of the War Scroll.[4]

Contents

About the scroll

Date, genre, and authorship

Two time periods have been put forward and defended as the most probable time of composition: the Seleucid period and the Roman period.[5] The Seleucid period proposals include the very beginning of the Maccabean Revolt (165 or 164 BCE), the height of Jonathan’s military power (143 BCE), and the reign of John Hyrcanus (135-104 BCE).[6] The scholars that believe that the date of composition occurred during the Roman period put forward a date from the middle of the first century BCE to the first decade of the first century CE.[7] The War Scroll’s description of the weaponry and tactics led Yigael Yadin to assign the composition of the scroll to a date between the capture of Jerusalem by Pompey (65 BCE) and the death of Herod (4 BCE).[8] More recently, author Russell Gmirkin in The War Scroll and Roman Weaponry Reconsidered disagrees with Yadin's analysis and assigns the weaponry described in the War Scroll to the second century BCE. Lt. Col. Peter Fromm (US Army Ret.) sides with Gmirkin also assigning the army and weaponry described in the War Scroll to the second century BCE.[9]
Scholars have been unable to determine the exact author of the text. The unity and cohesiveness of the manuscript, however, leads some, such as Jean Carmignac and Yigael Yadin, to believe that it was written or compiled by a single writer.[10]
In modern times, the genre of 1QM has been described as apocalyptic literature, though some translators and interpreters contend that it actually a part of sectarian liturgy. Jean Duhaime believes that it was probably classified as a part of the serek (rule) texts developed by the Qumranites.[11]

Contents

The Shrine of the Book, a wing of the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, is built to symbolize the scroll - The shrine is built as a white dome symbolizing the Sons of Light, and a black basalt wall - symbolizing the Sons of Darkness.
These scrolls contain an apocalyptic prophecy of a war between the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness. The war is first described as an attack by the Sons of Light, consisting of the sons of Levi, the sons of Judah, and the sons of Benjamin, and the exiled of the desert, against Edom, Moab, the sons of Ammon, the Amalekites, Philistia, and the Kittim of Asshur (referred to as the army of Belial), and [those who assist them from among the wicked] who "violate the covenant."[12] In the end, all of Darkness is to be destroyed and Light will live in peace for all eternity. The war is then described again as a conflict between the congregation of God and the congregation of men. The rest of the document is a detailed description of the events of the war and the ways in which it should be conducted. Yigael Yadin and Géza Vermes have argued that the descriptions of the armament, equipment, and formation of the Sons of Light suggest a basis in Roman methods of warfare.[13]

Structure

1QM consists of 19 columns, of which the first 14-19 lines of each have been preserved.[14]
i. Summarizes the war between the “Sons of Light” and “Sons of Darkness.”
ii-ix. Deals with the battles between the tribes in greater detail, telling of a total forty years of combat. Columns iii-iv deal almost exclusively with the inscriptions meant to be displays on banners, trumpets, darts, etc.
x-xiv. A number of liturgical pieces.
xv-xix. Describes the seven-stage battle, led by the priests, between Light and Darkness. The battle is finally won by divine intervention.[15]
Because xv-xix is believed to describe the war which took place in the first seven years of the forty year war, many scholars feel that, at one time, more columns existed.[16]

Links with other scrolls

Scholars have been disappointed to find very few connections between 1QM and the other war-related texts and the rest of the Dead Sea Scrolls. There were, however, a number of notable links that can be made. In the Community Rule (1QS), for example, the theme of a binary opposition between Light and Dark can be seen. Both include dualistic blessing and cursing liturgies. The “congregation of Israel” in its organization within 1QM can be compared to the Rule of the Congregation (1QSa), as it is described as being broken into thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens, with age limits listed for specific types of service within ranks.[17]

Further reading

  • Collins, John Joseph. 1998. The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to Jewish Apocalyptic Literature. Grand Rapids, Mich: William B. Eerdmans.
  • Duhaime, Jean. 2004. The War Texts: 1QM and Related Manuscripts. T & T Clark International, London.
  • Schultz, Brian. Conquering the World: the War Scroll (1QM) Reconsidered. Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2009
  • Segal, Alan F. 1986. Rebecca's Children: Judaism and Christianity in the Roman World. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press.
  • Wise, Michael, Martin Abegg Jr., & Edward Cook. 1996. The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation. Harper. San Francisco.
  • Yadin, Yigael. “The Scroll of the War of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness.” Translated by B. and C. Rabin. Oxford, 1962.

References

  1. ^ Schiffman, Lawrence H., and James C. VanderKam. 2000. Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea scrolls. New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press.
  2. ^ Schiffman, Lawrence H., and James C. VanderKam. 2000. Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea scrolls. New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press.
  3. ^ ISBN 0-06-076662-X pp. 368-371
  4. ^ Schiffman, Lawrence H., and James C. VanderKam. 2000. Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea scrolls. New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press.
  5. ^ Rost, Leonhard. 1976. Judaism outside the Hebrew canon: an introduction to the documents. Nashville: Abingdon.
  6. ^ Wenthe, Dean O. “The Use of the Hebrew Scriptures in 1QM.” Dead Sea Discoveries Vol. 5, No. 3 (Nov., 1998), pp. 290-319
  7. ^ Wenthe, Dean O. “The Use of the Hebrew Scriptures in 1QM.” Dead Sea Discoveries Vol. 5, No. 3 (Nov., 1998), pp. 290-319
  8. ^ Schiffman, Lawrence H., and James C. VanderKam. 2000. Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea scrolls. New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press.
  9. ^ Dating the Army of the War Scroll (May, 2012).
  10. ^ Schiffman, Lawrence H., and James C. VanderKam. 2000. Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea scrolls. New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press.
  11. ^ Duhaime, Jean. 2007. “The War Texts: 1QM and Related Manuscripts.” Continuum International Publishing Group. London, p. 53
  12. ^ Lawrence H. Schiffman. 1998. "Texts and Traditions: A Source Reader for the Study of Second Temple and Rabbinic Judaism." Ktav. Hoboken, NJ, p. 359
  13. ^ Vermes, Géza. The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English. Penguin, 2004. ISBN 978-0-14-044952-5. p 164-165
  14. ^ Schiffman, Lawrence H., and James C. VanderKam. 2000. Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea scrolls. New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press.
  15. ^ Schiffman, Lawrence H., and James C. VanderKam. 2000. Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea scrolls. New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press.
  16. ^ Schiffman, Lawrence H., and James C. VanderKam. 2000. Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea scrolls. New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press.
  17. ^ Schiffman, Lawrence H., and James C. VanderKam. 2000. Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea scrolls. New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press.

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