Historiography in the Damascus Document

Abstract

In volume 6 of “The Dead Sea Scrolls Reader”, under the title “Historical Texts and Tales”, you will find as “Historical Texts” only four fragmentary texts (4Q322a, 4Q332, 4Q3331, and 4Q468e), of which the text and translation cover only four pages2. The impression might be given that the community of the Dead Sea Scrolls was not interested in history at all, but this is erroneous. It is not true of the Qumran-Essene community in particular, just as it is wrong in the case of the history of the community in relation to Israel’s history in a general sense. A remark may be added about a point that is not developed in this context; namely, that the eschatology of some of the texts offers apocalyptic scenarios depicting history right to the end.