Excerpt from The Covenanters of Damascus, Vol. 4: A Hitherto Unknown Jewish SectThe principal seat of the sect was in the region of Damascus, where its adherents formed numerous communities. It was composed of Israelites who had migrated thither from Judaea; thither also had come the interpreter of the law, the founder of the sect; there it had been organized by a covenant repeatedly referred to as the new covenant in the land of Damascus. Many who entered into this new covenant at the beginning did not long remain true to it; the writer inveighs vehemently against those who fell away, accusing them not only of grave error, but of gross violations of the law; but this crisis had been passed, and when the book was written the community was apparently flourishing.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Excerpt from The Covenanters of Damascus, Vol. 4: A Hitherto Unknown Jewish Sect An orderly disposition, according to our notions of order, is not, however, so constant a characteristic of Jewish literature as to make this inference very convincing. Manuscript A was evidently written by a negligent scribe, perhaps after a poor or badly preserved copy; B, which represents a somewhat different recension of the work, exhibits, so far as it goes, a superior text. When it is added that both manuscripts are in many places defaced or torn, it may be imagined that the decipherment and interpretation present serious difficulties, and that, after all the pains which Dr. Schechter has spent upon the task; many uncertainties remain. Facsimiles of a page of each manuscript are given; but in view of the condition of the text a photographic reproduction of the whole is indispensable. The legal part of the book, so far as the text is fairly well preserved, is not exceptionally difficult; the rules are in general clearly defined, and if in the peculiar institutions of the sect there are many things we do not fully understand, this is due more to the brevity with which its organization is described and to the mutilation of the text than to lack of clearness in the description itself. The attempt to make out something of the history and relations of the sect from the first part of the book is, on the other hand, beset by many difficulties. What history is found there is not told for the sake of history, but used to point admonitions or emphasize warnings; and, after the manner of the apocalyptic literature, historical persons and events are referred to in roundabout phrases which envelop them in an affected mystery. Even when such references are to chapters of the national history with which we are moderately well acquainted, as in the Assumption of Moses, c. 5, ff., for example, they may be to us baffling enigmas; much more when they have to do, as is in large part the case in our texts, with the wholly unknown internal or external history of a sect. The obscurity is increased by the fact that the allusions are often a tissue of fragmentary quotations or reminiscences out of the Old Testament, chosen and combined, it seems, by purely verbal association, or taken in an occult allegorical sense. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Reproduction of the original: The Covenanters of Damascus. A Hitherto Unknown Jewish Sect by John Trotwood Moore

Reproduction of the original: The Covenanters of Damascus; a Hitherto Unknown Jewish Sect by John Trotwood Moore

This volume ofThe Dead Sea Scrollsincludes fragments of the Damascus Document, some works of the Torah, and other related documents. The Princeton Dead Sea Scrolls Project provides a major landmark in general access to these documents. It is the first serious attempt to provide accurate transcriptions and translations with critical commentary to all the nonbiblical scrolls found at Qumran. These are important reference books for specialized studies in biblical fields.

The author writes: “According to Seder Olam Rabbah, the work that forms the basis for almost all rabbinic chronology, the .period from the defeat of the Babylonians by the Medeo-Persians until the beginning of Greek rule, encompassed 52 years and spanned the reigns of three Persian kings. According to the chronology that is universally accepted by historians today (conventional chronology), this period of Persian rule over the land of Israel encompassed 207 years (539 to 332 BCE) and during this period more than ten Persian kings reigned. “This discrepancy between the traditional Jewish chronology and conventional chronology has not gone unnoticed. The purpose of this study is to collect and categorize the variety of Jewish responses to this discrepancy, both by Jewish scholars and rabbinic authorities. Part I provides an introduction to the discrepancy. Part II contains the earliest Jewish responses to the discrepancy. In the major part of the study, Part III, the responses to the discrepancy from the time of Azariah de Rossi (16th century) to the present time are collected and categorized. This unified collection and categorization of the many responses will enable students and scholars to have easy access to what has been written by Jewish scholars and rabbinic authorities about the discrepancy and will facilitate scholarly evaluation of the responses. “Part IV is an evaluation of the responses’ attempts to answer the fundamental question raised by the discrepancy. Part V presents observations on the rabbinic responses. Part VI is a summary and conclusion.”