The Development of the Early Recensions of the Damascus Document

Abstract

The work entitled Damascus Document was first discovered in Cairo Genizah, in manuscripts copied in Middle Ages. Two manuscripts of composition were found in Genizah: MS A containing 16 pages, and MS B, 2 pages. There is a partial overlap between two texts. However, at certain points, there are also significant differences between two. Carmignac has justifiably concluded from a comparison of two texts that the rarity of these interventions obliges us to conclude that two extant manuscripts A and B are generally two witnesses of same text transmitted by two different lines, but at same time presence of these interventions obliges us to conclude also that these manuscripts constitute, here and there, two distinct recensions, both from time of Qumran sect.' The fragments of Damascus Document discovered at Qumran (and published eighty-six years after publication of Genizah material) did not solve mystery: there are no significant differences which possibly hint to existence of different literary recensions of this work at Qumran, such as those preserved in MSS A and B from Genizah. The passage in which MS A and MS B differ is similar in Qumran scroll of Damascus Covenant to text of MS A. Yet, it is clear from content of MS B that it reflects an early version of text (rather than a medieval adaptation). The relation between MS A and MS B is still puzzling. A number of scholars have attempted to identify origins of large-scale differences between two manuscripts, which center on