The Damascus document, one of the foundational documents of the Qumran community, provides a glimpse into the lives and rules of the community that may have written the Dead Sea Scrolls. It makes sense that multiple copies of this document were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, but how did a copy end up in a Cairo synagogue, hundreds of miles away and many centuries later? In this new Scholars Speak lecture, renowned Dead Sea Scrolls/Qumran scholar Sidnie White Crawford reviews the fascinating history of the discovery and interpretation of the Damascus Document.

On Wednesday, June 3rd, join Sidnie White Crawford for her compelling talk.

Lecture

From Qumran to Cairo: The Journey of the Damascus Document from the Qumran Caves to the Cairo Genizah

In 1896, Solomon Schechter, Reader in Hebrew at Cambridge, discovered a storehouse of medieval manuscripts in an old synagogue in Cairo. Among the thousands of fragments he brought back to Cambridge were two copies of a Jewish work of unknown origin, which Schechter titled "Fragments of a Zadokite Work."  Fifty years later, the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in caves in the Judean Desert.  Among those fragmentary manuscripts were eight copies of Schechter's "Zadokite Work," one thousand years older than the Cairo copies. What is the path that the "Zadokite Work," now known as the "Damascus Document," took from Qumran to Cairo?  The lecture will include short introductions to the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Taylor-Schechter Genizah collection, with lots of pictures.

Speaker

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