The Admonitions in the Damascus Document as a Series of Thematic Pesharim

Full title
The Admonitions in the Damascus Document as a Series of Thematic Pesharim
Updated By
Research notes

SHS/not checked/17/12/2018|ECK/reader checked/23/12/2018

Reference type
Author(s)
Goldman, Liora
Year
2018
Journal / Book Title || Series Title
Dead Sea Discoveries
Volume
25
Issue / Series Volume
3
Abbreviated Series Name
DSD
Pages
385-411
Work type
Label
07/01/2019
Abstract

This study reveals a mosaic of artful rearrangement, rewriting, and creative interpretation of prophetic texts within the Admonitions of the Damascus Document. Many explicit quotations from scriptures and implicit allusions are interwoven and interpreted in the Admonitions through various methods, including pesher interpretation. The textual backdrop of the Admonitions helps us to determine the borders of the different discourses and to define the structure of the composition, which is divided into ten discourses built in a symmetrical chiastic structure. Each discourse comprises layers of quotations and allusions arranged around a central explicit pesher. Therefore, the explicit pesher in each discourse should not be viewed as an isolated pesher, as some have claimed, but rather as part of a larger thematic pesher. Each discourse/thematic pesher presents a different aspect of the work’s central theme: a polemic introduction to the rules of interpreting the Torah.

Primary Texts: Judean Desert Documents
Scroll / Document