By Jonathan G. Campbell
This monograph, a remodeling of an Oxford D. Phil. dissertation (1991) written below the supervision of G. Vermes, specializes in the scriptural historical past of 1 of the foremost texts of the Qumran neighborhood, the Damascus record (D).
After an invaluable precis of the learn on D (pp. 4-8), a normal dialogue of using the Bible at Qumran, and a assessment of a monograph by means of O. J. R. Schwarz reading the exact same subject as Campbell, Der erste Teil der Damaskusschrift und das alte testomony (Diest: Lichtland, 1965), the writer reaches the most subject of the research: scripture within the ancient and midrashic sections of D (pp. 49-174). those entities are separated because the writer expects to become aware of in them a special method of scripture. notwithstanding, the precise demarcation of the devices is gifted with such a lot of caveats that the reader wonders in regards to the viability of the department. the writer explains his definition of the old part (I:1-II: 1; II: 14-IV: 12a; V:15b-VI:11a) as follows: "In any case, it's transparent that adopting the designation 'historical' for those 3 elements of the Admonition, with the mandatory caveats, doesn't suggest that different parts of the paintings comprise no related fabric. yet the place this can be the case, such devices are usually shorter, or they belong to sections the place fabric of a distinct personality predominates, otherwise they concentration extra basically on what seems to be modern referents inside a narrower time-scale" (p. 51). the writer expresses comparable doubts in regards to the subdivision of all of D.