Steven D. FRAADE. The Damascus Document. Oxford Commentary on the Dead Sea Scrolls. Oxford: OUP, 2021. 208 pp. $85 hb. ISBN 978-0198734338. Reviewed by Adam BOOTH, C.S.C., Stonehill College, North Easton, MA 02356.

This commentary opens with a thorough and concise introduction to the Damascus Document and modern scholarship on it, followed by a presentation of the text in short sections (each of which contains Hebrew text, English translation, bibliography, substantial notes, and comment). The book concludes with a bibliography of sixteen pages and indices of ancient authors, modern scholars, and subjects, totaling nineteen pages.

This work represents the second volume to appear in Oxford’s new commentary series, focusing on the non-biblical Dead Sea Scrolls. One can only hope that further contributions to the series will match its level of comprehensiveness, clarity, and erudition. Careful philological work is of course essential to a book like this and, happily, is amply evident. Neither should a reader be disappointed with Fraade’s comparative analysis, whereby he situates the work among a lively ecosystem of Second Temple and Early Rabbinic Jewish texts. Naturally, one may disagree with a reconstruction here or an alleged allusion there, but Fraade explains clearly his more controversial choices as editor or translator and provides the reader with references to those who would propose a different solution, fairly summarizing their positions. However, what sets this commentary apart is its philosophical sophistication, adopting a broadly Gadamerian approach to the question of what a “work” is.

To explain the relevance of this philosophical stance, it is necessary to briefly survey the material remains that provide the modern scholar access to “The Damascus Document.” Modern scholarship was first introduced to it through a pair of manuscripts (CDa and CDb) found in a geniza in a Cairo synagogue in 1896. These artifacts likely date from the tenth and eleventh or twelve centuries CE (respectively). The longer of the two, CDa, consists of 8 columns of “Exhortation,” which, through retelling history, recalling prophecy, and looking ahead to God’s coming judgment, prepares its audience for 8 columns of “Laws,” in which Mosaic law is organized topically, expanded upon, and interpreted. CDb contains the end of the Exhortation of CDa (with some variants, mainly minor) and then continues the Exhortation with new material for a further column. In 1952, various fragmentary manuscripts were found at the Qumran sites, paralleling parts of CD in places and containing new material (both exhortatory and legal) in others. Most scholars believe that all these manuscripts derive from an ancient ancestor (dating from 110—70 BCE, though incorporating earlier sources), which cannot be reconstructed (hence Fraade presents a series of diplomatic texts, rather than a critical edition). Its origins “can be situated under the Qumran/Essene umbrella notwithstanding significant differences between the texts and communities so encompassed” (6).

Due to the impossibility of reconstructing the “original” text, Fraade proposes a turn instead to Wirkungsgeschichte, or effective history, invoking Walter Benjamin and Michael Bakhtin as interlocutors to defend this as an integral part of understanding a work. Internal clues in the texts available to us, together with references in 1QS, provide some suggestions of how early audiences encountered the work. Fraade sees the Damascus Document as originally functioning as “a collection of scripts, … to be mixed and matched in recitation…, where most participants would have experienced the teaching as auditors” (10). This might have occurred during the annual covenant renewal ceremony or nightly study vigils. Somehow texts containing parts of the Damascus Document were being copied well over a millennium later than their composition. As Fraade puts it, “its message(s) continued to resonate for others” (17), possibly Karaites.

The parenthetical “s” in that last citation from Fraade points to one of my few critiques of this commentary (and the scholarship it synthesizes): should we continue to talk of “The Damascus Document” in the singular? Might it be better to speak of a family of Damascus Texts, each of which contributed to a multiplicity of Damascus Works when performed in various settings? My other minor critique relates to the accessibility to the non-specialist promised in the series description. To comprehend the translation, the non-specialist at times needs glosses of technical terms provided in the notes (glosses that would be superfluous to anyone working in the area), yet other notes would be entirely opaque to these non-specialists (yet of considerable interest to the expert). Perhaps a better move might be to translate slightly more freely at times, to not necessitate so many glosses, and provide more literal renderings in the notes.

These small critiques in no way detract from the contribution of this commentary, which has great potential to help a new audience encounter and appreciate these Damascus Texts!