‘jewish doctrine takes three forms’ 155
hint at dissatisfaction with the way that the Temple is run. The Temple
Scroll envisages a building which differed markedly from the Temple as
remodelled in the time of Herod, suggesting a belief that the current
Temple had not been built according to the divine archetype. But there
is no direct evidence that the sectarians cut themselves off from the
actual Temple in their own day, which was, as we have seen, the main
locus for Jewish worship as mandated in the biblical texts which the
sectarians held dear in the same way as other Jews.
In later centuries Jews and Christians were to learn to worship with-
out a Temple, but, in a world in which sacrifices and offerings were
normal in all religious systems, it would be extraordinary for these sec-
tarians to turn their back on the cult in Jerusalem. And in fact the scrolls
are full of references to its centrality. Prescriptions for sacrifices and ref-
erences to the Temple are scattered widely through the biblical texts
from Qumran, and there are also to be found no fewer than sixty- three
references to Jerusalem in the non- biblical texts (and few to other cities).
There are detailed rules in the Temple Scroll for the Temple cult, building
and furnishings, frequent references to priests and to Aaron, and calen-
dars for the operation of the priestly courses in the sanctuary. The advice
on how to run the Temple found in the sectarian document MMT, which
survives in a number of fragmentary copies, reflected dispute among
Jews about how this was to be done but does not read like the polemic
of a group which had cut itself off from the Temple altogether.^75
It had of course proved perfectly possible for Jews in earlier gener-
ations to criticize reliance on sacrifices by those who did not keep the rest
of God’s commandments, without thereby advocating abstention from
the sacrificial cult. Sectarian attitudes to the Temple may well have var-
ied over time, without requiring withdrawal from the worship of God
according to the explicit injunction of the Torah. The Damascus Docu-
ment itself prescribed rules for bringing offerings: ‘No man shall send to
the altar any burnt- offering, or cereal offering, or incense, or wood, by
the hand of one smitten with any uncleanness, permitting him thus to
defile the altar. For it is written, “The sacrifice of the wicked is an abom-
ination, but the prayer of the just is an agreeable offering.” ’ Quite what
participation in the Temple cult might entail for individual sectarians is
more difficult to say. One text suggests an objection to paying annually
the Temple tax of half a shekel on the basis of an ingenious interpret-
ation of a biblical ruling. For sectarian priests, a decision not to serve in
the Temple would presumably be a big issue, but for non- priests actual
attendance did not in any case have to be frequent, as we have seen.^76