4Q265 and the Authoritative Status
of Jubilees at Qumran
Aharon Shemesh
4Q265, now titled Miscellaneous Rules, was known earlier as Serek Damas
cus. The rationale behind that name was the scroll's inclusion of sections re
sembling both the Rule of the Community and the Damascus Document.^1
Joseph Baumgarten, the editor of this scroll for its official publication in
DJD 35, found the title Serek Damascus inadequate and preferred the less de
fined title Miscellaneous Rules. As an example of the scroll's odd, diverse
content, he points to frg. 7, which "embraces the following subjects: Shabbat
rules; Prohibition of priestly sprinkling on the Shabbat; Permission to walk
two thousand cubits to graze animals on the Shabbat; The eschatological
Communal Council; Adam and Eve in Paradise and Purification after child
birth."^2 While Baumgarten is undoubtedly right in pointing to the difficul
ties with regard to the content and structure of frg. 7, it should be admitted
that this is not the case for the other six fragments of the scroll. In contrast to
frg. 7, each of the other fragments has a well-defined single subject. Thus,
frg. 1 contains the remains of what seems to be a pesher to Isa 54:1-2, frg. 3
mentions the Passover sacrifice, and frg. 4 consists of a short version of the
- L. H. Schiffman, "Serekh-Damascus," in EDSS, 868.
- J. M. Baumgarten, "4Q265: 4QMiscellaneous Rules," in Qumran Cave 4.XXV: Ha-
lakhic Texts, ed. J. M. Baumgarten et al., DJD 35 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1999), 58. Baumgarten,
"Scripture and Law in 4Q265," in Biblical Perspectives: Early Use and Interpretation of the Bi
ble in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls; Proceedings of the First International Symposium of the
Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature, 12-14 May 1996,
ed. M. E. Stone and E. G. Chazon, STDJ 28 (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 25-33.