Rule of Congregation (Sa)

Th e Rule of the Congregation (1 QS a) (see Figure 46.1 below) is found in the same manuscript from Qumran Cave 1 as the Community Rule [ → 47 Serekh ha-Yahad] and the Rule of Blessings [ → 45 Rule of Blessings], and along with these two texts it was among the very fi rst Dead Sea Scrolls to be published and studied [ → 4 Acquisition and Publication]. Th e script, the same as the other works in the same scroll, may be dated to the early fi rst century bce . Th e title usually given to the work is found at the very beginning (1 QS a 1.1): ‘Th is is the rule for all the congregation of Israel in the Last Days.’ More recently a group of tiny fragments in cryptic script from Qumran Cave 4 have been identifi ed by Stephen Pfann as further witnesses of the Rule of the Congregation. Pfann’s identifi cation, though, is far from widely accepted, and his conclusions have been challenged ( Gayer, St ö kl Ben Ezra and Ben-Dov, 2016 ).