Rule of the Community, found in Qumran (cave1) dates to 100-75 B.C.E.. Parchment and ink, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel.
The Dead Sea Scrolls depict a Jewish community that thought of itself as the righteous remnant of Israel and believed that it held the exclusive understanding of God’s law. This portrait of the sect draws from the community’s %%writings found among the Dead Sea Scrolls: the Rule of the Community, the Damascus Document, the War Scroll, Miqsat Ma‘ase ha-Torah (Some Works of the Law), the Pesharim (prophetic commentaries), the Thanksgiving Hymns, and the Rule of the Congregation. This community was in existence from the second century B.C.E. through the first century C.E.
