Word: gaster
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Dates: during 1956-1956
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...Moral Code. Theodor H. Caster's The Dead Sea Scriptures (Doubleday; $4-Anchor Books; 95?) is the first complete English translation of the scrolls for laymen. Now visiting professor of history of religions at Columbia University and professor of comparative religion at Dropsie College, Gaster prints the virtually complete text of the scrolls, together with a concordance of passages in the scrolls that also appear in the Old and New Testaments. Most informative is the "Manual of Discipline," which sets down the moral code of the Qumran sect, with detailed stipulations: "Everyone is to be judged by the standard...
...Real Testimony. Author Caster's lucid and factual introduction to the book takes issue with the contention of Allegro and others that the so-called Teacher of Righteousness was a single historical personage, martyred by "the Wicked Priest," and whose resurrection was awaited. The title, which Gaster prefers to translate "True exponent of the Law," refers, he says, to "a continuing office rather than a particular individual, and . . . the various allusions to him are not in fact to one and the same person." He believes that various documents probably refer to different teachers at different times...
...Gaster recommends that the Dead Sea scriptures be read as documents in their own right rather than pieces of a puzzle. "The archaeologists tell us that the Dead Sea caves are hot and dark," he writes. "The same might be said of the controversy which has raged around their contents. At this point, however, it might be healthy to stand back a little from the din and furor and clouds of dust and try to appreciate the scriptures of the Brotherhood simply from the point of view of what they offer to religious thought and insight. They represent an experience...