Before the Church · c. 150–130 BC
Some Works of the Torah
4QMMT
Anonymous
What it is
A letter from one group of priests to another listing about twenty points of purity law on which they differ — the purity of poured liquids, where the red heifer is burned, whether the deaf and blind may enter — and closing by saying that this is why we have separated from the majority.
Why it lasted
The document that explains why Qumran exists: a schism over ritual law, not theology. Its closing phrase, works of the law reckoned to you as righteousness, is the same phrase Paul argues against in Galatians and Romans.
Scripture it works from
Where to read it
Public domain and free to read in full, though not held here. The archives below have it.
These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.
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