The broadly formulated title of this book reflects not so much its literal content as its main topic. Two of the four chapters of the book are directly related to the literature, and other two, starting from the analysis of Qumran texts, recreate the figure of the founder of the community - the Teacher of Righteousness. Chapter I deals with the influence of the Deuteronomy and the ‘camp in the wilderness’ motif in the Qumranites’ self-presentation, and mentions the ‘Temple Scroll’, discovered in 1967, as a promising new find. Chapter II collects and systematizes all sources related to the figure of the Teacher of Righteousness. Its relevance for the time of the creation of the text was explained with the fact that by the end of 1960s, as new sources were introduced into circulation, the positions of those who, immediately after the discovery of the manuscripts, considered the Teacher of Righteousness to be a purely eschatological figure and a prototype of the Gospel Christ, had noticeably weakened - and, on the contrary, the opinion of those who saw the real-life personality of the founder of the community behind the conventional designation prevailed (this has actualized the discussion of the issue in the context of the clear softening of the positions of mythologists in Soviet literature dedicated to Jesus). S. collects and philologically analyzes scattered references to the founder of the community and tries, as far as possible, to reconstruct the events behind them. Chapter III continues the previous one and examines the influence of the Teacher of Righteousness on the emergence of Qumran literature and his possible writing of the fundamental texts of the community. Finally, Chapter IV is devoted to the eschatological motifs in the Qumran texts.
This monograph by S. is connected, firstly, with the main topic of her doctoral thesis, defended three years earlier, and secondly, with the collection of translations (‘The Texts of Qumran’), which was prepared by her with the participation of A.M. Gazov-Ginsberg and M.M. Elizarova in 1967 and included detailed philological commentaries on the main texts of Qumran, as well as historiographic excursions designed to acquaint the domestic reader with the achievements of Qumran studies. This collection of translations could not be issued in the U.S.S.R. for censorship reasons (after the Six Day War of 1967) and was published only in 1996.