NEW COVENANT. – A Jewish sect, of which an incomplete Hebrew codex gives an account, discovered in the winter of 1896–97 and published in 1910 by S. Schechter, now commonly called the “Zadokite Document.” Founded by the “Teacher of Righteousness,” under the guidance of the “Unique Messiah,” it emigrated from Jerusalem to Damascus, apparently because of internal disputes within the priestly class from which the sect sprang; despite retaining the priesthood, the new community was led by laymen. The chief opponent of the “New Covenant” is a “Man of Lies,” accused of seducing the people to avarice, lust, and the profanation of the Sanctuary. For the “end of days,” another “Teacher of Righteousness” is awaited. The adherents, called “penitents” and “sons of Zadok,” were subjected to various regulations governing their lives in detail: observance of the Sabbath, festivals, fasts, monogamy, etc.
The origin of the sect, its chronological and ideological placement within the Israelite world, remain open questions. The data provided by the document itself (1:5ff.), which would place its foundation in 1916 BCE (“390 years after the destruction of Jerusalem” in 586 BCE) and its emigration to Damascus in 176 BCE, during the Hellenistic period, are the most commonly used, at least as a general indication; some scholars, however, regard them as purely literary data (especially in relation to Ezek 4:5), devoid of documentary value. Some place it broadly in the Seleucid era (P. Kahle), others more precisely in the Maccabean period (B. Reicke), and still others in the time of Christ (R. Eisler; J. Schønsboe). Various attempts have also been made to link it with currents known from religious history: Sadducees, Pharisees, Dositheans, Karaites.
A new complication in the problem is introduced by the Hebrew “apocryphal”-type texts discovered in the cave of ‘Ayn Feshkhah, above all the one entitled War of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness and the collection of Hymns, both partially edited by E. L. Sukenik. Between these two documents and the Zadokite one, significant points of contact have been observed in their distinctive expressions, leading J. Tournay (see bibliography, pp. 216ff., 226, 232ff.) to affirm a common origin (“a literary corpus belonging to the same sect,” p. 232) and to propose the hypothesis that for its historical placement one should think of a Jewish insurrectional movement of the Roman penetration period in Syria-Palestine (the Kittim), which, in moments of particular gravity—close to military actions (Pompey’s conquest; the war of Titus)—reinforced the resolve either for armed resistance or at least for isolation to defend its spiritual heritage. Only the complete publication of all the documents and their exhaustive study will shed light on the matter.
On the recently discovered texts: E. L. Sukenik, *Megilloth genuzoth mittokh genuzoth qedhmoth u-me’ah be-midbar Yehudah* (“Hidden Scrolls from an Ancient Cache Found in the Judean Desert”), Jerusalem 1948; J. Tournay, *Les anciens manuscrits hébreux récemment découverts*, in *Rev. bibl.*, 46 (1949), pp. 204–33.
Nuoro, diocese of
Panorama of the city.
Nuoro, diocese of – Sanctuary of the Waters – Fonni.
NEW GUINEA
1) State or colonial boundaries;
2) boundaries of territory of the Australian Commonwealth or of a trust administration;
3) boundary of an ecclesiastical circumscription.