© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2013 DOI: 10.1163/15685179-12341260 Dead Sea Discoveries 20 (2013) 179–199 brill.com/dsd Deuteronomy 19:15–19 in the Damascus Document and Early Midrash Shlomo Naeh and Aharon Shemesh Hebrew University and Bar Ilan University, Israel shlomo.naeh@mail.huji.ac.il and shemeshaharon@gmail.com Abstract Damascus Document 9:16–10:3—the sectarian rule of testimony—presents seri- ous difculties that have challenged scholars for years. In light of the evidence from Qumran Cave 4, we suggest an emendation and a new reading of the pas- sage. Tis reading refects an understanding of the pentateuchal laws of testimony in Deut 19:15–19, which is markedly diferent from the conventional reading of this biblical pericope and the established halakhah. A similar understanding of the biblical passage is also echoed in early rabbinic sources. Keywords CD; Halakhah; History of Halakha; Testimony; Midrash; Biblical Exegesis Introduction In this paper we suggest a new reading of the rules of testimony in the Damascus Document (CD) and the halakhic midrashim. We wish to show that these sources refect in diferent ways a unique interpretive tradition of the law of testimony in Deut 19:15–19, a tradition that is markedly dif- ferent from the conventional reading of this biblical pericope and the established rabbinic halakhah.