What Are Apocryphal Lamentations?

Apocryphal Lamentations A (4Q179) and Apocryphal Lamentations B (4Q501) are among several scrolls found at Qumran that show resemblances to the biblical book of Lamentations, including many shared words and phrases. Because the scrolls are fragmentary, scholars have debated whether they are alternative versions of the book of Lamentations or new compositions that draw on its language. Apocryphal Lamentations A, which is more complete, is, like the biblical book of Lamentations, a lament for Jerusalem. The text may have been written to commemorate the destruction of the Temple in 586 BCE, like later dirges written for Tishah be-Av, but it may also be a lament for the present state of the Temple, which the Qumran sect regarded as defiled and corrupt. What survives of Apocryphal Lamentations B does not mention Jerusalem or the Temple explicitly but rather laments the beleaguered state of the righteous, perhaps a reference to the sectarians themselves.