The War of the Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness is a manual for military organization and strategy that was discovered among the Dead Sea Scrolls

Dead Sea scrolls

The Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of 972 texts from the Hebrew Bible and extra-biblical documents found between 1947 and 1956 on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea, from which they derive their name...

. It is also known by the names "War Rule", "Rule of War", and "War Scroll". The manuscript was among the scrolls from Qumran Cave

Qumran Caves

The Qumran Caves are a series of caves, some natural, some artificial, to be found around the archaeological site of Qumran. It is in a number of these caves that the famous Dead Sea Scrolls were found...

 1 acquired by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Hebrew University of Jerusalem

The Hebrew University of Jerusalem ; ; abbreviated HUJI) is Israel's second-oldest university, after the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. The Hebrew University has three campuses in Jerusalem and one in Rehovot. The world's largest Jewish studies library is located on its Edmond J...

, and first published by Eleazar Sukenik in 1955. The document is made up of various scrolls and fragments including 1QM, and 4Q491-497.