Departing from scholarship dedicated to the socio-historical realities of priesthood at Qumran, this book explores images of otherworldly and messianic/eschatological priesthood in the Dead Sea Scrolls as a reflection of the religious worldview of the Qumran community and related groups.

This volume constitutes the proceedings of the 2008 Ranieri Colloquium on Ancient Studies at New York University, dedicated to "The Dead Sea Scrolls at 60: The Scholarly Contributions of NYU Faculty and Alumni."

The eight essays in this book on the subjects of eschatology and messianism evidenced in the Dead Sea Scrolls were originally delivered at a conference for a lay audience, and are therefore accessible to the interested reading public.

A well-known characteristic of the sectarian Dead Sea Scrolls are their assertions that membership in the Qumran movement included present and eschatological fellowship with the angels, but scholars disagree as to the precise meaning of these claims. To gain a better understanding of angelic fellowship at Qumran, Matthew L. Walsh utilizes the early Jewish concept that certain angels were closely associated with Israel. Moreover, these angels, which included guardians and priests, were envisioned within apocalyptic worldviews that assumed that realities on earth corresponded to those of the heavenly realm. A comparison of non-sectarian texts with sectarian compositions reveals that the Qumran movement's lofty assertions of communion with the guardians and priests of heavenly Israel would have made a significant contribution to their identity as the true Israel.

IT IS in no wise the purpose of this book to provide a history of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls nor to make an assessment of their contents. For this the reader is referred to the works of eminent specialists in this field such as Prof. Millar Burrows, Father R. de Vaux, Prof. W. H. Brownlee, Prof. Dupont-Sommer, Father J. T. Milik and many others. The only question we wish to examine here--or at least to pose correctly-is that of the relations between the religious group which we know through the Scrolls and the origins of Christianity.

This volume considers the transmission of interpretive traditions and the details of scribal practices. The essays explore the variety of ways that texts are interpreted at Qumran and also re-evaluates sectarian categorizations of texts along with distinctive scribal practices.