Until recently, most non-biblical manuscripts attested in the Qumran library were regarded as copies of texts that were composed after the books of the Hebrew Bible were written. Students of the Hebrew Bible found the Dead Sea Scrolls therefore mostly of interest for the textual and interpretative histories of these books. The present collection confirms the importance of the Dead Sea Scrolls for both areas, by showing that they have revolutionized our understanding of how the text of the biblical books developed and how they were interpreted. Beyond the textual and interpretative histories, though, many texts attested in the Qumran library illuminate the time in which the later books of the Hebrew Bible were composed and reworked as well as Jewish life and law in the time when the canon of the Hebrew Bible developed. This volume gives important examples as to how the early texts attested in the Dead Sea Scrolls help to better understand individual biblical books and as to how the later texts among them illustrate Jewish life and law when the canon of the Hebrew Bible evolved. In order to find an adequate expertise for the seminar »The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Hebrew Bible«, the editors invited both junior and senior specialists in the fields of Hebrew Bible, Second Temple Judaism, Dead Sea Scrolls and Rabbinics to Rome.

Dr. Norman Golb's classic study on the origin of the Dead Sea Scrolls is now available online. Since their earliest discovery in 1947, the Scrolls have been the object of fascination and extreme controversy. Challenging traditional dogma, Golb has been the leading proponent of the view that the Scrolls cannot be the work of a small, desert-dwelling fringe sect, as various earlier scholars had claimed, but are in all likelihood the remains of libraries of various Jewish groups, smuggled out of Jerusalem and hidden in desert caves during the Roman siege of 70 A. D. Contributing to the enduring debate sparked by the book's original publication in 1995, this digital edition contains additional material reporting on new developments that have led a series of major Israeli and European archaeologists to support Golb's basic conclusions. In its second half, the book offers a detailed analysis of the workings of the scholarly monopoly that controlled the Scrolls for many years, and discusses Golb's role in the struggle to make the texts available to the public. Pleading for an end to academic politics and a commitment to the search for truth in scrolls scholarship, Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls? sets a new standard for studies in intertestamental history "This book is 'must reading'.... It demonstrates how a particular interpretation of an ancient site and particular readings of ancient documents became a straitjacket for subsequent discussion of what is arguably the most widely publicized set of discoveries in the history of biblical archaeology...." Dr. Gregory T. Armstrong, 'Church History' Golb "gives us much more than just a fresh and convincing interpretation of the origin and significance of the Qumran Scrolls. His book is also... a fascinating case-study of how an idee fixe, for which there is no real historical justification, has for over 40 years dominated an elite coterie of scholars controlling the Scrolls...." Daniel O'Hara, 'New Humanist'

The present volume is one of the first to concentrate on a specific theme of biblical interpretation in the Dead Sea Scrolls, namely the book of Genesis. In particular the volume is concerned with the links displayed by the Qumranic biblical interpetation to the inner-biblical interpretation and the final shaping of the Hebrew scriptures. Moshe Bar-Asher studies cases of such inner biblical interpretative comments; Michael Segal deals with the Garden of Eden story in the scrolls and other contemporary Jewish sources; Reinhard Kratz analizes the story of the Flood as preamble for the lives of the Patriarchs in the Hebrew Bible; Devorah Dimant examines this theme in the Qumran scrolls; Roman Viehlhauer explores the story of Sodom and Gomorrah; George Brooke and Atar Livneh discuss aspects of Jacob’s career; Harald Samuel review the career of Levi; Liora Goldman examines the Aramaic work the Visions of Amram; Lawrence Schiffman and Aharon Shemesh discuss halakhic aspects of stories about the Patriarchs; Moshe Bernstein provides an overview of the references to the Patriarchs in the Qumran scrolls.

This volume explores the use and interpretation of the Bible in the Dead Sea Scrolls and associated apocryphal, early Christian and rabbinic literature. Interpretive interests, techniques and traditions are examined in many types of ancient works: rewritten bibles, pseudepigrapha, legal codes, prayers, sapiential texts, admonitions and historical treatises. The authors highlight the contribution of the new finds from the Judean Desert to such major issues as attitudes to the Bible and the Law in antiquity, continuity and innovation vis a vis the biblical world, common and unique dimensions of interpretation among different groups in the Second Temple and Rabbinic periods in particular, the Qumran sectarians and their opponents, New Testament authors and rabbinic Sages.

Contains new information about unpublished Dead Sea Scrolls recently brought to light with translations of key passages and recent discovery of the movement behind the Scrolls in their own words.

Since they were first discovered in the caves at Qumran in 1947, the Dead Sea Scrolls have aroused more fascination-- and controversy-- than perhaps any other archaeological find. Collins sheds light on the bitter conflicts that have swirled around the scrolls, and sheds lights on their true significance for Jewish and Christian history.