Understanding the Dead Sea Scrolls: A Reader from the Biblical Archaeology Review
by By Shanks, Hershel (EDT)
Category: Religion , Biblical Studies , General

The Dead Sea Scrolls are the most important and most exciting manuscript find of the twentieth century. Yet their significance remains inaccessible to most, veiled by mystery and scholarly occlusion. This volume, comprised of articles by the world's leading Dead Sea Scroll authorities, is the essential source book for understanding the scrolls and the controversies that rage around them. The articles, drawn from the Biblical Archaeology Review and Bible Review, are edited by Hershel Shanks. Shanks is a leader of the international movement that recently succeeded in releasing the scrolls from the handful of scholars who had hoarded the secret texts for more than thirty-five years.Understanding the Dead Sea Scrolls traces the scrolls' often Byzantine path from their initial chance discovery in 1947 by Bedouin shepherds to their status as what Bible scholar Harry Thomas Frank calls "the most sensational archaeological discovery of the century." Cloak-and-dagger antiquities trading, conspiracy theories, and front-page battles over access to the scrolls' secrets all contribute to the intrigue.This collection addresses the primary questions raised by the scrolls: What do the scrolls tell us about early Christianity and developing rabbinic Judaism? Was Jesus an Essene? Did John the Baptist live with the Qumran community that wrote the scrolls? Is the Temple Scroll the lost sixth book of the Torah? Is the Copper Scroll a map to hidden temple treasure? What do the nearly two hundred biblical scrolls tell us about the development of the Hebrew Bible?Understanding the Dead Sea Scrolls also contains the interview with chief scroll editor John Strugnell that led to his dismissal amid charges of incompetence and anti-Semitism, as well as Shanks's own article that discredits the theory of a Vatican-controlled scroll coverup.A consensus emerges from these Dead Sea Scroll debates: The scrolls are an incomparable archaeological and historical treasure. They illuminate critical issues in the development of the Judeo-Christian tradition, not bombshells that undermine it.