A collection of the earliest manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible (Christian Old Testament) and other Jewish writings found hidden away in a number of caves around the Dead Sea beginning 1947. All the books of the Christian Old Testament, except the book of Esther, are represented in the collection. They confirm on, on the one hand, that the text of the Old Testament is reliable (a matter which fell into great suspicion in the early parts of the 20th Cent). On the other hand, they also indicated that some of the books were also represented by different recensions at the time of the community of Jews at Qumran that is believed to have been responsible for their existence.
The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) has been hailed as the greatest archaeological finds of the 20th Cent. Their discovery is nothing short of fortuitous, but the subsequent story of their research, publication and interpretations has also attracted controversies of the strangest kind, most of which have, in the end, turned out to be non-issues.
Further Reading & Resources:
Alistair Wilson, "The Dead Sea Scrolls on the High Street, Part 1," Foundations 42 (Spring 1999): 26-31. Pdf N 4-5
Alistair Wilson, "The Dead Sea Scrolls on the High Street, Part 2," Foundations 43 (Autumn 1999): 45-49. Pdf N 4-5
Bibliography:
P. R. Davies, G. J. Brooke and P. R. Callaway, The Complete World of the Dead Sea Scrolls. London: Thames & Hudson, 2002.
Millar Burrows, The Dead Sea Scrolls (New York: Viking, 1955).
Norman Golb, Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls? (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1995).
Jodi Magness, The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls (Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 2002).
J. T. Milik, Ten Years of Discovery in the Wilderness of Judea (trans. John Strugnell; Naperville, Ill: Allenson, 1959).
Schiffman, Lawrence H. Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls: The History of Judaism, the Background of Christianity, the Lost Library of Qumran. ABRL. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1994.
James Vanderkam, The Dead Sea Scrolls Toady. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2010.
James Vanderkam and Peter Flint, The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Their Significance for Understanding the Bible, Judaism, Jesus, and Christianityi>. San Francisco: Harper, 2002.
Yigael Yadin, The Message of the Scrolls (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1957).
Useful Websites:
☰ The Leon Levy Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library
☰ The Digital Dead Sea Scrolls
☰ The Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature (esp. useful for bibliography on the DSS).
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