The relationships between Pauline literature and the Dead Sea scrolls have fascinated specialists ever since the latter were first discovered. Now that all the Qumran scrolls have been published, it is possible to see more clearly the amplitude and impact of this corpus on first century Judaism. This book offers some syntheses of the results obtained in the last decades, and also opens up new perspectives, by highlighting similarities and indicating possible relationships between these various writings within Mediterranean Judaism. In addition, the authors wish to show how certain traditions spread, evolve and are reconfigured in ancient Judaism as they meet new religious, cultural and social challenges.

Originally written to appeal to both scholars and general readers interested in the Dead Sea Scrolls, all of the articles in this volume have been updated to take into account current discussions of this extraordinary archaeological find."--BOOK JACKET.

The International Conference on the Dead Sea Scrolls as Background to Postbiblical Judaism and Early Christianity (St. Andrews, Scotland, 2001) gathered scholars from a wide range of specialties and perspectives from around the world to explore how the Scrolls contribute to our knowledge of the background of both rabbinic and noncanonical forms of Judaism, and of the origins and early development of Christianity. This volume publishes papers from the conference which deal with the Scrolls and: rabbinic literature; Christian origins; Pauline and Deutero-Pauline literature; and Jewish and Christian liturgy, mysticism, and messianism. It comprises an excellent sketch of the state of the question at the beginning of the twenty-first century and is also programmatic for future research.

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 perennially bestselling book on the Dead Sea Scrolls by one of the fields most respected scholars has now been revised and updated to reflect scholarship and debates since the book was first published in 1994.

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'