Magness (early Judaism, U. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill), who has extensive archaeological experience in the area, has written a popular account of the archaeology, meaning, and controversies surrounding the Dead Seas Scrolls and the archaeological site of Qumran where they were found. Without sacrificing content, Magness turns this story into a fascinating page-turner. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

A Choice Outstanding Academic Title and winner of the Biblical Archaeology Society’s Publication Award for Best Popular Book on Archaeology The Dead Sea Scrolls have been described as the most important archaeological discovery of the twentieth century. Deposited in caves surrounding Qumran by members of a Jewish sect who lived at the site in the first century BCE and first century CE, they provide invaluable information about Judaism in the last centuries BCE. Like the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Qumran site continues to be the object of intense scholarly debate. In a book meant to introduce general readers to this fascinating area of study, veteran archaeologist Jodi Magness provides an overview of the archaeology of Qumran that incorporates information from the Dead Sea Scrolls and other contemporary sources. Magness identifies Qumran as a sectarian settlement, rejecting other interpretations including claims that Qumran was a villa rustica or manor house. By carefully analyzing the published information on Qumran, she refines the site’s chronology, reinterprets the purpose of some of its rooms, and reexamines archaeological evidence for the presence of women and children in the settlement. Numerous photos and diagrams give readers a firsthand look at the site. Considered a standard text in the field for nearly two decades, The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls is revised and updated throughout in its second edition in light of the publication of all the Dead Sea Scrolls and additional data from Roland de Vaux’s excavations, as well as Yitzhak Magen and Yuval Peleg’s more recent excavations. Specialists and nonspecialists alike will find here an overview of the Qumran site and the Dead Sea Scrolls that is both authoritative and accessible.

The late Fr. Roland de Vaux was the excavator of Qumran, the home of the religious establishment to which the Dead Sea Scrolls belonged. He was also the organizer of the international team charged with editing the manuscripts. He was, therefore, singularly well placed to apply the evidence of archaeology to the interpretation of the documents. In his Schweich Lectures, delivered at the Academy in 1959, and published in French in 1961, Fr. de Vaux described in detail and archaeological evidence relating both to the scrolls and to the community which owned and may have written them. Shortly before his death in 1971, Fr. de Vaux had completed the revision of these lectures, incorporating much new material which had come to light since the first edition was published. This is included in this second edition translated into English under his own supervision.

Today, archaeology plays an ever growing role in Qumran studies. Fifteen papers presented in 2002 at Brown University provide the necessary data to break new ground in the recent debate about the character of Qumran. Section I discusses material from old and new excavations that help assess the validity of the traditional Qumran-Essene hypothesis. Part II discusses various aspects of the main settlement such as division of space, the character of period III, the date of the cave scroll deposits and the use of food. Part III deals with the Qumran cemetery and a similar graveyard at Khirbet Qazone. Part IV places Qumran into a wider regional context, concentrating on local agriculture and ceramic production. The articles strongly call for a new awareness for archaeological detail and, in their various ways, instigate a renewed debate about how to bring texts and material culture into a meaningful dialogue.

Who discovered the Dead Sea Scrolls? When and where were they discovered? How were they saved? Who has them now? Will more be discovered? Have all the scrolls been published? Are some still hidden away? Were there conspiracies to suppress some scrolls? How do the scrolls affect Christianity and Judaism? How similar are the biblical scrolls to our Bible today? These and other questions are answered in The Dead Sea Scrolls, A Short History, which offers information from exclusive interviews and unpublished archives.

Among the most prominent hallmarks of the late Prof. Hanan Eshel (1958–2010) were his generosity, passion, and integrative approach. The eighteen essays in this volume were selected by Prof. Eshel shortly before his untimely death, to be printed as a collection aimed at contextualizing the textual finds of the Dead Sea Scrolls within their archaeological settings and within the contours of contemporary scholarship.The Qumran texts that stand at the center of these articles are correlated with archaeological and geographic information and with a variety of textual sources including epigraphic evidence and, especially, the Hebrew Bible, Josephus, and rabbinic texts. The essays are organized according to the provenance of the discovered material, with sections devoted to the Damascus Documentand the scrolls from Caves 1, 3, 4, and 11, as well as a final more general chapter.Half of the essays have been previously published in English, while the other half have been translated from Hebrew here for the first time. The book includes essays that have been co-authored with Esther Eshel, Shlomit Kendi-Harel, Zeev Safrai, and John Strugnell.

With the full publication of the Dead Sea Scrolls, fresh analysis of the evidence presented can be and indeed, should be made. Beyond the Qumran Community does just that, reaching a surprising conclusion: the sect described in the Dead Sea Scrolls developed later than has usually been supposed and was never confi ned to the site of Qumran. / John J. Collins here deconstructs the Qumran community and shows that the sectarian documents actually come from a text spread throughout the land. He examines the Community Rule, or Yahad, and considers the Teacher of Righteousness, a pivotal fi gure in the Essene movement. After examining the available evidence, Collins concludes that it is, in fact, overwhelmingly likely that the site of Qumran housed merely a single settlement of a very widespread movement.

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'

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.

Qumran has been the subject of recent controversy, with a number of scholars challenging Roland de Vaux's interpretation of the site as a sectarian settlement. In these updated and annotated essays, Jodi Magness examines various aspects of the archaeology of Qumran, including the architecture, pottery, cementery, and coins. She beliefs that de Vaux's interpretation is correct, and that the community that inhabitated Qumran should be identified with the Essenes mentioned in our ancient sources.