This Book Review originally appeared in The Post & Courier, May 22, 2005

THE MEANING OF THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS: Their Significance for Understanding the Bible, Judaism, Jesus, and Christianity. By James VanderKam & Peter Flint. Harper San Francisco. 467 pages. $21.95.

What is known of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls has acquired the stuff of legend.  In the winter of 1946-47, three Bedouin shepherds found a series of tall jars lining the walls of a cave on the northwest shore of the Dead Sea.  Most of the jars were empty.  Others held bundles of scrolls.  Unsure of their worth, the shepherds left them in a bag on a tent pole for weeks before showing them to antiquities dealers in Bethlehem.

By the early spring of 1947, scholars became aware of the scrolls.  Assembling and reconstructing the texts revealed a mix of early Hebrew and Aramaic books of the Bible, pseudepigrapha on Enoch and the patriarchs, hymns, and covenantal documents, likely from between 250 BCE and 68 CE, in the Second Temple period that included the life of Jesus and the formation of the early Christian church.

The community that left the scrolls in the caves of the Qumran settlement is believed to have been lost as Roman legions swept through Palestine, probably soon before the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE.  The scrolls represent a means of learning what they believed and why they chose to live a sectarian life in the wilderness outside of Jerusalem.

Study of the location was delayed by the end of the British Mandate in Palestine on May 15, 1948.  The region plunged into war for six months.  Even after an uneasy peace was achieved, severe travel restrictions and danger persisted for the archeologists who excavated the caves and ruins of Qumran.

From the works of Josephus, we are aware of three major factions of Judaism near the end of the Second Temple period: Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes (a fourth group, the Zealots, are best understood as a subset of the Pharisees).

Most scholars concur that the Qumran covenanters were an offshoot of the Essene movement. Per scrolls describing the rules of their community, they participated in a communal distribution of property, and believed that they lived in the end of days.  This is similar to the early Christian community as described in the Acts of the Apostles. 

Their separation from the Jerusalem Jews and departure for the wilderness seems to have resulted from their interpretation of the prophecy of Isaiah.  “The Qumran community modeled itself after Israel in the desert under Moses’ leadership,” the authors write, “especially Israel as it encamped before Mt. Sinai and entered into covenant with the Lord.”  In the scroll known as the Book of Jubilees, for example, the renewal ceremony in which new members were welcomed to the Qumran community is based on the Festival of Weeks and the Sinai covenant.  Omissions in lists of festivals are also revealing.  Hanukkah, commemorating the victory of the Maccabees, is absent as is Purim, which is derived from the Book of Esther, a text not found at Qumran.

Much of the controversy surrounding the scrolls has dealt with the perception that the road to widespread publication was slow.  Eschatology and apocalyptic literature, biblical or no, generally incites debate, and much of this is among the Qumran scrolls. 

One hardly needs invoke conspiracy to explain the length of time needed for study, however.  The painstaking task of sifting through fragments, some so brittle they would disintegrate under the touch of a camel’s hair brush, occupied researchers for decades.  Preservation efforts, often to mitigate damage done to the scrolls by earlier scholars, are an ongoing source of concern.  The scrolls and fragments have been extensively photographed using film and digital technology.  In some cases this has resulted in improved legibility, such as when infrared photography revealed text on surfaces black to the naked eye.

“The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls” is divided into five main sections: Archeology, Scriptural Scrolls, Non-Biblical Scrolls, Relationship to the New Testament, and Controversies.  A comprehensive series of appendixes, notes, and index follows.

The authors are conservative in discussing the range of interpretations the more esoteric texts have been subject to, keeping the tone balanced but grounded in academic consensus.  They succeed as well in condensing a vast amount of history and interpretation into a single reference.  Appreciation for the complexity of religious thought in and around the Jerusalem of ancient days lingers long after the last page is read.

Reviewer Jason A. Zwiker is a freelance writer based in Charleston.

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