Review of \u3ci\u3eEschatology, Messianism, and the Dead Sea Scrolls,\u3c/i\u3e edited by Craig A. Evans and Peter W. Flint

Eschatology, Messianism, and the Dead Sea Scrolls is the first volume of a new series, Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature, being published under the auspices of the Dead Sea Scrolls Institute at Trinity Western University in British Columbia. The volume is a collection of eight essays presented at the first public Symposium of the Dead Sea Scrolls Institute on September 30, 1995; it also contains an introduction by the editors Evans and Flint, the transcript of a panel discussion and a select bibliography. The essays are aimed at a public, nonspecialist audience, and thus provide rather more background and explanation than would be needed by a scholarly reader. As with any collection of symposium papers, some are of better quality than others. All of the essays take as their subject some aspect of eschatology or messianism, but not all are directly concerned with the Dead Sea Scrolls

Review of \u3ci\u3eThe Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Faith\u3c/i\u3e, ed. James H. Charlesworth and Walter P. Weaver

Do the Dead Sea Scrolls hinder or undermine Christian faith? James Charlesworth asks in the preface of this volume. The four essays that follow all answer with a resounding No! The annual Faith and Scholarship Colloquy at Florida Southern College serves to bring together leading scholars to address the most challenging topics in contemporary biblical studies in a way that speaks to a Christian lay audience. This volume, the fifth in a series, admirably meets that goal

The Rewritten Bible at Qumran

Since the discovery of the scrolls from the Qumran caves in the late 1940s and early-to-mid 50s, the process of sorting, identifying, and editing the fragmentary manuscripts has occupied the attention of scholars. Now, as that period in the history of scrolls scholarship draws to a close, more and more attention has turned to the contents of the texts from the eleven caves in the vicinity of Khirbet Qumran as a collection. Several things may be said about this collection. First, the majority of the texts are written in Hebrew, thus pointing to Hebrew as a living language (at least in literature) in the Second Temple Period. Second, a large percentage of the texts found in the caves (about 25 percent) are copies of books later considered part of the canon of the Hebrew Bible; there are also copies of books that were later grouped into the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha. Third, of the previously unknown works unearthed from the caves, the vast majority of them bear some relationship to the books that later became known as the Hebrew Bible. It is with classifying and understanding these manuscripts, both individually and in relation to one another, that scholarship is now occupied

Review of Timothy K. Beal, \u3ci\u3eThe Book of Hiding: Gender, Ethnicity, Annihilation and Esther\u3c/i\u3e, and Timothy S. Laniak, \u3ci\u3eShame and Honor in the Book of Esther\u3c/i\u3e

These two recent books on the Book of Esther by young scholars illustrate the vitality of new methods of interpretation of the biblical text; at the same time, they raise questions about the limits of these new methods. Laniak, approaching the Book of Esther from an anthropological perspective, uses its categories of honor and shame. Beal uses postmodern critical theory to illuminate the shifting meanings of “self” and “other” in Esther. The two books have several things in common—rather surprisingly, given their very different orientations. Neither author gives much attention to the historical value of the Book of Esther; both approach it purely as a literary text, although Laniak (p. 3 n. 5) states that he does not count himself “among those who reject the book of Esther as a source of history.” Both authors use the MT as their primary text, with only passing reference to the LXX and the Greek alpha text, and both share an interest in later rabbinic interpretation of Esther. There, however, the similarities end

Review of Timothy K. Beal, \u3ci\u3eThe Book of Hiding: Gender, Ethnicity, Annihilation and Esther\u3c/i\u3e, and Timothy S. Laniak, \u3ci\u3eShame and Honor in the Book of Esther\u3c/i\u3e

These two recent books on the Book of Esther by young scholars illustrate the vitality of new methods of interpretation of the biblical text; at the same time, they raise questions about the limits of these new methods. Laniak, approaching the Book of Esther from an anthropological perspective, uses its categories of honor and shame. Beal uses postmodern critical theory to illuminate the shifting meanings of “self” and “other” in Esther. The two books have several things in common—rather surprisingly, given their very different orientations. Neither author gives much attention to the historical value of the Book of Esther; both approach it purely as a literary text, although Laniak (p. 3 n. 5) states that he does not count himself “among those who reject the book of Esther as a source of history.” Both authors use the MT as their primary text, with only passing reference to the LXX and the Greek alpha text, and both share an interest in later rabbinic interpretation of Esther. There, however, the similarities end

The Other Bible from Qumran

Where did the Bible come from? The Hebrew Bible, or Christian Old Testament, did not exist in the canonical form we know prior to the early second century C.E. Before that, certain books had become authoritative in the Jewish community, but the status of other books, which eventually did become part of the Hebrew Bible, was questionable. All Jews everywhere, since at least the fourth century B.C.E., accepted the authority of the Torah of Moses, the first five books of the Bible (also called the Pentateuch): Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy

Review of \u3ci\u3eEschatology, Messianism, and the Dead Sea Scrolls,\u3c/i\u3e edited by Craig A. Evans and Peter W. Flint

Eschatology, Messianism, and the Dead Sea Scrolls is the first volume of a new series, Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature, being published under the auspices of the Dead Sea Scrolls Institute at Trinity Western University in British Columbia. The volume is a collection of eight essays presented at the first public Symposium of the Dead Sea Scrolls Institute on September 30, 1995; it also contains an introduction by the editors Evans and Flint, the transcript of a panel discussion and a select bibliography. The essays are aimed at a public, nonspecialist audience, and thus provide rather more background and explanation than would be needed by a scholarly reader. As with any collection of symposium papers, some are of better quality than others. All of the essays take as their subject some aspect of eschatology or messianism, but not all are directly concerned with the Dead Sea Scrolls

\u3ci\u3eThe Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls\u3c/i\u3e, by Jodi Magness. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2002. xivi + 238 pp., 66 figures. Cloth. $26.00.

This volume by Jodi Magness is part of a series entitled Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature, edited by Peter W. Flint, Martin G. Abegg, Jr., and Florentino Garcia Martinez. The purpose of the series is to make the latest and best Dead Sea Scrolls scholarship accessible to scholars, students, and the thinking public (p. i). Magness has designed her book with that general readership, not the specialist in the field, in mind. It contains no footnotes, very few quotations from the scholarly literature, and its bibliography is gathered and annotated at the end of each chapter. The opening chapter, An Introduction to the Archaeology of Qumran, introduces the reader not only to the subject of Qumran archaeology, but contains a subsection titled What is Archaeology, and What Excavation Methods Do Archaeologists Use? In this subsection Magness introduces her readers to the methods of archaeology, e.g., numismatics, and explains why archaeologists use these methods when reconstructing the history of a particular site such as Qumran. Thus, while the specialist will find the present volume useful since it collects and synthesizes the latest research, its primary audience will be found in the undergraduate classroom, the library of the archaeology buff, and, most importantly, the shelves of Dead Sea Scroll specialists who are not archaeologists and need a clear and concise guide through the sometimes tortuous pathways of Qumran archaeology

The Rewritten Bible at Qumran

Since the discovery of the scrolls from the Qumran caves in the late 1940s and early-to-mid 50s, the process of sorting, identifying, and editing the fragmentary manuscripts has occupied the attention of scholars. Now, as that period in the history of scrolls scholarship draws to a close, more and more attention has turned to the contents of the texts from the eleven caves in the vicinity of Khirbet Qumran as a collection. Several things may be said about this collection. First, the majority of the texts are written in Hebrew, thus pointing to Hebrew as a living language (at least in literature) in the Second Temple Period. Second, a large percentage of the texts found in the caves (about 25 percent) are copies of books later considered part of the canon of the Hebrew Bible; there are also copies of books that were later grouped into the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha. Third, of the previously unknown works unearthed from the caves, the vast majority of them bear some relationship to the books that later became known as the Hebrew Bible. It is with classifying and understanding these manuscripts, both individually and in relation to one another, that scholarship is now occupied