The Dead Sea Scrolls Today (2nd ed.)

by James C. VanderKam

Publisher:

Eerdmans

, 2010

Overview

Best-selling book on the Scrolls, updated to reflect current scholarship and recent debates

The premier Dead Sea Scrolls primer ever since its original publication in 1994, James VanderKam’s Dead Sea Scrolls Today won the Biblical Archaeology Society’s Publication Award in 1995 for the Best Popular Book on Biblical Archaeology. In this expanded and updated edition the book will continue to illuminate the greatest archaeological find in modern times.

While retaining the format, style, and aims of the first edition, the second edition of The Dead Sea Scrolls Today takes into account the full publication of the texts from the caves and the post-1994 debates about the Qumran site, and it contains an additional section regarding information that the Scrolls provide about Second Temple Judaism and the groups prominent at the time. Further, VanderKam has enlarged the bibliographies throughout and changed the phrasing in many places. Finally, quotations of the Scrolls are from the fifth edition of Geza Vermes’s translation, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English (Penguin, 1997).

Key Features

• Takes into account the full publication of the texts from the caves and the post-1994 debates about the Qumran site.
• Contains an additional section regarding information that the Scrolls provide about Second Temple Judaism.
• Includes an enlarged version of the bibliographies.

Contents

• Preface to the Second Edition
• Preface to the First Edition
• 1. Discoveries
• 2. Survey of the Manuscripts
• 3. The Identification of the Qumran Group
• 4. The Qumran Essenes
• 5. The Scrolls and the Old Testament
• 6. The Scrolls and the New Testament
• 7. Controversies about the Dead Sea Scrolls
• Postscript
• Index

Praise for The Dead Sea Scrolls Today

This is the book for those interested in a sober, careful, and well-written account of the discovery of the Scrolls, their meaning, and the current state of research on them. A well-organized and highly readable account.

—Commonweal

An attractive book, easy to read, and with excellent photographs. VanderKam has rendered a much-needed service to the Dead Sea Scrolls by presenting such a thoughtful, well-reasoned, and balanced treatment.

—Hebrew Studies

This is the book congregational libraries need to help readers put in perspective much that has come about as a result of the discovery of the Scrolls a half century ago.

—Church & Synagogue Libraries

Product Details

• Title: The Dead Sea Scrolls Today (Second Edition)
• Author: James C. VanderKam
• Edition: Second Edition
• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Print Publication Date: 2010
• Logos Release Date: 2025
• Pages: 260
• Era: era:contemporary
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Reader Edition
• Subjects: Dead Sea scrolls; Bible. O.T. › Criticism, Textual; Qumran community; Essenes; Dead Sea scrolls › Relation to the New Testament; Bible. N.T. › Criticism, interpretation, etc
• ISBNs: 9780802864352, 080286435X
• Resource ID: LLS:DEADSEASCROLLSTODAY2ND
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2025-04-25T15:37:09Z

About James C. VanderKam

James C. VanderKam is John A. O’Brien Professor of Hebrew Scriptures at the University of Notre Dame. He has edited twelve volumes in the series Discoveries in the Judaean Desert and is a member of the editorial committee for the remaining unpublished Dead Sea scrolls. He is one of the two editors in chief of the Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls (2000) and author of the prize-winning The Dead Sea Scrolls Today (1994), From Revelation to Canon: Studies in the Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Literature (2000), An Introduction to Early Judaism (2001), The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls (2002), and From Joshua to Caiaphas: High Priests after the Exile (Fortress Press, 2004). Prof. VanderKam is the editor of the Journal of Biblical Literature.