The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated: The Qumran Texts in English

Rating:
Summary: Very well written!!
Review: "The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated" by Florentino Garcia Martinez is the best version of translated Scroll material that I have come across, and there are "others." What makes this translation excellent is the unbiased, scholarly critique. Martinez does a superb job here! There is no "religious" leaning that I can see. This translation is not prejudged in any way, shape or form. This is an excellent reference book for anyone desiring to research the scrolls.

There has been an argument made against Martinez' translation. That argument says that since this translation was first put into Spanish, then into English something was lost in the translation. Not so! Florentino Garcia Martinez is a Professor at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands- a well renowned scholar. If anything, his multiple translations just go to show his intelligence and ability at what he does (he runs the Qumran Institute). This is a reliable and very well written translation!

Rating:
Summary: Useful reference tool
Review: These comprehensive translations are of the non-Biblical texts found from the caves at Qumran, and are useful for anyone interested primarily in the *content* of the scrolls. The hebrew texts are not given in this work (those interested in such should search under title = "Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition", published both by Brill/Eerdmans), and the Biblical texts are not given (bibliographies are given for these texts-- most often the Oxford series *Discoveries in the Judaean Desert* is the primary source for Biblical texts).

Serious students of Qumran literature will need more than this work, of course, given that some of the renderings given by Martinez could be tentative or questionable (debate over the particulars of any given text can be consulted in various journals [JNES, BASOR, BAR, JANES, JAOS, etc.]). The book is a good, basic, introductory work.

Rating:
Summary: Not Just Plain Jane
Review: This book needs to be considered alongside _The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation_ edited by Michael Wise et al. Readers who find a commentary advantageous will want to seek out Wise's book. Readers who are ready to look at the texts and make their own comparisons are ready for Garcia-Martinez's book.

Garcia-Martinez begins his book with a short history of the DSS and addresses a couple of the key issues of the DSS such as whether they are a part of a sectarian library. Next comes a thematic approach to the Scrolls. The Rule of the Community and the Damascus Document come at the beginning of the book, but the rest of the un-numbered manuscripts are grouped with other manuscripts of a similar theme.

There are no biblical manuscripts nor are there any Hebrew texts. However at the end of the book are lists of all of the manuscripts and the caves in which they were found.
There lies the real advantage of this book: each manuscript is accompanied by an authoritative bibliographical reference(s) for those who want to know more.