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Summary: The shape of the Bible at the turn of the era
Review: Among the 800 manuscripts found at Qumran, some 220 are biblical texts._The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible_ is for those who would like to be able to compare these variant readings and do so in English. The works are presented according to the usual Hebrew Bible method, the Tanakh: first comes the Torah followed by the Nebuim and then the Kethubim. Like BHS and UBS, variant texts are presented in footnotes along with the references which identify the source of these texts. So for example...in the book's text, Deut 8.12 reads: Otherwise when you have eaten and are full, and have built (fine) house(s) and have lived in them... In this case the text has been amended based upon integrating material from other scrolls. The reader is directed to 5QDEUTcorr LXX. However a variant reading in 5QDEUT MT SP says that the reading of in them is not found in the MT nor the Samaritan Pentateuch. Perhaps the most significant textual variant is noted on page 224 and 225. 4QSAMa records a variant reading which is recorded no where else but Josephus in which it is explained why Nahash wanted to gouge out the right eye of "every one of you" from Jabesh-gilead. This reading indicates the pluriformity of texts prior to the Common Era. If one is interested in what the Dead Sea Scrolls had to say about the text of the Bible, this book has the answers. Between this book and works by Florentino Garcia-Martinez or Michael Wise, there should be no more mysteries about what was contained in the DSS.
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Summary: Important for OT studies
Review: Don't think this is a complete Bible. Of course there's no NT, since the DSS contain no NT fragments. The OT, however, is also incomplete, as most scrolls were fragments or damaged extensively. Nevertheless, this is a very important book. OT studies are incomplete without cross referencing the Dead Sea Scrolls. Footnotes throughout designate the differences between the DSS, the masoretic text, and the Septuagint, just like in the NIV, but much more extensively. The book is worth purchasing just for the introduction, which explains the various canons of the OT and how we received the text we have today. Other highlights include 1 Sam. 11 and 17, the Psalms, and the italicized explanatory comments throughout each book.
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Summary: Hebrew, too, please!
Review: I have to agree with the reviewer who asks for a transcription of the original text. This book is good and valuable, though not too many earthshaking surprises so far - but I have found some fascinating alternate readings. Many of us already have access to the MT and the LXX in Hebrew and Greek, respectively, but not to the DSS biblical texts in Hebrew. This book (or future editions) would be greatly enhanced if the Hebrew of the DSS reading that differs from the "traditional" text - indicated in this book by italics - were included, either in the text itself or in the appropriate footnote. I suggest showing the Hebrew for an entire verse, not just for the words in italics, as this makes reading such things in context much easier. Listing the Hebrew would also show what is meant by words that are only partially italicized. Without this feature, I cannot give this more than 3 stars, though for those who do not read Hebrew, this is a unique book that they would want to have, and four or five stars wouldn't be unwarranted. For those of us who can read or deal with the Hebrew text, though, there is a constant and unsatisfied "itch" to read the Hebrew behind the italics! Put this feature in and raise the price of the book by $10 - and I'll sell my "English only" copy and buy the new one!
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Summary: Okay, but where's the original text?
Review: I'm gonna buy a copy sooner or later. But where (or when) can I get the original text, or its transcription into modern hebrew characters? I'm dying for one. :(
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Summary: A Great Resource
Review: In most books on the Dead Sea Scrolls (like the classic Geza Vermes, The Comlete Dead Sea Scrolls in English), one has to wade through much cultic discussion to find the materials related to the Bible. This book, in contrast, collects the Bible information from the Dead Sea Scrolls in an extremely useful format for the Bible study or Torah study student. Differences with the conventional Masoretic text are displayed in italic. The reader can then easily find the changes in the Bible text from the Dead Sea Scrolls version and learn how the Bible has grown. This is a great reference book.
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Summary: Everybody, Lo and behold!
Review: Look for the item below:
> The Dead Sea Scrolls : Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek Texts With English
> Translations : Damascus Document, War Scroll, and Related Documents
> (Princeton th by James H. Charlesworth (Editor), J. M. Baumgarten (Editor), M. T. Davis
> Hardcover Vol 002 (December 1995)
> Westminster John Knox Pr; ISBN: 0664220371 ; Dimensions (in inches): 0.83 x 10.60 x 8.58
Anyone who wants a DSS in Hebrew please check it, and if purchased a copy, please write a proper review. I cannot afford one for now since I'm in tight budget. Elsewise I'll wait for no review before making a click of purchase.
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Summary: Two additional comments
Review: Most features of the book and its format have been covered by previous reviewers, so I will just add two points.
-First, the price is a bit high (so get it used if you can), but it certainly is nice to have all the biblical material from Qumran in one place, easily accessible.
-Second, be aware that it has an unfortunate omission in the page layout--references. Readers of the English Bible are used to seeing a reference on the top of the page to the book, chapter, and verse which begins the page. This feature is lacking in the Dead Sea Scrolls Bible, and makes flipping through the text in search of a particular passage difficult, especially since (a) deuterocanonical (i.e., apocryphal) works are included, thus altering the relative locations of the canonical books, and (b) most texts are quite fragmentary, thus altering the familiar lengths of individual books. When you flip to a random page, all you see are the chapter and verse numbers--no indication of which book you are in. The end result is that it can be very difficult to estimate where a particular passage may fall in the text, so I have often had to resort to the table of contents (quite an embarrassment after all those "Sword Drills" in Sunday School!).
I still recommend getting this book, though, if you're engaged in biblical studies.
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Summary: Misleading, But Valuable
Review: Over 90% of this book is made up of an English translation of the 10th century Masoretic Hebrew Text interspersed with less than 10% translated Dead Sea Scrolls material. The Masoretic Text is only separated by brackets instead of being differently colored or bold/light/italic faced which any reasonable writer-editor-publisher would have insisted on. Thus if we're looking up the first line of The Ten Commandments we get: "[5."You shall not bow down yourself to them, nor serve them, for I the Lord] your. [G]od..." Translating this means we just have the word "your" and "...od" from the Dead Sea Scrolls. It is impossible to know if these words really were meant to be part of this sentence or not. By doing this, the authors make it appear that there are only a few thousand minor differences between the Dead Sea Scrolls Text and the later Masoretic Texts. In fact, what we find is thousands of differences in just the small portion of the Dead Sea Scroll texts we have, which represents less than 10% of the entire Masoretic Texts. (And we can't even judge how much of this 10% is in the right order) So on the one hand if one carefully analyzes the text, one does find that the Biblical Text in the 1st Century was incredibly different from the 10th century Biblical text, but the book seems designed to purposefully to give the opposite impression. Very misleading, but still valuable. Hopefully, someone will publish just the Dead Sea Scroll fragments, so readers can make their own assessment of what was found.
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Summary: All things old are new again...
Review: The Dead Sea Scrolls may well be the most important archaeological discovery of the twentieth century; it is certainly among the top discoveries in any case. It has shed important light on one of the most influential and formative documents of the world, namely the collection of writings which we have come to know as the Hebrew Bible, or the Old Testament. A thousand years older than the next-oldest copies we have of these documents, this treasure trove has delighted, tantalised, and irritated scholars, clerics, and other interested parties since their chance discover some half-century ago. 'Preserving parts of all but one biblical book, the scrolls confirm that the text of the Old Testament as it has been handed down through the ages is largely correct. Yet, they also reveal numerous important differences.' (Do you know which book is not included? For the answer, see the bottom of this article.) This book presents material from all 220 of the biblical scrolls (there are hundreds of other scrolls that were not biblical, i.e., not copies of biblical texts). These were newly translated by Eugene Ulrich, Peter Flint, and Martin Abegg, who hold important positions in the continuing research and scholarship about the scrolls. These editors have also added commentary to help illuminate further the textual variations between the scrolls and the texts we have today. 'At the time of Jesus and rabbi Hillel--the origins of Christianity and rabbinic Judaism--there was, and there was not, a 'Bible'. This critical period, and the nature of the Bible in that period, have been freshly illuminated by the biblical Dead Sea Scrolls. There was a Bible in the sense that there were certain sacred books widely recognised by Jews as foundational to their religion and supremely authoritative for religious practice. There was not, however, a Bible in the sense that the leaders of the general Jewish community had specifically considered, debated, and definitively decided the full range of which books were supremely and permanently authoritative and which ones--no matter how sublime, useful, or beloved--were not.' The editors first discuss what a Bible is, and what constitutes the arrangements, order, and contents -- the Jewish Tanakh and the Protestant Old Testament contain the same materials, arranged differently; the Catholic Old Testament follows the same order as the Protestant but has other books (in whole or part), which hearkens back to early biblical development and whether the scriptures follow rabbinical council decisions or the Septuagint. The text is heavily annotated, with verse numbers, explanatory notes, gaps and fuzzy sections due to scroll problems, variant readings, and footnote annotations which include scroll identification (cave, scroll number, book, etc.) and ancient biblical texts (Masoretic text, Septuagint, and Samaritan pentateuch). This is an incredibly useful text for those who are interested in what information the Dead Sea Scrolls have to bear on the actual text of the Bible. Here for the first time is a collection of the biblical scrolls laid out in the traditional Biblical order, which enables the average reader as well as the scholar and cleric to follow the texts with ease. To answer the question above, the missing book among the biblical scrolls is the book of Esther. Why would Esther be missing? The editors give some possibilities: 'First, the fact that the festival of Purim was a later addition, not mentioned in the Books of Moses, might have caused the Dead Sea Scrolls community to reject the book. Second, the mere fact that the story concerns the marriage of Esther--a Jew--to a Persian king was likely repugnant to the group's conservative sensibilities. Third, the book itself makes no mention of God whatsoever. Finally, the emphasis on retaliation in the final chapters of Esther is contrary to the teachings of the Dead Sea Scrolls.' A truly fascinating and useful text.
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Summary: Useful, but...
Review: The title of this volume is a bit deceptive. It promises the Bible, but, except for Isaiah, gives the reader fragments, with most textual gaps filled in using the standard Masoretic Text. That being said, the text is nonetheless useful and extensively cross-referenced to other recensions of the Biblical scrolls, highlighting the large number of variant readings and, from the modern point of view, additions. The introductions are good and the translations are in clear, modern English. This edition is marred by a couple of mystifying editorial decisions. One is having introductions to two non-canonical scrolls, Jubilees and Enoch, with no accompanying translations of extant fragments. The other is not having informative headers to let the reader know which scroll is being looked at. As with Harper's edition of the non-canonical Dead Sea Scrolls, I have to ask, what is gained by inconveniencing the reader?
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