The Dead Sea Scrolls and Contemporary Culture

This volume contains the proceedings of the international conference held at the Israel Museum in Jerusalem in July 2008 in honor of the 60th anniversary of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. As indicated by its title “The Dead Sea Scrolls and Contemporary Culture,” the aim of the conference was to move beyond the strict confines of conventional scholarship and to explore new avenues of research, including the examination of the place of the findings from the Judean Desert in contemporary culture. The book is divided into five main sections: (1) the Identity and History of the Community; (2) the Qumran “Library”: Origins, Use, and Nature (2a. Biblical Texts; 2b. Biblical Interpretation; 2c. Sectarian and Non-Sectarian Literature; 2d. Sectarian vis-à-vis Rabbinic Halakha); (3) Christianity in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls; (4) Gender at Qumran; and (5) New Perspectives (5a. Methodological Approaches; 5b. Educational Approaches).

Adolfo D. Roitman, PhD (1993, Jerusalem), Lizbeth and George Krupp Curator of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Head of the Shrine of the Book in the Israel Museum, Jerusalem. His latest book is Biblia, exégesis y religión. Una lectura crítica-histórica del judaísmo (Verbo Divino, forthcoming).

Lawrence H. Schiffman is Edelman Professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies and Chair of the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University. His latest book is Qumran and Jerusalem: Studies on the Dead Sea Scrolls and the History of Judaism (Eerdmans, 2010).

Shani Tzoref, PhD (2001), Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, New York University, is currently a Research Associate with the Department of Hebrew and Jewish Studies at the University of Sydney. Her publications in the field of Dead Sea Scrolls and early biblical interpretation include The Pesher Nahum Scroll from Qumran (Brill 2004).

All in all, this is one of the finest collections of Qumran studies published in recent years.
Ariel Feldman, DSD