A Guide to the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature
Overview
The Dead Sea Scrolls are found in many varied publications—often ordered only by publication date, rather than a more easily navigable system—making specific texts difficult to find. Joseph Fitzmyer’s guide offers a practical remedy to this dilemma. A Guide to the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature starts by explaining the conventional system of abbreviations for the Scrolls. Then it helpfully lists specifically where readers can find each of the Scrolls and fragmentary texts from the eleven caves of Qumran and all the related sites, using the officially assigned numbers of the text. Fitzmyer supplies information on study tools helpful for scholars—concordances, dictionaries, translations, outlines of longer texts, and more—and briefly indicates electronic resources for the study of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Fitzmyer’s Guide will serve as a good reference work mainly to beginners in the field of Dead Sea Scrolls scholarship. That being said, the book is very thorough and assists students with their initial research within the field. The book would serve as a useful reference for any introductory course in the Dead Sea Scrolls and should in fact be listed as a reference resource on syllabi. Fitzmyer has done a great service to the Dead Sea Scrolls scholarship by revising and updating the book: eighteen years was too long without an update with the fast pace of current scholarship in the area. This book should be updated regularly to continue to serve the academic community.
—Shayna Sheinfeld, The Review of Biblical Literature
- Title: A Guide to the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature
- Author: Joseph A. Fitzmyer
- Series: Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature
- Publisher: W. B. Eerdmans
- Publication Date: 2008
- Pages: 248
