The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Hasmonean State

Hanan Eshel was associate professor in the Department ofLand of Israel Studies and Archaeology at Bar-IlanUniversity, Ramat Gan, Israel. He published extensively onthe Dead Sea Scrolls and conducted many excavations at bothQumran and the Refuge Caves used by Jews during the BarKokhba Revolt.

John J. Collins
— Yale University
"Hanan Eshel has rendered a service to scholarship by pulling together all the historical references in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Many of the passages in question are highly fragmentary or otherwise controversial. Eshel is at his best in detecting historical allusions in fragmentary texts. This book will be grist for the mills of scholarship for years to come."

James C. VanderKam
— University of Notre Dame
"Though reporting history does not happen very often in the Dead Sea Scrolls, they do at times reflect what was happening in the larger world of their time. Hanan Eshel, both a scrolls scholar and an expert archaeologist, has assembled and analyzed in comprehensive fashion a series of texts in which the authors offer their perspective on events involving the Hasmonean rulers. The book, happily now available in an updated English version, is clear, compelling, and enlightening."

Lawrence H. Schiffman
— New York University
"Eshel's masterful treatment investigates the historical relevance of the Qumran scrolls to the study of Hasmonean history, while showing at the same time that the scrolls themselves cannot be understood without detailed knowledge of the historical context. This volume carefully demonstrates the interrelationship of historical and literary approaches to the scrolls while breaking new ground in understanding numerous Dead Sea texts."

Journal of Ancient Judaism 
"In this study, Eshel discovers information in various Qumran manuscripts that corroborates Josephus’s account about the Hellenistic religious reforms. . . . A seminal study on the history of Hasmonean Judah."