The People of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Their Writings, Beliefs, and Practices.

• Author: Baumgarten, Joseph M.

By FLORENTINO GARCIA MARTINEZ and JULIO TREBOLLE BARRERA. Translated by WILFRED G. E. WATSON. Leiden: E. J. BRILL, 1995. Pp. ix + 269. HF1 65, $42 (paper).

This volume is an English translation of Los Hombres de Qumran, published in 1993. Since the Madrid Qumran Congress held in 1991, of which the proceedings were co-edited by Julio T. Barrera, one of the authors of the present volume, there has been an active involvement in Dead Sea Scroll studies by Spanish scholars. Florentino G. Martinez, editorial secretary of Revue de Qumran, published in 1992 Textos de Qumran, a comprehensive translation of the available Qumran texts, of which an English edition has since appeared. That translation was not annotated and it is therefore useful to have this complementary volume. The contents comprise a collection of studies of the Qumran community, its origins and organization, the nature of its religious law, messianism, apocalyptic, and its influence upon Christianity. There is also an introductory chapter which describes the Scroll discoveries and the controversies concerning the delays in their publication. Since the Scroll fragments are now accessible to anyone who wishes to study them, it is just as well that the refutation of charges of deliberate suppression, which generated more heat than light, is dealt with summarily.

Since this is a collection of studies rather than a systematic exposition one should not expect it to cover all aspects of the still-expanding field of Qumran studies. The selection of subjects reflects areas of current interest that are explored in...