The Dead Sea Scrolls: What Have We Learned?

• Author: Flannery, Frances
• Position: Book review

The Dead Sea Scrolls: What Have We Learned? By EILEEN M. SCHULLER. Louisville: WESTMINSTER JOHN KNOX PRESS. 2006. Pp. xvii + 126. $17.95 (paper).

Eileen Schuller, noted authority on the Dead Sea Scrolls, adds her voice to the voluminous scholarship on this topic (see the steadily growing electronic bibliography of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature at http://orion.mscc.huji.ac.il). Schuller's study comprises reflections presented to a general audience in the John Albert Hall Lectures given at the University of Victoria in 2002. This thin, selective volume does not therefore claim to be a full introduction to the Dead Sea Scrolls or research on Qumran. Instead, it is an introductory gateway to various topics, including: major conclusions of Dead Sea Scrolls research over the years, the importance of the scrolls for understanding the biblical canon, prayer and worship in the scrolls, and the place of women in the Qumran community and in the scrolls.

Chapter one sketches the major contours of the discovery and interpretation of the scrolls in a handy decade-by-decade summary that clearly concentrates on issues of publication rather than on interpretation. Schuller quickly takes readers through five decades: 1947-57 and the chronological discovery of the scrolls and early Essene hypotheses; two more decades of slow and steady progress regarding the assembly, identification, and translation of fragmentary scrolls; 1977-87 and the publication of additional important scrolls (e.g., the Temple Scroll, new versions of the War Scroll, Miqsat Ma'aseh haTorah, and various liturgical works, 4Q502-4Q512) and a few hypotheses about the relationship of the archaeological site of Qumran and the scrolls; and the dramatic decade of 1987-97, when the scrolls were made accessible to all scholars and the public through the 1993 release of a complete microfiche version of the negatives of the scrolls (Emanuel Tov with Stephen Phann, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls Microfiche and Companion Volume).

The strength of Schuller's presentation is her unique point of view as an accomplished scholar in the field. Thus, for the fifth decade (1987-97) and the sixth (1997 and beyond, since her book was published in 2006), she mentions scholarly conferences that have furthered the publication of major academic works on the scrolls and notes the completion of the DJD or Discoveries of the Judean Desert series, the authoritative...