This book is a collection of cutting-edge essays on the Dead Sea Scrolls as part of ancient Mediterranean media culture, featuring interdisciplinary feedback from scholars in New Testament studies and Classics.

The Dead Sea Scrolls enrich many areas of biblical research, as well as the study of ancient and rabbinic Judasim, early Christian and other ancient literatures, languages, and cultures. With nearly all Dead Sea Scrolls published, it is now time to integrate the Dead Sea Scrolls fully into the various disciplines that benefit from them. This two-volume collection of essays answers this need. It represents the proceedings of a conference jointly organized by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the University of Vienna in Vienna on February 11 14, 2008.

In Dead Sea Media, Shem Miller offers an innovative media criticism of the Dead Sea Scrolls that examines the roles of orality and memory in the social setting and scribal practices of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The Dead Sea Scrolls are one of the most important finds in biblical archaeology, and have profound implications for our understanding of Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity. Timothy Lim discusses the leading interpretations of the scrolls, and how they have changed the way we understand the emergence of the Old Testament.

Exposing the truth behind the Dead Sea Scrolls, known as 'the academic scandal of the twentieth century'. The Dead Sea Scrolls were unearthed in 1947, and were quickly hailed as the greatest cultural discovery of the twentieth century. They can tell us a great deal about how to read and interpret the Bible as well as throwing light on the origins of the literary and philosophical traditions of the Western world. Ensuring the Scrolls are understood correctly is the urgent duty of the scholarly world. But this is not happening. Instead, there is procrastination, intrigue and secrecy surrounding their publication. Robert Feather seeks to clarify what they really say and how they illuminate a sound interpretation of the Bible. He levels many criticisms about the archaeological methods, the political complexities, and the obscure procedures of the scholarly community which brought the Scrolls to light. He argues that it is time for some courageous truth telling about the mystery that surrounds the Scrolls to this day. 'Robert Feather presents an incisive and informed view of a complex controversy and - never lacking in courage - reveals a secret agenda that persists as a barrier to free access to the Dead Sea Scrolls' - Lynn Picknett and Clive Prince, authors of The Forbidden Universe and The Templar Revelation

This volume situates the Qumran Dead Sea Scrolls within Hellenistic Judea. By so doing, this volume shows how the Dead Sea Scrolls participate in broad, cross-cultural intellectual discourses that surpass the Jewish group that produced and collected these scrolls.

These essays reflect the lively debate about the sectarian movement of the Scrolls. They debate the degree to which the movement was separated from the rest of Judaism, and whether there was one or several watershed moments in the separation. Notable contributions include a cluster of essays on the Teacher of Righteousness and a thorough survey of the archaeology of Qumran. The texts are problematic in historical research because they rely on biblical stereotypes. Nonetheless, possible interpretations can be compared and degrees of probability debated. The debate is significant not only for the sect but for the nature of ancient Judaism.

In this volume, Charlotte Hempel offers the first comprehensive commentary on all twelve ancient manuscripts of the Rules of the Community, works which contain the most important descriptions of the organisation and values ascribed to the movement associated with the Dead Sea Scrolls. The best preserved copy of this work (1QS) was one of the first scrolls to be published and has long dominated the scholarly assessment of the Rules. The approach adopted in this commentary is to capture the distinctive nature of each of the manuscripts based on a synoptic translation that presents all the manuscripts at a glance. Textual notes and Commentary deal with the picture derived from all preserved manuscripts. The publication of the Cave 4 manuscripts in 1998 can be likened to a volcanic eruption that challenged prevalent notions of the Community Rules that were founded on the quasi-archetypal status of the Cave 1 copy published in 1951. Since then the smoke has lifted and, as the pieces have begun to settle, we see green shoots emerging in the scholarly debate.. This commentary embraces the post-volcanic landscape of the Community Rules, which is carefully sifted for clues to establish a fresh reading of the material in conversation with the latest research on the Scrolls. The evidence suggests that some of the practices described as the beating heart of the movement's organization reflect the aspirations of a privileged sub-elite from the late Second Temple Period.