Customer Reviews

For the first time in 2000 years... - By: Kurt Messick, 28 Sep 2003
Geza Vermes' book, The Complete Dead Sea Scrollsin English, is a worthy capstone to a long & distinguished scroll career. Vermes entire career, from his student days to this present work, has been concentrated largely on the Dead Sea Scrolls & related topics. His doctoratein 1953 was completed with a dissertation on the historical framework of the Dead Sea Scrolls. It is difficult to find any scholar with as complete a knowledge of the scrolls as has Vermes; it is impossible to find one who knows them better.

This book was releasedin 1997, 50 years from the time the first Arab shepherd climbed into a cavein search of a wandering animal & instead fell upon the first of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Following the 'revolution' of 1991 (to use Vermes words), everyone interested could have unfettered access to the Scrolls, & yet, as inaccessible as they had been previously due to physical restriction, they remained just as inaccessible due to the problem of language & translation.

'In addition to the English rendering of the Hebrew & Aramaic texts foundin the eleven Qumran caves, two inscribed potsherds (ostraca) retrieved from the Qumran site & two Qumran-type documents discoveredin the fortress of Masada, & brief introductory notes to each text, this volume also provides an up-to-date general introduction, outlining the history of fifty years of Scroll research & sketching the organisation, history & religious message of the Qumran Community.'

This is the latest volume of a series: when Vermes first published an editionin 1962 (then 15 years after the discovery of the first scrolls), the book had 262 pages; the current edition has 648. The introduction deals with a brief sketch of the history of research (including a bit on the controversies, such as not allowing Jewish scholars to work on these Jewish texts, the close-guarding & restrictive access of the scrolls by the scholars); further issuesin the introduction address current research, including questions of dating, provenance, & perhaps, most importantly, the meaning & significance of the Qumran texts.

Vermes puts together a three-part essay on his view (as well as a little on alternative views) of who was the community at Qumran, the history of that community, & the religious ideas of the community.

This is where we get into the text of the Scrollsin earnest. Vermes begins with The Community Rule a large document that listed the requirements & a penal code. This is best known as the Manual of Discipline. Composition may have begun about 100 BCE, & several fragmentary remains exist of copies of the manual.

'There are, to my knowledge, no writingsin ancient Jewish sources parallel to the Community Rule, but a similar type of literature flourished amogn Christians between the second & fourth centuries, the so-called 'Church Orders' represented by works such as the Didache, the Didascalia, the Apostolic Constitution.'

From the Rules & variants, including the now-infamous MMT text, which provoked international lawsuits for violating the 'copyright' exerted by one Scroll scholar on its contents, Vermes proceeds to examine Hymns & Poems; Calendars, Liturgies & Prayers; Apocalyptic Works (which have the greatest appeal to many imminent eschatologically-inclined sects today); Wisdom Literature; Bible translations, commentaries, & apocryphal works; & Miscellanea, including objects such as the Copper Scroll (a rare form, not on parchment, which reads like an accountant's register of treasure), & lists, including the List of False Prophets.

For anyone interestedin the Dead Sea Scrollsin any serious way, this is an essential book. With various 'complete' scroll editions & collections being released, this edition, produced by one who has devoted his life to scroll studies, remains one of the best, most complete & clearly translated.

The one drawback, which will only affect those whose interest extends to the study of Roman-period Hebrew & Aramaic, is that there is no photographic imagery or recreationin Hebrew/Aramaic script to show the actual scroll text so that one might make a personal study of the accuracy of the translation. Thus, this text works best for that purposein conjunction with another translation, or with the very-expensive scroll photographic plate sets now available.

But, for most any use from general interest to scholarship, this volume will serve the reader well.