The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English [Hardcover]

Geza Vermes (Compiler, Translator, Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 1997

Nothing in the modern study of ancient Judaism and the birth of Christianity can match the 50-year saga of these documents, discovered by a lowly goatherd in the spring of 1947. Now, after years of academic debate and maneuvering as tense as any espionage novel, the Dead Sea Scrolls and fragments are at last available in their entirety, in the established standard English version.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

It's been 50 years since a Bedouin youth named Muhammed edh-Dhub went looking for a stray sheep and instead found the Dead Sea Scrolls. In the intervening decades, the scrolls have been enveloped in a storm of controversy and bitter conflict: the scholars entrusted with translating and editing the texts sat on many of them instead, creating suspicions that escalated to conspiracy theories about supposed cover-ups of sensitive, even damaging material. Geza Vermes, a former professor of Jewish studies at Oxford and a noted authority on the scrolls, marks the 50th anniversary of Muhammed edh-Dhub's find with his book The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English; the title, however, is misleading, for the collection of documents is by no means complete.

Vermes has left out the copies of Hebrew scriptures that are available elsewhere, instead focusing on the sectarian writings of the Essene community at Qumran and the intertestemental texts, and these are indeed complete translations. Vermes has also included an overview of five decades of research on the scrolls and a thumbnail sketch of the Qumran community's history and religion. For anyone interested in biblical history, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English is a worthwhile read.

From Library Journal

This one-volume translation of the Dead Sea Scrolls joins those of Florentino Garcia Martinez (The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated, Eerdman's, 1996) and Michael Wise and others (The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation, LJ 12/96) and is the latest edition of The Dead Sea Scrolls in English, first published in 1962. In a 90-page introduction, Vermes (emeritus, Jewish studies, Wolfson Coll., Oxford) briefly summarizes the 50-year history of scrolls research. He presents an overview of the sectarian community associated with the scrolls (whom he identifies as the Essenes), its history, and its beliefs. Though dubbed "complete" (the preface explains that "meaningless scraps or badly damaged manuscript sections are not inflicted on the reader"), Vermes's translation is generally the most selective of the three. This sometimes saves the reader from the possible frustration of line upon line of brackets and ellipses, but it gives a limited idea of the extent of the textual material available. However, the translation is good and has stood as the standard for many years. As with Bibles, libraries should have more than one version of the Dead Sea Scrolls.?Craig W. Beard, Univ. of Alabama at Birmingham Lib.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 648 pages
• Publisher: Allen Lane / The Penguin Press; 5th edition (July 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0713991313
• ISBN-13: 978-0713991314
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.5 x 2.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #357,475 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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301 of 309 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If you buy 1 book on the Dead Sea Scrolls, make it this one., February 27, 2000

By 

Earl Whitney - See all my reviews

This review is from: Complete Dead Sea Scrolls (Paperback)

Geza Vermes provides a concise introduction to the topic of the Dead Sea Scrolls and provides English translations of many of the scrolls and fragments found in the 11 caves of Qumran. This book was originally published in 1965 and was last updated in 1997. Much has happened in those 32 years and this book contains updates on the key items.

In the first 96 pages of the book, Vermes provides an insight into what the Scrolls are, who the authors were, a history of the community that wrote the scrolls, and the religious ideas of the community. 500 pages of translations and brief discussions of each scroll and fragment follow. The discussions are particularly helpful as introductions to the themes and background related to each scroll. About 40 pages at the end of the book present a catalogue of the scrolls, an index of the texts, and a bibliography. The indexes in the book provide references by topic and by the classification number of the text or fragment (e.g. 4Q525 is text number 525 from Qumran Cave 4).

Among the many key manuscripts translated in this book are the Community Rule, the Damascus Document, the Messianic Rule, the War Scroll, the Thanksgiving Hymns, the Apocryphal Psalms, the calendrical documents, the Blessings and Benedictions, the Peshers (commentaries) on numerous books of the Old Testament, Biblical Apocryphal Works, and the Copper Scroll (the Copper Scroll is a description of the locations of hidden treasures).

The book is quite complete, but new discoveries and revisions to existing hypotheses will always make future revisions a necessity. I have used this book to teach a 4-week mini-course on the Dead Sea Scrolls at my Church with much success. I highly recommend this book. The topic is fascinating and this book is a must for anyone serious about learning what is in the Dead Sea Scrolls and what life was like from 150 B.C to 70 A.D.

165 of 168 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars For the first time in 2000 years..., June 15, 2003

By 

FrKurt Messick "FrKurt Messick" (Bloomington, IN USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Complete Dead Sea Scrolls (Paperback)

Geza Vermes' book, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, is a worthy capstone to a long and distinguished scroll career. Vermes entire career, from his student days to this present work, has been concentrated largely on the Dead Sea Scrolls and related topics. His doctorate in 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 released in 1997, 50 years from the time the first Arab shepherd climbed into a cave in search of a wandering animal and 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, and yet, as inaccessible as they had been previously due to physical restriction, they remained just as inaccessible due to the problem of language and translation.

'In addition to the English rendering of the Hebrew and Aramaic texts found in the eleven Qumran caves, two inscribed potsherds (ostraca) retrieved from the Qumran site and two Qumran-type documents discovered in the fortress of Masada, and 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 and sketching the organisation, history and religious message of the Qumran Community.'

This is the latest volume of a series: when Vermes first published an edition in 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 and restrictive access of the scrolls by the scholars); further issues in the introduction address current research, including questions of dating, provenance, and perhaps, most importantly, the meaning and 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, and the religious ideas of the community.

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

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

From the Rules and 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 and Poems; Calendars, Liturgies and Prayers; Apocalyptic Works (which have the greatest appeal to many imminent eschatologically-inclined sects today); Wisdom Literature; Bible translations, commentaries, and apocryphal works; and Miscellanea, including objects such as the Copper Scroll (a rare form, not on parchment, which reads like an accountant's register of treasure), and lists, including the List of False Prophets.

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

The one drawback, which will only affect those whose interest extends to the study of Roman-period Hebrew and Aramaic, is that there is no photographic imagery or recreation in 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 purpose in 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.

60 of 62 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Essential reading for the student, scholar and curious, July 19, 2002

By 

Gregory Maier (Concord, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Complete Dead Sea Scrolls (Paperback)

Vermes has again, in this updated version of the DSS in English, held fast to the clear-eyed scholarship that has been the hallmark of his work. Of course, the individual reader must ultimately decide for himself how objective Vermes is in his presentation. For example, I view with skepticism Vermes's assertion that the original language of 1 Enoch is, without doubt, Aramaic. Frankly, there is compelling evidence that the original story or stories that became Enoch were originally written in Ethiopic, or were tales that traveled from East to West via the Phoenicians. Other plausible theories abound.

Nonetheless, there are many gems here, and, in my opinion, this book contains one the most honest and pure translations of 1 Enoch (along with the fragments from the Book of Giants), complementing the tremendous service done to Enoch by James Charlesworth in "The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: Apocalyptic Literature and Testaments (Old Testament Pseudepigraphia, Vol 1)."

When I was doing postgraduate work in theology and biblical history, I always wished for a book like this (i.e., Vermes' DSS as updated in 1997). This work is, in my opinion, ideal for those who wish to study alone, and even for use in organized church study groups. There's plenty of "light" here, and Vermes indicates and suggests where the reader might look without insisting.