Customer Reviews

Library of Qumran: On the Essenes, Qumran, John the Baptist, and Jesus

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This generally helpful book breaks from its task, I think, when it speculates about the character of pre-second temple Israelite religion. Up to that point it provides a lovely overview of the Qumran's reconstructed history, a skillful debunking of the sensational stories of Jesus and John the Baptist emerging from the sect, and a good rundown of the contents of the various Dead Sea Scrolls. All this is done responsibly and with an eye on the larger scholarly community.

The one part with which I took issue was his evaluation of pre-second temple Israelite religion. Contrary to much scholarly evidence, he maintains that, before the faction development that arose out of the second temple period, Israel was pretty much a monolithic religious entity. If this were the case, the many attacks on those who maintain shrines outside of Jerusalem (see Deuteronomy, Kings, etc.) would not be such a prominent part of the Scriptures.

Overall the book is excellent, and the pre-second temple material is only background to the main arguments. Overall this is certainly a book worth reading if one is interested in the scrolls at Qumran.

Hartmut Stegemann's text on the Dead Sea Scrolls is one of the most popular introductory texts of the subject available in the German language. Here translated into English, it is a welcome addition to the body of literature about the scrolls. While essentially it covers the same material as many other introductions on the scrolls, Stegemann's writing style, focus and authoritative manner are interesting and useful.

Stegemann's first few chapters discuss the discoveries and dating of the manuscripts. The earliest discoveries in the Qumrani region occurred in 1947/48, with the majority of the rest of the scrolls being found in the following decade. Stegemann addresses in these early chapters the issues of dating the scrolls and the publication process, which he defends vigourous, and he chides the detractors of the process, holding particular ire for the book 'The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception' by Baigent and Leigh, a popular book that sensationalised the scroll publication delay by speculating on sinister plots by church officials to suppress damaging revelations. Unfortunately, Stegemann's view, while justified for the most part in discounting books such as Baigent and Leigh's, does not take into account the academic territoriality which, while far less explosive and sensational than a Vatican-led plot of suppression, still has an element of shameful restriction to it.

Stegemann proceeds to explore the archaeological excavations and reconstructions of the Qumrani settlement, which, according to the official scroll team interpretations (of which Stegemann is a strong adherent, and are generally the most probable) was a monastic-type settlement of the Essenes, a minor Jewish sect; the scrolls for the most part consisted of the library of this community. Stegemann gives one of the better short introductions to the settlement available, going through the buildings and cemeteries, as well as the artifacts discovered, to piece together a portrait of the community.

Stegemann also explores the caves themselves, highlighting the discovery and contents of each of the eleven primary caves in turn. He also gives general information about the condition of the caves, other artifacts discovered, and alternate interpretations of the caves and their contents. For example, Norman Golb's view of the Qumrani structures is that they were military outposts; the Donceels consider it to be a private villa.

Stegemann gives a comprehensive survey of the types of materials found among the scrolls. the largest body is biblical manuscripts, which pushes the age of the original autographs of Hebrew bible texts back as far as 1500 years in some cases. There are nearly 200 different biblical manuscripts among the almost 900 scrolls, including some of the larger pieces, such as a nearly complete copy of the book of Isaiah dating from 100 BCE. The integrity of textual transmission through the ages was strengthened by the comparison of documents. They also strengthened the veracity of the dating of the Samaritan Pentateuch. Other documents discovered include apocyrphal, pseudipigraphical, commentary and Essene-original writings. There are also a good number of phylacteries among the documents found.

The final several chapters cover the Essenes, parallel images with the figures of John the Baptist and Jesus, and historical discussions of early Christianity and early Rabbinic Judaism. Stegemann's interpretation is that, far from the scrolls showing early Christians and figures such as John the Baptist as Essenes (some of the more sensational interpretations), that in fact the scroll discoveries make such parallels nearly impossible to support. He does propose that the Essenes were far more important in the development of early Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism than previously thought, and that the position of the Pharisees has historically been overemphasised.

Stegemann gives a good list of suggested readings, several useful indexes, and a collection of worthwhile maps of the Palestinian region as well as the Dead Sea area and the excavations of Qumran in the back of the book.

This is an excellent one volume introduction and overview of the scrolls, from history to contents to translation to importance.

I enjoyed Stegemann's book very much. In spite of the fact that he presented a great deal of material,I never felt bogged down in unnecessary detail.

Two ideas in his book were new to me. First, that the Teacher of Righteousness died of old age, when everything else that I have read has him being slain. Second, that the basis of normative Rabbinic Judaism has its roots in Essene theology. Again this goes against everything else that I have ever read, which has normative Rabbinic Judaism coming out of Pharasaic Judaism.

I am not sure how valuable my assessment of the material will be in light of the fact that this is my first introduction to Qumran. I can say that as reader who has little to no background in this material I found it to be informative and engaging.

Dr. Stegemann gives a great introduction to the finds themselves and sets up the story for analysis. As a historian with a minor in anthropology I appreciate the way that he moves through the story with a very level-headed approach to the subject. He really lays out the nuts and bolts of the finds in a meticulous way. While it can be a little dry in parts he does keep short for the most part. There is a principle in archaeology called "Occam's razor" which means that the most obvious answer is likely the correct one. Stegemann employs this in dealing with some of the conspiracies that surround these finds and I found his arguments to be convincing.

He gives some great insights into how the community functioned as whole. He does not jump to conclusions about the involvement of the Essenes at Qumran but does not deny it either. The process that the Qumran community had for making scrolls is very interesting as well as the mode of living. He shows the importance of the community in the production of scrolls and much of what has been found indicates that we have faithful translations of the books of the Old Testament. For example: One of the caves in Qumran contained a complete scroll of the book of Isaiah that was 800 years older than anything we previously had. What we found was a book that was for the most part faithful to the one we have with some very small alterations which were insignificant.

His dealings with the history of the Essenes was very intriguing and he gave some background stories and postulates who the "Teacher of Righteousness" is. He shows the connection the Essenes had with Herod and with the other religious institutions. He claims that they were more or less most similar to the Saducees than the Pharisees, and he thinks that they may be the scribes that Jesus spoke about in the gospels. He does a good job showing that while there were similarities between the Essenes and in the way that John the Baptist or Jesus spoke, the distinctions are more vast than the likeness. Jesus' concept of the reign of God is so unique that it is not reflected in any of the thoughts found at Qumran.

I thought that the book gave me a solid introduction and I look forward to looking into the subject as I go. I have been studying the gospel of John and gathering ideas about the language found in this book. What I found here was helpful in giving me a portal into this period of history. I definitely recommend this to anyone interested in studying the Life of Christ or are just interested in learning more about the dead sea scrolls.