The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Very Short Introduction (Very Short Introductions)

Lim has proved himself to be one of the most authoritative academia in Biblical Studies on Dead Sea Scrolls scholarship.

As others have reported, this is a good, brief, recommendable, introduction to Dead Sea Scrolls by a very well-qualified author.I would add a few comments.1) On page 6 we read that one can "join an online discussion group" via the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls. They still retain a link to a group called g-megillot (megillot is the Hebrew word for scrolls), but the last post there was made ten years ago; unless I'm mistaken, that group ended. A previous group at Orion also ended. One problem was that two individuals became sockpuppets, resorting to using false names to push some agenda. But good information was also shared. I hope the International Organization for Qumran Studies would consider starting a moderated list.2) On p. 43: "Recently, a tiny fragment has been identified as [from] the book of Nehemiah." More recently--to be fair, largely after this book was written--various on- and off-line conversations in different venues have concluded that this non-provenanced scrap is quite likely a modern fake, recently inked on a piece of old skin. See now K. Davis et al., "Nine Dubious 'Dead Sea Scrolls' Fragments from the Twenty-First Century," Dead Sea Discoveries 24 (2017) 1-40.3) On p. 29 we read that a "zink coffin" was found in the Qumran cemetery, and that such has implication of an important person burial and of the nature of sections of the cemetery. The book does recognize that zink was "a rare metal in the ancient world." Zink coffins are common in modern times, but in ancient times unknown. The Qumran piece would be unique, if true, and the largest batch of nearly-pure zink in ancient finds. But no skeleton was found with these pieces. Apparently, this is modern zink that ended up in a burial already excavated or looted, whether as trash or as a plant (I don't know); it appears to me modern intrusion unrelated to ancient Qumran. I am not metal expert. I rely on a paper by A. Shimron et al. presented at a British Museum conference in 2005 mentioning a layer "possibly indicative of a modern paint."4) Discussion of the Wicked Priest repeats the preference for identifying with (the first) second-century Jonathan, following G. Vermes in also noting the preference of F. M. Cross for Simon. But few have advocated Simon and many have advocated the second Jonathan, Alexander Jannaeus. Also, there is little discussion of the identity of the Teacher of Righteousness. Anyone interested could read more on these identities at "Jannaeus, His Brother Absalom, and Judah the Essene," by searching the title.5) The book properly concludes that, for many reasons, some--not all, of course--of the scrolls were composed by Essenes. A possible additional reason is that the Hebrew source for the name "Essenes"--'osey ha-torah, observers of torah--is in the scrolls as a self designation in some pesharim (commentaries). Pharisees and Sadducees would not agree to call them that. For more details on this: "Others and Intra-Jewish Polemic as Reflected in Qumran Texts," also now online.6) "Further reading" (p. 135) includes "James VanderKam, The Dead Sea Scrolls Today (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994). An accessible and balanced introduction." I would note that a revised version appeared in 2010 and that both editions support the etymology given above.

UPDATE 2: I listened to VanderKam's "The Dead Sea Scrolls: Discovery and Impact" on Hoopla (5hr audiobook, 25% longer than Lim's VSI). It is superior in every way, covering everything Lim treats but also getting into everything I found missing from Lim. It actually gives an introduction to the ideas of the DSS texts (including NT commonalities). Highly recommended if you do audiobooks; skip Lim.UPDATE: The last 25% of the book does deal, very briefly, with the contents of the DSS. Ch. 9 gives some sketch of community life, though again Lim is more interested in lingering over points that have received conflicting interpretations by scholars than by giving a richly detailed account of the texts. Ch. 10 is finally about religious beliefs in the DSS (a topic that many interested readers might have been expecting to fill half the book). Lim's interest in NT parallels is virtually limited to the reception of Jeremiah's "new covenant" in Paul and the DSS. Bizarrely, there is no mention of the parallels between the Johannine literature of the NT and the DSS. I truly believe 60% of the book should have been devoted to what was cursorily sketched in these couple of chapters, so I stand by the tenor of my review below.The Dead Sea Scrolls, as the author notes, are a literary, and not a documentary text. Yet he seems only interested in them for their documentary value, as tools for the plainest kind of factual history and specialist knowledge. I don't feel the book serves as an introduction to the actual content (ideas and significance) of the scrolls themselves, at all. Lim reviews scholarly disagreements on all kinds of minor points (periodization of the Qumran community) and explains lots of relatively little matters in the DSS (their significance for attestation of ancient Biblical text types). Sometimes it even feels as if the author goes out of his way to catalog irrelevant factoids; when he mentioned that Jews today commemorate the destruction of the Temple under the name of Tisha b'Av, I honestly couldn't find any thread of relevance and suspected a mere compulsion to record facts.The DSS are an amazing look at Second Temple sectarian Jewish life and thought, and this does not come through. That scholars disagree about whether to identify one of its figures with this or that Hasmonean, you will learn from Lim. But what all the light/dark imagery, and the roles of the Teacher of Righteousness and Wicked Priest might actually mean on a deeper level to the men who wrote these texts, not so much. For what an intelligent reader, deeply literate in the Bible and other ancient Jewish texts, will have to say about its theological and other IDEAS... for that you'll have to go elsewhere. Even subjects raised and treated by Lim (the style of Biblical interpretation found in the DSS pesharim) are handled in this pedestrian way and will not satisfy someone looking to enrich their understanding of the history of Biblical interpretation.In short, it is almost as if the book was written for readers who have already read the DSS and satisfactorily understood the general ideas of its texts, and merely want to learn some facts and arguments about the DSS they wouldn't otherwise know of. But in a VSI I feel it was the author's responsibility to say more about what is interesting in the DSS on a wider level and what a good reader takes away from engaging with their texture, content, and thought in all their complexity.

This book's title should really be "The Essenne Comunity at Qumran". What a waste of my time! I wanted information about the DEAD SEA SCROLLS not mumbo-jumbo about a sect that happened to live in the area. Good grief!

The book is concise, but manages to give a reasonable overview of the subject. By the end of the book you will have a working notion of the Dead Sea scrolls.Unfortunately, it is not particularly well written, and spends way too much time on details irrelevant to the casual reader, while not attending some basic questions. The text doesn’t feel like a cohesive and organic summary, but more like an assortment of bits of information.In short: It is a good book, although not without flaws.