The Dead Sea Scrolls

4 May, 2023 220 The Bible

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the revelatory collection of Biblical texts, legal documents, community rules and literary writings. In 1946 a Bedouin shepherd boy was looking for a goat he’d lost in the hills above the Dead Sea. He threw a rock into a cave and heard a hollow sound. He’d hit a ceramic jar containing an ancient manuscript. This was the first of the Dead Sea Scrolls, a collection of about a thousand texts dating from around 250 BC to AD 68. It is the most substantial first hand evidence we have for the beliefs and practices of Judaism in and around the lifetime of Jesus. The Dead Sea Scrolls have transformed our understanding of how the texts that make up the Hebrew Bible were edited and collected. They also offer a tantalising window onto the world from which Christianity eventually emerged.

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Guests

  • Sarah Pearce No other episodes
    University of Southampton
  • Charlotte Hempel No other episodes
    University of Birmingham
  • George Brooke No other episodes
    University of Manchester

Reading list

  • Josephus' Description of the Essenes
    Todd S. Beall (Cambridge University Press, 1988) Google Books →
  • T &T Clark Companion to the Dead Sea Scrolls
    George Brooke and Charlotte Hempel (eds.) (Bloomsbury, 2019) Google Books →
  • The Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament
    George J. Brooke (SPCK, 2005) Google Books →
  • Qumran and the Jewish Jesus: Reading the New Testament in the Light of the Scrolls
    George J. Brooke (Grove Books, 2005) Google Books →
  • Reading the Dead Sea Scrolls: Essays in Method
    George J. Brooke (SBL Early Judaism and its Literature 39, Atlanta, SBL, 2013) Google Books →
  • Deciphering the Dead Sea Scrolls
    Jonathan G. Campbell (Blackwell Publishing, 2nd edition, 2002) Google Books →
  • From the Maccabees to the Mishnah
    Shaye J.D. Cohen (Westminster John Knox Press, 3rd edn, 2014) Google Books →
  • The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Biography
    John J. Collins (Princeton University Press, 2013) Google Books →
  • Beyond the Qumran Community: The Sectarian Movement of the Dead Sea Scrolls
    John J. Collins (Eerdmans, 2010) Google Books →
  • The Complete World of the Dead Sea Scrolls
    Philip R. Davies, George J. Brooke and Phillip R. Callaway (Thames and Hudson, 2002) Google Books →
  • The Dead Sea Scrolls
    Peter W. Flint (Abingdon Press, 2013) Google Books →
  • A History of Judaism
    Martin Goodman (Allen Lane, 2017) Google Books →
  • The Community Rules from Qumran: A Commentary
    Charlotte Hempel (Fortress Press, 2020) Google Books →
  • The Dead Sea Scrolls: Texts and Context
    Charlotte Hempel (ed.) (Brill, 2010) Google Books →
  • Who is Making Dinner at Qumran?
    Charlotte Hempel (Journal of Theological Studies 63, 2012 )
  • Ezra and the Dead Sea Scrolls
    Charlotte Hempel (Biblical Archaeology Review, Summer 2022 )
  • The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls
    Jodi Magness (Eerdmans, 2nd edition, 2021) Google Books →
  • The Essenes, the Scrolls and the Dead Sea
    Joan Taylor (Oxford University Press, 2012) Google Books →
  • The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bible
    James C. VanderKam (Eerdmans, 2012) Google Books →
  • The Dead Sea Scrolls Today
    James C. VanderKam (Eerdmans, 2nd edition, 2010) Google Books →
  • The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English
    Geza Vermes (Penguin Classics, 2011) Google Books →
  • Scribes and Scrolls at Qumran
    Sidnie White Crawford (Eerdmans, 2019) Google Books →
  • The Dead Sea Scrolls in Ancient Media Culture
    T. Williams, C. Keith, and L. Stuckenbruck (eds.) (Brill, 2023)
  • The Message of the Scrolls
    Yigael Yadin (Crossroad, 1992) Google Books →

Related episodes

Programme ID: m001ljc0

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001ljc0

Auto-category: 220.6 (Dead Sea Scrolls)

Hello (First sentence from this episode) Hello. In 1946, a Bedouin shepherd boy called Mohamed Ed Dib was looking for a goat he'd lost in the hills above the Dead Sea.