[.ca] Dead Sea Scrolls and NT Cloth (ISBN 0800637232)

Mutual illumination:
This collection of essays by George Brooke, professor of Biblical Studies at the University of Manchester, brings together a wide body of work that has appeared in different places. I was familiar with several of the articles-turned-chapters in this book from some of these other sources - for example, chapter 15 appeared in briefer form in Biblical Archaeology Review, one of my favourite magazines. Other chapters appear as essays in other books on my shelves, but it is worthwhile to have the assembled collection under one cover. According to Brooke, most of the essays have been revised, some of them significantly. A comparison of several with sources I already had bears this out. In some cases, later research has corrected details (scholarship regarding the Dead Sea Scrolls is an ever-growing body of work); in other cases, the information has been expanded and deepened. I am always wary of books that combine the terms 'Dead Sea Scrolls' and 'New Testament', because in fact there is no Dead Sea Scroll that contains New Testament writing - there are some controversial fragments of a few words (and sometimes only a character or two), but current scholarly thinking believes that there are no authentic New Testament writings among the scrolls. Brooke discusses this in his introduction, among the three points of significance he brings up relating the New Testament to the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Dead Sea Scrolls provide context and contemporary or near-contemporary writing to the New Testament, and are thus very valuable. Not only are the content and context of the Scrolls of interest, but also the history of the scholarship surrounding them is fascinating. Brooke's first chapter covers this subject well in brief but fairly comprehensive fashion (this chapter also appeared in a BAR publication, 'The Dead Sea Scrolls at 50'). The subsequent chapters in the first part of the book look at the Scrolls in more general terms. The second major part of the book looks at particular scrolls and texts - the Temple Scroll, MMT and Luke-Acts, the Apocryphon of Levi and the Messianic Servant High Priest, and other scrolls are examined here. The final major part of the book has chapters that lok at scrolls that have special relationship or insight to bear on each of the four canonical gospels. Brooke describes these as 'mutual illumination of the Scrolls and the Gospels', as each can provide new exegetical and hermeneutic possibilities for the other. The idea of mutual illumination is Brooke's main focus, seeing the future of Scroll and New Testament research being one in which each can influence and strengthen the other - in as far as Jesus, Paul and the other early Christians were deeply rooted in Jewish traditions, an understanding of the Scrolls can deepen the understanding the world in which they lived. Additionally, the ways in which the early New Testament writers worked can shed light on the Scrolls. This is a valuable text to have as part of my Dead Sea Scrolls collection.