The Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran and the Concept of a Library presents twelve articles by renowned experts in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Qumran studies. These articles explore from various angles the question of whether or not the collection of manuscripts found in the eleven caves in the vicinity of Khirbet Qumran can be characterized as a “library,” and, if so, what the relation of that library is to the ruins of Qumran and the group of Jews that inhabited them. The essays fall into the following categories: the collection as a whole, subcollections within the overall corpus, and the implications of identifying the Qumran collection as a library.
Sidnie White Crawford, Ph.D. (1988), Harvard University, is Willa Cather Professor of Classics and Religious Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She has published critical editions, articles and monographs on the Dead Sea Scrolls, including Rewriting Scripture in Second Temple Times (Eerdmans, 2008).
Cecilia Wassen, Ph.D. (2004), McMaster University, is an Associate Professor at Uppsala University. She has published numerous articles and edited several books on the Dead Sea Scrolls. She is the author of Women in the Damascus Document (SBL, 2005).
Part 1 - General Studies
Devorah Dimant, “The Library of Qumran in Recent Scholarship”
Årstein Justnes, “On Being a ‘Librarian’: Labels, Categories, and Classifications”
Part 2 - The Greco-Roman Context
Monica Berti, “Greek and Roman Libraries in the Hellenistic Age”
Corrado Martone, “The Qumran Library and Other Ancient Libraries: Elements for a Comparison”
Ian Werrett, “Is Qumran a Library?”
Part 3 - The Collection as a Whole and the Question of a Library
Sidnie White Crawford, “The Qumran Collection as a Scribal Library”
Stephen Reed, “The Linguistic Diversity of Texts found at Qumran”
Mladen Popović, “The Ancient ‘Library’ of Qumran between Urban and Rural Culture”
Stephen Pfann, “The Ancient Library or Libraries of Qumran: The Specter of Cave 1Q”
Part 4 - Collections within the Collection: Specific Evidence for a Library?
Helen R. Jacobus, “Calendars in the Qumran Collection”
Daniel Machiela, “The Aramaic Scrolls: Coherence and Context in the Library of Qumran”
Implications for the Identification of the Qumran Collection as a Library
Armin Lange, “The Qumran Library in Context: The Canonical History and Textual Standardization of the Hebrew Bible in Light of the Qumran Library”
All interested in Dead Sea Scrolls, especially those concerned with the manuscripts of Qumran, Qumran archaeology, and the history of the community.