The Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered

By Robert Eisenman and Michael Wise

Placed in caves almost 2000 years ago, and not discovered until 1947, the Dead Sea Scrolls provide a unique insight into Jewish and Christian origins. They have held a fascination over academics, religious leaders, and they lay public alike for the last forty-five years. From 1952, when a team of scholars was appointed and Cave 4 at Qumran was discovered - from which the materials in this book are drawn - they have been under the control of an elite and secretive clique.

However, in the autumn of 1991, this monopoly was effectively broken when the Huntington Library in California announced it would allow public access to its collection of Dead Sea Scrolls photographs. This was soon followed by the publication of a Facsimile Edition by the Biblical Archaeology Society in Washington D.C. Robert Eisenman was integrally involved in both events, and with Michael Wise had been working behind the scenes on the unpublished photographs for some time.

Their discovery of a tiny Scroll fragment of six lines referring to the execution of or by a Messianic Leader plunged them into a long-running debate. Scholars previously controlling access to the Scrolls had been publicly contending that there was nothing interesting in the remaining unpublished Scrolls and nothing throwing further light on Christianity's rise in Palestine. The conclusions of Professor Eisenman and Professor Wise gainsay and challenge these views. The present work is the result. For the first time the public will be able to see the most interesting and exciting texts from the unpublished corpus and judge for itself. Providing precise English translations and complete transcriptions into modern Hebrew characters, The Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered makes generally available in a clear and accessible style fifty of the best texts. Accompanied by incisive and readable commentaries aimed at both lay person and scholar alike, these texts provide exciting and ground-breaking insights into Messianism, an alternative presentation of the flood story, ecstatic visions, prophecies, Mysteries, astrology, divination, and much more.

This is nothing less than the literature of the Messianic Movement in Palestine. Responsible for the uprising chat led to the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, its later stages are virtually indistinguishable from the rise of Christianity in Palestine. Professors Eisenman's and Wise's research will go a long way towards solving the problem of the Scrolls in the context of Jewish history of the period and shed new light on the formation of early Christianity.

Robert Eisenman is Professor of Middle East Religions and Chair of the Religious Studies Department at California State University, Long Beach. The author of several books on the Scrolls, he was a leading figure in the worldwide campaign to gain access to the Scrolls and instrumental in the publication of the Fascimile Edition of the unpublished Scrolls. A consultant on the Huntington Library's decision to open its archives, he was the first scholar to gain access to its collection.

Michael Wise, an Assistant Professor of Aramaic in the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilization at the University of Chicago, is the author of a book on the Temple Scroll.

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