For two thousand years, the world has read a Bible translated from manuscripts copied a thousand years after the time of Jesus.
Now, with this landmark volume, the doors are thrown open to an earlier world.
The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible presents the first-ever English translation of the biblical texts found at Qumran. These ancient manuscripts are a priceless link to the scriptures as they existed during the Second Temple period, offering a startlingly fresh perspective on the Old Testament that Jesus and the early rabbis would have known.
This groundbreaking work reveals a biblical text that is often different from the one we read today. The editors meticulously compare the scroll fragments to the traditional Masoretic Text, the Greek Septuagint, and the Samaritan Pentateuch, highlighting hundreds of fascinating variants―from single words that change a sentence’s meaning to entire passages previously lost to history. For anyone interested in serious Bible study or the textual history of the Hebrew Bible, this is an essential and invaluable resource.
This translation unlocks a version of the Old Testament unlike any other, revealing:
- Previously Unknown Passages: Read entire paragraphs, missing from modern Bibles for two millennia, that have been restored from the scrolls―including the full story of Nahash the Ammonite’s atrocities in 1 Samuel.
- Old Testament Textual Criticism in Action: See on-the-page comparisons between the Dead Sea Scrolls and the three most important ancient Bibles: the Masoretic Text, the Greek Septuagint, and the Samaritan Pentateuch.
- A Pre-Christian Bible: Explore the biblical canon as it existed before it was finalized, including books like Tobit, Ben Sira, and Jubilees that were found among the Qumran scrolls.
- Surprising Manuscript Variations: Discover hundreds of significant variants where the scrolls differ from the traditional text, offering new perspectives on familiar verses―from single words to altered readings of passages like Genesis 22:14.
Martin Abegg Jr. is co-director of the Dead Sea Scrolls Institute at Trinity Western University in British Columbia. He is one of the translators of The Dead Sea Scrolls (HarperSanFrancisco, 1996).
Peter Flint is co-director of the Dead Sea Scrolls Institute at Trinity Western University in British Columbia. He is the author of The Dead Sea Psalms Scrolls and the Book of Psalms and co-editor of The Dead Sea Scrolls After Fifty Years.
Eugene Ulrich is the John A. O'Brien professor at the University of Notre Dame. He is chief editor of the Biblical Dead Sea Scrolls and one of the translators of The New Revised Standard Version of the Bible.
