The Truth under Lock and Key?: Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls / Edition 1

by Klaus Berger

Overview

Klaus Berger offers a clearly written and highly understandable introcuction to the controversy surrounding the Dead Sea Scrolls. He insightfully examines the relationship between the Judaism of the Qumran community and Christianity in its formative period. The picture that emerges proves to be interesting and provocative. An ideal starting point for the nonspecialist, this book provides basic and reliable information about the Dead Sea Scrolls and their magnificance for Christianity.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780664255473
Publisher:	Westminster John Knox Press
Publication date:	03/01/1995
Series:	Princeton Theological Dead Sea Scrolls Project S
Edition description:	1st ed
Pages:	113
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Klaus Berger is Professor of New Testament at the University of Heidelberg in Germany. The author of numerous publications, he is an authority in the field of early Christian origins.

Editorial Reviews

Here is yet another telling of the tales of deception, intrigue, and scholarship that form the ongoing saga of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The first section of this book challenges the theses of Robert Eisenman and Michael Wise's The Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered (LJ 2/1/93), while the second analyzes the ways in which the scrolls inform the development of the early Christian community. Berger presents little that is genuinely new here, for the similarities of many of the religious practices of the Qumran community with early Christian practice, e.g., baptismal rites, common meals, have been common knowledge for years. Better choices for libraries would be James Charlesworth's Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls (LJ 12/92) or Norman Golb's Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls?: The Search for the Meaning of the Qumran Manuscripts (Macmillan, 1994). Not recommended.

Library Journal

Translated from the German edition published by Quell Verlag, Stuttgart, 1993. Berger, professor of New Testament at the U. of Heidelberg, examines the relationship between the Judaism of the Qumran community and Christianity in its formative period. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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