From Library Journal
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.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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.