Best dead sea scrolls books according to redditors

Yes, you can check this out: https://www.amazon.com/Israelite-Samaritan-Version-Torah-Translation/dp/0802865194

Surely you mean the Acts of Paul and Thecla ;)


Here are some book recommendations:

1. The First Urban Christians: The Social World of the Apostle Paul by Wayne A. Meeks
   
   
2. After the First Urban Christians: The Social-Scientific Study of Pauline Christianity Twenty-Five Years Later by Wayne A. Meeks
   
   
3. The World Jesus Knew: Beliefs and Customs from the Time of Jesus by Anne Punton (less scholarly but quite straightforward and convenient for finding just about anything you'd want to know about basic lifestyle)
   
   
4. The Jesus Movement: A Social History of Its First Century by Ekkehard W. Stegemann
   
   
5. The New Testament World: Insights from Cultural Anthropology 3rd by Bruce J. Malina
   
6. The Greco-Roman World of the New Testament Era: Exploring the Background of Early Christianity by James S. Jeffers
   
7. Religion and Society in Roman Palestine: Old Questions, New Approaches by Douglas R. Edwards
   
   EDIT: The HarperCollins Visual Guide to the New Testament is also fun.
   
   

Yeah, you can view the major scrolls here.

Decent English Translation here by Geza Vermes.

But I recommend picking up The Dead Sea Scrolls: Study Edition.

Howdy! I'm a religious studies major at UT, and I took a class on the Dead Sea Scrolls last semester.
The Complete World of the Dead Sea Scrolls by Philip R. Davies was a great resource. The material wasn't overly dry, and the information was presented in a clear and concise way. It had a lot of great pictures, which I find helpful.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Complete-World-Dead-Scrolls/dp/0500283710

It's worth the $20 if you're really interested!

Mod up for being an informed and rather open minded Christian. If more Christians took your attitude the world would be a better place. Of course, I'd rather they be atheists like me, but either way I'm good!

Regarding 2), the Pauline church was in power by AD 70, so the earliest accounts we have are from Paul and his disciples. Jewish Christianity burnt along with the rest of Jerusalem, and we don't have a copy of the Saying's gospel (Q).

To me, it's amazing how much of Jesus' Jewishness comes through even in the obviously gentile scriptures we have instead. I wonder how much more Jewish Jesus' own teachings might have been. One thing I'm sure of, he wouldn't have accepted Gentiles becoming Jews without observing the law of Moses! Luke was certainly Pauline, and even he affirms this in Acts 21!

One thing is clear, the Jesus we know about has been sanitized for a Gentile audience, so we'll probably never know his actual feelings on the matter. To me, even the sanitized story makes it clear that Jesus did not preach to gentiles, and I wonder how much more pro-Jewish he was IRL.

I've recently been reading a book that focuses on the Jewish nature of Jesus' message, called "Rabbi Jesus". It's a fascinating read.
http://www.amazon.com/Rabbi-Jesus-Biography-Bruce-Chilton/dp/0385497938

I highly recommend Paul: A Very Short Introduction by E. P. Sanders, Luke Timothy Johnson on the New Testament, or Timothy Lim on the Dead Sea Scrolls. Richard Bauckham did the one on Jesus, but I have not read it.

The edition I use is Wise/Abegg/Cook, which I switched to after deciding that my trusty Vermes was a bit stilted and not easy enough to navigate for as frequently as I consult the Dead Sea Scrolls (which lately has been just about weekly); I'm not too familiar with Martinez but see it cited enough in academic literature to make me think it wouldn't be a bad choice either.

What your mom might really enjoy, though, is Catholic scholar John Bergsma's recent book Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls: Revealing the Jewish Roots of Christianity. (Haven't read it myself, but Bergsma's reputation carries some heft.)

Lawrence Schiffman - Reclaiming the dead sea scrolls, and his updated discussions in Qumran and Jerusalem

These somewhat promising, though I can't vouch for them: https://www.amazon.com/John-Baptist-Jesus-Report-Seminar/dp/0944344429/ref=pd_sim_14_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=5B57FXQB325AKS0YNMWA

https://www.amazon.com/John-Baptist-Alexander-Burke-Jr/dp/0867167378/ref=pd_sim_14_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=5B57FXQB325AKS0YNMWA

https://www.amazon.com/Immerser-Baptist-Judaism-Studying-Historical/dp/0802842364

https://www.amazon.com/Mysteries-John-Baptist-Gnosticism-Freemasonry/dp/1594774749/ref=pd_sim_14_6?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=BXFQTJ9ND7WSD7AW713G

Jesus was a real person, a point which seems fairly agreed upon by historians (of which I am not).

I highly suggest reading Rabbi Jesus. While it's written by a Christian, it's well researched (dude learned dead languages to read source material) and really sets Jesus in historical context.

As an atheist I found the book very enlightening. Jesus is both a person from history and an archetype representing the good within all of us.

> Truth, justice, and compassion were within our grasp, [Jesus] taught, if only we would seize them.

I can't think of anything more true.

Check that. Some sects (such as Qumran) did expect a "suffering servant" instead of a Davidic conqueror. The best book I've read on the matter is "The Messiah Before Jesus" http://www.amazon.com/The-Messiah-before-Jesus-Suffering/dp/0520234006

Actually, this is one my favorite ways to show that Jesus wasn't unique, because many Christians think he was some revolutionary figure of peace. Indeed, there were others before him who preached the same. Most of the gospel teachings that are so "revolutionary" are only so because they differ from the OT canonized text, and in reality they're pretty much copying and pasting the best-of rabbinic commentary and ideas from the last thousand years. If you can get a Christian to accept this, your job is done.

The Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) are believed to be the works of a sect of Judiasm called the Essenes, whom were obsessed with writing down everything they encountered via the oral tradition. The discovery of the DSS was significant because it contains parts of the Old Testament canon we use today and allowed us to compare to see how the translations have changed over the years. Surprisingly, the translations have remained pretty faithful and in places where there were deviations, the DSS provided a baseline for newer revisions to correct themselves.

That is just one aspect of the DSS which impacted our understanding of the faith today.

There are many translations that you can look at if you are curious, such as The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition or The Dead Sea Scrolls & Modern Translations of the Old Testament.

So am I. What a coincidence!


What Did the Biblical Writers Know and When Did They Know It?: What Archeology Can Tell Us About the Reality of Ancient Israel https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001G0O3DI/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_5F-UBbG236X4E


Daily Life in Biblical Times (Archaeology and Biblical Studies) (Archaeology & Biblical Studies) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1589830423/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_4v-UBb7HWYXCB

Etched in Stone: Archeological Discoveries That Prove the Bible https://www.amazon.com/dp/1944229795/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_dy-UBbYB3WT5E


Next is Prof. Finkelstein, a representative of the “minimalist” approach. He has many followers as do his academic opponents:

The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Sacred Texts https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000FBJG86/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_8I-UBbY6KVZ34


Edit: in my (subjective) opinion, much of the religious beliefs and worship followed the ruling empires of the day. Israelites drew much from Mesopotamian cultures (Babylonian, Assyrian, Persian, Sumerian). Next, they modified those beliefs and practices until it became “their” tribal religion.... Today we lump up Israel’s rich history as “ancient”, but it went trough very distinct phases.