Handbuch der Textfunde vom Toten Meer

The Dead Sea Scrolls Handbook provides the first detailed introduction to the literary works from the library of Qumran and elsewhere. The first volume studies the manuscripts of the books of the Hebrew Bible and looks at their textual history. The text of each biblical book developed individually, and many are characterized by textual plurality. These individual texts merged into the text of the Hebrew Bible after the completion of the canon. For each biblical book, the author describes the textual witnesses from the Qumran library and the other sites in the Judean desert and classifies them textually. He also describes the significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls for the individual textual histories of each biblical book and focuses on the implications for its interpretation. In the introduction, he shows the extent to which the Dead Sea Scrolls shed new light on the overall textual history of the Hebrew Bible.