Scripture in Its Historical Contexts

In this important collection of essays James A. Sanders offers his most significant work on the text and canon of the Hebrew Bible, along with his seminal studies of the Qumran Scrolls. He has been at the forefront of the study of canon formation, history of interpretation, and textual criticism, with specialty in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the use of the Old Testament in the New. These studies document the variety of textual traditions, as well as the diversity and unsettled, incipient state of the collection of sacred literature that was regarded as authoritative or canonical in the late Second Temple period. They laid the foundation on which today's scholarly discussion is focused.