The Hidden Scrolls

by Neil Asher Silberman

Since their discovery in caves in the Judean Desert by the Bedouin in the 1940s, the Dead Sea Scrolls have been the cause of much religious, scholarly and political controversy. In this book Neil Silberman, archaeologist and writer, explores the true significance of the scrolls, and the reasons for their suppression for fifty years, interpreting them as revolutionary writings of militant Jews under the oppressive rule of the Romans. Now available for international study, the scrolls will suggest new ways of thinking about the past and the present for Jews and Christians alike.

Genres: Nonfiction, Religion, Research, Christianity, History

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Neil Asher Silberman is an archaeologist and historian with a special interest in history, archaeology, public interpretation and heritage policy. He is a graduate of Wesleyan University and was trained in Near Eastern archaeology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Awarded a 1991 Guggenheim Fellowship, he is a contributing editor for Archaeology Magazine and is a member of the editorial boards of the International Journal of Cultural Property, Heritage Management, and Near Eastern Archaeology.

With Israel Finkelstein, he is the author of The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts (2001) and David and Solomon: In Search of the Bible's Sacred Kings and the Roots of the Western Tradition (2006). His other books on the themes of history, heritage, and contemporary society include Archaeology and Society in the 21st Century (2001); Heavenly Powers (1998); The Message and the Kingdom (1997); The Archaeology of Israel (1995); Invisible America (1995); The Hidden Scrolls (1994); A Prophet from Amongst You: The Life of Yigael Yadin (1993); Between Past and Present (1989); and Digging for God and Country (1982).

Since 1998, he has been involved in the field of public heritage interpretation and presentation, working on various projects in Europe and the Middle East. From 2004 to 2007, he served as director of the Ename Center for Public Archaeology and Heritage Presentation in Belgium. In 2008, he was appointed to the faculty of the Department of Anthropology of the University of Massachusetts Amherst and became one of the founders of its Center for Heritage and Society.

He also serves as the president of the ICOMOS International Scientific Committee on Interpretation and Presentation (ICIP) and is a member of the ICOMOS International Advisory Committee and Scientific Council.

Reviews

[Mu-tien Chiou · Rating 3 out of 5]

Disclaimer: I filtered this book out from my reading list after browsing through, so that I admit that I did not read it form cover to cover.
But I left a review because I stumbled upon a 5-star review of this book in 2018 which, in my opinion, betrayed grave misinformation, caused apparently by this book’s ideological-driven, suspicious approach to history and historical scholarships.

There are many better alternatives published between 1997-2005, for which I am not withholding my appraisals in my reviews and other published writings that are not exclusively in English. This one is not even close in term of academic rigor and robustness.

I am specifically correcting some historical presentations
Many scroll manuscripts clearly dated before 63BC when Romans conquered Palestine. And there was a half century’s time, up to to 6AD, when Judea, Perea, and Samaria were governed by a local vassal monarchy, called the Herodic dynasty. The Herodians and the Essenes were in amicable accord, not least seen in the fabled account of Menahem the Essenes and young Herod. The Qumran Essenes opposed foremost the Hasmonean government. Among their most treasured scrolls, only 1QHab and a revised version of War Scroll showed knowledge of history that was after 63 BC. The scribal activity dropped significantly after the earthquake in 31 BC shattered the foundations of their camp. After its resumption three decades later, clear the new generation concentrated on copying and preserving rather than recording original and newly received revelations.

Unless Christianity was completely reinvented after 70 AD, which was highly improbable due to the presence of at least four authentic Pauline epistles that reflected a historical Christianity around the 50s AD, we must see that both the earliest Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity exhibited a strong aversion to radical Zionism and political messianism after two disastrous wars. If we are being academically honest, instead of being driven by an anti-antisemitism agenda, it is clear that Christian writings in the second century and beyond (as all four canonical gospels in the present, survived form are) preserved much more political zeals and apocalyptic orientations ad motifs, than their Jewish counterparts, albeit highly spiritualized and nonviolent in character.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am curious why there are as yet no reviews of this book. This is one of the best books I have ever read. This book details what happened with the greatly delayed publication of the Dead Sea scrolls--who had the fragments and what they were doing with them, and how the academic monopoly a few had over the scrolls got busted. It also discusses simply and clearly the way that Christian scholars have interpreted the contents of the scrolls to support a particular notion of history at the time of the Hasmoneans, Jesus, and the Zealots. If you remove the Christian preconceptions from a reading of the scrolls, it becomes clear that the religious, Jewish sect at Qumran moved to the desert not because they were critical of "evil Jews" but were Jews radically opposed to Roman rule after Rome took over the Temple in Jerusalem and that it was from that group of Jews that Christianity was born and that Christianity in its inception was a radical, zealous, political movement opposed to oppression not by the Jews but OF the Jews by the mighty Roman Empire. That message was taken by the Romans, and twisted around and turned viciously on the Jews who had authored it for fear that Jewish radicalism would spread throughout the Empire and destabilize Roman rule. Christianity became a religion of compromise with the oppressor. That twisting is what has built to the anti-semitism we have seen in our times. I think this book should be widely read. If you read only one book on the Dead Sea Scrolls, this is it. It is simple, clear, and comprehensive. Silberman keeps to the important points, and is direct about what matters. It's a great book.