Dead Sea Scrolls in English

[Mark]

The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English (https://www.goodreads.com/work/editio...) is a mess. There are three different works all mixed in together.

The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English (translated by Vermes)
The Dead Sea Scrolls (translated by Wise, Abegg and Cook)
The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible (translated by Abegg, Flint and Ulrich)

The first four editions of Vermes translation are called "The Dead Sea Scrolls in English". The latest edition adds the word "Complete", but it's effectively the same work.

Is that enough information for someone to sort out the mess, or do I need to break down individual works for you? Also, can some kind of disambiguation notice be added after it's sorted?

[rivka, Former Moderator]

Other than the translators, how do these differ?

[Mark]

The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible is entirely different from the other two (no overlap at all). It's a translation of Biblical texts from the Scrolls, whilst the other two are a translation of non-Biblical texts.

The translations of the other books are obviously different, but the differences are much more significant than that.

The arrangement of the texts is different in each books.

The selection of texts is different in the two books, although there's a large degree of overlap.

More importantly, both books have long, entirely different, introductions. In the 4th edition of Vermes (I don't have the 5th edition), that's the first 65 pages. In Wise, etc. it's 46 pages. It's an important part of the book.

Then, critically, Wise, etc. have additional notes of commentary throughout the book, introducing each text and adding explanation. These introductions/notes are entirely different in the two translations, and can be quite lengthy — around 2,000 words for some documents.

Finally, the size of the books indicates how different the two books are. I have ebook versions of both these books. I checked the Wise translation. It has 788,198 words, but only 165,750 of those words are actual translation. All the rest is notes/commentary. The Vermes translation (at least the 4th edition) only has a total of 145,989 words.

[rivka, Former Moderator]

Mark wrote: "The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible is entirely different from the other two (no overlap at all). It's a translation of Biblical texts from the Scrolls, whilst the other two are a translation of non-Biblical texts."

While I realize all the differences you list are significant, the bit I quoted above is the only part that would make them different works on Goodreads.

Hopefully one or more librarians are willing to take this on.

[Arenda]

rivka wrote: "Mark wrote: "The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible is entirely different from the other two (no overlap at all). It's a translation of Biblical texts from the Scrolls, whilst the other two are a translation o..."

Separated the editions of "The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible" from the other editions and left a librarian note on both default editions not to combine them.
https://www.goodreads.com/work/editio...
https://www.goodreads.com/work/editio...

[Mark]

rivka wrote: While I realize all the differences you list are significant, the bit I quoted above is the only part that would make them different works on Goodreads."

Reading the Librarian Manual, it seems to me that the key question is: Are these different editions/translations of the same source material (in which case they should remain combined)? Or is one of them a work about the source material (in which case they should be separated)?

You presumably see them as the former, whereas I see them as something of the latter (as over half of the content is commentary/introduction).

[Mark]

Arenda wrote: "Separated the editions of "The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible" from the other editions and left a librarian note on both default editions not to combine them."

Thank you.