Classics and Religious Studies, Department of
Date of this Version
5-2011
Document Type
Article
Citation
Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research May 2011, Volume 362, pp. 97 - 98
Abstract
The purpose of this volume by the late Hanan Eshel is to “summarize the contributions of the scrolls to the understanding of the political history of the Hasmonean state” (p. 1). Eshel, an archaeologist, linguist, and historian who edited several manuscripts from the Judaean Desert finds and excavated in the region of Qumran, was committed to mining the Qumran scrolls for historical information, a position that has come into a certain amount of disfavor in recent scholarship. However, in this balanced and careful volume, Eshel demonstrates that the Qumran scrolls do contain nuggets of valuable information that add to our knowledge of the history of the Hasmonaean kingdom. ... This volume, which will now unfortunately stand as a memorial to Hanan Eshel, does an artful and convincing job of gathering together all possible historical allusions in the Qumran scrolls, and should be read by anyone interested in the history of the late Second Temple period.