Classics and Religious Studies, Department of
Date of this Version
2017
Document Type
Article
Citation
SEÅ 82 (2017): 6-27
Abstract
The line between "Bible" and "not Bible," once so firmly drawn in biblical scholarship, has become very blurry in recent years, almost to the point of disappearance. This drastic change in scholarly thinking has been caused by the discovery of ancient manuscripts of the books found in the Jewish canon of scripture in the Judean Desert caves in the second half of the twentieth century. While today communities of faith, Jewish and Christian alike, embrace canons of scripture that make a clear distinction between "biblical" and "non-biblical" literature, evidence from the Judean Desert scrolls shows no such distinction in the period of Second Temple Judaism, which ended with the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE.