Jodi Magness, The archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls [Book review]

Abstract

This is a second edition of one of the most influential books in the field of Qumran studies. First published in 2002, Jodi Magness's The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls became an instant landmark work on the subject (see the review by James R. Davila in CBQ66 [2004] 293–95). It not only made this celebrated, and often controversial(!), site accessible to a general readership, but also became a must-read for academics seeking an introduction to Qumran. To this day, it remains a standard work and is widely cited by scholars across different fields. Nonetheless, scholarship on Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls has developed tremendously in the past two decades. In the intervening years, many new books and countless articles dealing with the archaeology of Qumran and the Scrolls have been published, and three final reports—one on Roland de Vaux's 1951–1956 excavations at Qumran (Jean-Baptiste Humbert, Alain Chambon, and Jolanta Młynarczyk, Khirbet Qumrân et Aïn Feshkha, Vol. 3a: L'archéologie de Qumrân: Reconsidération de l'interprétation; Les installations périphériques de Khirbet Qumrân; Qumran Terracotta Oil Lamps[NTOA Series archaeologica 5a; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2016]), another on Cave 11Q (Jean-Baptiste Humbert and Marcello Fidanzio, eds., Khirbet Qumrân et Aïn Feshkha, Vol. 4a: Qumrân Cave 11Q: Archaeology and New Scroll Fragments[NTOA Series archaeologica 8a; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2019]), and the other on Yitzhak Magen and Yuval Peleg's 1994–2004 investigations of the site (Yitzhak Magen and Yuval Peleg, Back to Qumran: Final Report (1993–2004)[JavaServer Pages 18; Jerusalem: Israel Antiquities Authority; Civil Administration of Judea and Samaria, 2018])—have also appeared in print. M. herself has since updated or revised some of her previous conclusions. A second edition of this most important work, therefore, was not only inevitable but highly anticipated.