Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls Lecture 6 12 08 2016

First discovered in 1947, the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS) are one of the greatest archaeological finds ever made. Despite decades of research there are still a number of questions about the scrolls and their authors which have never been definitively answered. The most interesting and most basic question is: Who wrote the DSS? Were they Essenes, Pharisees, Sadducees, another previous unknown sectarian group or none of the above? And what is the relation of the DSS to early Christianity, Rabbinic Judaism, the Second Temple, the Hasmoneans and the revolutionaries of the Jewish war against Rome?

This sixth lecture looks at the War Scroll 1QM and its relation to Jewish apocalyptic literature in the Second Temple Period.