The Dead Sea Scrolls at Seventy: “Clear a Path in the Wilderness!”

Book excerpt: The Sixteenth Orion Symposium celebrated seventy years of Dead Sea Scrolls research under the theme, “Clear a path in the wilderness!” (Isaiah 40:3). Papers use the wilderness rubric to address the self-identification of the Qumran group; dimensions of religious experience reflected in the Dead Sea writings; biblical interpretation as shaper and conveyor of that experience; the significance of the Qumran texts for critical biblical scholarship; points of contact with the early Jesus movement; and new developments in understanding the archaeology of the Qumran caves. The volume both honors past insights and charts new paths for the future of Qumran studies.