Harmut Stegemann The Library of Qumran: On the Essenes, Qumran, John the Baptist, and Jesus. Grand Rapids MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans and Leiden: Brill, 1998. Pp. v, 285. Reviewed by Shoshana Twersky for R. Kraft's RelSt 225 course at UPenn (Spring 1999) <0.1> Harmut Stegemann bases his book, The Library of Qumran: On the Essenes, Qumran, John the Baptist, and Jesus, on his belief that the Essenes were the original settlers of Qumran and that the documents found in the caves belonged to them. He divides his book into two main sections. The first section discusses the settlement of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls. The second part details the history of the Essenes, their beliefs, and the Essenes connection and disconnection to John the Baptist, Jesus, Early Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism. <1.1> Harmut Stegemann begins his book sedately, with a short introduction to the discovery and dating of the Dead Sea Scrolls. It does not take long, however, before he attacks the work of Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, the authors of The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception. He disputes their claim that the Vatican tried to prevent the publication of certain scrolls, which were dangerous for Church teaching. Among other things, he argues against Baigent and Leigh's claim that a large part of the eight hundred manuscripts remained concealed from the general public. Stegemann writes, "Even at that time (1991), the truth was that things stood just the other way around . . . of all the materials from the finds, at least eighty percent was available in official publications" (17). Stegemann then goes on to attack Barbara Theiring's book, Jesus and the Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Unlocking the Secrets of His Life Story and Robert Eisenmann and Michael Wise's book The Dead Sea Scrolls Uncovered. <1.2> Chapter four, entitled "The Excavations", begins with the details of the excavations of the Qumran settlement. Stegemann immediately makes it clear that he believes the Essenes were the early inhabitants of the settlement. He extensively describes the buildings and set-up of the Qumran settlement, as well as the buildings of Ain Feskha, an area south of Qumran, which served the economic needs of the settlement. He argues that "The main intent from the beginning, was obviously to provide the numerous local Essene communities throughout the land with the manuscripts they needed for study, religious practice, and pious edification" (54). He compares the founding of the Qumran settlement together with Ain Feshka to the establishment of a publishing house. In chapter five, Stegemann establishes the date of Qumran's destruction. He believes that it occurred shortly after June 21, 68 ce. He brings coins found in Qumran, Flavius Josephus's report of the Essenes, and the conditions of the scrolls found in the different caves as evidence of the date of destruction. In his discussion on the condition of the scrolls, he vividly describes the Essenes haste to carry the scrolls to safety before the Romans arrived. At the conclusion of the fifth chapter, Stegemann describes each cave on an individual basis, and discusses whether people had taken documents from these caves before they were discovered in the 1940's and 1950's. He concludes that "only a few fragments of only some of these once numerous scrolls have remained up to the present in their original places of use or concealment. Nevertheless, the great mass of all that was once available in the Qumran library has only become accessible to us today" (79). <1.3> In his sixth chapter, "The Scroll Holdings of the Qumran Library", Stegemann divides the original material in the Qumran library into four categories and gives particular scrolls as examples of each. The first category, entitled the master manuscripts, "served principally as models for the preparation of further copies" (80). The second category is "scrolls for general use, especially for study" (81). The third and fourth are "special studies and items of current interest" (81) and "worn out manuscripts" (82), respectively. Stegemann believes that "only a portion of the works found in the caves were composed by the Essenes. Everything else is a traditional literature whose cultivation was especially dear to the heart of the Essenes" (95). He first describes works such as The Angelic Liturgy and Wisdom Texts, which he believes were pre-Essene. He then describes some of the contents of works, which he believes were composed by the Essenes themselves. Examples of these include The Directive of the Teacher to Jonathon (4QMMT) and The Commentaries on the Prophets. It is interesting to note that Stegemann thinks that the various commentaries on the Prophets written at different points reflect the Essenes various revisions of when they believed the Last Judgement would begin. <1.4> Beginning with chapter seven, simply entitled "The Essenes", Stegemann discusses the Essenes and their beliefs. He provides a comprehensive review of what he believes was the historical background surrounding the rise and founding of the Essene Union by the Teacher of Righteousness. He says that "The founding of the Essene Union within Judea by the Teacher of Righteousness took place twenty years after the murder of the high priest Onias III (CD 1:9-11), therefore around 150 B.C." (151). Stegemann makes the point that the founding of the Union did not happen in Qumran, because Qumran was not yet a settlement. In addition, he discusses the Essenes relationship to the Pharisees and Sadducees. He declares that "The gap between [the Essenes and Sadducees] prevailed essentially on political grounds", while "The Pharisees ... gradually developed into religious competitors" (155). Stegemann then summarizes many of the Essenes beliefs. He spends considerable time on their belief in the 364-day solar calendar. He also explains the reasons behind the Essenes "boycott of the Sabbath and festival sacrifices" (176) and how the "entire liturgical and ethical practice took the place of the sacrifices on the Temple altar" (175). He also includes guiding ideas of the Essenes on such topics as "Angels and Demons" and "The Resurrection of the Dead." <1.5> Chapters eight and nine deal with the Essenes connection to John the Baptist and Jesus, respectively. Stegemann refutes claims that the Qumran finds show not only that the Essenes were "Christians before Jesus", but in particular that "Qumran already had baptism" (221). He lists the differences between John's baptism and the Qumran finds and says that "On closer examination, none of the alleged points of commonality or connection between John the Baptist and the Essenes or Qumran fares any better than does baptism" (223). He does mention that he believes the Qumran finds give new knowledge in general for Palestinian Judaism in the time of John and this knowledge helps in understanding the Baptist and his activities. Among Stegemann's conclusions concerning Jesus is that "With the Essenes Jesus shared a high estimation of the Torah and the Prophets. But he took a totally different stance toward those writings than the Essenes did at the time" (257). <1.6> The last two chapters of the book, entitled "Early Christianity" and "Rabbinic Judaism," discuss the relationship of the Essenes (with the newly discovered Qumran finds) to Early Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism. Stegemann says that "they [the Qumran finds] contain nothing that would even touch the foundations of Christian faith, let alone bring it down in ruins . . . Instead, they enrich . . . our background knowledge of New Testament issues, of terminology unattested in Greek usage, and of the basic peculiarities of Christian origins in relation to contemporary Judaism" (262). However, he believes that "The Qumran finds are revolutionary, not for the New Testament, but for the picture we have had until now of ancient Judaism" (265). He says that "It does not take a prophet to predict that, as investigation of the Qumran text continues ... it will demonstrate Rabbinic traditions to be, in a high degree, in agreement with Essene tradition, and will show that much of the material of the Rabbinic sages ... came from the Essenes" (267). With this information, "the Essenes can at last be recognized as the center of Judaism in the time of Jesus ... even though in the New Testament they appear not at "the Essenes", but as "the scribes" and "the Herodians"" (267). In conclusion he states that "The Qumran finds definitely repair the undeserved disregard in which they [the Essenes] have been held ... not only at the time of Jesus, but well into the Rabbinic age, the Essenes were the principal representatives of Palestinian Judaism" (268). Harmut Stegemann, in large part, wants to drive home the fact that he believes the Essenes were much more influential than they are usually portrayed. <2.1> One of the things that I like about this book is its structure. The conclusion brought at the end of most chapters help to bring the main ideas of that chapter together. The index of citations and maps found at the back of the book are also extremely helpful. I also appreciated the fact that when Stegemann mentioned that he was not going to discuss a certain issue comprehensively he included the names of various books that the reader can go to for more information about that subject. <3.1> This book would have been better if Stegemann had not begun his book with such a vehement attack on other authors. This hurts, rather than helps, the effectiveness of many of his arguments. He also could have gone into greater depth with the content of the actual scrolls instead of simply referring to them in many places. In addition, while Stegemann paints a vivid picture of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Essenes it sometimes seems as though his hypotheses are only one possibility of many. <00.1> While I personally disagree with many of Harmut Stegemann's conclusions, I thought his book was interesting. In addition to bringing possible solutions to problems of which I was previously aware, such as who the original settlers of Qumran were, he brings up new ideas that I had never heard of before, such as the Essenes connection with Early Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism. //end//