| LDS Perspectives Latter-day Saints love ancient religious records. We have dozens of them in the Bible under such names as Genesis, Judges, Ruth, Isaiah, and John. Through the Prophet Joseph Smith a great number of other ancient records were restored—the books of Nephi, Alma, Mormon, and Moroni in the Book of Mormon, as well as Abraham and selections from the book of Moses in the Pearl of Great Price. In addition, we anticipate the coming forth of the "words of the lost tribes of Israel" (2 Nephi 29:13) and other ancient texts that have been authored by such individuals as Adam, Enoch, and Joseph.
It is no wonder, then, that since the discovery in 1947 of a large collection of scrolls along the shores of the Dead Sea, many Latter-day Saints have developed a particular interest in what are now known as the Dead Sea Scrolls. The scrolls, of course, do not contain the lost records we await, but they do provide new information about the transmission of the Bible, the Hebrew and Aramaic languages, and the variety of beliefs and practices of the Jews in the late Second Temple period (200 b.c. to a.d. 70). Interest in the scrolls continues into the 1990s. During the past few years, several LDS scholars have become directly involved in the translation, study, and electronic preservation of the scrolls. In response to LDS interest in the scrolls Brigham Young University’s College of Religious Education and the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS) jointly hosted a conference entitled "LDS Perspectives on the Dead Sea Scrolls," held 23 March 1996 on the BYU campus.
The conference featured seven presentations, versions of which are published in this volume. They discuss the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Messiah, the Book of Mormon, the Bible, the plan of salvation, prayer and worship, and a DNA analysis of the scrolls. With the exception of the keynote address, delivered by world-renowned scrolls scholar Professor Florentino García Martínez, all the presentations were delivered by Latter-day Saints who are BYU or FARMS scholars. An additional article, authored by Andrew Skinner of BYU and written especially for this volume, provides a general introduction to the discovery and contents of the scrolls and related matters. The various opinions expressed in this volume do not necessarily reflect the views of the editors, Brigham Young University, FARMS, or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Scroll Terminology Scroll terminology is not complicated, just abbreviated. The numbers 1–11 designate the cave in which the document was found, the Q stands for Qumran, and the last number indicates the fragment number. For example, 4Q161 was found in Qumran Cave 4 and is fragment number 161. Over the history of scroll scholarship, the same scroll has sometimes been known by various names. This numbering system attempts to clarify the scroll designations, and in this volume we have tried to cross reference each scroll name to avoid confusion. The Dead Sea Scrolls are very fragmented, and scholars often have to calculate what was written because sections of text both large and small are missing or illegible. In this volume, several different symbols indicate certain types of text restorations. Following is a list of those symbols and their meanings: 1[xxx] Text restored by the translator [. . .] Lacuna of unspecified length in the manuscript /xxx/ Legible text inserted between the lines by the copyist /. . ./ Illegible text inserted between the lines by the copyist Blank Space left blank in the manuscript, either unintentionally (new paragraph) or by mistake(xxx) Editorial insertion by the translator {xxx} Editorial insertion by the author in this volume
| Introduction | Dead Sea-LDS Overview | |
