LDS Perspectives on the Dead Sea Scrolls

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Since the 1947 discovery of ancient scrolls hidden in caves along the shores of the Dead Sea, many Latter-day Saints have been intrigued to learn what these sacred writings contain and how they might relate to their own religious tradition.

Although the Dead Sea Scrolls do not contain the lost records that Latter-day Saints await, they do help answer some important questions related to the gospel: How has the Bible been transmitted to our day? What did the Jews believe between the end of the Old Testament and the time of Christ? How much of the full gospel was known by the Qumran community before the coming of Christ?

The essays in this book address these and many other questions. They discuss the history of the scrolls, compare them and their writers to the Book of Mormon and its authors, explain what the scrolls teach about several gospel topics, give a time line of LDS involvement in Dead Sea Scrolls research, and describes how sophisticated technology is aiding analysis and translation of the scrolls.

About the Author

Donald W. Parry

Donald W. Parry (Ph.D., University of Utah) is Professor of Hebrew Bible at Brigham Young University. As a member of the international team of translators of the Dead Sea Scrolls, he is assigned to translate the books of Samuel. He is a member of several professional societies, including the Princeton Dead Sea Scrolls Society, the Society for Biblical Literature, the International organization for the Study of the Old Testament, and the national association for Professors of Hebrew.