An Inside—and Outside—Look at the Scrolls

Responses to 101 Questions on the Dead Sea Scrolls

Joseph A. Fitzmyer, S.J. (New York: Paulist Press, 1992), 201 pp., $8.95 (paperback)

Anything that comes from the pen of the great Catholic scholar Father Joseph Fitzmyer is worthwhile. That is certainly true of this slender paperback, despite its quirks.

I’m sure Father Fitzmyer, as well as the Paulist Press, will be embarrassed by the fact that the scroll that takes up about a third of the cover is printed upside down, as anyone with the most rudimentary knowledge of Hebrew will quickly recognize. But it would be entirely wrong to think that this carelessness extends to the contents of the book. Father Fitzmyer is nothing if not a meticulous scholar.

Unfortunately the question-and-answer format does not work well for this book. A series of questions begins “What sort of texts were discovered in Cave X?” going from 1 to 11. Another series begins “What is the [X Scroll]?” This sometimes makes for cold reading. It doesn’t encourage the author to use introductions, transitions or summaries; it doesn’t leave much room for asides. But Fitzmyer nevertheless manages to break out of this mold now and again.