Pt. 3, volume 4 edited by Alan J. Avery-Peck and Jacob Neusner.

Pt. 5, volume 1-2 edited by Alan J. Avery-Peck, Jacob Neusner and Bruce D. Chilton.

Includes bibliographical references and indexes.

Preliminary material / Bruce D. Chilton , Alan J. Avery-Peck and Jacob Neusner -- WHAT IS \'A JUDAISM\'?: SEEING THE DEAD SEA LIBRARY AS THE STATEMENT OF A COHERENT JUDAIC RELIGIOUS SYSTEM / Jacob Neusner -- THE CONSTRUCTION OF ISRAEL IN THE SECTARIAN RULE BOOKS / John J. Collins -- THE ARCHAEOLOGY OF EVERYDAY LIFE AT QUMRAN / James F. Strange and James Riley Strange -- JEWISH LAW AT QUMRAN / Lawrence H. Schiffman -- PURITY AT QUMRAN: CULTIC AND DOMESTIC / Johann Maier -- WORSHIP, TEMPLE, AND PRAYER IN THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS / Eileen Schuller -- THE CALENDAR AT QUMRAN / Martin G. Abegg -- WOMEN IN THE RELIGIOUS SYSTEM OF QUMRAN / Mayer I. Gruber.

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The authors have asked of the documents of the Dead Sea Library found at Qumran a simple question: how does each participate in a single Judaic religious system? They propose a reading of the Scrolls from the hypothesis that all of them, in one way or another, rest upon one, authoritative, Judaism. Their analysis of the Dead Sea Scrolls describes how diverse writings hold together to make a single coherent statement, to stand for a religious system possessed of integrity and wisdom. This account of the world view of Judaism covers principal questions addressed to any Judaic religious system: the doctrine of God, the Torah, and matters of history, wisdom, and mysticism. When it comes to the way of life, they include the evidence of the material culture of the community as well as practical matters of religious conduct. How the community’s world view comes to realization is suggested by its treatment of the calendar, by its provision of laws that concern women, by questions of cultic and secular purity, by its piety and forms of worship and views of Temple, sacrifice, and the like. Finally, with the community’s definition of ‘Israel’ and of itself in relationship to ‘Israel’, inclusive of Israelites excluded from this ‘Israel’, an account is gained of the theory of who and what is Israel that animates the particular Judaism represented in these writings.