This is the introduction from noted scholar Hershel Shanks' book (Random House April 1998), an illuminating and readable background summary on the scrolls. Introduction Half a century has now ...

It is in that rugged cliff face, on the banks of the Dead Sea, in this arid, desolate climate, that the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered at the site known as Khirbet Qumran. The Scrolls were ...