Definition

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pesharim of the Dead Sea Scrolls:

The pesharim of the Dead Sea Scrolls, found at Qumran, take books of the Old Testament, quote them phrase by phrase, and apply them to events of their own time.

Their arbitrary treatment of the Old Testament books supplies a definition of scripture, claiming that it contains a second level of meaning that was known only to those with an insider's information, in other words that it was coded.

Their theory of scripture, but not their arbitrary practice, is the first step in a new method of dealing with books of the New Testament, revealing a history that was deliberately placed there.

REFERENCE BOOKS:

• (For translation of the scrolls only):
  Geza Vermes. "The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English" (Penguin Books, 1998)
  For serious students, a more expensive translation that includes the Hebrew text is by F.Garcia Martinez and E.J.C. Tigchelaar, The Dead Sea Scrolls, Study Edition. (Leiden: Brill , 2 vols 1997 and 1998)

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• Josephus,
  Jewish Antiquities & The Jewish War, Loeb Library
• Philo,
  The Works of Philo Judaeus, Loeb Library
• The Nag Hammadi Library in English,
  ed James M. Robinson,
  third edition,
  E.J.Brill, Leiden, 1988

ONLINE LINKS:

• Jewish Antiquities & The Jewish War
  (The above 19th century translation of Josephus by William Whiston is not as good as the more recent 1960's Loeb Library translation which gives the Greek text, an improved translation, and a more convenient method of numbering the divisions.)
• Works of Philo Judaeus
• Nag Hammadi Library

ABBREVIATIONS:

1QS - The Community Rule
CD - The Damascus Document
11QT - The Temple Scroll
1QH - The Hymns of Thanksgiving
1QM - The War Scroll

1Q, 4Q etc mean that the document was found in Qumran Cave 1, Cave 4 etc.
1QpHab means the pesher on Habakkuk found in Qumran Cave 1.

Similarly all abbreviations with a lower case "p", followed by an abbreviation for an Old Testament book, mean the pesher on that book.

Fragments and pesharim are alternatively given numbers, e.g. 4Q169 for the pesher on Nahum, 4Q171 for the pesher on Psalms. These are given here in brackets beside the name.

DJD - Discoveries in the Judean Desert. The series of volumes of the official publications of fragments.

OT - Old Testament. NT - New Testament.
JW - The Jewish War, by Josephus
Ant. - Jewish Antiquities, by Josephus