Kenneth Hanson
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Subjects -> Religion & Spirituality -> Bible & Other Sacred Texts -> General
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Subjects -> Religion & Spirituality -> Christianity -> Church History -> Dead Sea Scrolls
Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 11
Average rating: 4.0 of 5
Great overview of the DSS; some overstatements 4 out of 5 stars.
13 of 14 people found this review helpful.
I heard Dr. Hanson both times he has been on the well-known
(inter)national talk radio show, "Coast to Coast," though he was
never interviewed by the show's mainstay, Art Bell. Dr. Hanson is a
very competent and highly enthusiastic speaker. On the show and
certainly in "The Untold Story" he adds life to what could be a
"dead" subject. He is the rare Christian, not in that he accepts
Judaism as the undoubted precursor to Christianity (a point
fully proven by the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS), according to him), but
he knows Hebrew fluently from years of study, and more importantly,
having lived in Israel for many years, and not always in the safest
places! You feel his deep love for religious studies in the book,
and his sincere, humble conviction for the religious path. On the radio and in the Introduction of the book Dr. Hanson
promises to tell the DSS saga to non-scholars, without the verbose
and dry prose of the many scholarly but unfulfilling tomes that have
been produced since the remarkable discovery of the scrolls in 1947,
amazingly synchronistic with the founding of the modern state of Israel.
For the most part Dr. Hanson succeeds very well, giving a very clear,
thorough, lively, and from what I know, factual account of the finding,
history, and meaning of the DSS - all this in relatively few pages. I
think that even those (non-experts) who are familiar with the story will
find Dr. Hanson's account enjoyable reading.
Another aspect of the DSS that Dr. Hanson's covers admirably are
the many controversies surrouding the scrolls, and he explains why the
scholarly consensus is usually to him the most plausible. For example,
most scholars think that the authors and creators of the scrolls were
Essenes, but some feel that this is not the case. Dr. Hanson not
only shows why the philosophy and lifestyle(s) of the various Essene
sects point to the Essenes, but on p. 61 he cleverly speculates that
the Hebrew word Osin, which means "doers of God's will," could have
been "corrupted" to form "Essenes," who most certainly consider
themselves doers of God's will.
I much appreciated Dr. Hanson's extensive use of Josephus'
writings, for example discussing John the Baptist, as well as the
Romans account of the almost total annihilation of the Jews in Israel
by the Kittim (DSS term for "the dark forces") in the late 60's AD.
Finally, I also enjoyed Dr. Hanson's contention that Jesus himself
must have known about the DSS, and while he might have been the Messiah
the scrolls predicted, he constantly drew a distinction between their
extreme positions and disciplines and his more lenient, compassionate
teachings. (I will assume Jesus existed for this discussion).
Yet parts of the book were a little troublesome for me, and these
were always Dr. Hanson's commentaries (as opposed to his always
lucid accounts of the details of scrolls-related topics). Indeed
he quotes Josephus extensively for interesting historical context,
and even states that Josephus was a contemporary of Jesus, yet he
says not one word as to why there is maybe only 1 brief "legitimate"
reference in Josephus to Jesus, when according to the author, Jesus'
miracles, predicted by the DSS, were perhaps the most essential aspect
proving his being the Messiah! One would think that anyone who did
such things would be mentioned in detailed volumes in more than a
very passing way.
On p. 92 the cruel King Aristobolus dies after a short reign,
it is as if "divine judgement," but when there is a severe earthquake
in 31 B.C., that greatly affects the DSS community, there is no
"Godly" (my words) reason. Perhaps the Essenes and the author need
some background in science! And on p. 116 there is a paragraph
that stunned me given the quality of most of the book. Dr. Hanson
claims that through the Jewish ritual, the "Bar Mitzvah," the 13-year
old "son of the Most High," bypasses adolescence. Having gone through a
serious preparation of quite a bit of Hebrew and Torah reading myself
at that age, I can assure the author that the "High" was only very, very
temporary, and I went through my puberty like everyone else!
Whatever its faults, I still highly recommend "The Untold Story" for
a great overview and fine insights into the many aspects the Dead Sea
Scrolls.
Editorial Review:
In Dead Sea Scrolls: The Untold Story, Hebrew scholar Kenneth Hanson captures all the mystery and excitement of the rediscovery of the scrolls, the half-century of intrigue that followed, and the ancient Hebrew sect that wrote, preserved, and died defending these treasured works.
