This volume inaugurates the publication of the Biblical Dead Sea Scrolls from the main collection discovered in Cave 4 at Qumran. It contains six biblical manuscripts written in the ancient palaeo-Hebrew script, four Septuagint manuscripts and five hitherto unknown compositions. There are also ten biblical manuscripts from Genesis to Deuteronomy and Job. The Hebrew texts antedate by a millennium what had previously been the earliest surviving biblical codices in the original language and they document the pluriform nature of the ancient biblical textual tradition before the text became standardized. The most extensive and significant manuscript, 4QpaleoExodm, exhibits the extended textual tradition that formed the basis for the Samaritan Pentateuch, and illumines the historical and theological relationship between the Jews and the Samaritans. Fragments of an unidentified Greek text mention Moses, Pharoah and Egypt, suggesting some development of the Exodus theme, and further witnessing to the rich religious literature to which Rabbinic Judaism and nascent Christianity were heirs. Patrick Skehan (died 1980) was the editor of the Old Testament text in the "New American Bible" (1970).

In a world of rapid technological advancements, it can be easy to forget that writing is the "original" Information Technology, created to transcend the limitations of human memory and to defy time and space. "The Writing Revolution" picks apart the development of this communication tool to show how it has conquered the world.Explores how writing has liberated the world, making possible everything from complex bureaucracy, literature, and science, to instruction manuals and love lettersDraws on an engaging range of examples, from the first cuneiform clay tablet, Egyptian hieroglyphs, and Japanese syllabaries, to the printing press and the text messagingWeaves together ideas from a number of fields, including history, cultural studies and archaeology, as well as linguistics and literature, to create an interdisciplinary volumeTraces the origins of each of the world's major written traditions, along with their applications, adaptations, and cultural influences