The discoveries of Coptic books containing "Gnostic" scriptures in Upper Egypt in 1945 and of the Dead Sea Scrolls near Khirbet Qumran in 1946 are commonly reckoned as the most important archaeological finds of the twentieth century for the study of early Christianity and ancient Judaism. Yet, impeded by academic insularity and delays in publication, scholars never conducted a full-scale, comparative investigation of these two sensational corpora-until now. Featuring articles by an all-star, international lineup of scholars, this book offers the first sustained, interdisciplinary study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi Codices.

Before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, Ben Sira was the only Hebrew wisdom text from the late Second Temple period. The Qumran scrolls provide an abundance of previously unknown Hebrew sapiential material. "Discerning Wisdom" provides a systematic overview of all the Qumran texts that are commonly identified as wisdom compositions. This literature raises issues such as the incorporation of apocalypticism and Torah piety into the sapiential tradition. The Dead Sea Scrolls offer crucial evidence for understanding the wisdom of the late Second Temple period and the reception of traditional wisdom in Early Judaism.