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The Dead Sea Scrolls were found in Palestine, recovered in Jordan, and largely edited by an international Christian team who prevented public access to unpublished manuscripts. Subsquently, the state of Israel, which had already purchased many of the Scrolls, has assumed responsibility for all of them. Most recently, one scroll editor has claimed copyright on his reconstruction, instigating a lawsuit and introducing serious implications for future Scrolls scholarship. This volume looks at international copyright and property rights as they affect archaeologists, editors and curators, but focuses on the issue of ''authorship'' of the Scrolls, both published and unpublished, and the contributors include legal experts as well as many of the major figures in recent controversies, such as Hershel Shanks, John Strugnell, Geza Vermes and Emanuel Tov.

The aims of this significant study are to present pictures of the past as it manifested itself in Jewish literary works written in the Persian and Hellenistic periods, and to reveal the origin of materials and methods used in them in order to construct historical traditions. The works investigated are literary works of three types: pseudohistorical narratives (i.e. historical legends), visions and their interpretations, and 'rewritten Bibles' (i.e. works retelling the historical tradition of the Bible, with alterations in order to create a new structure of history).

This is the most thorough investigation yet published on the early Christian apocalypse called the 'Ascension of Isaiah'. Knight examines all the critical issues in the study of this document, including matters of date, provenance and purpose. Particular attention is paid to the book's concepts of christology (with a view both to that christology's Jewish mediatorial background and to its relationship with wider Christianity) and millenarianism (with a view to the social setting of the writer and his readers). Questions concerning the author as haggadist and exegete are also addressed.

4Q Pesher Nahum has long been considered one of the most important Qumran texts for understanding the historical context of the Dead Sea Scrolls. In this this critical study the author presents new readings and undertakes extensive analysis and reconstruction of broken text.

How do you contend with Josephus''s interpretation of events when undertaking historical inquiry? Taking as a test case the presentation of Judaea in the first century CE, McLaren argues that existing scholarship fails to achieve conceptual independence from Josephus. It simply repeats Josephus''s presentation of a society engulfed in an escalating turmoil that allegedly culminated in the revolt of 66-70 CE. A new strategy is offered here by applying a case-study approach and formulating open-ended questions. In so doing, McLaren calls for an entirely fresh appraisal of the situation in Judaea and other areas where Josephus serves as a major source.

What are the antecedents of the 'Antichrist' figure and its associated themes in Jewish literature prior to the New Testament? G.W. Lorein offers texts and translations of all the relevant passages, together with a discussion of their meaning and significance.

Much study has taken place of the prophetic and apocalyptic writings in recent decades, but the relationship between the two has been little explored. A major explicit debate on the question is very much needed, -- and is now provided.

Jesus remains a popular figure in contemporary culture. This book focuses on the historical Jesus and eschatology, concluding that the Jesus was not a Hellenistic wonder worker or teacher of pious morality but an apocalyptic prophet. It captures the history of the search for the historical Jesus.