In 1962 a youngish scholar named Geza Vermes published the first English translation of the then-available Dead Sea Scrolls—a slim 255-page volume from Penguin Books simply titled The Dead Sea Scrolls in English. This insightful but accessible translation quickly attracted both general readers and scholars. As the field of Dead Sea Scrolls study burgeoned, so did Vermes’s work. Celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, the book (now in its seventh edition) has grown into a 720-page tome. An estimated 500,000 copies have been sold.
Vermes has played an essential role in scroll research from the beginning. Following their discovery in 1947, Vermes published his first article on the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1949, completed a doctoral dissertation on their historical framework in 1952, and published his first book on the subject the following year. Dead Sea Scroll research was still in its infancy in 1962, but Vermes was already an established expert in the field.
The most recent edition of the book, now titled The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, includes a translation of every sufficiently preserved and available Qumran text. (Some fragments and possibly larger texts are still out there somewhere!) The book remains a standard in scroll study for its translation, literary quality and interpretations. Marking the 50th anniversary since the first edition, Vermes, now 87 years old, told BAR, “Few books last that long. Few authors last that long. The combination of the two is even more uncommon.”
In 962 a youngish scholar named Geza Vermes published the first English translation of the then-available Dead Sea Scrolls—a slim 255-page volume from Penguin Books simply titled The Dead Sea Scrolls in English. This insightful but accessible translation quickly attracted both general readers and scholars. As the field of Dead Sea Scrolls study burgeoned, so did Vermes’s work. Celebrating its 50th anniversary this year, the book (now in its seventh edition) has grown into a 720-page tome. An estimated 500,000 copies have been sold. Vermes has played an essential role in scroll research from the beginning. Following their discovery […]
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