Review of Corpus Inscriptionum Iudaeae/Palaestinae, Volume VI: The Negev and Addenda

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Corpus Inscriptionum Iudaeae/Palaestinae, Volume VI: The Negev and Addenda, 4 parts, eds. Walter Amerling, Hannah M. Cotton, Werner Eck, Avner Ecker, Johannes Heinrichs, Benjamin Isaac, Alla Kushnir-Stein, Jonathan Price, Ohad Abudraham, Peter Weiß, Ada Yardeni, Marfa Heimbach, Dirk Koßmann, and Ofer Pogorelsky (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2026).

This volume is the sixth of Corpus Inscriptionum Iudaeae/Palaestinae (CIIP), which was originally intended to cover all inscriptions from the modern-day territory of ancient Judea and Palestine dating from Alexander the Great’s conquest to the Arab subjugation of the region. However, due to international regulations, the areas of the Holy Land under Palestinian administration, and the state of Israel’s illegal occupation of the Golan Heights,[1] that goal is no longer attainable and this sixth volume is the corpus’s final one. 

The editors have divided it into four parts. Parts 1–2 cover epigraphs from the territory of the Negev, presenting them in order from north to south and when two or more locations are on the same latitude, the editors present them from west to east. Unfortunately, unpublished inscriptions in the Thamudic language—the language of a pre-Islamic tribe who lived in the Arabian Peninsula—are not included because the editors were unable to find someone proficient in the language who could do the hard work of examining these epigraphs in person; what is known as an autopsy. They included, however, the already published Thamudic inscriptions, adopting the readings and comments of the original publications. Part 3 contains additional inscriptions from the Negev and Part 4 addenda and corrigenda, corrections of errors in the previously published volumes of CIIP.

As in other volumes in this corpus, CIIP VI begins with a preface, explaining the corpus’s purpose and contents (see “Preface,” pp. vii–x). A table of contents (“Table of Contents,” xi–xxvi), and other front matters follow: “Author’s Sigla,” (p. xxvii), “Abbreviations,” (pp. xxxix–xliv), “Diacritical System,” (p. xlv), and keys to transliterations of non-Greek and non-Latin ancient languages: Armenian, Aramaic, Syriac, Georgian, Hebrew, and Aramaic (p. xlvii–xlxi).

Parts 1–3 present over 2,000 epigraphs from the Negev: Part 1, nos. 7819–9058; Part 2, nos. 9059–9108; and Part 3, nos. 9109–9992. The presentation of individual inscriptions follows previous volumes. Thus, each entry contains a number, title, a date for the epigraph (when possible), and a short description of its provenance and context. Next follows a picture or drawing of the artifact (if available), the inscription’s original text, a transliteration of the original language (in some cases), and a fresh English translation of the epigraph. Finally, each entry ends with a short commentary on the inscription, and a bibliography. At the end of Parts 1–2, the editors provide maps with keys (pp. 1130–33), and, at the end of Part 4, an index of personal names for the entire six-volume corpus (pp. 1979–2092).

To give one example, CIIP 8313 is an interesting Aramaic graffito written in Greek letters that dates to the first and second centuries AD. The epigraph was found on the wall of a cave in Naḥal Dimonah in Wadi Jaraba. The text, which is written left to right, reads:

σιμαθα καιαμα λαμαν
δαελαα σαβη ου ιαεβ λαλ

To read the inscription, though, one must transliterate it into Aramaic and then reverse the order of the letters:

סימתא קימא למן דאלהא צבא הו יהב לך

Thus, the graffito translates as follows: 

“The treasure is available, God will give it to whomever He wishes.”

The author of this text is unclear, but the reference to the “treasure” (σιμαθα/סימתא) that God bestows raises the possibility that the author may have been a Semitic speaking Christian. The supporting evidence for this position is that the Gospels record Jesus speaking of “treasure” (θησαυρός) in heaven (Matthew 6:20; 19:21; Mark 10:21; Luke 12:33; 18:22) and the Syriac version of St. Matthew’s Gospel (dating roughly to the third century AD) translates the Greek term θησαυρός with the word sîmtâ in Matthew 6:20, which is an Aramaic cognate of the term for treasure, sîmāṯâ (σιμαθα/סימתא), in our inscription.[2]

The editor of CIIP 8313, Jonathan Price, argues that the key to interpreting our text lies in another graffito from the cave that is directly above the inscription in question. This epigraph reads:

Μνησθῇ Ζοραιθα
κ(α)λ(ὰ) τ(ὰ) λ(α)χ(ά)ν(α) τ(ὰ) π(α)ρ(α)θ(ά)λ(α)σ(α)
αααααααααα.

“May Zoraitha be remembered. Beautiful are the vegetables by the sea” (CIIP 8314).

Price suggests that the same person who composed CIIP 8313 also composed CIIP 8314 and that the latter is a writing exercise; hence, the eleven alphas that go in between the consonants are found at the end of the graffito. Therefore, he, relying on an earlier publication of these epigraphs, concludes that Zoraitha “was probably a nun whose native spoken language was Aramaic; she produced a writing exercise—a whole sentence in which the same vowel follows each consonant—playing with a leading feature of Semitic scripts, i.e., their lack of vowels. It is reasonable to assume that the other inscription (i.e., no. 8313), Aramaic in Greek letters, was also a kind of writing exercise (was she perhaps learning how to write in Greek?).”[3]

While the second inscription, CIIP 8314, may be a writing exercise, I reject the conclusion that Zoraitha authored CIIP 8313 because there are too many differences in the ligatures of the letters, especially of the alpha, theta, eta, kapa, and mu, of the two graffiti (see Image 1 and 2). These discrepancies bespeak that Zoraitha did not author CIIP 8313. To this end, we do not know who composed our graffito in question but are left with the possibility that it may have been an early Semitic speaking Christian who lived in or visited the ancient Negev. Other than that, we cannot deduce anything else from our limited evidence.[4] Perhaps future epigraphic discoveries will shed light on this enigma.   

Image 1: CIIP 8313

Image 2: CIIP 8314

In sum, this new volume, like all the others in the corpus, is indispensable for those who want to know more about the world of the Holy Land from Alexander the Great to the Arab conquests, especially the inscriptions that the denizens of this world produced! Therefore, if you can afford it, I highly recommend it and you can pick up your own copy directly from De Gruyter: Parts 1–2 and Parts 3–4.

I am grateful for the gratis copy of this work that De Gruyter provided, which in no way influenced my review of it. 

[1] See the U.N.’s Secretary General’s report: https://www.un.org/unispal/document/sg-report-the-occupied-syrian-golan-14nov25/.

[2] Michael Zellmann-Rohrer, “Semitic Loanwords and Transcriptions in the Greek Epigraphy of Judaea-Palestine,” in Inscriptions and the Epigraphic Habit, eds. Rebecca Benefiel and Catherine M. Keesling, Brill Studies in Greek and Roman Epigraphy 20 (Leiden: Brill, 2024), 300–1.

[3] Jonathan J. Pricer and Shlomo Naeh, “On the Margins of Culture: the Practice of Transcription in the Ancient World,” in From Hellenism to Islam: Cultural and Linguistic Change in the Roman Near East, eds. Hannah Cotton, Robert G. Hoyland, Jonathan J. Price, and David J. Wasserstein (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 268–69 (257–88)

[4] Even if Zoraitha authored both graffiti, I find the conclusion that she was a “nun” totally speculative and lacking of any evidence to support it, other than the fact that Zoraitha was a woman. 

Dodson, Paul the Rabbi Philosopher

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Joseph R. Dodson, Paul the Rabbi Philosopher: Stoic and Jewish Philosophy in the Apostle’s Thought (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2026)

In this work, Dodson’s goal is to move beyond the divide that has long plagued scholarship of parsing out and dividing St. Paul’s thought into Greek and/or Jewish categories by arguing that the apostle is at the same time a Jewish rabbi and a Greek philosopher. In his words, “Paul represents a multidimensional, culturally impacted author who strategically utilizes the common vernacular, philosophies, and stories surrounding him to communicate the good news to all people in relatable, understandable, and authentic ways” (6). 

To accomplish this end, Dodson divides his work into an introduction, two parts each with five chapters, a postscript, an appendix, and a bibliography. In the introduction (“Introduction: Paul, the Man of Twists and Turns,” 1–7), Dodson lays out the above-mentioned goal and the book’s structure. The first part (“Paul the Rabbi and the Jewish Tradition”) introduces the Wisdom of Solomon (11–16) and contains five chapters that read St. Paul’s letter to the Romans alongside the Deuterocanonical work, the Wisdom of Solomon. In the first chapter (“Death, Sin, and the Devil in Wisdom and Romans,” 17–32), Dodson explores death, sin, and the devil in Wisdom and Romans, concluding that in the former death is a motivation to achieve salvation, while in the latter death explains that Christians already possess salvation. The second chapter (“The Cosmic Avenger and the Groaning Mother in Wisdom and Romans,” 33–44) examines how both Wisdom and Romans personify creation. In Wisdom, creation has fought and will continue to fight for God’s people, while in Romans she suffers with them until the eschaton. In the third chapter (“The Rebuking and Interceding Spirit in Wisdom and Romans,” 45–56), Dodson surveys the Holy Spirit in Wisdom and Romans, concluding that in the former the Spirit brings the sinful thoughts of humans before God, while in the latter the Spirit brings the prayers of Christians before God. The fourth chapter (“The Perennial Problem of Israel in Wisdom and Romans,” 57–72) chronicles the history of Israel in Wisdom and Romans. Dodson contends that in Wisdom wrath disassociates the Lord from punishing Israel and in Romans the Torah is disentangled from Israel’s salvation from it. In the fifth chapter (“The Intractable Problem of Evil in Wisdom and Romans,” 73–84), Dodson explores how Wisdom and Romans treat the rule of evil powers and the suffering of the righteous. 

The second part (“Paul the Philosopher and the Stoic Tradition”) contains an introduction to Seneca (87–90) and five more chapters in which Dodson compares St. Paul’s letters to the writings of the first century AD Stoic philosopher Seneca. In the sixth chapter (“The ‘Crucifixions’ of Seneca and Paul,” 91–104), Dodson examines Seneca’s metaphorical use of crucifixion in his On the Happy Life and the apostle’s use of it in Galatians, highlighting their similarities and most importantly for this chapter their differences. The seventh chapter (“Crucified Heroes: Seneca’s Regulus and Paul’s Christ,” 105–19) surveys Seneca’s treatment of the crucified general Marcus Atilius Regulus and St. Paul’s of Jesus the Messiah. In the eighth chapter (“Roman Feasts and Homoerotic Activities in Epistle 95 and Romans,” 120–34), Dodson reads Seneca’s invective against the degrading passions of humans in Epistle 95 with St. Paul’s in Romans 1 underscoring the similarities between the two accounts. The ninth chapter (“The Yonder Man and the Hypocrite in Epistle 59 and Romans,” 135–49) argues that Seneca’s Epistle 59 parallels St. Paul’s rhetorical hypocrite in Romans 2 and that in the latter the apostle “sounds just like the Stoics and that his diatribe fits their classic indictment of the pretentious philosopher” (138). In the tenth chapter (“The Curious Case of Apocalyptic Eschatology in Seneca and Paul,” 150–69), Dodson compares apocalyptic, by which he means works that “contain revelations of life after earth given by a celestial figure” (151), texts that are eschatological to the Senecan and Pauline corpora. 

The work’s final chapter (“Postscript,” 171–72) rearticulates Dodson’s thesis: that St. Paul is a diverse “figure who not only brings the divine message to humanity but is also able to adroitly twist and shift to faithfully interpret it to Gentiles, Romans, Greeks, and Jews” (171). And in its appendix (“Personification and Powers,” 173–77), Dodson provides a discussion of the apostle’s personification of powers. 

Paul the Rabbi is thoughtful, well-researched work that demonstrates in a sophisticated way the benefit of engaging with Jewish and pagan sources to illuminate early Christianity. It exemplifies the fruitfulness of such research that has moved beyond the older and outdated divide of whether a Jewish or pagan idea influenced St. Paul. As Dodson’s volume shows, the apostle was a Jewish rabbi and a Greek philosopher at the same time. Therefore, I recommend picking up your copy today from Hendrickson! 

I am grateful to Hendrickson for the gratis copy of this work, which in no way influenced my reading of it.  

Review of Archaeology, Jesus, and the Gospel of John

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Paul N. Anderson, ed., Archaeology, Jesus, and the Gospel of John: What Recent Discoveries Show Us (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2026)

This work is the fruit of years of discussion among the members of the John, Jesus, and History Group at Society of Biblical Literature and is a collection of essays, the first one of its kind, that Paul N. Anderson edits on the topic of St. John’s Gospel, Jesus, and archaeology. Archaeology consists of an introduction, essays divided into four parts with an introduction to each one by Anderson, and a list of contributors, works cited as well as three appendices.

In the introduction (“Introduction: Archaeology, John, and Jesus–a First in Johannine and Historical Jesus Studies,” 1–11), Anderson places this work in its scholarly context, the first such work of its kind, explores its origins, and summarizes its contents. The first part (“General Overviews,” 13–16) focuses on general treatments of features of the Johannine narrative associated with topography and Jesus’s itinerary and consists of three chapters. In chapter 1 (“John, the ‘Mundane’ Gospel, and Its Archaeology-Related Features,” 17–32), Anderson chronicles the resistance of modern scholarship to the historicity of St. John’s Gospel. Chapter 2 (“The Quest for the Historical Jesus and the Historical Galilee,” 33–48) by R. Alan Culpepper surveys the political and religious setting of Jesus’s ministry in the Fourth Gospel. In chapter 3 (“John and the Geography of Palestine,” 49–66), James Riley Strange outlines the geographical setting of Jesus’s ministry with an eye to his itinerary. 

Part 2 (“The Ministry of Jesus in Galilee, Samaria, and the Judean Countryside,” 67–69) concentrates on Jesus’s ministry in these areas of the Holy Land. In chapters 4 and 5 (“The Fourth Gospel Versus the Synoptics on John the Baptist’s Geographical Arena,” 71–95 and “John the Baptist, the River Jordan, and the Historical Significance of Locations in the Fourth Gospel,” 96–124), Rivka Nir and Joan E. Taylor each explore the places the canonical Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—testify that John the Baptizer lived and performed his baptizing ministry. Nir argues that St. John’s placement of John the Baptist in the Transjordan may be an authentic historical memory, and Taylor emphasizes the theological reasons for John the Baptizer baptizing in the River Jordan. Chapters 6 and 7 (“The Case of a Fallen Grain of Wheat,” 125–34 and “The Fourth Gospel and the Archaeological Search for Bethsaida,” 135–49) by Rami Arav and Mordechai Aviam and R. Steven Notley respectively explore some archaeological discoveries of Bethsaida as they relate to St. John’s Gospel. 

In chapters 8 and 9 (“Uncovering Cana of Galilee: The Archaeological Excavations at Khirbet Qana and the References to Cana in the Gospel of John,” 150–62 and “The Stone Jars of Cana (John 2:6) and Recent Archaeological Developments,” 163–91). C. Thomas McCollough and Roland Deines each survey the latest material findings from Cana: the former the site of Khirbet Qana and the latter the stone vessels that Jesus uses in his first sign in the gospel (John 2:6). Chapter 10 (“The Worship Site on Mount Gerazim,” 192–202) by Robert Bull, Jane Evans, and Anderson outlines the latest discoveries on Mount Gerazim. In chapter 11 (“High Noon at Jacob’s Well–Jesus at Sychar in John 4:4–6,” 203–19), Jürgen Zangenberg describes the relationship between Jews and Samaritans. Chapter 12 (“Capernaum in the Fourth Gospel in Light of Archaeology and Synagogue Studies,” 220–42) by Jordan Ryan explores the role of Capernaum in the canonical Gospels. Chapter 13 (“The Decorated Stone from the Magdala Synagogue and Judean Connections with Jesus’s Galilean Mission in the Fourth Gospel,” 243–67) by Wally Ciragesi suggests that Jewish priests may have been active in the synagogues of Capernaum and Magdala. In chapter 14 (“Jesus, Fishing, and the Sea of Galilee in the Gospel of John,” 268–75), K. C. Hanson presents the socioeconomic realities of the fishing industry in and around the Sea of Galilee. Chapter 15 (“Jerome Murphy-O’Connor’s Place Names in John Revisited,” 276–83) by Scott Stripling interacts with Jerome Murphy-O’Connor’s work of exploring some of the sites mentioned in the Madaba Map (a sixth century AD map on a mosaic from a church in Madaba, Jordan) and locating them at some place names mentioned in St. John’s Gospel. Stripling accepts Murphy-O’Connor’s identification of Bethany as Bethabara but rejects his identification of Ephraim as Taybeh. 

Part 3 (“The Ministry of Jesus in Bethany and Jerusalem,” 285–93) explores aspects of Jesus’s ministry in Jerusalem and its environs in St. John’s Gospel. In chapter 16 (“Sleeping Lazarus Resurrection–the Relation Between the Intratextual and Extratextual Worlds of the Lazarus Story of John 13,” 295–315), Zangenberg surveys the latest discoveries associated with the death of Lazarus. Chapter 17 (“The Archaeology of Bethesda and Interpretation of Jesus Healing at the Pool (John 5:1–16),” 316–38) by Craig Koester discusses the latest archaeological evidence for the pool of Bethesda. In chapter 18 (“The Pool of Siloam, Ritual Purification, and John 9,” 339–54), Gary Burge examines the second pool of Siloam, which was discovered in 2004. Chapter 19 (“John, Josephus, and the Way of the Cross,” 355–64) by Steven Notley investigates the final days of Jesus from St. John’s Gospel with reference to Josephus’s writings and the Via Dolorosa. In chapter 20 (“Food and Clothing in the Gospel of John,” 366–74), Jodi Magness explores the historical aspects of food and clothing in the Fourth Evangelist. Chapter 21 (“Historical and Archaeological Evidence for Crucifragium in John 19:31–37,” 375–87) by Brian Johnson is devoted to the ankle bone of a crucified man that was discovered in 1968. In chapters 22 and 23 (“Golgotha in the Gospel of John, the Tomb of Jesus, and the Underlying Topography of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher,” 388–422 and “Golgotha, the Tomb of Jesus, and the Gospel of John,” 423–41), Shimon Gibson and Urban von Wahlde respectively focus on the location of Golgotha.

Part 4 (“Responses and Implications,” 443) contains two chapters that survey the previous chapters for their significance. In chapter 24 (“Recent Discoveries, John, and the Future of Historical Jesus Studies,” 445–65), Craig Evans evaluates the contributions of these chapters and their implications for the study of the so-called historical Jesus. Chapter 25 (“Archaeology and Its Implications for the Quests of John, Jesus, and History,” 466–83) by Anderson reflects on the role that this work will play in future inquiries in the study of St. John’s Gospel and the so-called historical Jesus. 

This work is an amazing collection that brings together a diverse group of international Biblical scholars and archaeologists, some of whom excavate at the sites on which they contributed essays. It is crammed full of so much information that an essay-by-essay review of it is not possible (one would need a monograph for that!). In short, Archaeology is an indispensable volume for anyone working on St. John’s Gospel and we should thank Anderson for putting together this splendid collection of essays! Pick up your copy now directly from Eerdmans. 

I am grateful to Eerdmans for the gratis copy of this work, which in no way influenced my review of it. 

Review of Collins, Apocalypticism as a Worldview

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John J. Collins, Apocalypticism as a Worldview in Ancient Judaism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2026)

The goal of this work is to provide an overview of the apocalyptic worldview of ancient Judaism gleaned from early Jewish apocalypses such as Daniel, 1 Enoch, and the Dead Sea Scrolls. To accomplish this end, Collins divides his work into six chapters with an introduction, an epilogue, an acknowledgment, a bibliography, and three appendices.  

In the introduction (“Critical Issues in the Contemporary Debate,” 1–5), Collins introduces the volume, setting out his above-mentioned purpose and the ancient sources he uses to achieve it. Chapter 1 (“Genres, Constellations, and Worldviews,” 6–28) relates the history of the study of apocalyptic literature as an academic discipline; discusses the definition of an “apocalypse,” which Collins defines as “a genre of revelatory literature with a narrative framework, in which a revelation is mediated  by an otherworldly being  to a human recipient, disclosing a transcendent reality which is both temporal, insofar as it envisages eschatological salvation, and spatial insofar as it involves another, supernatural world” (12);[1] and introduces the concept of worldview, which relates to epistemological assumptions about the world, including space, time, and human existence and has implications for “human values and conduct” (25). 

In chapter 2 (“Changing Views of History,” 29–51), Collins explores a distinctive feature of the apocalyptic literature, which undergirds the ancient Jewish apocalyptic worldview: long reviews of history, often the rise and fall historical empires, that tend to be presented as prophecy already fulfilled with an unfulfilled pending act of God in the near future, which will bring about some kind of restoration. This end, however, is not final and one of the notable elements of apocalyptic eschatology is the desire for “another kind of life” not “subject to death and decay” that is “beyond human experience” (51).   

Chapter 3 (“Mythic Frameworks,” 52–74) examines the myths and symbols, often of superhuman evil in the world, in the ancient Jewish apocalyptic worldview that are drawn from other cultures around Second Temple Jews. For apocalypticists, the world is under the control of malign non-human forces and these myths and symbols help to communicate that. 

In chapter 4 (“The Open Heaven,” 75–98), Collins discusses one of the main concerns of the ancient Jewish apocalyptic worldview: the current cosmic context in which humans live and the desire for God’s people to be transformed in the near future and to live in his presence everlastingly. Much of this cosmic context remains hidden from humans and consists of a cosmic war with angels and demons, good and evil. 

Chapter 5 (“The Pursuit of the Millennium,” 99–116) looks at two concerns of the present world in the ancient Jewish apocalyptic worldview: the fact that the locus of many apocalyptic visions is some kind of distress and that the ultimate hope for this world is its transformation.

In chapter 6 (“Apocalyptic Literature Transmitted by Christians,” 117–32), Collins reviews apocalyptic literature that Slavonic, Syrian, and Ethiopic Christians transmitted but probably did not compose, 1 Enoch, 2 Enoch, 3 Baruch, for example, which revolutionized our understanding of ancient Judaism and its theological diversity. 

The epilogue (Epilogue: “The Legacy of Apocalypticism,” 133–37) explores the legacy of apocalypticism in the modern West in two areas: in fundamentalism and in secularism. Collins observes that “fundamentalist Christians continue to expect that the prophecies of Daniel and especially of Revelation will be fulfilled in the near future” (133). In the process, he discusses postmillennialism, which was prominent in the 18th century, and premillennialism, which arose in the late 19th and early 20th century, in the United States. On the other hand, secular apocalypticism, which goes back to the 18th century, is the belief that there is the end of the world is imminent and cataclysmic, but it rejects a belief in angels and demons. 

The final portions of Apocalypticism contains an “Acknowledgements” (139–40), a “Bibliography” (141–68), and three indices: “Index of Authors” (169–74), “Index of Subjects” (175–76), and “Index of Scripture and Other Ancient Sources” (177–82). 

This work is pure John J. Collins and thus it is excellent. Apocalypticism is clear, concise, and well informed (especially among non-English speaking scholarship). For this reason, this volume is and probably will remain definitive. One particular strength, which is also found in all of Collins’s voluminous scholarship, is that he takes nothing-for-granted in his discussions. Rather, he always begins with the basics of any argument or thesis and from those basics, he makes his well-reasoned and thoughtful arguments. Consequently, I encourage everyone to pick up their copy from Eerdmans!  

I am grateful to Eerdmans for the gratis copy of this work, which in no way influenced my review of it. 

[1] Collins derives this definition from his work, “Introduction: Towards the Morphology of a Genre,” Semeia 14 (1979): 9.

Collins and Nate The Rule of the Association and Related Texts Review

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John J. Collins and James Nati, The Rule of the Association and Relates Texts, The Oxford Commentary on the Dead Sea Scrolls (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024)

The goal of this volume is to provide a line-by-line commentary on the Rule of the Association and other similar texts from the Dead Sea Scrolls to non-specialists, which includes an introduction to each work, the original Hebrew text with a fresh English translation of the texts in question, and a discussion of textual notes. In Rule, Collins has written the commentary on 1QS (“The Rule of the Association”), 1QSa (“The Rule of the Congregation”), and 1QSb (“The Scroll of Blessings”) with input from Nati and Nati has written the commentary on 1Q29a, 4QSa (4Q255), 4QSb (4Q256), 4QSc (4Q257), 4QSd (4Q258), 4QSe (4Q259 & 4Q319), 4QSf(4Q260), 4QSg (4Q261), 4QSh (4Q262), 4QSi (4Q263), 4QSj (4Q264), 5Q11, and 11Q29Sb with input from Collins.

For the most part, Collins and Nati structure their commentary as follows: an introduction of the text in question, a discussion of the manuscript on which the text has been written, a bibliography, and important historical and theological facets related to the work. For example, Collins’s commentary on the Rule of the Association, which is the longest in the volume, discusses: the development of the Rule of the Association; the sectarian nature of the association reflected in it; the history of the association; the identity of the group who produced the Rule of the Association, probably the Essenes; the dualism reflected in the Rule of the Association; its new covenantal context; the different degrees of holiness of the members of the association; the higher revelation on which the association based its interpretation of Scripture (the Christian Old Testament); and the nature of the Rule of the Association.  

The collaboration between a well-seasoned and experienced scholar like Collins with a more junior scholar like Nati has produced a well-written, well-researched excellent volume that achieves all its stated goals, bravo Collins, Nati, and Oxford! Moreover, in my opinion, it is a testament to the type of commentary that publishers should produce in the future, those written in collaboration between older and younger scholars, not in isolation. Like most commentaries, this is not a book that most would sit down and read cover-to-cover. Rather, it is a reference work that one, especially non-specialists in the Dead Sea Scrolls, would consult when studying the Rule texts themselves. If you can afford it, I highly recommend making this book part of your library, which you can do so by buying directly from Oxford! 

I am grateful for the gratis copy of this work, which in no way influenced my review of it.