Dead Sea Scrolls and the Historicitiy of the Bible

Christian Alexander

I am studying the Dead Sea Scrolls a bit. I have read the Factbook entry on the Dead Sea Scrolls, The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Bible by Charles F. Pfeiffer, The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls by James C. VanderKam; Peter W. Flint, What are the Dead Sea Scrolls and Why Do They Matter? by David Noel Freedman, Pam Fox Kuhlken, and pertinent portions of The Resurrection of the Son of God by N. T. Wright. I am looking to study what these scrolls reveal about the historicity of the Bible as well as who the Qumran community was composed of as far as ethnicity.  What sources do you all suggest?

MJ. Smith

who the Qumran community was composed of as far as ethnicity.

Ethnicity didn't exist as a concept at the time - we would consider them ethnic Jews. I've always seen them classified by beliefs e.g. Essenes, Sadducees, Zadokites, otherwise unknown, or non-monolithic. Bibliographies in what you've read should lead you to arguments for each position.

Historicity? That's not a question it would occur to me to ask. I think of them primarily in terms of text transmission and Jewish diversity and don't see how to apply them to the question of historicity except as a simple additional confirmation within the same tradition i.e. as paraBiblical sources repeating Biblical sources.