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I have a new book out: David Stacey and Gregory Doudna, with a contribution from Gideon Avni, Qumran Revisited: A Reassessment of the Archaeology of the Site and its Texts (BAR International Series 2520; Oxford: Archaeopress, 2013).

David Stacey is an archaeologist in England who worked ten years on the Netzer excavations at Jericho, the nearest major site to Qumran, where most of the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. Stacey reassesses the interpretation of the archaeology of Qumran. Most scholars of the Qumran texts have assumed Qumran was the site of a monastic-like group of Essenes. Stacey argues that Qumran was an extension of Hasmonean Jericho, and that Qumran was a site for industries located away from the people at Jericho.

My contribution to this book–dealing with the texts found at the site–is entitled “The Sect of the Qumran Texts and its Leading Role in the Temple in Jerusalem During Much of the First Century BCE: Toward a New Framework for Understanding”

Updated May 2, 2015. The best place to find my Dead Sea Scrolls and other scholarly publications is at my page at www.academia.edu.

Greg Doudna, “Ostraca KhQ1 and KhQ2 from the cemetery of Qumran: a new edition”, in E. Ben-Zvi, ed., Perspectives on Hebrew Scriptures II. Comprising the contents of Journal of Hebrew Scriptures vol. 5 (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2007), pp. 59-116.

(Contents of this volume can be viewed on google books.)

Two ostraca–potsherds with writing–known as KhQ1 and KhQ2 were found outside the east wall at Qumran in 1996. The editors, Frank Cross and Esther Eshel, identified KhQ1 as a deed of gift of property from a new member to a religious community at Qumran in a manner enjoined by the Community Rule (1QS)–one of the most important Qumran texts. It was claimed that KhQ1 provided the first direct evidence that the Community Rule was practiced at Qumran. In what I believe remains the most detailed analysis of these texts undertaken in scholarly literature, my article presents new readings of KhQ1 and KhQ2 and takes up the question of whether KhQ1 can confirm or exclude the community-gift interpretation on the basis of an accurate reading of the text.