Two questions have provided the framework for this volume. How have the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and revolutions in the methodology of biblical scholarship in the past two generations changed our perceptions of Judaism in the Greco-Roman period, and how do—or should—these developments lead us to rethink the origins of Christianity? In attempting to answer these questions, I sought to highlight major aspects of the past fifty years of scholarship, and to synthesize my own work over
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