I had my initial contact with the Qumran War Texts in the middle of the 1970s, when, as a graduate student, I was trying to uncover the origin and development of dualism in the Qumran scrolls. Thirty years later, I am still fascinated by the powerful religious imagination at work in these texts which envision the final battle between the forces of light and darkness, resulting in the triumph of truth and justice. This dream is not only the utopia of a small group of sectarians of the past,