The Scrolls, the Apocrypha, and the Pseudepigrapha

One of the many significant contributions that the Dead Sea Scrolls have made is to provide original-language copies of several books previously known only through translations or translations of translations. Among these are several works which belong in the categories of Apocrypha (in the Protestant sense of the word) and Pseudepigrapha. The books of the Apocrypha, fragments of which have surfaced at Qumran, are Tobit, Sirach, the Epistle of Jeremiah (=Baruch 6), and Psalm 151. Copies of two of the Pseudepigrapha have been identified—1 Enoch and the Book of Jubilees—and sources for the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs have also been found. The essay surveys the data about these new texts and discusses their implications.