Before the Scrolls

This book provides an important corrective to the scholarly tendency to import anachronistic assumptions about contemporary books into study of ancient biblical texts. An exciting entry in the emergent field of material historical study of the Bible, Mastnjak's work introduces a collection model that has major implications for the interpretation of biblical books and study of their formation. * David M. Carr, Professor of Hebrew Bible, Union Theological Seminary * Almost two centuries after biblical scholars began the conversation of hypothetical documents lying behind the present text, Mastnjak puts flesh on what those earlier texts looked like as objects, the organizational logic behind their collection, and the process by which these smaller scrolls were brought together in the large scrolls found at Qumran. This is an important volume for Hebrew Bible scholarship which will in turn generate rich insights into the development of the biblical text. * Thomas Bolin, Professor of Theology and Religious Studies, St. Norbert College * Mastnjak has produced a remarkable study that offers an elegant and convincing solution to the problem of the earliest material forms of biblical literature. His bold and convincing arguments combine recent discoveries about ancient technologies of writing with careful textual analysis and will change how scholars imagine the literary form of the earliest manuscripts of biblical texts. -Brennan W. Breed, Associate Professor of Old Testament, Columbia Theological Seminary