The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls have caused a revolution in scholarship concerning the canon and text of the Hebrew Bible. Fully 25% of the scrolls discovered in the region of the Dead Sea are copies of the books of the Hebrew Bible. The lecture will reveal what new information the scrolls have given us about the growth of the biblical text and the development of the canon, explaining what we now know, that the text of the Bible was fluid, not fixed, and that Jews did not all agree on what books constituted sacred scripture.

Sidnie White Crawford

The Willa Cather Professor of Classics and Religious Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, is a world-renowned expert on the Dead Sea Scrolls, she was part of the editorial team that published the scrolls in the 1980s and 90s. She has published several books on the scrolls, including her most recent, Rewriting Scripture in Second Temple Times (Eerdmans). A sought-after speaker, Dr. Crawford has presented papers in Israel, Great Britain, Finland, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and Japan. In November she was a featured speaker at the 500th anniversary celebration of the Complutensian Polyglot Bible in Madrid, Spain. She is the Chair of the Board of Trustees of the W.F. Albright Institute of Archaeological Research in Jerusalem, a trustee of the American Schools of Oriental Research, and a member of the Council of the Society of Biblical Literature. She belongs to several editorial boards, including Hermeneia and the Encyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception.

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