The essays in this volume address key aspects of Israelite religious development. Frank Moore Cross traces the continuities between early Israelite religion and the Canaanite culture from which it emerged; explores the tension between the mythic and the historical in Israel’s religious expression; and examines the reemergence of Canaanite mythic material in the apocalypticism of early Christianity and the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The discovery of manuscripts in Qumran—the Dead Sea Scrolls—and other sites in the Wilderness of Judah has stimulated a period of unparalleled activity in the study of the biblical text. Students and teachers in this field are overwhelmed with the thousands of articles that have appeared in hundreds of journals in the last thirty years. The older handbooks surveying biblical textual criticism have become hopelessly obsolete.

Frank Cross and Shemaryahu Talmon have designed a collection of essays to help the serious student find his way in this transformed field of research. Some of the essays are general surveys, some propound new theories, several publish manuscript data of revolutionary importance. The editors have contributed previously unpublished papers suggesting new approaches to the fundamental task of textual criticism. A list of published manuscripts or manuscript fragments from the Judaean Desert and a bibliography are included.

The Synagogue at Sardis, discovered by the Harvard-Cornell expedition in 1962, is the largest synagogue known in the ancient world. Its great size, its location within a bath-gymnasium complex, its elaborate and expensive interior decorations, and the high status of many of the donors caused significant revision of previous assumptions about Judaism in the Roman Empire.

This long-awaited volume discusses in detail the history of the building, its decoration, and the place of the Jewish community in the larger society. Copiously illustrated with plans and photos, the book also includes catalogs of the decorative elements, coins, and other objects associated with this monumental religious space.