The Library
1774 works catalogued century by century, from the literature the Bible was written among to the present — each with a note on what it is, why it lasted, and where to read it.
200–101 BC
3 works
c. 2nd century BC
Hebrew
Anonymous
David in the first person: the smallest of his brothers, a shepherd who made a harp with his own hands, passed over by the prophet until God chose him — and then the meeting with the Philistine, whom he cut down with the man's own sword.
c. 150–130 BC
Hebrew
4QMMT
Anonymous
A letter from one group of priests to another listing about twenty points of purity law on which they differ — the purity of poured liquids, where the red heifer is burned, whether the deaf and blind may enter — and closing by saying that this is why we have separated from the majority.
c. 150–100 BC
Hebrew
11QT
Anonymous
The longest of the Dead Sea Scrolls, rewriting the law with God speaking in the first person throughout — no Moses as intermediary. It specifies a temple with three concentric courts that was never built, a calendar of new festivals, and a law for the king limiting his army and forbidding him more than one wife.
100–1 BC
11 works
c. 100 BC
Hebrew
1QS
Anonymous
The constitution of the yahad: how a candidate is examined over two years, how property is merged, how the seating is ordered, and the penalties — a hundred days for slandering a companion, thirty for falling asleep in session, expulsion for pronouncing the Name. At its centre stand two spirits, of truth and of falsehood, set in every heart until the appointed end.
c. 100 BC; found first in Cairo in 1896
Hebrew
CD
Anonymous
A history of the sect — a plant root springing up three hundred and ninety years after the exile, groping like blind men until God raised a Teacher of Righteousness — followed by laws for members who marry, hold property, and live in camps in the towns.
c. 100 BC
Hebrew
Hodayot, 1QH
Anonymous
Some thirty psalms in the first person, each opening with thanks. The speaker is a creature of clay kneaded with water, a foundation of shame and a source of pollution, who has nonetheless been given knowledge of mysteries — and who describes himself in one hymn as a woman in labour bringing forth a wonderful counsellor.
c. 100 BC
Hebrew
4QShirShabb
Anonymous
Thirteen songs for the first thirteen sabbaths of the year, describing the worship of the angelic priesthood in a heavenly sanctuary — seven chief princes, seven blessings, and the bricks of the wall and the chariot-throne itself joining in the praise.
c. 100 BC
Aramaic
1QapGen
Anonymous
Genesis retold in the first person by Lamech, Noah, and Abraham. Lamech suspects his wife of conceiving by a watcher and she swears she did not; Abraham dreams of a cedar and a palm; and the courtiers of Pharaoh describe Sarah's beauty from the hair of her head to her hands.
c. 100 BC; survives in fragments
Aramaic
Anonymous
The giants born to the watchers dream of a tablet washed clean and a garden of trees uprooted, and send one of their number to Enoch in paradise to have the dreams read. He returns with the answer that they are all to be destroyed.
c. 100 BC
Hebrew
11QMelch
Anonymous
A reading of the jubilee release in Leviticus as the final release at the end of the tenth jubilee, when Melchizedek — a heavenly figure, not a Canaanite king — will proclaim liberty, execute judgement among the gods, and atone for the sons of light.
c. 100 BC
Hebrew
1QSa
Anonymous
Two columns setting out how Israel is to be ordered in the last days — the ages at which a man may marry, testify, and hold office — closing with the seating at the messianic banquet, where the priest blesses the bread and wine first and the Messiah of Israel reaches out after him.
c. 75–50 BC
Hebrew
1QpHab
Anonymous
Habakkuk read clause by clause as a coded prophecy of the writer's own generation. The Chaldeans are the Kittim, Rome; the wicked priest is a named contemporary; and God told Habakkuk to write but did not tell him when the end would come — that was revealed only to the Teacher of Righteousness.
c. 75–50 BC
Hebrew
1QM
Anonymous
A forty-year campaign of the sons of light against the sons of darkness, laid out like a manual: the wording on each trumpet and banner, the dimensions of the shields, the ages of the cavalry, and the priests who must not enter the killing so as not to be defiled — with the outcome decided seven times, three to each side and the last by God's own hand.
c. 50–1 BC
Aramaic
4Q246
Anonymous
Two damaged columns in which a figure before a king is said to be called great, to be named Son of God and Son of the Most High, and whose kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom. Whether the figure is a messiah or a blasphemous usurper is unresolvable from what survives.
14 of 1774 works