The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Jewish Apocryphal Literature

The Discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls sheds fresh light on some of the previously known writings composed during the Second Temple period, such as 1 Enoch and Jubilees. But above all it yields a host of new, previously unknown apocryphal works, both in Hebrew and in Aramaic. These additions to the Jewish literature of that era completely reshapes our understanding of the character and provenance of various items from this ancient literature. This fresh understanding suggests new directions for further research and study of the corpus designated Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, as well as its interpretation of the Hebrew Bible and connectsions to the early midrash.