Description
Book SynopsisInvestigates the rhetorical strategies used by the Essenes in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Illustrates strategies based on identification, dissociation, entitlement, and interpretation in response to evolving historical contexts.
Trade Review“This is an intriguing study by a non-specialist in the field that will be profitable for students of the Scrolls interested in the role of rhetoric.”
—Daniel M. Gurtner Religious Studies Review
“Religious historians looking for examples of rhetorical case studies on ancient Jewish texts and rhetoricians looking for an introduction to the Dead Sea Scrolls will find this a valuable book.”
—Robert M Royalty, Jr. Rhetorica
“Bruce McComiskey is the first in rhetorical studies to conduct a systematic reading of seven Dead Sea Scrolls manuscripts, examining how identification, distinction, persuasion, performative strategies, dissociation, and ideas about material rhetorics are present and enacted through these manuscripts. In doing so, he makes an important case for the rhetorical significance of the Dead Sea Scrolls as well as the methodological utility of a hermeneutics/rhetoric approach for reading these texts.”
—Jim Ridolfo,author of Digital Samaritans: Rhetorical Delivery and Engagement in the Digital Humanities
