Since their discovery in caves in the Judean Desert by bedouin in the 1940s, the Dead Sea Scrolls have been the cause of much religious, scholarly and political controversy. In this book Neil Silberman, archaeologist and writer, explores the true significance of the scrolls, and the reasons for their suppression for 50 years, interpreting them as revolutionary writings of militant Jews under the oppressive rule of the Romans. Now available for international study for the first time, the scrolls will suggest new ways of thinking about the past and the present for Jews and Christians alike.