© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���6 | doi �0.��63/�5685�79-� �34�404 Dead Sea Discoveries 23 (2016) 267–279 brill.com/dsd New Perspectives on the Significance of the Scrolls for the New Testament and Early Christian Literature George J. Brooke University of Manchester george.brooke@manchester.ac.uk Abstract This article places the contributions of the thematic volume in the larger research con- text where the Dead Sea Scrolls and early Christian source texts have been juxtaposed and compared with each other. Whereas earlier scholarship was keen on identifying direct links and dependencies or, alternatively, underlining dissimilarities between the Scrolls’ Judaean priestly movement and the Galilean non-elite Jesus movement and its diaspora follow-up, this thematic volume represents more nuanced attempts to con- textualise the similarities and differences in appropriate ways and find new ways of thinking that illuminate both textual corpora. Keywords Dead Sea Scrolls – New Testament – early Christian literature – historical Jesus – gospels – textual transmission – creation tradition – expectation of end – mystery – initiation – purity The focus of this theme issue of Dead Sea Discoveries is well chosen and timely. With some notable exceptions, for some time the pendulum of New Testament scholarship has swung away from attention to the Jewish context of much early Christian expression towards more detailed consideration of Greco-Roman materials and the Roman imperial context in which the New Testament texts sprang up. However, the assumed dichotomy between Judaism and Hellenistic or Greco-Roman culture is a division that holds little water nowadays. On both sides it can be seen that whilst there are indeed some distinctive features of