to entirely new stories. It relies on one or several texts. Examples in this category are the Words of Moses (1Q22), the New Jerusalem texts (4Q554-5, 5Q15, etc.) and the prayer of Nabonidus (4Q242) inspired by Genesis, Deuteronomy, Ezekiel and Daniel respectively.
             The fourth category and the one to which the Habbakuk commentary belongs, applies prophetic texts to the past, present and the future of the Qumran sect. Normally the commentator expounds a Biblical book verse by verse, for example the Habbakuk commentary, Isaiah (4Q161-4) and Nahum (4Q169), etc. Some works however, such as The Heavenly Prince Melchizedek (11Q13), follow the traditional Jewish example and assemble passages from different parts of Scripture in order to develop a common theme.
             Finally there is a substantial amount of free composition that is modeled on the Bible, such as Enoch and the Giants (4Q201-12, 530-33).
             In 1995, scientists used the Accelerator Facility for Radioisotope Analysis at Arizona University to establish the age of the scrolls. A 'tandem accelerator mass spectrometer, the first of its kind dedicated exclusively to radiocarbon dating,' placed the origin of the scrolls as before the birth of Jesus. This finding is of interest to Biblical scholars, since there has been marked disagreement about the age of the scrolls, with some scholars dating them as recently as the Middle Ages. For the first time it became apparent that the scrolls were written by some of the same people who founded Christianity .
             The Habbakuk Pesher is found in one of these scrolls; the date determined for it is between 104 - 5 B.c.e.. It's important to recognize that radiocarbon dating is not exact, and this figure may be off by as much as 200 years . However, the Carbon dating is backed up by Palaeographical dating which places the manuscript at between 30-1 B.c.e. So, it seems clear that the scrolls are ancient writings, pre-dating the foundin...