Writer revolutionary effect are Nicolaus Copernicus, who wrote "De revolutionibus orbium coelestium" (1543); Charles Darwin, who wrote "On the Origin of Species" (1859); and Sigmund Freud, who wrote "The Interpretation of Dreams" (1899). These three highly influential, and initially very controversial, works changed the way people understood their place in the world. Copernicus's heliocentric view of the cosmos displaced humans from their previously accepted place at the centre of the universe; Darwin's evolutionary theory placed humans firmly within, as opposed to above, the order of nature; and Freud's ideas about the power of the unconscious mind overcame the belief that humans
Who Wrote The Dead Sea Scrolls? us much more than just a fresh and convincing interpretation of the origin and significance of the Qumran Scrolls. His book is also — among other things — a fascinating case-study of how an "idee fixe", for which there is no real historical justification, has for over 40 years dominated an elite coterie of scholars controlling the Scrolls, who have not only sought to restrict access to those who are prepared to toe their party-line, but have abused and rubbished those 'heretics' who have attempted to place a different interpretation on them." The Publisher Weekly, refers to this book as