Qumran: What was the Nature of the Settlement?

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To Dead Sea Scrolls――the fascinating manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible, its commentaries,and sectarian doctrines――were found in the caves near Qumran. The site, overlooking the Dead Sea,had a settlement that has been the focal point of controversy. What was the function(s) of the settlement? Various opinions have been proposed for this question. De Vaux (1973), the excavator of Qumran, thinks that the site was an isolated religious community of the Essenes. A military post,or fortress was suggested by Golb (1994). Crown & Cansdale favor the idea of a commercial entrepot (1994). ln this paper, several discussions are presented in order to determine which function(s) the settlement had. First, we attempt to define the Essenes to test the feasibility of Qumran――Essene connection; second, provided that the scrolls came from the settlement, we will review the question of who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls; third, we will discuss the evidence of the archaeological excavation to examine whether that evidence supports any of the three functions.

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