Scholars in uproar over challenge to Dead Sea Scrolls

The scrolls were found by a shepherd in a cave at Qumran, on the edge of the Dead Sea, in 1947. One of the most important archaeological finds of the century, their significance was enhanced by the discovery of an untouched version of the Hebrew Bible dating back to 300BC.

Professor Elior says that the scrolls were written by the Sadducees, a class of Jewish priests dating back to the time of King Solomon.That an analysis of the scrolls shows that the authors were recording the routines and practises of the cohanim, or priests, descended from Zadok, the first high priest in Jerusalem after the conquest of the city by the Israelites hundreds of years before. She believes they were taken to Qumran some time during the 2nd century BC after the Sadducees turned their backs on the Temple of Jerusalem, which they said had been defiled by the conquest of the Seleucid Greeks, the descendants of one of the generals of Alexander the Great, in 175BC.

The confusion arose from scholars using other, later texts as their sources, she said, noting that the Jewish-Roman scholar Josephus mentioned them, but that he was writing hundreds of years later. The professor also noted that when the texts were unearthed in 1947, the area around Jerusalem was caught up in the war that created the Jewish state, and that early hurried assessment of their origin set scholars on the wrong track for decades. The theory has stirred controversy in academic circles, with established scrolls experts vehemently rejecting the new interpretation.

The debate has even led to the arrest of the son of one proponent of the theory that the Essenes did not write the ancient scriptures. Raphael Golb, the son of Norman Golb, a professor at Chicago University, was arrested in New York this month for allegedly creating online aliases and conducting a campaign of harassment against academic opponents of his father’s theories. Father and son claimed that members of mainstream academia were trying to silence the professor. The younger Mr Golb reportedly accused his father’s critics of being anti-Semites trying to deny the link between the scrolls and established Jewish institutions.

Monastic mystery

— The Essenes are believed to have been a religious sect in Palestine from about the 2nd century BC to the end of the 1st century AD

— The New Testament makes no mention of them, and accounts by Pliny the Elder, Philo of Alexandria and Josephus differ in significant details

— Pliny, in his day, fixed their number at 4,000. They are thought to have moved to the desert in opposition to the powers in Jerusalem and lived in secluded monastic communities

— It is believed that they considered themselves to be a chosen elect and that messianic figures would appear to them and usher in a new age, and that they spent their days engaged in manual work or study of Scripture

— After a year’s probation, converts received emblems but were banned from common meals for two years

— Those who qualified then swore piety to God, justice towards men, hatred of falsehood and faithful observance of the tenets