Quote:The Essenes the Jewish sect who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls
That idea has taken a lot of hits lately.
http://www.thenazareneway.com/dds_not_essene_text.htm
Quote:In view of this and other rising opposition to this theory, it can no longer be stated with certitude that the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls were Essenes. This is now the most prevalent view among scholars (Golb 1995; Hirschfeld 2004; Magen and Peleg 2006; cf. Abegg et al 2002).