Page "Essenes" Paragraph 13

Golb argues that the primary research on the Qumran documents and ruins ( by Father Roland de Vaux, from the École Biblique et Archéologique de Jérusalem ) lacked scientific method, and drew wrong conclusions that comfortably entered the academic canon.

For Golb, the amount of documents is too extensive and includes many different writing styles and calligraphies ; the ruins seem to have been a fortress, used as a military base for a very long period of timeincluding the 1st centuryso they could not have been inhabited by the Essenes ; and the large graveyard excavated in 1870, just 50 metres east of the Qumran ruins was made of over 1200 tombs that included many women and childrenPliny clearly wrote that the Essenes that lived near the Dead Sea " had not one woman, had renounced all pleasure ... and no one was born in their race ".

Golb's book presents observations about de Vaux's premature conclusions and their uncontroverted acceptance by the general academic community.

He states that the documents probably stemmed from various libraries in Jerusalem, kept safe in the desert from the Roman invasions.