have a coffee

Blogs are a-buzzing with the latest theory on the origin of the Dead Sea Scrolls, recently published by Israeli scholars Itzhak Magen and Yuval Peleg. Rejecting de Vaux's idea of an Essene monastery, Magen and Peleg sea Qumran as a simple settlement of potters and perfume makers, which happened to be next to a couple of caves, where the Jews hid contemporary writings from the Roman onslaught in 70 CE. I wonder what the implications for Biblical interpretation might be, if the DSS are not originally the writings of some obscure sect, but might turn out to be rather normal, mainstream Jewish writings.