Les manuscrits de la mer Morte : une nouvelle approche du problème de leur origine

Résumé En

The Dead Sea Scrolls. The Problem of their Origin : a New Approach The present article is a critique of the famous hypothesis that the Dead Sea Scrolls emanated from a sect (for most writers, the Essenes) inhabiting the Khirbet Qumran site lying below the caves where the scrolls were found. The author reexamines the "Qumran-Essene" hypothesis in the light of many manuscript and archeological disco- veries made in the Judaean wilderness since the initial discovery (1947) of seven Hebrew scrolls in the caves. The author exposes various anomalies in the hypothesis and shows why he now finds it necessary to reject it in favor of another : that the scrolls all originated in Jerusalem, being hidden by the Jews before and/or during the Roman siege on the capital (67-70 A.D.). The author also considers the question of the dependance of the old hypothesis on the specific chronological sequence in which the discoveries were made, claiming that a different sequence would have resulted in the widespread formulation of the Jerusalem hypothesis.