ABSTRACT
We do not know what became of the Essenes; but we do know a good deal more now—since the discovery of the Dead Sea library—about what had been happening to them, how they lived and what they believed. It ought to be said at this point that the evidence of the ancient coins —which seems to show that the occupancy of the sect, preceded no doubt by their presence in the region, must have extended from about the last third of the second pre-Christian century (with a thirty-year interruption) at least to 68 a.d., the eve of the victory of the Romans—appears definitely to settle, in a general way, the dating of the manuscripts, about which, before the excavation of the ruin, there had been much rather violent controversy. We can form no idea, of course, except from internal evidence, as to when the works copied were written, but it seems clear that the copies could not have been made any later than the descent of the Romans, at which moment the manuscripts were hidden in caves—like the one which de Vaux risked his neck to reach—that were as hard to get at as possible. This fits in with the date assigned by Albright, who, arguing from the palaeographical evidence, immediately put the Isaiah scroll at about 100 b.c.; with the conclusions of the pottery experts, who said that the jars were pre-Herodian and dated them not later than the end of the last century b.c.; and with radio-carbon tests, 166which, applied to the linen wrappings, gave a range of possibility between 168 b.c. and 233 a.d.
