The "big picture" background here is that the scholarly consensus, established prematurely before all but the scrolls in the 1st cave were found, was that they belonged to an Essene "monastic" settlement at the ruins of Khirbet Qumran nearby. This has been challenged in a number of ways, yet the consensus of the local, Essene origin remains in tact. A Jerusalem origin hypothesis was developed principally by Norman Go…
Not a historian so I may be missing something, but how would one possibly differentiate between the origin being the Dead Sea or Jerusalem based on things like materials used? I mean, Jerusalem and the Dead Sea are less than 35km apart (according to google). Even thousands of years ago, it would have been a non-issue to transport materials or techniques between these two locations. I can't imagine that our knowledge…
Re: Dead Sea scrolls study raises new questions over texts' origins
#51I went on an archeological dig in the area in June (as a tourist) and can answer part of this. Part of the answer is writing materials; in Jerusalem a variety of different things were used to make the writing materials, whereas the Dead Sea region, used a specific type of charcoal that was significantly softer than the charcoal found in the Jerusalem region.