THERE'S A VIDEO that goes with yesterday's New York Times article on the Dead Sea Scrolls. It's titled "A New Dead Sea Challenge" and is narrated by science reporter John Noble Wilford. It raises some of the main issues that have been advanced to challenge the Essene hypothesis. One small correction: it was Eliezer Sukenik who first advanced the Essene hypothesis, not Roland de Vaux.

(Heads up, reader Andrew Blumberg.)