RACHEL ELIOR'S THEORY that the Essenes had nothing to do with the Dead Sea Scrolls, and in fact never existed, has caught the full attention of the media and is now being covered in numerous articles. The one from the London Times seems to merit the most comment, by way of having the most muddled coverage.

Scholars in uproar over challenge to Dead Sea Scrolls

James Hider in Jerusalem

For more than 60 years scholars have believed that the Dead Sea Scrolls were the work of an ascetic Jewish sect called the Essenes, who lived in the 1st century in the mountains and recorded their religious observances on parchments.

Now a new theory challenging the broadly accepted history is sending shockwaves through the archaeological community, even leading to the arrest of one prominent scrolls scholar’s son in the United States.

That's pretty misleading. First, I've not seen all that much scholarly reaction to her theory so far, perhaps because most of us are waiting until we actually read her new book when it comes out. True, it seems to be sending shock waves through the media. But let's not confuse the two please. In due course scholars (mostly philologists and historians, although some archaeologists too) will digest her argument and respond to it in critical reviews, articles, etc. By then the press will have mostly forgotten about the whole thing.

As for Golb's theory, it's been around for decades and has yet to pick up a scholarly following. Hence the sock puppetry defense of it that led to the current scandal. Elior's theory is related to Golb's, but Golb never claimed that the Essenes didn't exist, so it's not the same.

Rachel Elior, a professor of Jewish philosophy at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, claims in a forthcoming study that not only were the 930 scrolls written by Jewish priests living in Jerusalem but that the Essenes as a sect did not exist.

In her new book Memory and Oblivion, Professor Elior says that the scrolls were written by the Sadducees, a class of Jewish priests dating back to the time of King Solomon.

The scrolls were found by a shepherd in a cave at Qumran, on the edge of the Dead Sea, in 1947. One of the most important archaeological finds of the century, their significance was enhanced by the discovery of an untouched version of the Hebrew Bible dating back to 300BC.

[...]

Oh, if only! Sorry, no "untouched" (what does that mean?) Hebrew Bible from 300 BCE. Instead, many manuscripts of individual books of the Hebrew Bible. These, alas, were very much touched by two thousand years of lying around in caves, being eaten by worms, being made into rats' nests, etc. Most of them are just a handful of fragments, although the information they give us about the ancient text of the Hebrew Bible is very precious. They date from the third century BCE (very few of those) to the first century CE. I know of none dated to as early as 300 BCE.

The rest of the article looks okay, although it's very odd that there's no mention of Larry Schiffman, whose theory that the Qumran sectarians were an apocalyptic offshoot of the Sadducees also has a good bit of overlap with what Elior seems to be arguing. Although, again, Schiffman has not argued that the Essenes never existed.

There's better coverage by the AP in "Theory combats accepted wisdom on Dead Sea Scrolls" and Arutz Sheva in "Scholar Blows Up Theory on Dead Sea Scroll Authors."

Background here.

UPDATE: Douglas Mangum summarizes and adds to the current discussion in the Biblio-blogosphere at the Biblia Hebraica blog.