BIBLE HISTORY DAILY: First Person: Was the Dead Sea Scroll Community Celibate? Biblical Archaeology Review editor Hershel Shanks comments on an article on the Qumran community by Devorah Dimant in the current issue of BAR.
Yes, this is a good question, the answer to which is not at all clear to me. And yes, research on the Qumran sectarians is "unsettled." I think we know less about them now than scholars thought they did a generation or two ago. Paradoxically, I also think that is progress.
I have collected some past posts on the subject of the Qumran sectarians here.
