Who Were the Essenes, the Original Collectors of the Dead Sea Scrolls?

Who Were the Essenes, the Original Collectors of the Dead Sea Scrolls?

Few discoveries can complete with Dead Sea Scrolls as the most important in the history of biblical archaeology. While it cannot be proven, most scholars credit the collection and, possibly, the creation of these scrolls to a small, somewhat obscure and radical Jewish religious sect that inhabited Qumran, the settlement near where the scrolls were discovered. Members of this unique group are called the Essenes. Who were these people?    Some Rev…