These are ancient writings, on scrolls, found by an Arab boy in 1947 in caves near the Dead Sea. It is not known for certain who wrote them, when, and where. The Jewish community that used these writings was situated in the forbidding ravine of Qumran at the northern end of the Dead Sea.¹

1. The Dead Sea Scriptures. Doubleday, 1976. Introduction, pages 1-3.