Were There Women at Qumran?

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Qumran is widely believed to have been an Essene settlement. But how does this identification square with the role of women in the Jewish sect as described in the Dead Sea Scrolls, which likely originated in this supposedly celibate community?

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Endnotes

1.
See Eileen M. Schuller, “Women in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in Michael O. Wise, Norman Golb, John J. Collins, and Dennis Pardee, eds., Methods of Investigation of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Khirbet Qumran Site, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 722 (New York: New York Academy of Sciences, 1994), pp. 115-132.

2.
See Jodi Magness, Debating Qumran: Collected Essays on Its Archaeology (Leuven: Peeters, 2004), pp. 113-150.

3.
Some excavated graves in the South Cemetery, located across the wadi from the main cemetery, are most likely later burials by other groups, such as passing Bedouin.

4.
Jodi Magness, “The Connection Between the Site of Qumran and the Scroll Caves in Light of the Ceramic Evidence,” in Marcello Fidanzio, ed., The Caves of Qumran: Proceedings of the International Conference, Lugano 2014, Studies on the Texts of the Desert of Judah 118 (Leiden: Brill, 2017), pp. 184-193.