Qumran: miasto esseńczyków

Abstract

The article is devoted to the issue of a function of the Qumran settlement and its connection with the scrolls that were discovered in the caves. It attempts to answer the question whether, in the light of current archeological and literary knowledge, the hypothesis that Qumran was the settlement of the Essenes where the scrolls were written and copied, can be sustained. It re-examines the most relevant data. Apart from other things, it relates to theses on the stratification of the settlement put forward by J.-B. Humbert and J. Magness. Consequently, it confirms that the Qumran-hypothesis of R. de Vaux is still valid, however, in some aspects it should be corrected. In the conclusion, the author emphasizes the importance of some theses proposed by Humbert. He underlines that although the scrolls undoubtedly belonged to the Essenes their Jerusalem origin seems more probable than Qumran.