Scholar Claims Dead Sea Scrolls 'Authors' Never Existed

From the We'll-Likely-Never-Know Department:  "[A] prominent Israeli scholar, Rachel Elior, disputes that the Essenes ever existed at all - a claim that has shaken the bedrock of biblical scholarship. Elior, who teaches Jewish mysticism at Jerusalem's Hebrew University, claims that the Essenes were a fabrication by the 1st century A.D. Jewish-Roman historian Flavius Josephus and that his faulty reporting was passed on as fact throughout the centuries. [¶ ¶]  Elior claims says these ancient historians, namely Philo and Pliny the Elder, either borrowed from each other or retailed second-hand stories as fact."

From Tim McGirk, Scholar Claims Dead Sea Scrolls 'Authors' Never Existed, TIME.com, March 16, 2009.