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The Heather Whipps article entirely misinforms the public.

Schniedewind and his UCLA colleagues have lifted the identification of Qumran as a fortress from work by a series of scholars and presented it as their own discovery, without informing the public of why they are doing this.

(1) Dr. Yizhar Hirschfeld’s book Qumran in Context (2004) explains at length that the site was originally a fortress (see especially Chapter 3, pp. 49-182). The book provides two technically correct, original drawings of the tower and rectangular building attached to it, first as they existed during the Hasmonean period (p. 86) and then with a new extension of the Herodian period (p. 113).

Note that Hirschfeld, a professional archaeologist, did not need to use “virtual 3-D reconstruction” to do his work and reveal that Qumran was built as a fortress.

(2) The leaders of the official Israel Antiquities Authority Qumran team, Dr. Yitzhak Magen and Dr. Yuval Peleg, also clearly state that Qumran was a Hasmonean “military post responsible for the security of the Dead Sea shore” (See their report in The Site of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Archaeological Interpretations and Debates [Brill, 1996], pp. 102 ff.).

(3) Dr. Norman Golb of the University of Chicago has been arguing that Qumran was a fortress since at least 1980.

So I ask: why are these traditional Dead Sea Scrolls scholars at UCLA stepping in now and trying to steal the credit due to their opponents, who have refuted fifty years of research?

Schniedewind’s “virtual reality” film, and his sensationalist press campaign surrounding it, should be seen in context. Apparently this scholar has decided to rehash the findings of several prominent Israeli archaeologists and present it in the form of “evidence” found by himself, without explaining that his true aim is to reconcile those findings with the Qumran-Essene theory that these same Israeli archaeologists, following Golb, have rejected.

For the background to this sensationalist campaign, see my pieces http://www.nowpublic.com/dead_sea_scrolls_exhibit_misleads_public
and
http://www.nowpublic.com/dead_sea_scrolls_san_diego_natural_history_museum_update
and the references provided in them.