Welcome to FR.
Thank you.
I forgot to say one basic thing:
None of the key Israeli archaeologists of the past decade who have investigated the two stages of Qumran construction (Hirschfeld, Magen, Peleg) have concluded or suggested that in the second stage any kind of sect, let alone “pious monks,” lived there or wrote scrolls there. Probably due to no fault of her own, Ms. Whipps fails to mention this crucial fact in her article.