"It's impossible to say that the people who lived at Qumran were poor," said Peleg. "It is also impossible that de Vaux did not see the finds we saw. He simply ignored what didn't suit him."I've read about this before. The so-called scribal room of the supposed Essenes (an obscure sect reported by Josephus I think it was -- and by no one else) turned out to be the dining room of the ancient analogue to a resort hotel overlooking the Dead Sea. The hotel (and brothel) thrived from the salt trade, which existed as long ago as Sodom and Gomorrah. The scrolls, along with sacramental items from the Temple, were hidden by Temple personnel prior to its destruction, and were not recovered because those who did the hiding died. The Copper Scroll contains mostly obscure descriptions (landmarks such as trees which no longer exist; names of this or that person's well; etc) of the hiding places, but the Copper Scroll itself was never recovered in ancient times. 's fascinating.
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Given the nature of the ruins, I think it is difficult to ascertain with any degree of certitude what these structures were used for. We can only make assumptions.
What complicates the whole picture is an apparent conflict of interpretation between Jewish scholars and some Catholic scholars regarding the implications of these findings, which each group tending to view the material from their own perspective.
The real truth may lie somewhere in between or be something entirely different.
FGS