The Community of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Introduction

This article is intended to provide an introduction to the essays included in this special issue of Dead Sea Discoveries on the theme of the community of the Dead Sea Scrolls and to offer an assessment of some of the issues that they raise. Support is offered for the view that the S tradition was not intended for a single group, and that the yahad was not confined to Qumran, and it is argued that the communal organization of the Dead Sea Scrolls movement was more flexible and more complex than is sometimes imagined.