The Groningen Hypothesis Revisited

Thanks to the completion and publication of the Discoveries in the Judean Desert (DJD) series, we now have some idea of the extent of the material preserved, and we are no longer dependent on the relatively quick publication of the best-preserved manuscripts from Cave 1. The most interesting result of the publication is the change that has come about in the relative proportions of the categories of manuscripts which form the collection, specifically the relative proportions of biblical, parabiblical, and sectarian manuscripts, and the increased importance of non-sectarian parabiblical material as compared with the other two categories. Without exaggerating, we can now say that the non-sectarian parabiblical material constitutes the majority of the collection, outweighing the biblical and sectarian manuscripts combined.
With this new, broad understanding of the collection in mind, this paper will take a critical look at the basic elements of the “Groningen Hypothesis,” in order to test its validity as an all-encompassing explanation of the Dead Sea Scroll findings.