Was Qumran Abandoned at the End of the First Century BCE?

Abstract

The chronology and development of Qumran in Period I have been the subject of much debate. One of the most influential hypotheses to emerge is Jodi Magness's revision of Roland de Vaux's chronology. In this paper, we revisit a key point of Magness's chronology, namely, her suggestion that Qumran was destroyed and abandoned around 9/8 BCE and reinhabited ca. 4/1 BCE. Our analysis of the published evidence indicates that this conclusion can no longer be supported. Instead, we propose collapsing Periods I and II into one long phase of occupation with various architectural subphases.