This is the name popularly used for a group of manuscripts found in the general area of Khirbet Qumran, a site along the shores of the Dead Sea, starting in 1947. Justly described as the greatest manuscript find in history, this collection of biblical manuscripts and other writings seems to have belonged to a group of ascetic Jews who retreated to this desert locale perhaps in the second century b.c.e. and who continued to exist there until 68 c.e. The group may be identified with the Essenes, a religious sect described by Philo of Alexandria, Pliny the Elder, and Josephus; these Essenes may in turn be the same sect as the “Boethusians” known from rabbinic literature. The Dead Sea Scrolls have provided a wealth of information about the history and development of the biblical text itself, about first-century Judaism and the roots of Christianity, and about biblical interpretation as it existed just before and after the start of the c.e.