The Dead Sea Scrolls:
Dating the Scrolls
"In 1947 Jum'a, a shepherd of the Ta'amireh tribe of the nomadic Bedouins, discovered ancient scrolls rolled up in leather and cloth in a cave to the northwest of the Dead Sea in the Qumran Valley. A remarkable archaeological find, the scrolls formed the first part of a collection of Hebrew and Aramaic manuscripts that were discovered in quick succession after Jum'a's original find. These ancient texts, which include the Book of Isaiah in its entirety and fragments from all other books of the Old Testament except for the Book of Esther, turned out to be more than 1000 years older than any other known Hebrew texts."
- Douglas Burrows/Liaison International, Encarta Concise Encyclopedia
"The Carbon 14 dating has pretty much settled the matter of the dating of the scrolls [to the 1st and 2nd century B.C.E.]. Also texts such as the Nuchem Pesher has names of historical figures which date it in the 2nd century B.C.E."
The Dead Sea Scrolls "reflect quite well the social situation and the tension between the Qumran community [more properly the Yahad which did not reside at Qumran] and the corrupt priesthood."
- Moshe Shulman
http://www.mystae.com/restricted/reflections/messiah/deadsea.html