Dead Sea towns around the lake. These towns had drinking water from the Ein Feshcha springs and other sweetwater springs in the vicinity. Intimately connected with the Judean wilderness to its northwest and west, the Dead Sea was a place of escape and refuge. The remoteness of the region attracted Greek Orthodox monks since the Byzantine era. Their monasteries, such as Saint George in Wadi Kelt and Mar Saba in the Judaean Desert, are places of pilgrimage. In the 19th century the River Jordan and the Dead Sea were explored by boat primarily by Christopher Costigan in 1835, Thomas Howard Molyneux in
The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception misinformed statements". The book makes a number of incorrect claims and has been ridiculed by scholars who have worked with the Dead Sea scrolls and who have come to the conclusion that Jesus and early Christianity are very different from the ideas and people represented in the Dead Sea scrolls. The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception (1991, ) is a book by authors Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh. Rejecting the established, scholarly consensus that the Dead Sea scrolls were the work of a marginal Jewish apocalyptic movement, and following primarily the thesis of Robert Eisenman, the