If so, let me suggest, Stephen, that a history of scholarship is best written by one who is not an active partisan. This quote comes from the official web site of the Ultimate Draft Writers' Consortium, a group of extraordinarily talented writers of whom I am priveleged to be a member. Like myself, she has a high genius IQ, but her focus is in the creative arts, while I have channeled most of my energies into historical investigations. It is quite true that I have made a special study of the methodology of fictional detectives, which I consider to be scientific method raised to an art form. Among other things, both science and detective fiction teach you what a real, fully tested solution looks like.
Mysteries actually provide a bonus in also showing what the wrong solution looks like.
The case is prematurely closed. Evidence that doesn't fit in with the theory is downplayed or ignored. Some of us sweep such inconvenient, discordant data under the paradigmatic rug while others are at work rethinking the evidence and arriving at a solution that accomodates all the data. As for the last five decades of scholarship, there is no denying that there have been many major and respectable contributions. It's just that uncovering the historical background of the scrolls is not among them.