Nadene Goldfoot
Judea's history of the close of the 2nd Temple Period and the Romans also includes the Essenes, a group of a sect of Jews less mentioned..
The first reference to the sect is by the Roman writer Pliny the Elder (died c. 79 CE) in his Natural History. Pliny relates in a few lines that the Essenes possess no money, had existed for thousands of generations, and that their priestly class do not marry. Pliny places them somewhere above Ein Gedi, next to the Dead Sea.
Pliny, also a geographer, located them in the desert near the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered. These scrolls were found in 1947 by a young shepherd in a cave in the area, possibly looking for a lost lamb. They were in the area of Khirbet Kumran, 7.5 miles from Jericho, later called Qumran, on the NW shore of the Dead Sea. Excavations have gone on since 1949. Wadi Qumran held many of the first scrolls found. This would be in Judah which was a part of Jordan from 1948 to 1967.
Philo did not mention any particular geographical location of the Essenes other than the whole land of Israel, In the time of Philo, the Essenes numbered about 4,000 and lived in several towns and villages.
Josephus later gave a detailed account of the Essenes in The Jewish War (c. 75 CE), with a shorter description in Antiquities of the Jews (c. 94 CE) and The Life of Flavius Josephus (c. 97 CE).
Claiming first hand knowledge, Josephus lists the Essenoi as one of the three sects of Jewish philosophy alongside the Pharisees and the Sadducees. He relates the same information concerning piety, celibacy, the absence of personal property and of money, the belief in communality, and commitment to a strict observance of Sabbath.
He further adds that the Essenes ritually immersed in water every morning, ate together after prayer, devoted themselves to charity and benevolence, forbade the expression of anger, studied the books of the elders, preserved secrets, and were very mindful of the names of the angels kept in their sacred writings.
News of the Essenes stopped after the destruction of the 2nd temple in 586 BCE by the Babylonians. 1947's discovery of the scrolls has awakened a lot of interest in the scrolls themselves.
Archeologists later discovered a cemetery of over 1,000 graves, a central building and central caves containing fragments of old documents. Coins found on the site showed it to have been lived in from the time of John Hyrcanus, the son and successor of Simon the Hasmonean who ruled from 135 to 104 BCE. Hyrcanus was the governor of Gezer, but after the murder of his father and 2 brothers by his brother-in-law, Ptolemy, escaped to Jerusalem, where he seized power before Ptolemy could gain control. The Hasmoneans were a priestly family of Cohens founded by Mattathias of Modiin. It was Matathias and his 5 sons, Judah the Maccabee, Jonathan, Simon, John and Eleazar who led the fight against the Greek Syrians' sent by King Antiochus Epiphanes from 166-164 BCE. Jews celebrate Chanukah to remember this fight that caused the religion of Judaism to continue by putting an end to the Greek occupancy and takeover of the Temple. The Feast of Lights holiday with its 8 branched menorah remembers the renewing of the Eternal Light that hung in the Temple.
There is evidence of an earlier period of occupancy. It was apparently destroyed by an earthquake in 31 BCE and rebuilt not long thereafter. The Essenes lived there until 68 CE. This is important to know as Jerusalem and the Temple were burned down by the Romans in 70 CE.
Both the contents of the scrolls and the archeological findings show that these people belonged to a Jewish sect. They found 2 complete copies of Isaiah, the prophet in Jerusalem (740-701 BCE) and fragments of nearly every other book of the Bible. Generally speaking, the scrolls justify a conservative approach for biblical study with the exception of a fragment from the Book of Samuel which resembles the version known to the Greek translators. Fragments were found of the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha (noncanonical Jewish literature written during the period of the 2nd Temple and for some time after its destruction until 132-135 CE of Bar Kokhba's revolt, ) and other books unknown as well as of familiar works like the Book of Tobit, part of the Apocrypha that includes a story about a Sarah who had been married 7 times, and the Hebrew version of Jubilees, a pseudepigraphical work of the history of mankind related by an angel to Moses on Mt Sinai, and the Aramaic version of the Book of Enoch, also from the apocryphal work. .
Sectarian books were found like a commentary on the Book of Habakkuk, and part of a commentary on the Books of Micah, Nahum and others. These commentaries explain the prophetic writings in relation to the history of the sect.
Another scroll includes the plan of the struggle of THE SONS OF LIGHT (members of the sect) against THE SONS OF DARKNESS, which was to begin with the conquest of Judah and would end 40 years later with the conquest of the whole world. This was figured to happen in about 50-60 CE.
The Scroll of Thanksgiving comprises religious hymns which develop in poetic fashion the sect's theological doctrines. One scroll deals with the sect's organization and teachings: In addition there are pieces from the Zadokite Documents-like from the Cairo genizah.
The Copper Scroll describes hidden treasure and the Temple Scroll contains a minute description of the Temple.
Christians were excited by the find, hoping to find more proof of Jesus. The initial excitement was the hope that this community, contemporary with the ministry of Jesus, would have some record of him (and fill in those “lost years of Jesus”). But there is no mention of Jesus, John the Baptist or anyone else associated with the Gospels. Information about the group of people living there took on a secret way of writing about themselves, using code names from biblical people and places in order to cover their tracks from the Romans, who would have killed them, claims Dr. Barbara Thiering, who wrote "Jesus and the Riddle of the Dead Sea Scrolls."
Another commentator, Rebecca Denova that said about a cleric, Mr. Bergsma, who made claims about Jesus sources. "None of the four Gospels were written by eyewitnesses, and the first, Mark, was written 40 years after the death of Jesus. Matthew and Luke (and some of John) began with Mark and edited and adapted it as different issues arose within their communities over time. We do not have “four independent sources for the ministry” as Mr. Bergsma claims, and thus his proof for historicity. He treats the Gospel narratives as the literal and historical teachings of Jesus. It would have been more historically legitimate to perhaps draw a direct line from Qumran to the evangelists.
Sadducees developed during the 2nd Temple period, developing possibly from thoughts of Zadok, the High Priest who served King David, whose descendants served until 162 BCE. They held that they were to be good in this world without expecting recompense in the world to come, without a resurrection or the immortality of the soul, nor did they believe in angels or spirits. They kept to Moses's written law but not the Oral law and had harsher punishments than the Pharisees. The Zadokite Fragments like the ones in Cairo contains a serman alluding to an emigration of the sect to the land of Damascus. PERHAPS THE SECT'S NAME FOR THIS WAS FOR AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT PLACE IN MIND AND A "NEW COVENANT" THERE."
Judaism was divided between the Sadducees and the Pharisees in observance and philosophy. The Essenes were more like the Pharisee position, yet they had their own specific beliefs and customs.
They had a dualistic outlook in that they believed a power of good ruling in the world but in opposition was the power of evil, and they saw themselves as the CHOSEN SONS OF LIGHT, elected by G-d. They believed in a Holy Spirit which had been granted to them, and with this power attained to a knowledge of DIVINE SECRETS and their apocalyptic circles, among whom THE BOOK OF ENOCH and similar works were composed, which probably influenced the beginnings of Christianity, especially the circles close to Paul and John the Evangelist.
They believed in the immortality of the soul
Reward and punishment
No physical resurrection.
Opposed slavery and private property, animal sacrifice at Temple, etc., bringing only oil and flour.
Novices wanting in the group had a 3 year initiation , then swore not to reveal the sect's secrets.
An all male fraternity, Living in an abstemious communal life. Before eating a meal, they immersed themselves in water.
They practiced celibacy. but fought against the Romans like other Judeans.
Some married for the perpetuation of mankind and their group, so had to leave to procreate and had differing rules about this: ie. every 7th year would visit the wife. These rules varied with each group.
Their occupation mainly was of farming. They had been farmers.
Resource:
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
https://www.post-gazette.com/ae/books/2019/10/18/John-Bergsma-Dead-Sea-Scrolls-Revealing-Jewish-Roots-Christianity-review/stories/201910200011#:~:text=The%20initial%20excitement%20was%20the,else%20associated%20with%20the%20Gospels.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qumran
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essenes
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