This is the true story of the Essenes

“The truth is the way of the righteous; the lie, the path of the spirits perverse.”
(Hodayot / 1QS: the ethics of truth and moral purity)

1. Primary sources

1.1. Ancient authors

1. Flavius Josephus (siglo I d.C.)
   • Mentioned in War of the Jews and Jewish Antiquities as one of the top three “philosophies” jewishalong with the pharisees and sadducees.
   • Highlights:
     • your community life, contempt for the riches, shared ownership;
     • your austerity, discipline, and ritual purity;
     • your belief in predestination and in the immortality of the soul;
     • its role in the war against Rome (some essenes were tortured for not renouncing their laws).
2. Philo of Alexandria (jewish hellenistic century I d.C.)
   • The flame Essaioi and speaking of more than four thousand essenes living in Palestine and Syria.
   • Highlights:
     • your pacifism relative, rejecting the manufacture of weapons;
     • your rigorous study of the Torah;
     • their rejection of the trade and the pursuit of profit;
     • your life in rural communities organized almost as monasteries.
3. Pliny the Elder (siglo I d.C.)
   • Places on the western coast of the Dead Sea, “above Engadí”, as a community without women, without money and with members that are renewed only by conversion.
   • This description fits geographically with Qumran, which feeds the identification essenes = community of the Dead Sea.

1.2. Dead Sea scrolls

• Discovered since 1947 in the caves of Qumrannext to the Dead Sea, more than 900 manuscripts and fragments.
• Include:
  • copies bible (nearly the whole of the Tanakh, the less Ester);
  • texts parabíblicos;
  • and text of a sectarian group: Rule of the Community (1QS), Document Damascus (CD), Rule of War (1QM), Hymns (Hodayot, 1QH), etc.
• These texts do not use the name “essene”, but “Yahad” (the Community), “children of the light”, “men of the council of the community”, “the members of the alliance”, etc

1.3. The question Qumran–Essenes (academic debate)

• Most specialists see a coincidence very strong between what they describe Josephus/Philo/Pliny and what you see in Qumran:
  • community life, shared assets;
  • rituals of purification through water;
  • separate calendar, apocalipticismo;
  • isolation in the desert.
• That's why the thesis dominant is that the community of Qumran was a branch of the movement essene.
• However, there is a open discussion:
  • Some argue that Qumran was not essene, but another group priestly (zadokita) or a specific stream within a larger movement.

Conclusion: in practical terms, when today we speak of “essenes”, almost always we are including both the broader movement described by Josephus/Philo/Pliny as the Dead Sea community/qumranita.

2. Historical origins and context

2.1. Basic chronology

• Source: probably in the century II.C., during the rule seleucid and the era of the dynasty asmonea (Maccabees).
• Foundation: many scholars link the origin:
  • rejection of the legitimacy of the high priesthood asmoneo, considered a usurper;
  • conflict with the group of the priests sadoquitas (Zadok) – of which the essenes would have been cleaved.
• Dissolution:
  • The community of Qumran was destroyed towards the 68-70 d.C. by the roman legions in the context of the First Jewish War;
  • after the fall of the Temple (70 ce.C.), the movement essene gradually disappears from the historical map.

2.2. The “Teacher of Righteousness”

• Various texts of Qumran speak of the “Teacher of Righteousness”, a foundational figure in which:
  • interprets the Torah in inspired form;
  • suffers persecution by the “Priest Wicked” (probably a high priest asmoneo);
  • it is presented as a charismatic leader, and referring doctrinal.
• Many people have identified this character as founder or re-founder of the group, and connect it with the excision of the essenes with respect to the Temple of Jerusalem.

3. Community organization and daily life

3.1. Location and number

• According to Philo, there were more than 4.000 essenes distributed in various cities and villages of Judea and Syria.
• Pliny locates a particular community in the area Dead Sea (Qumran)known for its radicalism.

3.2. Community and property

• Shared ownership: when you enter, the personal property is delivered to the community. There was No “poor” or “rich” within the group.
• Common box: the product of the work of all administered centrally and distributed according to the needs.
• Meals community:
  • were held in common, with a strong liturgical character;
  • the “Rule of the Community” described meals of bread and wine in a context of ritual purity, anticipating the food's messianic end times.

3.3. Internal structure

The texts of Qumran show an organization highly hierarchical:

• Community council: composed of priests and lay people, with authorities well-defined.
• Priests:
  • had priority in worship and meals;
  • they were considered the guardians of the correct interpretation of the Torah.
• Degrees and seniority:
  • The Community Rule set ranges; the place of assembly, and the precedence in decisions depended on the antiquity and sanctity.

3.4. Income, novitiate and discipline

• Income extremely regulated:
  • a candidate was examined during a year before being admitted to full;
  • then there were successive stages until you obtain full participation in the goods and in the sacred food.
• Strict discipline:
  • violations of the rules could involve expulsion to a temporary or definitive;
  • the expulsion was serious because the individual was without economic means (its assets were already in the community).

“Everything is decreed by the hand of God, and each one is assigned his portion in the truth or in wickedness.”
(Predestination essene according to Josephus and 1QS)

4. Theological beliefs and vision of the world

4.1. Theology of history and revelation

• Apocalipticismo: conceived the story as a great struggle between the light and the darknesswhere their community was the “remaining faithful” in covenant with God.
• Waiting for:
  • a impending judgment over Israel and the nations;
  • the intervention of God to destroy the wicked and exalts the “children of light”;
  • a final war described in the Rule of the War (1QM), where the community participates with the heavenly hosts.

4.2. Predestination and dualism

• Josephus points out that the essenes believed in a strong predestination, where everything happens in accordance with the decree of God; this is the difference of the pharisees and sadducees.
• The texts qumranitas speak of:
  • “spirit of truth” and “spirit of perverseness”;
  • God would have assigned to each person a portion in one spirit or the other, although there is space for the human response.

4.3. Eschatology and messianic

• Expected figures messianic:
  • in some texts referred to two Messiah: one priest (Aaron) and one real (of Israel or of David);
  • in others, a figure of the Teacher or leader eschatological.
• The community saw itself as the anticipation of Israel restored in the messianic era.

4.4. Ángelología and demonology

• Strong presence of angels as:
  • guardians of the community;
  • participants in the worship of heaven to which the group is joined in the liturgy.
• The Rule of the Community and the Hymns show a language where the earthly liturgy mimics the liturgy of the angels.

4.5. Anthropology and ethics

• The ideal essene combines:
  • humility, obedience, truthfulness, rejection of the lie, and patience in the tests;
  • radical rejection of injustice, of ritual impurity and moral.

5. Law, purity and calendar

5.1. Interpretation of the Law (Halachah sectarian)

• The essenes had a own interpretation of the Torahsometimes more stringent than the farisea:
  • regulations detailed on the Saturday (shabbat);
  • detailed rules on marriage, divorce, purity, sacrifices, calendar.
• Differences with the Temple official in Jerusalem:
  • criticized the way in which it handled the worship and the calendar of feasts;
  • they considered themselves the “true Israel” faithful to the covenant.

5.2. Ritual purity

• Obsession purity:
  • numerous mikvaot (ritual baths) in Qumran show that they performed daily dives;
  • the impurity was not only physical, but also moral and community.
• The community meal required a state of purity high, almost priestly.

5.3. Calendar

• They used a solar calendar of 364 daysother than the solar calendar used in Jerusalem.
• This involved:
  • different dates for Passover, Shavuot, Sukkot, and other parties;
  • strong conflict with the official practice of the Temple;
  • one of the reasons for the separation: for them, a calendar “wrong” contaminating the entire cult.

6. Practical life: asceticism, marriage, work

6.1. Asceticism and celibacy

• Pliny describes a community without women, which grew by conversion and not for reproduction.
• Josephus and Philo, however, mention variants within the movement:
  • some groups practiced celibacy almost total;
  • other supported marriage, but in a regulated manner.
• In Qumran archaeology is ambiguous: for a long time it was thought that it was a community exclusively male, but there are debates about whether there were women in the peripheral settlements.

6.2. Work, economy and way of life

• The essenes were working in manual trades: agriculture, handicraft, copying of manuscripts, etc
• Rejected:
  • the speculative trading and the accumulation of fortune;
  • the use of slaves (according to some passages of Philo).
• The style of life was frugal:
  • simple clothes;
  • diets moderate, often vegetarian or with heavy restrictions (although this is debated).

6.3. Worship and prayer

• Prayers asked, both communal and personal:
  • prayed at sunrise and sunsetcoordinating with the solar cycle;
  • Hymns (Hodayot) show the spirituality of confession, thanksgiving, and humility before God.

“Get ready, because the day of the final war is about, and the children of the light rise up against the darkness.”
(Rule of War / apocalipticismo)

7. The essenes and the other currents jewish

7.1. Pharisees

• Points in common:
  • high valuation of the Torah;
  • interest in legal details;
  • belief in a way of life after death.
• Differences:
  • the pharisees were inserts in urban life, without separation of the Temple;
  • his interpretation of the Law was flexible and adaptive, while the essenes were more rigid and sectarian;
  • the pharisees dominate then rabbinical judaism; the essenes disappear.

7.2. Sadducees

• The essenes were opposed to head-on:
  • disputes over priesthood legitimate and the direction of the Temple;
  • total disagreement in the matter of calendar and purity.

7.3. “Fourth philosophy” and zelotas

• While the zelotas represented the militancy, political-military against Rome, the essenes chose:
  • retreat into the wilderness;
  • a form of resistance symbolic and spiritual, preparing for the final war in the key of apocalyptic, but not as urban guerrillas in the style zelota.

8. Essenes and early christianity

This point is key to the history of religions and highly debated.

8.1. Similarities

Various authors point out parallels between the essenes (especially Qumran) and the primitive christianity:

• Language of light vs. darknesschildren of the light and children of darkness.
• Vision apocalyptic of the present time.
• Community disciplined, focused in the expectation messianic.
• Importance of the water as a symbol of purification (frequent immersions in the essenes; baptism only in christian ones).
• Ritual meals with bread and wine loaded with eschatological significance.
• High ethics of inner purity and rejection of the divorce in certain texts.

8.2. John the Baptist

• Many scholars argue that John the Baptist could have had contact with circles essenes:
  • his preaching in the desert;
  • emphasis on the baptism of conversion;
  • strong apocalyptic message.
• There is No conclusive proof, but yes matches for context and language.

8.3. Jesus and the essenes

• There is direct evidence that Jesus has been essene.
• However:
  • it shares with them the language prophetic and apocalyptic of the time;
  • there are echoes of texts qumranitas in some passages of the New Testament (e.g. parallels between Luke 1 and the text 4Q246 on the “son of God, Son of the most High”).
• In the research there modern theories extreme (which Jesus would be an essene covert, or that christianity arises out of a “conspiracy essene”), but the majority of specialists consider speculative and without evidence-base solid.

8.4. Crucial differences

• The essenes are nationalist, aimed at the restoration of Israel and the Temple (although amended);
• primitive christianity opens soon world helpful and no its center of Jerusalem after 70 d.C.
• The role of the cross/resurrection of Jesus and christology has no direct parallel in the texts essenes.

9. Disappearance of the movement

• With the Jewish war (66-73 d.C.):
  • the site of Qumran is destroyed;
  • the manuscripts are hidden in the caves to protect them (hence its preservation).
• Judaism after 70 d.C. reconfigures around the self-righteousness rabbinicalnot of the essenes.
• Some items essenes may have survived:
  • in the current apocalyptic late;
  • movements baptists and judeo-christian marginal. But as identifiable group, disappear from the sources.

10. Synthesis

If you had to stay with an “operational profile” of the essenes, and to geo-political analysis-religious period of the Second Temple, it would be this:

1. Source: cleavage priestly and legalistic in the II century a.C., in conflict with the Temple and the power asmoneo.
2. Model life: communities rigidly organized, common goods, internal discipline severe, ritual purity, extreme, many times celibacy.
3. Theology:
   • dualism of light and darkness;
   • strong predestination;
   • apocalyptic literature of history;
   • hope in a Messiah (or Messiahs) priestly and royal.
4. Religious practice:
   • solar calendar itself;
   • bathrooms daily rituals;
   • meals sacred community;
   • worship “alternate” from the Temple, from the desert.
5. Relationships: tense with pharisees and sadducees; they share the climate apocalypse that also feeds John the Baptist, and to early christianity, but they are not the same.
6. Legacy:
   • the Dead Sea scrolls are the great heritage essene;
   • without them, we would know much less of the judaism of the first century;
   • its influence is more indirect (religious climate, apocalyptic language, certain schemes theological) that institutional christianity.