Essenes

General Information

The Essenes were members of an ascetic Jewish sect of the 1st century BC and the 1st century AD. Most of them lived on the western shore of the Dead Sea. They are identified by many scholars with the Qumran community that wrote the documents popularly called the Dead Sea Scrolls. They numbered about 4,000 members. Admission required two to three years of preparation, and new candidates took an oath of piety, justice, and truthfulness.

According to Philo of Alexandria and other writers of the 1st century AD, the Essenes shared their possessions, lived by agriculture and handicrafts, rejected slavery, and believed in the immortality of the soul. Their meals were solemn community affairs. The main group of Essenes opposed marriage. They had regular prayer and study sessions, especially on the Sabbath. Transgressors were excluded from the sect.

The similarity between a number of Essene and Christian concepts and practices (kingdom of God, baptism, sacred meals, the position of a central teacher, titles of officeholders, and community organization) has led some people to assume that there was a close kinship between the Essenes and the groups around John the Baptist and Jesus Christ. It is possible that after the dissolution of the Essene community some members followed John the Baptist or joined one of the early Christian communities, but any other direct connection seems unlikely.

Nahum N Glatzer

Bibliography
Beall, Todd S., Josephus' Descriptions of the Essenes Illustrated by the Dead Sea Scrolls (1988); Davies, Philip, Behind the Essenes (1987); Larson, Martin, The Essene-Christian Faith (1980); Simon, Marcel, Jewish Sects at the Time of Jesus, trans. by James Farley (1980).