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Several ancient informants discuss the Jewish sect known as the Essenes. The most famous three are Josephus, Philo, and Pliny, whose writings date to sometime around the first century c.e. The etymology of the name Essenes remains uncertain. One theory proposed by the ancient Jewish philosopher Philo (c. 20 b.c.e.–50 c.e.) suggests that the name is related to the Greek word for holiness.

It is perhaps more likely that the name goes back to a Hebrew or Aramaic word that could be related to the word for “council,” or “doers (of the law),” or even “healers.” A renewed interest in this ancient Jewish sect coincided with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls near Qumran. The idea that the Dead Sea Scrolls and Qumran are to be identified with the Essenes has many strong supporters.

The Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (b. 37 c.e.) has left us the most detailed information about this group. He mentions the Essenes several times throughout his writings and even claims to have been a member of this group during his youth. If indeed this was true, he could not have spent more than a few short months with them, according to the chronology given in his own autobiography. The lengthiest description of the Essenes appears in his multivolume work called The Jewish War, c. 73 c.e., where Josephus identifies them as one of three Jewish philosophical schools. What is notable about this description of the Essenes is this: Josephus’s comments concerning them are far more detailed and much lengthier than his comments about the other two sects, the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Within this description Josephus gives an account of their procedure for admitting new members into the community and details many of their practices, including their shunning of marriage and their idiosyncratic practice of avoiding bowel movements on Shabbat.

A candidate for membership is initiated into this hierarchical sect with a full year of probation during which time he is expected to live according to the terms of the community but not among them. After this year the candidate is permitted to draw closer to the group but may not participate in the meetings of the community and is also barred from the “purer kind of holy water.” A proselyte was expected to swear a series of oaths that insist upon the strict observance of various communal laws and also secrecy to the group. Josephus also gives an account of the provisions for those who have been expelled from the community for serious crimes. In addition to this lengthy account in The Jewish War, Josephus refers to the Essenes twice in his multivolume work the Jewish Antiquities. All three of the ancient informants, Pliny, Philo, and Josephus, write that the Essenes were characterized by their shared wealth and their avoidance of married life, but Josephus does not say that celibacy is the condition for membership in the community.

Scholarly interest in the Essenes grew alongside the study of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Even though other theories for the identification of the wilderness community at Qumran existed, many scholars found the Essene identification to be the most convincing, and it enjoyed the widest popularity from the earliest days of scholarship on the scrolls. There are two major arguments advanced in favor of the Essene identification of the Qumran community. The first argument relies upon the Roman historian, Pliny the Elder (23–79 c.e.), who locates the Essene community near the Dead Sea. In his multivolume work Natural History, Pliny gives what has now become a much-cited reference to the solitary group known as the Essenes in his description of the geography of the land of Judaea. While there is some question as to how to translate the Latin infra hos, as “below” (with respect to altitude) or “downstream from,” Pliny’s reference identifies an Essene community in a location very close to the region of the Qumran settlement and caves.

The second argument relies on the correlation of Josephus’s description of the Essenes and the Qumran community’s own account of their belief system. Many diverse categories of writings were discovered at Qumran, including copies of biblical texts and pseudepigraphic writings that would probably have been common to collections and libraries of different kinds of Jewish sects during that time.

In addition to these texts were scrolls that appeared unique to this community and likely composed by them. This latter category of writings expresses a distinctive theology and worldview and is categorized as sectarian or unique to the community at Qumran. A comparison of these sectarian writings with Josephus’s description of the philosophy of the Essenes and other ancient informants provides some interesting points of correlation in theology and worldview.

One point of correlation concerns the doctrine of predestination. Josephus writes that the Essenes understood “fate” to determine all things. In another place in The Jewish War, Josephus writes that this sect leaves everything in the hands of God. This idea that events have been predestined is found in several places among the sectarian writings, including column three of the sectarian scroll the Community Rule, which reads as follows:

“All that is now and ever shall be originates with the God of knowledge. Before things come to be, He has ordered all their designs, so that when they do come to exist—at their appointed times as ordained by His glorious plan—they fulfill their destiny, a destiny impossible to change. He controls the laws governing all things, and He provides for all their pursuits.”

However, because of inconsistencies, some scholars are not persuaded by the Essene identification of the Qumran community. Those scholars who remain unconvinced that the Qumran community is Essene note other points of difference in the worldview and ideology of the two groups. These scholars hold out for the possibility that the Qumran group could be an otherwise unknown ancient Jewish sect or propose alternative identifications. Some scholars have attempted to reconcile the Qumran sectarian writings with these ancient descriptions of the Essenes by theorizing that there was a split in the Essene movement or a schism that might account for the variations. This is known as the Groningen hypothesis.

References:

Beall, T. S. Josephus’ Description of the Essenes Illustrated by the Dead Sea Scrolls. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988;
Cansdale, L. Qumran and the Essenes Texte und Studien zum Antiken Judentum 60. Tübingen, Germany: J.C.B. Mohr (Paul Siebeck), 1997;
Goodman, M. D. “A Note on the Qumran Sectarians, the Essenes and Josephus.” Journal of Jewish Studies 46 (1995);
Mason, S. “What Josephus Says about the Essenes in His Judean War.” In S. G. Wilson and M. Desjardins, eds. Text and Artifact in the Religions of Mediterranean Antiquity: Essays in Honour of Peter Richardson. Waterloo, UK: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2000;
Rajak, T. “Ciò Che Flavio Giuseppe Vide: Josephus and the Essenes.” In F. Parente and J. Sievers, eds. Josephus and the History of the Greco-Roman Period: Essays in Memory of Morton Smith. Leiden, Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1994;
Roth, C. “Why the Qumran Sect Cannot Have Been Essenes.” Revue de Qumran (1959);
Stegemann, H. “The Qumran Essenes—Local Members of the Main Jewish Union in Late Second Temple Times.” Madrid Qumran Congress. Proceedings of the International Congress on the Dead Sea Scrolls, Madrid, 18–21 March 1991. Leiden, Netherlands: E. J. Brill, 1992;
Vermes, G., and M. D. Goodman, eds. The Essenes According to the Classical Sources. Sheffield, UK: JSOT, 1989.

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