Most scholars believe the Dead Sea Scrolls (more than 900 of them) were either written or collected by a sect of Jews called Essenes, who are described by the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus and the Alexandrian Jewish philosopher Philo. However, the scrolls themselves make no explicit reference to the Essenes. Scholars infer the connection because of the congruence of Essene philosophy and doctrine as reflected in the scrolls and as described in Josephus and Philo.
The Essenes lived from about the second century B.C.E. to the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 C.E. In this, they were no different from many other Jewish movements that disappeared with the Roman suppression of the Great Jewish Revolt. After 70 C.E., only what would become Rabbinic Judaism and a movement of Jews that would become Christianity survived.
Many scholars support their view that the scrolls were written by the Essenes with the argument that Qumran, the settlement near the caves where the scrolls were found, was an Essene settlement. But this is a circular argument. It is by no means universally agreed that Qumran was an Essene settlement. Indeed that will be the question discussed in this space in the next issue of BAR. To argue that Qumran is an Essene settlement because of the Essene content of the scrolls and then to argue that the scrolls are Essene documents because Qumran is an Essene settlement is clearly a circular argument.
All scholars agree, however, that a group of scrolls is “sectarian”; that is, they represent the views of a group of Jews who are not mainstream, or Temple, Jews. Whoever wrote these sectarian scrolls were bitterly opposed to the Jewish priests who controlled the Temple in Jerusalem.
The congruences between the classical sources (Josephus and Philo) and the scrolls are both general and particular. One of the scrolls most heavily relied on in this connection is the text known as the Rule of the Community (1QS), one of the original seven scrolls found by the Bedouin shepherds. Admission to the sect described here is similar to that described by Josephus. Order within the community and obedience to authority are stressed in both the scrolls and the other written sources. Other common themes include the sharing of communal property and communal meals, strict observance of the Sabbath, the importance of ritual bathing, probable celibacy for certain groups of members and a shared opposition to the Temple authorities.
Josephus specifically mentions an Essene prohibition on spitting. So does the Rule of the Community.
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The opposition of the Dead Sea Scroll sect to the Temple authorities is amply reflected in the document known as 4QMMT (Miqsat Ma‘asei ha-Torah) or simply MMT and sometimes Some Rulings Pertaining to the Torah. The contrast in the laws as interpreted by the Temple authorities and those of the sectarian community responsible for the scrolls is the main subject of the text. MMT reflects the extreme sectarian concern for ritual purity. In each case mentioned in MMT, the law as applied by the Scroll community is stricter. This, too, seems to be congruent with the Essenes.
A minority of scholars rejects the identification of the scrolls with the Essenes. Lawrence Schiffman (who explains how the scrolls changed his life in this issue) associates the Scroll sectarians with the Sadducees, based on legal rulings and philosophy reflected in MMT as well as other scrolls, comparing them with what we know of the Sadduccees from other sources.a Schiffman analyzes the laws of MMT and finds them congruent with Sadducean interpretation in their conflict with the Pharisees.
Another recent suggestion is that the scrolls were brought principally from Jerusalem and were hidden in the Dead Sea caves by various groups as they fled from Roman troops. From this perspective, the scrolls do not necessarily represent the views of a single group.b
The article on the Essenes in the Oxford Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls concludes:
“While there is still much that is not known about either the Essenes or the writers of the scrolls, on balance it is still likely that the identification of the Qumran community as Essene in some form is correct.”1
Most scholars believe the Dead Sea Scrolls (more than 900 of them) were either written or collected by a sect of Jews called Essenes, who are described by the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus and the Alexandrian Jewish philosopher Philo. However, the scrolls themselves make no explicit reference to the Essenes. Scholars infer the connection because of the congruence of Essene philosophy and doctrine as reflected in the scrolls and as described in Josephus and Philo. The Essenes lived from about the second century B.C.E. to the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in 70 C.E. In this, they were no […]
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See Lawence H. Schiffman, “The Significance of the Scrolls,” Bible Review, October 1990. But see James C. VanderKam, “The People of the Dead Sea Scrolls—Essenes or Sadducees?” Bible Review, April 1991.
2.
This is the view of Yitzhak Magen and Yuval Peleg, as well as Norman Golb, as expressed in “Qumran—The Pottery Factory,”BAR 32:05.
Endnotes
1.
Todd S. Beall, s.v. “Essenes” in Lawrence H. Schiffman and James C. VanderKam, eds., Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press, 2000).
