Unlike the rabbis, however, he left to the free choice of individual Karaites to reject or adopt these regulations.
Ironically, some dispute his authorship of the commentary on Isaiah and instead regard it as the work of Saadia Gaon, one of the greatest opponents of Karaism.
However, in spite of many concessions to Rabbinism, Benjamin adhered firmly to the principle, expressed by Anan, of penetrating research of the Scripture.
Judging from the quotations made by later Karaite writers, such as Jacob al-Qirqisani, Yefet ben Ali, and Hadassi, Benjamin betrayed the influence of Philonic ideas, while he adopted the Motazilite theories on the divine attributes, free-will, and other questions of a like character expounded before by Anan.
The Law and the communications to the Prophets proceeded from the Angel, to whom are referable all the anthropological expressions concerning God found in the Bible (Hadassi, "Eshkol," 25b).
This theory of an intermediary power, and the system of allegorizing all the Biblical passages concerning God, upon which Benjamin insists again and again in his commentaries on the Bible, were borrowed from the writings of the etc.
This etc., the establishment of which, in consequence of a confusion in the text of Shahrastani, has been wrongfully attributed to Benjamin, is identified with the Essenes by Abraham Harkavy, who shows that they were called "The Men of the Caves," because they lived in the desert.