Essenes
Embracing a conservative approach to Jewish law, they observed a strict hierarchy favoring priests (the Sons of Zadok) over laypeople, emphasized ritual purity, and held a dualistic worldview.
[5][6] Pliny relates in a few lines that the Essenes possess no money, had existed for thousands of generations, and that their priestly class ("contemplatives") did not marry.
He relates the same information concerning piety, celibacy; the absence of personal property and of money; the belief in communality; and commitment to a strict observance of Sabbath.
He further adds that the Essenes ritually immersed in water every morning (a practice similar to the use of the mikveh for daily immersion found among some contemporary Hasidim), ate together after prayer, devoted themselves to charity and benevolence, forbade the expression of anger, studied the books of the elders, preserved secrets, and were very mindful of the names of the angels kept in their sacred writings.
The scrolls were found at Qumran, an archaeological site situated along the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea, believed to have been the dwelling place of an Essene community.
[3] Scholars have noted the absence of direct sources supporting this claim, raising the possibility of their endurance or the survival of related groups in the following centuries.
[8] Some researchers suggest that Essene teachings could have influenced other religious traditions, such as Mandaeism, Jewish Christianity, and small group of Assyrians.
[22] Philo's usage is Essaioi, although he admits this Greek form of the original name, that according to his etymology signifies "holiness", to be inexact.
[5][24] Gabriele Boccaccini implies that a convincing etymology for the name Essene has not been found, but that the term applies to a larger group within Judea that also included the Qumran community.
[32] Philo speaks of "more than four thousand" Essaioi living in "Palestine and Syria",[33] more precisely, "in many cities of Judaea and in many villages and grouped in great societies of many members".
[47][48][49] Despite their prohibition on swearing oaths, after a three-year probationary period,[50] new members would take an oath that included a commitment to practice piety to God and righteousness toward humanity; maintain a pure lifestyle; abstain from criminal and immoral activities; transmit their rules uncorrupted; and preserve the books of the Essenes and the names of the angels.
These are Jews like the former... originally came from Nabataea, Ituraea, Moabitis, and Arielis, the lands beyond the basin of what sacred scripture called the Salt Sea...
[60][61] At the outset of the First Jewish–Roman War in 66 CE, as Roman advances were anticipated, command over parts of western Judea was assigned to John the Essene (or Essaean), who was placed in charge of the toparchy of Thamna.
For Golb, the number of documents is too extensive and includes many different writing styles and calligraphies; the ruins seem to have been a fortress, used as a military base for a very long period of time—including the 1st century—so they therefore could not have been inhabited by the Essenes; and the large graveyard excavated in 1870, just 50 metres (160 ft) east of the Qumran ruins, was made of over 1200 tombs that included many women and children; Pliny clearly wrote that the Essenes who lived near the Dead Sea "had not one woman, had renounced all pleasure... and no one was born in their race".
Golb's book presents observations about de Vaux's premature conclusions and their uncontroverted acceptance by the general academic community.
Others follow this line and a few argue that the Teacher of Righteousness was not only the leader of the Essenes at Qumran, but was also identical to the original Messianic figure about 150 years before the time of the Gospels.
[69] The Haran Gawaita uses the name Nasoraeans for the Mandaeans arriving from Jerusalem, meaning guardians or possessors of secret rites and knowledge.
[70] Scholars such as Kurt Rudolph, Rudolf Macúch, Mark Lidzbarski and Ethel S. Drower connect the Mandaeans with the Nasaraeans described by Epiphanius, a group within the Essenes according to Joseph Lightfoot.
[72]: xiv [77] Early religious concepts and terminologies recur in the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Yardena (Jordan) has been the name of every baptismal water in Mandaeism.
[78]: 5 Mara ḏ-Rabuta (Mandaic for 'Lord of Greatness', which is One of the names for the Mandaean God Hayyi Rabbi) is found in the Genesis Apocryphon II, 4.
[91] Other similarities include high devotion to the faith even to the point of martyrdom, communal prayer, self denial and a belief in a captivity in a sinful world.
[10] The Magharians or Magarites (Arabic: Al-Maghariyyah, 'people of the caves')[97] were, according to Jacob Qirqisani, a Jewish sect founded in the 1st century BCE.
