The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Essenes
Through the mists of time come the seething, roiling, blackening clouds
of political unrest. Cumulous fill with the voices of rage, pleading and simple
disgust. A small group of Jews gathers itself and leaves the ancient city life
of Jerusalem. They have had it! And don’t want to take it anymore!
So, don your desert survival gear, grab your camera and let’s go back
to the first century. We are traveling into the wilderness – wild and wooly and
really dry – but just twenty or so miles from Jerusalem. We are going to the
caves of Qumran and the monastic group named the Essenes. Look up from the Dead
Sea and you will see about a thousand feet above you, in the cliffs, cave
openings. Take a quick snapshot and then climb.
As we enter a few of the more than twenty caves we notice something
striking right off the bat. There are only men, boys, and no women. Hmmm.
An elite, communal group of ultra conservative Jews have chosen to pool
most if not all their personal wealth and live apart as priests. They are the
righteous. They are the chosen. They are the favored by God because they are
the only ones who know His will and follow it punctiliously. (I know. I know. You
have probably heard this claim before by other groups, but there you go.)
These Essenes are so sure of their purity they even create a different
calendar, rituals and begin some interesting concepts never considered in
Judaism before, like resurrection for the righteous. And they also believe in
three, count them three messiahs! (We will take snapshots of the whole messiah
business soon.)
Aim your camera more closely and you will
see the group diligently copying the Old Testament. These men are scribes,
copying the old and adding new commentaries with their own slant on Judaism.
Scrolls fill jars and tables. They are also preparing for a war between the
Sons of Light (the Essenes) and the Sons of Darkness (a huge conglomerate of
everyone else including other Jewish sects).
The cataclysmic conflagration between
cosmic forces of good and evil will continue through seven horrific battles, and
is described in bloody detail in the War Scroll. Of course, they believe the end of evil times
occurs when God comes to protect the elite Essenes who will then return Judaism
to the mythical golden days of David and Solomon.
For more than two hundred years before
Jesus their disgust grew. But it was Herod and his antics that were the final
straw sending them packing into the desert. Temple politics, the defilement of
values, and the worldliness of Greeks and Romans became just too gross. So, they
left and prayed for an apocalypse!
(Now this is a really cool aside: In case you are interested, they have
carefully prepared a special scroll of thin copper incised with the places
where they have hidden their riches and wealth. A treasure map!)
Was Jesus, or his cousin John, Essenes? Well, they certainly knew of
them, and signs suggest they were familiar with all the many and diverse disputing
Jewish sects. However, there were even more influences, strange and foreign,
that surrounded Jesus every day.
We will need to come back with our cameras to check those out. So be
prepared!
Questions to Contemplate and Discuss
1. Review the concepts that the Essenes
espoused that were new to Judaism.
2. List those concepts and make note of how
they may or may not have shown up in Jesus’ teachings.
3. Which of those concepts are affecting the
present world’s philosophies and religions?
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