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Judging by the publicity and discussion which followed the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947, the casual inquirer might conclude that the existence of the pre-Christian Essene cult was revealed for the first time when a Bedouin boy, in pursuit of a goat, stumbled into a cave and found a mass of documents there.
The truth is that many scholars and historians had dealt with this religious organization in articles, essays, and even in elaborate and scholarly works; that every competent student of western religion knew very well indeed the celebrated passages in Pliny, Philo, and Josephus describing them; and that there were entire schools of German writers during the 19th century who declared that Jesus was an Essene whose simulated death and resurrection had been carefully staged by members of the Order.
Of late many novel hypotheses have been advanced concerning the cult; but few are more intriguing than that set forth by Thomas De Quincey, about the year 1830. This brilliant scholar-critic maintained vehemently in a closely reasoned disquisition that there never was any Essene organization and that the people described by Pliny, Philo, and Josephus were simply the "proto-Christians" gone underground. After pinpointing the startling parallels, he concludes: "If the Essenes were not the early Christians in disguise, then was Christianity, as a knowledge, taught independently of Christ; nay, in opposition of Christ ... Suppose the Essenes a distinct body from the primitive Christians of Palestine.... and you have a deadlier wound offered to Christian faith than the whole army of infidels ever attempted. A parhelion—a double sun—.... would not be more shocking.... than a secondary Christianity not less spiritual, not less divine than the primary, pretending to a separate and even hostile origin" (Essenism and Christianity, Works, Bohn. Vol VIII. Cf. also The Essenes, Writings, 24 vole., Vol. 10, 115-16). With the Dead Sea Scrolls before him, what would De Quincey have written in l950 or at the present time?
Enough material to fill a small library has been produced concerning the Essenes; and yet, in spite of all the advantages available to modern scholarship, one of the most accurate and perspicuous analyses of them yet to see the light is embodied in a long-forgotten pamphlets (Who Is Ann Lee? Mt. Lebanon, N.Y., 1889, 13 pp.) published in 1889 and composed by Frederick William Evans, the last savant of the Shakers—an American cult which carried out the only significant and successful experiment ever made to re-establish Christianity in its pristine form. The author states that "Jesus was an Essene ..."; and that the members of the Order "…
F. W. Evans states: "The Essenians were, many of them, converted on the day of Pentecost, and formed the body of the Jerusalem Church, with its spiritual origin." Allegro (The Dead Sea Scrolls, p. 161) accepts this thesis also. And he continues: "As above set forth," the members of the first Christian Church "were Essenes. They loved one another so that they sold their possessions and had all things in common. They forsook the generative life, with its wives and husbands, for Christ's sake and the Gospel's...." Jesus, then, taught celibacy and communism; and the first Jerusalem Church consisted largely of Essenes who came over to Christianity.
Strangely enough, another perspicacious American religious innovator had a remarkably similar name. Warren Felt Evans. who died in 1889, was the great theoretician and prophet of New Thought. Like his namesake, he too was a devout Swedenborgian; and he also made a unique analysis of Jesus and the Essenes. He discussed the "method of healing practiced by Jesus and perhaps also of the mystic Pythagorean sect of the Jews called Essenes . . . to which sect Jesus himself unquestionably belonged" (Primitive Mind-Cure, Boston, 1884, 157-8). Evans states that Luke also was an Essene (Esoteric Christianity, Boston, 1886, 100); and he adds: "Jesus came to do for the world at large, by revealing the sublime wisdom of the ancient mystical sects and brotherhoods, what had been done only for the chosen few in the sacred privacy of the inner recesses of the temples" (Esoteric Christianity, Boston, 1886, 79). Jesus, then, according to this second Evans, was an Essene; the Essenes were Pythagoreans; and the unique mission of Jesus was to reveal the esoteric doctrines of the Essene-Pythagoreans to the world at large.
The surprising thing is not that the Essenes have been well known, but that so very little has been understood concerning their esoteric nature and doctrines. Even more amazing is the fact that although several of their most important documents have long been extant and even widely circulated, not even the most acute scholars ever suspected the true origin of these before 1947; and that to this day a great deal of confusion concerning them continues to persist.
Among the basic Essene documents extant before 1947, The Book of Enoch was the most celebrated; lost for many centuries, a copy of it in Ethiopic was discovered by James Bruce in Abyssinia in 1775. Several other MSS. of the work have since been found. The Book of Jubilees, a drastic revision of the canonical Genesis, was lost in the 13th century but rediscovered in the 18th in various MSS. Both its importance and its Essene origin are now established. The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs is another extremely important Essene scripture, which was never lost and which was used widely for two or three centuries by the early Christians as one of their own sacred documents.
In 1896, three MSS., perhaps a thousand years old, which were themselves copies of a far more ancient work, were discovered by Solomon Schechter in the genizah of a Karaite synagogue in Old Cairo. This was published in 1910 under the title Fragments of a Zadakite Work; but now more popularly known as The Damascus Document. The true origin of this remained a mystery until the Dead Sea caves gave up their treasures; since then there has been no doubt that this too is of Essene origin, and it is usually included in any corpus of Dead Sea Scrolls, although for little better apparent reason than would apply equally to the other three documents we have just described. The Damascus Document could have been revised by Karaites just as easily as the other could have been rewritten by Christians. The fact is that all four scriptures bear every imprint of Essene origin.
Since numerous fragments of all have been recovered, some in considerable profusion, there can be no doubt that these were among the most cherished scriptures of the cult, a fact reinforced by the internal evidence. Many scholars have doubted that these three documents were produced by the Qumran cult in anything like the form in which we have known them in spite of the fact that a great many fragments of Enoch have been recovered from the caves. However, if these scriptures are not Essene, just what are they? They certainly are not Pharisaic or Sadducaic; and it is simply incredible that Christians would have composed or completely rewritten such long and extraordinary documents without leaving some evidence of such authorship or revision. They contain no reference to any event subsequent to 60 B.C.E. and they reflect no knowledge of Christianity in any manner whatever. One be advised of this startling fact when he reads of these scrolls and we must consider this internal evidence decisive.
There is no longer any serious doubt among scholars that about the year 68-69, while the Roman armies were reducing Galilee, the Essenes carefully sealed some six hundred of their scrolls in jars, and hid them in almost inaccessible places (Dupont-Sommer, The Essene Writings from Qumran, 3). The cultists never returned (as they must have expected to do), but the caves have been plundered, probably several times (Cf. Yigael Yadin, The Message of the Scrolls, pp. 73-80). Certainly none was intact in 1947. Undoubtedly, the Karaites discovered a number of Essene documents, perhaps in the 9th century, which may have influenced their development. Thus it happened that The Zadokite Fragments were found in a synagogue of this cult. R. H. Charles included The Fragment of a Zadokite Work in his Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament (pp. 785-834). And again, because of his total lack of comprehension concerning the Essenes, he was guilty of several weird misinterpretations. He believed that the document was originally composed between 106 and 57 B.C.E. and then rewritten between 18 and 8 B.C.E. (cf. pp. 785, 787).
Damage to the Essene library has been enormous. Of all the leather scrolls so carefully laid away in 68 or 69, less than a dozen are known by the public to have emerged comparatively intact; and, as Dupont-Sommer remarks, these are, of course, "only a remnant of an immense corpus of literature...." (Dupont-Sommer, The Essene Writings from Qumran, 15). In addition to several books of the Old Testament, at least four major documents, previously unknown and almost complete, were found:
Several lesser works have been translated and published, notably by Theodor Gaster; many others, however, remain unpublished. Thousands of fragments are now on hand, or at least they were before the Six-Day War of 1967, housed in the Jordanian Museum in Jerusalem; the extremely important section 14 of "Levi"—which had always been considered certainly Christian—was found in Cave 4 in 1952. Sec. 14 of "Levi"—in our historical version—reads: "I have learnt from the writings of Enoch that at the last ye will deal ungodly, laying your hands upon the Lord in all malice; and your brethren shall be ashamed of you, and to all the gentiles shall it become a mocking. For our father Israel shall be pure from the ungodliness of the chief priests who shall lay their hands upon the Saviour of the World.... So shall ye bring a curse upon our race for whom came the light of the world, which was given among you for the lighting up of every man. Him shall ye desire to slay, teaching commandments contrary to the ordinances of God." Millar Burrows states (More Light, p. 29) that "the texts from Cave 4 alone will require at least three volumes, one for the biblical and two for the non-biblical texts." Other caves have yielded their own treasure troves; and much material may still be held in secrecy by private persons. A vast quantity of Essene scripture, therefore, has remained and still remains in concealment. It was particularly frustrating to discover that the Palestine Archeological Museum, which had Section 14 and other portions of "Levi" in its possession, would not permit anyone to photograph them, or even to look at them. Concerning "Levi" and The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, Allegro states (Dead Sea Scrolls, p. 120): "Some parts of this work have long been recognized as Christian in origin ... Just how far Christian interpolation extends…has been a matter of great contention amongst scholars and naturally it was of supreme importance to have pre-Christian copies of any part of this work ... Now from the Qumran library we are able to see fragments of the Testament of Levi in their original Aramaic, and, incidentally, containing a portion of Chapter Fourteen, which has generally been supposed to have been one of the later interpolated sections."
Answer for yourself: What does "interpolated" mean? It simply means "to insert, to foist in, as a spurious word or passage in a manuscript or book; to corrupt by the insertion of new matter". In other words for our understanding this "Levi" from The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs was later "Christianized" and the original intention of the writer lost by the purposeful adulteration of the documents by those who wished to promote "their own" particular "theology." Such "interpolated documents" are basically useless for Christian study as they are biased by those who "altered" them.
It is not necessary for us to relate how the Arabs found the Scrolls, sold them, and went searching for more. Nor need we describe the excavations carried out at Khirbet-Qumran and in the caves near the Dead Sea, which establish that the facilities there constituted the headquarters of the Society. including its cemetery, cisterns for daily baptisms, and a commodious building containing a scriptorium and an upper room where eucharistic meals were celebrated (cf. Mark 14:14, Luke 22:12-13, and Acts 1:13). Archeological evidence, such as coins, pottery, etc., found among the ruins, indicates that the building was erected about the year 104 and occupied until it was severely damaged by an earthquake in 31 B.C.E.; and that, restored in 4 B.C.E., it was reoccupied until about 68, when it was destroyed by fire, and the Essenes as an independent cult ceased to exist. All this has been told and retold; those who wish to pursue the subject further should peruse Millar Burrows' Dead Sea Scrolls and More Light on the Dead Sea Scrolls.
Factual material concerning the Essenes is both external and internal. The former consists of those passages in the writings of ancient contemporaries to which we have referred; and of archeological, paleographical, and philological evidence such as jars in the caves, the pottery and utensils left in the ruins, the excavated graves, the leather on which the Scrolls were written, the script and language used, etc. The decisive internal evidence is found in the documents themselves.
None of the writings could have been copied later than 68 A D.; but all of them were composed much earlier. Carbon14 tests indicate that some of the skins on which the Scrolls are inscribed date from about 33 A.D. (Burrows, Dead Sea Scrolls, 52, 81); but the internal evidence shows that none originated later than 60 B.C.E. I cannot stress the importance of this fact in your interpretation of the contents of these documents as not everything written "refers to Jesus" in spite of the desire of many to make it so.
Among a people totally dedicated to religion, the Essenes, from their proto-beginnings to the end of their career, were the most fervent, pietistic, and dedicated. Furthermore, after the consolidation of Yahwism, the Essenes alone were able to absorb the essence of other religious systems and so create a new and powerful religious synthesis of their own.
It may be for these reasons that several Jewish scholars have found it difficult to accept the Essene documents. Solomon Zeitlin, for example, wrote a number of articles maintaining that the Dead Sea Scrolls are medieval Christian forgeries ("The Fiction of the Recent Discoveries Near the Dead Sea" in the Jewish Quarterly Review, 1953, 85-115, and many other articles by the same author), a position with which E. L. Sukenik radically disagrees ("The Scrolls: A Reply to Dr. Zeitlin," Jewish Chronicle, Nov. 17, 1950, 13). J.L. Teicher, echoing De Quincey, and agreeing with various other writers, maintained that the Essenes were none other than a cult of Christians ("The Essenes," Studia Patristica (Berlin), 1 1957, 540-545; "The Dead Sea Scrolls," Journal of Jewish Studies, 1951, 67-99; "The Damascus Fragments and 43; and other articles by the same author); Isaac Rabinowitz declared that all the Scrolls were composed before 130 B.C.E. ("A Reconsideration of 'Damascus' and '390 Years' in the 'Damascus' ('Zadokite') Fragments," in the Journal of Biblical Literature, 1954, 11-35; and various other articles by the same author), and so could have had little or no direct influence upon Christianity. M. H. Gottstein stated that the Covenanters could not have been Essenes at all, because, in the former, membership was permanent, whereas at Qumran—he , believed—periodic renewals were required ("Anti-Essene Traits in the Dead Sea Scrolls," Vestus Testamentum, 1954, 141-147). Other Jewish scholars have advanced theories which reflect even greater diversity of opinion.
Nor have Christian writers failed to propose novel hypotheses. The eminent Dupont-Sommer, for example, declared that The Damascus Document, even though it certainly portrays an organization based on private property, was written about 60 B.C.E., and that the Teacher mentioned therein is the same as in The Habakkuk Commentary (The Essene Writings from Qumran, 118-119). Upton C. Ewing, in a variation of the De Quincey theory, believed that all the Christological and Messianic references in Essene literature point only to the founder of Christianity; that they were, therefore, genuinely prophetic; and that there was only a single cult of this kind in Palestine, which might be called Essene-Christian (The Prophet of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 132-3, etc.). Duncan Howlett theorized that the Essene community resulted from a division among the Pharisees after John Hyrcanus turned against them (The Essenes and Christianity, 51-54); and that, therefore, in spite of the evidence in Josephus, the cult could have had no existence preceding 110 B.C. Raymond E. Brown expressed the widespread opinion that the Dead Sea Scrolls are closely interlocked with the Johannine literature of the New Testament (The Scrolls and the New Testament, edited by Kristin Stendahl, 183-207), in spite of the diversity in socioeconomic principles. There have even been writers who tried to identify the Essenes with the professional assassins known as the Sicarii and with the revolutionaries known as the Zealots (Burrows, The Dead Sea Scrolls, 294-96). In fact, the conclusions which investigators have reached concerning the Men of the Community are indeed wonderful for their number, variety, and mutual contradictions.
While many modern scholars ignore the similarities linking the Dead Sea Scrolls to the Synoptic Gospels, there are notable exceptions. Dupont-Sommer (The Dead Sea Scrolls, p. 99) declared: "The Galilean master, as He is presented in the writings of the New Testament, appears in many respects as an astonishing reincarnation of the Master of Justice." Edmund Wilson stated:(The Scrolls from the Dead Sea, p. 97-98): "The monastery" (at the Dead Sea) "with its oven and its inkwells, its mills and its cesspool, its constellation of sacred fonts and unadorned graves of its dead, is, perhaps, more than Bethlehem or Nazareth, the cradle of Christianity." In 1956, John Allegro in a series of broadcasts over the BBC hinted broadly that the Essene leader had "been crucified...." (The Treasure of the Copper Scroll, p. 29). In his Dead Sea Scrolls, p. 161, he stated that "it seems very likely that the Jewish Christian Church won its first adherents from the Essenes, and this, again, would account for its possession of so much Qumran thought, and, perhaps, literature." The somewhat more conservative Theodore Gaster said that the Essenes "mirror a form of religious organization many elements of which were adopted by the primitive Church" (The Dead Sea Scriptures, p. 12). And it is interesting to note that long ago a number of German scholars, in extraordinarily learned and elaborate treatises,' set forth, with slight variations, the thesis that at the time of his passion Jesus was still an Essene in good standing; that the crucifixion involved only a simulated death, for which Jesus had been thoroughly prepared by previous rehearsals and by the administration of potent drugs; that members of the Order removed him from the tomb and nursed him back to strength; that on a few occasions (still scarcely recognizable because of his recent ordeal), Jesus presented himself to his disciples, who were thus persuaded that an actual resurrection had occurred. After addressing them for the last time on a mountain side, he walked up into a mist; and this became the assumption of his physical body into heaven. Actually, he simply retired to an Essene commune, where he remained thereafter in concealment.
Interestingly enough, before his death in Palestine, James Pike, former Episcopal bishop, wrote a scenario intended for motion-picture production, which followed a close approximation of this story-line.
Dr. Hugh J. Schonfield (The Passover Plot, pp. 160-181) restates the theory of a simulated death and resurrection, which he believes to have been planned entirely by Jesus himself and carried out with the aid of accomplices. He gives Jesus no credit for supernaturalist expectations; he believes that his co-conspirators first placed him in, and then removed him from, the tomb; and does not believe that any guards were stationed there. If this hypothesis is true, then was he indeed what the Pharisees called him, a deceiver and an impostor.
Like many other cults, the Essenes began by accepting the dominant religion and its Scriptures; but before very long, the Essenes were creating new and divergent revelations, which to them in time became superior to the orthodox (Torah, Tanakh). Martin Larson, in his three books on the Essenes, chronicles this divergence of Essene though from normative Judaism. Following the Maccabee victory and the assumption of the High Priesthood by the non-Zadok Hasmoneans, the Zadok priests retired to the wilderness to await the coming of the LORD for both their vindication and judgment on the apostate Israel. This rejection of normative Judaism resulted in the production of their own literature that pronounces judgment on the corrupt "wicked priests" and at the same exonerates these "new covenanters." This production of "new revelation" for self-seeking purposes by this Zadok-splinter group of "pious ones" or Essenes is precisely what was done by Swedenborg, Joseph Smith. and Mary Baker Eddy. Every successful prophet builds upon' but remakes, the doctrines and practices accepted by his prospective converts. An attractive bridge is thus constructed which serves as a passageway over the gulf separating the abandoned habitations from the new-built mansions. Thus, almost every new faith possesses in reality two related but also disparate scriptures: first, the established and conventional; and, second, the new revelations, the distinctive possession of the avant-garde. Thereupon, the cult takes the next step: it claims also a unique power to interpret the old canon. Thus self-designated as the only one capable of interpreting the Jewish Scriptures properly, the new communion becomes independent. Almost from the beginning, the Essenes began the creation of new scriptures; and they believed with realizing certainty that their leader, known in successive generations as the Teacher of Righteousness, the Master of Justice, the Man Who Reneweth the Law, etc., alone could reveal the esoteric and prophetic meanings in the orthodox Jewish revelations.
The Essenes were certain that their scriptures, especially The Book of Enoch, possessed unquestionable priority and supremacy. The unparalleled authority of such works lay in their exact prophecies, accurate to the date of composition, which the amazed communicant could easily understand. These already-accomplished predictions were then followed by others for which similar and imminent fulfillment was confidently expected. This is known as the pseudepigraphic method; and behind it lies a long and interesting history.
When the Jewish priests consolidated their power after the return from Babylon, they outlawed all new prophecy (Zech. 13:3-6), since this could disturb the public tranquillity and discredit the incumbent priesthood. The purpose of this proscription was to freeze the existing canon. The ingenuity of man, however, is not so easily thwarted; and effective techniques were developed by which new revelations could be promulgated. The ban against prophecy gave rise to the literary form known as the pseudepigraphic literature and apocalypse, which was to play so large a role for several centuries in Jewish life.
The method was daring: a fervent prophet with an irrepressible message composed a '`revelation" which he attributed to some ancient personage, provided a suitable historical setting, delineated history up to his own day under easily understood symbolisms, and then, relying on the credit established by this historical accuracy, he predicted the most astounding catastrophes for the future, especially an eschatological cataclysm. Daniel is a classic example of this literary form: and it is interesting to note that Josephus based his own belief in the existence of providence on the remarkable prophecies contained in this document, which, he says, could not have been made had not God actually revealed the future to this writer. The various portions of Enoch were all said to have been written on Heavenly Tablets many centuries before; but the crucial and final passages predicted an imminent and apocalyptic catastrophe and the establishment of the Essene kingdom.
The Chasids, the Essenes, and the Pharisees became masters of the pseudepigraphic method; and, by its use, composed an entire corpus of extraordinary literature, edited by R. H. Charles and published in 1913 as The Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament.
This overview has hopefully opened your eyes to the very difficult subject of the study of the Dead Sea Scrolls. It is not as simple as Pliny, Philo, or Josephus might make it sound. The Essenes separated from normative Judaism and eventually, in reaction against their rejection as rightful priests, would end up rejecting Judaism as they knew it, and in the process, produce a literature that "saw things from their perspective" and it is this literature as well as "prophecy" which would later enter into the Jesus Movement as oral traditions which later would be applied to him. Understand as stated, that no new literature was written following 60 B.C.E. and that all later interpretations of Jesus by the Christian Church would draw heavily upon these "new revelations" culminating from the Essene religious synthesis. The question that must be answered by the reader is simple: "Were these revelations from God or were they more in keeping with sour-grapes-theology since the Essenes were rejected from the Priesthood by the powers that ruled in Jerusalem"?
The only way to discern this for sure is to examine their literature and see if it is possible to detect if it is "unique and Divine revelation" or if it is nothing more than "borrowed theology from prior pagan religions." "Impossible," you say? Well, you better read what comes next if you want to know for sure.
Shalom.