THE SECTARIANS
If one accepts that the scrolls are of a particular Jewish desert sect, and not the scrolls of the Temple, then the obvious question becomes – what sect? Unfortunately (and somewhat maddening), the scrolls do not name the sect that wrote them. The only seeming identification given in the texts is “the sons of light” or the “sons of Zadok” (possibly, the Chief Priest under Kings David and Solomon.)
1st Century Jewish Historian Josephus tells us that there were three Jewish sects at the time of Jesus:
“For there are three philosophical sects among the Jews. The followers of the first of which are the Pharisees; of the second, the Sadducees; and the third sect, which pretends to a severer discipline, are called Essenes.” (Jewish Wars, Book 2, Chapter 8, William Whiston, Translator)
So, was the Qumran sect one of those three, or was it a group whose name is lost to history? What do the scrolls themselves tell us about the sect? Taking the Damascus Document and the Manual of Discipline together (and assuming that they are rules for the same sect), we might make some of the following statements about the sect:
They were headed by a “superintendent” or “examiner”, who seemed to be both teacher and Chief Financial Officer.
Judicial decisions were made by the assembled members of the group.
Apparently there was community ownership of property (However, the scrolls are a bit ambiguous on this point - the Damascus Document talks about 2 days wages from each person being given to the “poor and needy” each month).
There appears to have been a required two-stage (one year each) probation period for entry into the sect.
They were very focused on ritual purity.
They believed that their purpose was to prepare the way of the Lord by the study of the Law.
Prayer was an important element of their daily worship.
They were “a holy house for Israel, a foundation of the holy of holies for Aaron.” (Manual of Discipline, Burrows, p. 237)
Those that violated Mosaic law willfully were excommunicated.
They scrupulously obeyed the Sabbath.
There was some degree of hierarchy – “the lesser obeying the greater”. “Priests and elders” were seated first in community meetings.
In terms of the theology of the sect, the following statements could be made:
They believed in divine election (predestination)
They appeared to have strong apocalyptic and eschatological views---Manual of Discipline “But God in the mysteries of his understanding and in his glorious wisdom has ordained a period for the ruin of error, and in the appointed time of punishment he will destroy it forever.” (Burrows, p. 376)
They seemed to have believed in two Messiahs...“until there shall come a prophet and the Messiahs of Aaron and Israel.” (Manual of Discipline, Burrows, p. 383)
They defined good and evil in terms of light and darkness.
Man is weak and utterly dependent on God.
Salvation appears to be through •1) the law •2) following the teacher of righteousness •3) confessing before God “we have sinned”
So who were these people? The majority view seems to be that they were Essenes, with a growing minority that believes that they were a breakaway group of Sadducees. (A very small minority feels that they were Christian Ebonite's). Most of what we know about the Essenes comes from 1st Century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (c. 37 – 95 A.D.), with additions from Pliny the Elder and Philo of Alexandria. There are many parallels between what Josephus tells us about the Essenes, and the picture we have of the Sectarians from the scrolls (see page 19, The Dead Sea Scrolls and Christianity).
However, there are some differences, too. For example, Josephus tells us that the Essenes numbered about 4,000, and “they have no one certain city, but many of them dwell in every city” – certainly a different picture from this seemingly monastic desert sect. Also, the teacher of righteousness, who is so prominent in at least two of the scrolls, is not even hinted at in Josephus. However, there are enough similarities between Josephus and the scrolls to at least build a case for the Sectarians being Essenes, as the following quote and table demonstrate:
“Todd Beall concluded that there are 27 parallels between Josephus and the scrolls regarding the Essenes, 21 probable parallels, 10 cases in which Josephus makes claims about the Essenes that have no known parallels among the scrolls, and 6 discrepancies between them.” (The People of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Essenes or Sadducees? James C. Vanderkam, Bible Review, April 1991)
Further backing for the Sectarians-as-Essenes theory may be found in a passage from Pliny the Elder:
*Essenes live+ “away from the western shore *of the Dead Sea], far enough to avoid harmful things, a people alone...companions of palm trees.” (Burrows, p. 280)
This account seems more in keeping with a desert monastic sect than the account of Josephus stating that “many of them dwell in every city.”
One of the great mysteries of Essenes/Scroll scholarship is the fact that the New Testament doesn’t mention the Essenes, although it mentions the other three groups of Josephus – Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots. It is especially mysterious given the fact that Josephus wrote more about the Essenes than about the Pharisees and Sadducees combined, and all of the 1st century secular historians wrote about the Essenes with such respect and enthusiasm. Why no Essenes in the New Testament? Here are some possibilities:
Because the Essenes lived in remote places, Jesus never came in contact with them during his ministry. Plus, with only 4,000 Essenes in the Levant, they made up a very small portion of the population (there were, for example, about 80,000 people living in Jerusalem alone during the time of Christ).
Some of the apostles of Jesus/followers of John the Baptist were Essenes, so it wasn’t thought necessary to identify an “inside” group in the New Testament.
The Essenes appear somewhere in the New Testament under another name or description (Essenes means something along the lines of “Pious Ones”, “Holy Ones”, or “Healers”.)
1st Century Jewish Historian Josephus tells us that there were three Jewish sects at the time of Jesus:
“For there are three philosophical sects among the Jews. The followers of the first of which are the Pharisees; of the second, the Sadducees; and the third sect, which pretends to a severer discipline, are called Essenes.” (Jewish Wars, Book 2, Chapter 8, William Whiston, Translator)
So, was the Qumran sect one of those three, or was it a group whose name is lost to history? What do the scrolls themselves tell us about the sect? Taking the Damascus Document and the Manual of Discipline together (and assuming that they are rules for the same sect), we might make some of the following statements about the sect:
They were headed by a “superintendent” or “examiner”, who seemed to be both teacher and Chief Financial Officer.
Judicial decisions were made by the assembled members of the group.
Apparently there was community ownership of property (However, the scrolls are a bit ambiguous on this point - the Damascus Document talks about 2 days wages from each person being given to the “poor and needy” each month).
There appears to have been a required two-stage (one year each) probation period for entry into the sect.
They were very focused on ritual purity.
They believed that their purpose was to prepare the way of the Lord by the study of the Law.
Prayer was an important element of their daily worship.
They were “a holy house for Israel, a foundation of the holy of holies for Aaron.” (Manual of Discipline, Burrows, p. 237)
Those that violated Mosaic law willfully were excommunicated.
They scrupulously obeyed the Sabbath.
There was some degree of hierarchy – “the lesser obeying the greater”. “Priests and elders” were seated first in community meetings.
In terms of the theology of the sect, the following statements could be made:
They believed in divine election (predestination)
They appeared to have strong apocalyptic and eschatological views---Manual of Discipline “But God in the mysteries of his understanding and in his glorious wisdom has ordained a period for the ruin of error, and in the appointed time of punishment he will destroy it forever.” (Burrows, p. 376)
They seemed to have believed in two Messiahs...“until there shall come a prophet and the Messiahs of Aaron and Israel.” (Manual of Discipline, Burrows, p. 383)
They defined good and evil in terms of light and darkness.
Man is weak and utterly dependent on God.
Salvation appears to be through •1) the law •2) following the teacher of righteousness •3) confessing before God “we have sinned”
So who were these people? The majority view seems to be that they were Essenes, with a growing minority that believes that they were a breakaway group of Sadducees. (A very small minority feels that they were Christian Ebonite's). Most of what we know about the Essenes comes from 1st Century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus (c. 37 – 95 A.D.), with additions from Pliny the Elder and Philo of Alexandria. There are many parallels between what Josephus tells us about the Essenes, and the picture we have of the Sectarians from the scrolls (see page 19, The Dead Sea Scrolls and Christianity).
However, there are some differences, too. For example, Josephus tells us that the Essenes numbered about 4,000, and “they have no one certain city, but many of them dwell in every city” – certainly a different picture from this seemingly monastic desert sect. Also, the teacher of righteousness, who is so prominent in at least two of the scrolls, is not even hinted at in Josephus. However, there are enough similarities between Josephus and the scrolls to at least build a case for the Sectarians being Essenes, as the following quote and table demonstrate:
“Todd Beall concluded that there are 27 parallels between Josephus and the scrolls regarding the Essenes, 21 probable parallels, 10 cases in which Josephus makes claims about the Essenes that have no known parallels among the scrolls, and 6 discrepancies between them.” (The People of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Essenes or Sadducees? James C. Vanderkam, Bible Review, April 1991)
Further backing for the Sectarians-as-Essenes theory may be found in a passage from Pliny the Elder:
*Essenes live+ “away from the western shore *of the Dead Sea], far enough to avoid harmful things, a people alone...companions of palm trees.” (Burrows, p. 280)
This account seems more in keeping with a desert monastic sect than the account of Josephus stating that “many of them dwell in every city.”
One of the great mysteries of Essenes/Scroll scholarship is the fact that the New Testament doesn’t mention the Essenes, although it mentions the other three groups of Josephus – Pharisees, Sadducees, Zealots. It is especially mysterious given the fact that Josephus wrote more about the Essenes than about the Pharisees and Sadducees combined, and all of the 1st century secular historians wrote about the Essenes with such respect and enthusiasm. Why no Essenes in the New Testament? Here are some possibilities:
Because the Essenes lived in remote places, Jesus never came in contact with them during his ministry. Plus, with only 4,000 Essenes in the Levant, they made up a very small portion of the population (there were, for example, about 80,000 people living in Jerusalem alone during the time of Christ).
Some of the apostles of Jesus/followers of John the Baptist were Essenes, so it wasn’t thought necessary to identify an “inside” group in the New Testament.
The Essenes appear somewhere in the New Testament under another name or description (Essenes means something along the lines of “Pious Ones”, “Holy Ones”, or “Healers”.)
The Essenes
“On the west side of the Dead Sea, but out of range of the exhalations of the coast, is the solitary tribe of the Essenes, which is remarkable beyond all other tribes in the whole world, as it has no women and has renounced all sexual desire, has no money, and has only palm trees for company. Day by day the throng of refugees is recruited to an equal number by numerous accessions of persons tired of life and driven thither by the waves of fortune to adopt their manner. Thus through thousands of ages (incredible to relate) a race into which no one is born lives forever; so prolific for their advantage is other men’s weariness of life!” (Pliny the Elder, Natural History; translation from The People of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Essenes or Sadducees?, James C. Vanderkam, Bible Review, April 1991)
The Sadducees
A minority view is that the sectarians were a break-away group of Sadducees. The word Sadducee is a derivative of Zadokite, and the one label that the scrolls seem to apply to the sectarians is “sons of Zadok”. The view of sectarians-as-Sadducees is represented here by Professor Lawrence H. Schiffman:
“I believe the sect was formed when a group of Sadducean priests left the Temple service in the aftermath of the Hasmonean takeover of the Temple soon after the Maccabean revolt, probably by about 152 B.C.” (New Light on the Pharisees, Lawrence Schiffman, Bible Review, June ’92)
One possible argument against the sectarians-as-Sadducees view is that the sectarians seemed to highly honor the Old Testament prophets, which was not a practice of the Sadducees (as we understand them).
“I believe the sect was formed when a group of Sadducean priests left the Temple service in the aftermath of the Hasmonean takeover of the Temple soon after the Maccabean revolt, probably by about 152 B.C.” (New Light on the Pharisees, Lawrence Schiffman, Bible Review, June ’92)
One possible argument against the sectarians-as-Sadducees view is that the sectarians seemed to highly honor the Old Testament prophets, which was not a practice of the Sadducees (as we understand them).