@Olivier5,
Quote:That's far from proven. The solitary life and the rituals described by Philo(?) are very different from what we know of the Essenes. Who on the other hand seem to have heavily influenced John the Baptist, Jesus and his followers. The parallels are well known: baptism, the whine and bread sharing ritual, the obsession with escatology, contempt for the temple hierarchy...
And unlike the therapeuts, the Essenes left us many docs (dead sea scrolls). And one of the qumran fragments (4Q246 ) says this:
"He will be called the Son of God, and they will call him the Son of the Most High like a shooting star."
It appears to me that what was taking place was a division or evolution of religion. The Jews had many differing beliefs and mores were changing.
The accounts by Josephus and Philo show that the Essenes led a strictly communal life – often compared by scholars to later Christian monastic living. Many of the Essene groups appear to have been celibate, but Josephus speaks also of another "order of Essenes" that observed the practice of being engaged for three years and then becoming married.[38] According to Josephus, they had customs and observances such as collective ownership,[39][40] electing a leader to attend to the interests of the group, obedience to the orders from their leader.[41] Also, they were forbidden from swearing oaths[42] and from sacrificing animals.[43] They controlled their tempers and served as channels of peace,[42] carrying weapons only for protection against robbers.[44] The Essenes chose not to possess slaves but served each other[45] and, as a result of communal ownership, did not engage in trading.[46] Josephus and Philo provide lengthy accounts of their communal meetings, meals and religious celebrations.
After a total of three years' probation,[47] newly joining members would take an oath that included the commitment to practice piety towards "the Deity" (το θειον) and righteousness towards humanity, to maintain a pure lifestyle, to abstain from criminal and immoral activities, to transmit their rules uncorrupted and to preserve the books of the Essenes and the names of the Angels.[48] Their theology included belief in the immortality of the soul and that they would receive their souls back after death.[18][49] Part of their activities included purification by water rituals, which was supported by rainwater catchment and storage.
Ritual purification was a common practice among peoples of the Palestine in this period and was thus not specific to the Essenes. Ritual baths are found near many Synagogues of the period.[50]
The Church Father Epiphanius (writing in the 4th century CE) seems to make a distinction between two main groups within the Essenes:[31] "Of those that came before his [Elxai, an Ossaean prophet] time and during it, the Ossaeans and the Nazarean."[51] Epiphanius describes each group as following:
The Nazarean – they were Jews by nationality – originally from Gileaditis, Bashanitis and the Transjordan… They acknowledged Moses and believed that he had received laws – not this law, however, but some other. And so, they were Jews who kept all the Jewish observances, but they would not offer sacrifice or eat meat. They considered it unlawful to eat meat or make sacrifices with it. They claim that these Books are fictions, and that none of these customs were instituted by the fathers. This was the difference between the Nazarean and the others…[52]
After this Nazarean sect in turn comes another closely connected with them, called the Ossaeans. 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… Though it is different from the other six of these seven sects, it causes schism only by forbidding the books of Moses like the Nazarean.[51]
If it is correct to identify the community at Qumran with the Essenes (and that the community at Qumran are the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls), then according to the Dead Sea Scrolls the Essenes' community school was called "Yahad" (meaning "community") in order to differentiate themselves from the rest of the Jews who are repeatedly labeled "The Breakers of the Covenant".
The therapeutea and the essences are the first ones that I am aware of in written history that did not find it right to posses slaves sure we can find differences between the two but we can find difference between any group.
