Dr. Gary Gromacki
Associate Professor of Bible and Homiletics
Baptist Bible Seminary
Clarks Summit, Pennsylvania
<ggromacki>at<bbc>dot<edu>
Who lived in the Qumran community? There are several possible answers to that question
DSS scholar Lawrence Schiffman thinks that after the Maccabean revolt (160's BC), some Sadducees remained in Jerusalem, but that a "small, devoted group of Sadducean priests probably formed the faction that eventually became the Dead Sea sect." (Lawrence Schiffman, Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls [Philadelphia and Jerualem: Jewish Publication Society, 1994], 75). Over time, he believes, the group at Qumran developed its own legal positions while retaining a link with the Sadducean tradition. It was the Teacher of Righteousness who led them to their apocalyptic views and to beliefs that departed from the Sadducean tradition.
Scholars who believe the residents of Qumran were Sadducees usually try to connect the name Sadducee (Greek Saddoukaioi) with the name Zadok (Hebrew sadoq, from saddiq, righteous). Zadok was the high priest at the time of David and Solomon (1 Sam.8:17; 15:24; 1 Kings 1:34; 1 Chron.12:29). Zadok is also the high priest that the Qumran community identified with (1QS 5:2, 9; 1QSa 1:2, 24; 2:3; 1QSb 3:22). Their leaders were known as the "sons of Zadok" (CD 4:4-5; 5:2).
Some problems with identifying the Qumran community with the Sadducees
include the following:
1. The DSS teach a strong predestination view/ while Sadducees denied fate
altogether according to Josephus.
2. The DSS teach a resurrection after death (4Q521)/ but the Sadducees denied a
resurrection (Acts 23:8)
3. The DSS teach a belief in angels/ but the Sadducees denied the existence of
angels (Acts 23:8)
Few scholars have identified the Qumran covenanters as Pharisees. Louis Ginzberg wrote an extensive study of the Damascus Document (CD). He concluded on the work's legal section: "And since we now have adduced the entire content of the legal part, with the exception of a single passage, we may state the certain result of this to be that in our document we have a Pharisaic book of law."
There are major disagreements between the Pharisees and the Qumran
texts.
1. The Pharisees would not have accepted the teaching about predestination
found in the DSS.
2. Most scholars believe that the Qumranites viewed the Pharisees in a
negative way. They called them "those who look for smooth things"
in 4QpNah 1:2, 7; 1QH 2, 32. This name is a pun on the Pharisees obsession with
traditions that circumvented the law. The Qumran community would have been much
stricter in their observance of the law than the Pharisees.
Some scholars believe that the Qumran community was made up of Zealots. J.T. Milik, Cecil Roth and G. R. Driver held to this view. The Zealots were described by Josephus (Jewish Antiquities 18.1.6; Jewish War 2.8.1).
Randall Price gives some arguments pro and con for the Zealot view. "The connection made between the Zealots and the Qumran sect stems in part from the destruction of the Qumran community by the Romans. Would the Romans have attacked if they had been a pacifistic sect? That the Qumran Sect might have been comprised of Zealots seems possible from their hatred of the Romans (revealed in the Scrolls) and their separation from all other sects. In addition, their extremism in matters of purity and practice and their apocalyptic perspective appear to make them Zealots. After all, did they not write a War Scroll detailing a future battle against the Romans? Another support for the Zealot theory comes from the excavations of the Qumran settlement, which revealed evidence of a fierce battle. Proponents of this theory believe that an elevated tower on the northern wall of the community was a defensive structure and that the whole settlement was in fact a Zealot outpost or fort. This, they say, is the reason the Romans attacked it. Other confirmation appears to come from Masada, where Scroll fragments of the Qumranic Songs for the Sabbath Sacrifice were discovered along with the unique style Scroll jars that were determined to have come from the kilns at Qumran. Yet the problems with the Zealot theory are many. There is no evidence that the Qumran sect was at variance with the rest of Jerusalem or that other sects in Judaism refused contact with them (it was usually the other way around). Hatred for the Romans was common among many sects, but in the Qumran Sect it was on par with hatred for other Jewish sects. So their hatred was not like that of the Zealots. They didn't consider rejection of or separation from gentiles to mean active opposition to them, as the New Testament depicts (John 18:28; 19:12, 15). There is also no evidence that hatred for any group was acted upon in an aggressive or violent manner. Just because a group is considered apocalyptic and expects an end time battle to take place does not mean that it is militaristic or has violent tendencies." (Randall Price, Secrets of the Dead Sea Scrolls [Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 1996], 114).
It could be that some men from Qumran joined the Zealots when the Romans attacked Qumran and later Jerusalem and Masada. Possibly they believed that the Jewish War was the final war between the sons of light and the sons of darkness. That some members of the Qumran community ended up in Masada is not surprising seeing that Qumran and Jerusalem were destroyed by then. Jodi Magness argues in her book The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls that Qumran was not a fort. The walls of the structure are too thin and there are not ramparts or trenches which are common for military settlements. Also, no weapons were recovered from the graves. Other buildings at Qumran, such as the Scriptorium, would argue that the inhabitants of Qumran were a peaceful group.
Some DSS scholars say that the DSS are from no known Jewish group. Shemaryahu Talmon states, "I insist on viewing the Community of the Renewed Covenant as a socio-religious phenomenon sui generis of Judaism at the height of the Second Temple period. A study of this group from within heightens the recognition of the internal multiformity which characterized Judaism in those days, showing it to have been more diversified than is suggested by the sources which were at our disposal prior to the Qumran discoveries. The Covenanters' community is annother tessera in the mosaic-like composition of the Jewish people at the turn of the era, in addition to Samaritans, Hasidim, Sadducees, Boethusians, Zealots, Essenes, Pharisees, and nascent Christianity, to name only the more prominent factions. (Talmon, "The Community of the Renewed Covenant: Between Judaism and Christianity" in The Community of the Renewed Covenant: The Notre Dame Symposium on the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. E. Ulrich and J. VanderKam [Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994), 6-7).
Robert Eisenman believes that the DSS were written by an early Christian sect. He thinks that James, the brother of Jesus, was the Teacher of Righteousness. One of his opponents was the apostle Paul, who Eisenman identifies as the Liar and Spouter of lies mentioned in some DSS. Another of James' opponents was the Wicked Priest who was the Sadducean high priest Ananus, who according to Josephus, was responsible for the stoning of James (Antiquities 20:200).
Advocates of the Christian origin of the DSS have had to oppose the findings of the paleographers who have dated the DSS to pre-Christian times. If a text dating from the first century BC mentions the Teacher of Righteousness, then the Teacher could not have been James, the brother of Jesus.
One of the first DSS experts to assert that the DSS belonged to the Essenes was Eleazar Sukenik. He made this suggestion when the first DSS were discovered in cave 1. "We must, of course, await more thorough study to discover to whom the genizah cave belonged. Nonetheless, there is one point that seems very suggestive to me. On examining the scrolls owned by the Syrian Orthodox Metropolitan, I found one of them to contain a manual of discipline for a community or sect. I am inclinded to believe that the genizah was instituted by the sect of Essenes who, as several ancient literary sources tell us, had their seat on the western side of the Dead Sea, in the neighborhood of 'Ein Gedi. (Sukenik, The Dead Sea Scrolls of the Hebrew University [Jerusalem: Magnes, 1955], 29).
Josephus was a first century historian. He made these comments about the Essenes:
Jewish philosophy, in fact, takes three forms. The followers of the first school are called Pharisees, of the second Sadducees, of the third Essenes. The Essenes have a reputation for cultivating peculiar sanctity. Of Jewish birth, they show a greater attachment to each other than do the other sects. They shun pleasures as a vice and regard temperance and the control of the passions as a special virtue. Marriage they disdain, but they adopt other men's children, while yet pliable and docile, and regard them as their kin and mould them in accordance with their own principles...Riches they despise, and their community of goods is truly admirable; you will not find one among them distinguished by greater opulence than another. They have a law that new members on admission to the sect shall confiscate their property to the order, with the result that you will nowhere see either abject poverty or inordinate wealth; the individual's possessions join the common stock and all, like brothers, enjoy a single patrimony... (Jewish War 2.8.2-13.
The Manual of Discipline mentioned by Sukenik was the DSS now called Rule of the Community (1QS). Louis Feldman lists the following parallels between the Qumran community as seen in the Rule of the Community (1QS) and Josephus' description of the Essenes. These parallels would be arguments for identifying the Qumran Community as the Essenes.
1. Both separate themselves from other Jews, whereas members are extremely close to one another (Josephus, The Jewish War 2.119, 124; 1QS 2:23-25)
2. Both exercise extreme asceticism, shunning all pleasures (The Jewish War 2:120; 1QS 4:9-11)
3. Both educate young children according to their customs (The Jewish War 2:120; 1QS 28)
4. Both look upon women as wanton (The Jewish War 2:121; 4Q184 i.13-14)
5. Both despise riches (The Jewish War 2:122; 1QS 9:21-24; CD 4:17; 1QpHab 8:10-13)
6. They pool their property (The Jewish War 2:122; Jewish Antiquities 18:20; 1QS 1:11-12)
7. Both regard oil as a defilement (The Jewish War 2:123; CD 12:15-17)
8. They dress in white (The Jewish War 2:123; 1QM 7:9-10)
9. Both have treasurers in charge of their funds and various activities (The Jewish War 2:123; 1QS 6:20; CD 13:16)
10. They replace their clothing only when totally worn out (The Jewish War 2:128; 1QS 10:1-3)
11. Both pray at dawn (The Jewish War 2:128; 1QS 10:1-3)
12. Both practice purificatory washings (The Jewish War 2:129; 1QS 3:4-5)
13. Both have common meals (The Jewish War 2:129; 1QS 6:2-3)
14. The meal is restricted to initiated members (The Jewish War 2:129; 1QS 5:13)
15. The priest blesses the food before the meal (The Jewish War 2:131; 1QS 6:4-5)
16. They speak in turn, each making way for the other (The Jewish War 2:132; 1 QS 6:10-13)
17. Both strictly follow the orders of their overseers (The Jewish War 2:134; 2:146; 1QS 5:2-3)
18. Both are masters of their temper (The Jewish War 2:135; 1QS 4:10)
19. Both are champions of fidelity (The Jewish War 2:135; 1QS 8:1-3)
20. Both are peace loving (The Jewish War 2:135; CD 6:21-7:3)
21. Both are zealous students of the ancient writings (The Jewish War 2:136; 1QS 6:6-8; CD 13:2)
22. Both are greatly interested in the healing of diseases (The Jewish War 2:136; Jubilees 10:10-14)
23. Both describe an initiation period for entrance into the sect ( a two year period of initiation within the community itself) (The Jewish War 2:137-142; 1QS 6:13-16)
24. Both declare that those entering the community must take an oath (The Jewish War 2:139; 1QS 5:8-9; CD 15:7-11).
25. Both hide nothing from fellow members of the sect nor disclose anything about themselves to others (The Jewish War 2:141; 1QS 4:5-6; 8:11-12)
26. Both transmit their teachings precisely as they have received them (The Jewish War 2:142; 1QS 9:16-19)
27. Both refrain from plundering and robbing (The Jewish War 2:142; 1QS 10:19)
28. Both preserve the names of the angels (The Jewish War 2:142; 1QM 9:14-16)
29. Both obey the elders and the majority (The Jewish War 2:146; 1QS 5:2-3, 9)
30. Both avoid spitting (The Jewish War 2:147; 1QS 7:13)
31. Both are particularly strict in observance of the Sabbath (The Jewish War 2:147; CD 10:14-11:18)
32. Both follow a strict rule of discipline, demanding absolute obedience by junior members toward senior members (The Jewish War 2:150; 1QS 5:23; 6:2)
33. Both are fearless in the face of danger (The Jewish War 2:151; 1QS 1:16-17)
34. Some of the sect are able to foretell the future (The Jewish War 2:159; 1QpHab 7:4-5)
35. Both believe in determinism (Jewish Antiquities 18:18; 1QS 3:15-16)
36. Both disagree with the ritual practiced in the Temple in Jerusalem (Jewish Antiquities 18:19; CD 6:11-13)
Philo was a Jew who lived approximately between 20 B.C. and A.D. 45. He was a wealthy Jew who lived in Alexandria, Egypt
Quod Omnis Probus Libert sit 75-80.
"Palestinian Syria, too, has not failed to produce high moral excellence. In this country live a considerable part of the very populous nation of the Jews, including as it is said, certain persons, more than four thousand in number, called Essenes. Their name which is, I think a variation, though the form of the Greek is inexact of holiness, is given them, because they have shown themselves especially devout in the service of God, not by offering sacrifices of animals, but by resolving to sanctify their minds. The first thing about these people is that they live in villages and avoid the cities because of the iniquities which have become inveterate among city dwellers, for they know that their company would have a deadly effect upon their own souls, like a disease brought by a pestilential atmosphere. Some of them labor on the land and others pursue such crafts as cooperate with peace and son benefit themselves and their neighbors. They do not hoard gold and silver or acquire great slices of land because they desire the revenues there from, but provide what is needed for the necessary requirements of life. For while they stand almost alone in the whole of mankind in that they have become moneyless and landless by deliberate action rather than by lack of good fortune, they are esteemed exceedingly rich, because they judge frugality with contentment to be, as indeed it is, an abundance of wealth. As for darts, javelins, daggers, or the helmet, breastplate, or shield, you could not find a single manufacturer of them, nor, in general, any person making weapons or plying any industry concerned with war, nor, indeed any of the peaceful kind, which easily lapse into vice, for they have not the vaguest idea of commerce either wholesale or retail or marine, but pack the inducements to covetousness off in disgrace. Not a single slave is to be found among them, but all are free, exchanging services with each other, and they denounce the owners of slaves, not merely for their injustice in outraging the law of equality, but also for their impiety in annulling the statute of Nature, who mother like has born and reared all men alike, and created them genuine brothers, not in mere name, but in very reality, though this kinship has been put to confusion by the triumph of malignant covetousness, which has wrought estrangement instead of affinity and enmity instead of friendship. As for philosophy they abandon the logical part to quibbling verbalists as unnecessary for the acquisition of virtue, and the physical to visionary praters as beyond the grasp of human nature, only retaining that part which treats philosophically of the existence of God and the creation of the universe. But the ethical part they study very industriously, taking for their trainers the laws of their fathers, which could not possibly have been conceived by the human soul without divine inspiration." (quote taken from C.K. Barrett, Ed. The New Testament Background. [San Francisco, CA: HarperSanFrancisco, 1987], 160-161).
The Roman author Pliny the Elder (A.D. 23-79) was an administrator, military officer and historian who wrote a 37 volume entitled Natural History which he finished around A.D. 77. Pliny tells us that there Essenes on the western side of the Dead Sea. He mentions
"To the west [of the Dead Sea] the Essenes have put the necessary distance between themselves and the insalubrious shore. They are a people unique of its kind and admirable beyond all others in the whole world, without women and renouncing love entirely, without money, and having for company only the palm trees. Owing to the throng of newcomers, this people is daily re-born in equal number; indeed, those whom, wearied by the fluctuations of fortune, life leads to adopt their customs, stream in in great numbers. Thus, unbelievable though this may seem, for thousands of centuries a race has existed which is eternal yet into which no one is born; so fruitful for them is the repentance which others feel for their past lives! Below the Essenes was the town of Engada [Engedi], which yielded only to Jerusalem in fertility and palm groves but is today become another ash-heap. From there, one comes to the fortress of Masada, situated on a rock, and itself near the lake of Asphalt." (Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 5.17, 4; quoted from G. Vermes and M. D. Goodman, eds., The Essenes According to Classical Sources. Oxford Centre Textbooks. Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1989, p.33).
Problems with the Essene Theory
1. The term "Essene" does not appear in any of the scrolls. The Qumran community called themselves the Yahad, the "Community of the Renewed Covenant," "the Elect," and "the Remnant."
2. One of the most significant distinctions of the Qumran community was that it followed a 364 day luni-solar calendar as opposed to a strictly 354 day lunar calendar. None of the ancient sources detailing the unique Essene practices mention this fact that is prominent in several DSS.
3. Shemaryahu Talmon believes that all the above similarities can be explained as the Essenes drawing upon the common heritage of the Hebrew Bible. He writes, "I consider it methodologically wrong to begin identifying a new movement by making comparisons. I think that we should have started, as I did from the beginning, by basing my ideas on what they tell us about themselves. There are a fair number of similarities, including the fact that according to Josephus once of the main Essene settlements was near Masada or Ein-Gedi, which is not too far from Qumran. In spite of that I think we have to take into account that analogies should be expected from the very outset. For this reason, the authors of the Scrolls have been identified with Christianity, the Ebionites, the Zadokites, and the Hassidians. The explanation for this is that all these groups draw on the same heritage, namely the Hebrew Bible. Other similarities can be explained to some degree by a similarity in societal structure. In this respect a group built on a simple figure like the Moreh Ha-Sadeq (the Teacher of Righteousness or better, Legitimate Teacher) resembles Christianity built on Jesus Christ. However, in my opinion what is decisive are not the similarities but the differences. The differences are obvious and clear. Our three sources about the Essenes: Josephus Flavius, Pliny the Elder, and Philo of Alexandria never mention that they had a leader, a central figure, like "the Legitimate Teacher." They never mention a type like the Wicked Priest, who persecutes them. There is no difference in calendar between the Essenes and the other Jews. They do not tell us that the Essenes consider themselves as the first post-exilic generation and so the new Biblical Israel that arose in their time. We have no reference to any type of inspired interpretation of Biblical prophecy. So in summary I believe that the similarities can be explained by all these groups, including the Essenes drawing upon the heritage of the Hebrew Bible, and that the differences outweigh the similarities." (Randall Price, Secrets of the Dead Sea Scrolls [Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 1996], 108-109).
CONCLUSION
It seems that the majority of the evidence supports the view that the Essenes were the residents of Qumran. There are problems with all the views. Randall Price gives this conclusion to this problem: "Perhaps at our present stage of knowledge about the Qumran Sect a little compromise is necessary. After all, when we try to categorize the Qumran Sect we do not find a comfortable fit with any one known group. If they were Essenes, they seem to have been a different sort of Essene than what Josephus and Pliny knew. If they were Sadducees, they must have been a breakaway Sadducee group. If they were Pharisees, they must have been a branch of Pharisees that rejected Oral Tradition. Thus, the Sect might have been Essenoid, or quasi-Sadducean, or Pharisee-like, or have had Zealot tendencies, but apparently the group was not fully identical with any of these groups. Or, focusing on the many traits they shared, they could be seen as an Essenic/Pharasaic/Sadducean/Zealot Sect." (Randall Price, Secrets of the Dead Sea Scrolls [Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 1996], 122).
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LINKS TO OTHER DSS WEB PAGES BY DR. GARY GROMACKI
The Sectarian Writings of the Qumran Community
Doctrine of God Doctrine of the Bible Doctrine of Man and Sin
Doctrine of Salvation Doctrine of the Community Doctrine of the Messiah
Doctrine of Eschatology Archaeology of Qumran Bibliography on the DSS
Web Sites on the DSS DSS Table of Contents