One question I am often asked when I speak and teach is whether and how Jesus might have been related to the Essenes, and/or the Dead Sea Scroll Community. Now that becomes one question or two depending on whether one equates the group know to us from Classical sources (Pliny, Josephus, Philo) as the “Essenes” with the sect that produced the Scrolls. And what about the site of Qumran? To put things succinctly:

1. Are the scrolls connected to the site of Qumran?
2. Is the group that wrote the scrolls the one known to us in Classical sources by the name “Essene”?

I would say YES, absolutely, to each question, despite those who have argued, even recently, to the contrary.

On the 1st question the archaeology is absolutely clear, see the magisterial work by Jodi Magness, The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls, as well as the introduction to the Scrolls as a whole by James Vanderkam and Peter Flint, The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls. There is also a nice opening essay on this subject by James Charlesworth in his edited volume, Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The second question I think is equally clear. If you read the basic Classical sources, namely Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 13 & 18; Jewish War 2; Philo, Every Good Man is Free 75-91; Hypothetica 11; Pliny Natural History 5, the parallel between the Qumran sect and the “Essenes” as they are therein described are overwhelming. I lean very strongly toward the view that the Greek word ’essaioi or ’ossaioi= the Hebrew ‘ossim, meaning the “Doers,” referring to the ‘ossim haTorah, that is the “Doers of the Torah (1QpHab 8:1). It is most interesting that Paul uses this very phrase in Romans 2, as does James in his letter.

The Qumran group considered as apostate those they called the “Seekers of smooth things” (haChalqot), taken from Dan 11:32. In other words those who gave a “light” interpretation of Torah.

When it comes to Jesus and his movement there are some rather amazing parallels with the Qumran/Essene community. Here are some of the more striking elements that both movements shared:

1) Apocalyptic: “This the time for the preparation of the way into the wilderness” (1QS 9) “From the day of the gathering in of the Teacher of the Community until the end of all the men of war who deserted to the Liar there shall pass about 40 years” (CD(B) 2)

2) Prepare the Way in the Wilderness: “They shall separate from the habitation of unjust men and shall go into the wilderness to prepare there the way of Him” (1QS 8)

3) Messianic in Hope and Orientation: “They shall be ruled by the primitive precepts in which the men of the Community were first instructed until there shall come the Prophet and the Messiahs of Aaron and Israel” (1QS 9)

4) Community of the New Covenant: “None of the men who enter the New Covenant in the land of Damascus and betray it shall be inscribed in its Book from the day of the gathering in of the Teacher of the Community until the coming of the Messiah(s) of Aaron and Israel” (CD 8)

5) Water Initiation Rites: “And when his flesh is sprinkled with purifying water and sanctified by cleansing water, it shall be made clean by the humble submission of his soul to all the precepts of God” (1QS 3) “They shall not enter the water to partake of the pure Meal of the saints unless they turn from their wickedness” (1 QS 5) (Josephus)

6) Spiritual Temple is the Community: “He has commanded that a Sanctuary of men be built for Himself, that there they may send up, like the smoke of incense, the works of the Torah” (4Q174) “They shall atone for sins without the flesh of holocausts and the fat of sacrifice and prayer shall be an acceptable fragrance of righteousness” (1QS 9) (Josephus, Philo)

7) Communal Sharing of Property and Wealth: “All those who freely devote themselves to His truth shall bring all their knowledge, powers and possessions into the Community of God” (1QS 1) (Josephus? Philo)

8) Forbidding of Divorce: Fornication is “taking a second wife while the first is alive, whereas the principle of creation is ‘male and female’ he created them.” Two not three or more…(CD 4:20)

What makes these eight all the more noteworthy is that they are characteristic tags of identity, that is matters that define the entire essence and orientation of a group, not peripheral details. And further, as far as we know, neither the Pharisees nor the Sadducess shared a single one of these characteristics.

From this material alone I think we can say that Jesus and his movement fit best against the background or the kind of apocalyptic/Messianic Judaism that we see reflected in the Scrolls. But that is not to say that Jesus or his followers were “card carrying” members of the Essenes. I rather think they were not. There are also sharp and strong differences. The Essenes, at least as we know them in the Scrolls, would have likely considered Jesus a teacher of “smooth things.” His relations with women, Gentiles, even Roman soldiers, and his attitude toward Sabbath observance and ritual purity, as well as other Halachic matters would have seen to them as lax and lacking. I do not think that he violated such things with a “high hand,” but that he interpreted the Torah on the principle that “Laws are for people, not people for laws.” One good example is the Scrolls forbid helping an animal that has fallen into a pit or well on Shabbat, whereas Jesus, agreeing with the Pharisees, asks, “Which of you would not help such a creature on the Shabbat?”

We also have to remember that the Essene community known from the Scrolls tends to be a reflection of the group in the 1st century BCE–nearer to its founding and before it profound disappointment with apocalyptic expectations “Dead Messiahs Who Don’t Return“). Who is to say that all those even loosely associated with the group, a hundred years after the death of the Teacher, would have maintained that original strictness in terms of observing the Torah? I think it likely that scores of “Essenes” and “Essene types” or sympathizers were drawn to John the Baptizer and Jesus and James. That is why I am so fond of Robert Eisenman’s designation: The Messianic movement in Palestine…He does not get caught up on labels and modern disputes about who calls whom what. What links the groups is the language, the core ideas, the vocabulary, and the key concepts they shared. I do indeed think we can best understand Jesus and his movement, before and after his life, in that wider context we see reflected in the Scrolls.

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