The preferred explanation at Qumran for the muscular presence of evil in the life of humanity is the story about the fallen Angels, best known from Enoch literature. When heavenly angels went astray and impregnated women, they and their offspring - the giants - introduced a superhuman element of evil into human society. The Angel myth, in some of its forms, presupposes that evil existed beforehand in the heavenly realm but does not explain its origin.
A second theological tenet honour on which one may favourably compare the scrolls and ancient descriptions of the Essenes concerns the afterlife. What happens to a person when the earthly life ends? It is a fixed belief of the Essenes that the body is corruptible and its constituent matter impermanent, but that the soul is immortal and imperishable. Emanating from the finest ether, these souls become entangled, as it were, in the prison -house of the body to which they are dragged down by a sort of natural spell; but once they are released from the bonds of flesh, then, as though liberated from a long servitude, they rejoice and are borne aloft. Sharing the belief of the sons of Greece, and they maintain that for virtuous souls there is reserved an abode beyond the ocean. (Jewish War)This description has peculiar features.
The ancient sources for Essene theology happen to oppose one another on the matter of the post-mortem fate of the body. Although Josephus claims that the Essenes embraced the immortality of the soul and dissolution of the body, Hippolytus of Rome characterises their eschatological notions differently. He pictures the Essenes much as Josephus does, except for the belief regarding the destiny of the body, so who is more accurate?
More than a decade ago, a French scholar published a translation of a phrase about resurrection of the dead from an unpublished Qumran text. The text underlying the translation has only recently become available and may provide confirmation that at least one Qumran writer believed bodies would be raised at the end - it mentions a messiah and later deals with what the Lord will do. From this, it is likely that Hippolytus is correct about this article of Essene theology and that Josephus expresses an interpretation of their belief, which is a misleading but understandable inference from some expressions in the texts. It is also possible that even Josephus’ language does not deny to the Essenes a belief in physical resurrection.
The Qumran community also lived by special laws. Everyone who had voluntarily earned the right to enter the community pledged to live by the divine will as understood by the group. The series of legal texts at Qumran proves the importance of the rules derived from their exegesis of the Torah. Strict adherence to the communal code of conduct was enforced by a series of penalties, the most serious of which was banishment the farm the commuting. The others varied, depending upon the offence, between two years for the most serious and ten days for the most trivial.
All members were ranked by the perfection or imperfection of their conduct, and they were assessed regularly. In fact, a record was kept so that pertinent information would be available. Since purity was a primary concern, separation was demanded, whether the dramatic separation of the Qumran community or the limited the real one of the camps. Strict rules had as their goal to help the members achieve the requisite purity, free from contamination of any sort.
Revelation and scriptural interpretation also conveyed information about the structure of the universe. Not only did the revelations disclose the course of history and one’s location in it; they also communicated the true calendar and properly ordered times the in which to celebrate the festivals. Sun and Moon operated according to strict, schematic laws that the covenanters understood but others, who followed the ways of the Gentiles did not.
The revealed calendar called for a solar year of 364 days and a lunar on 354 days. Qumranites accepted only a solar calendar of 364 days and rejected the lunar reckoning that the authorities in Jerusalem followed. The importance of the Qumran calendars is that they differed from whatever one was used in the Temple in the second century BCE and after. One result was that the residents of Qumran and some of their spiritual ancestors observed a unique festival cycle. That is, they did not celebrate on the same days those holidays they shared with other Jews. Moreover, they marked as festivals several occasions that other Jews seem not to have celebrated. There is no evidence that Jesus or the Early Church movement used the Qumran solar calendar.
The Qumran community believed at the end of history the Almighty Lord will intervene. He will then send the great leaders of the future – a prophet and the Davidic and priestly messiahs- who along with the hosts of the sons of light and, will take part in the ultimate divine victory over evil.
The Manual of Discipline gave the first unambiguous evidence that the people of Qumran expected not one messiah, but two. This pattern of both a secular and priestly leader of the end time is repeated in a relatively large number of Qumran texts of diverse types: rules, commentaries, and eschatological works. The messiah turns out to be a descendant of David, as one might have expected. He goes under several titles that are identified with one another: ‘branch of David’, ‘messiah’, and ‘prince of congregation’.
As already seen, the Essene statements about life after death are not always clear. Nevertheless, we now have a text mentioning that God will raise the dead. This resurrection happens apparently after the final war has been decided and cataclysmic destruction has occurred. At that time, a new kind of communion with God and the Angels will begin. That communion will be a continuation of the one that the members enjoyed in the present time, since they believed in some way they joined with the heavenly hosts in their worship of God. The Temple Scroll speaks of a new temple that God will create, whilst a series of other texts describe the layout of a new Jerusalem. Thus, the Qumranites envisaged a return to a purified Jerusalem with its new temple where the proper sacrificial cult would be in effect.
Beyond the series of theological beliefs common to Josephus’ Essenes and the authors of the Qumran texts is another set of agreements that focus on conduct. Several kinds of behaviour that for Josephus characterise the Essenes are also mandated in the scrolls.
Josephus draws attention to the Essenes’ avoidance of the sorts of a boil that people applied to their bodies. The Qumran texts indicate that the community believed liquids were ready transmitters of ritual impurity from one item to another. By wearing oil on the skin, one increased the danger of contacting immaculately from unclean objects and persons. To avoid contamination, then, they refrained from covering their skin with oil. The point seems to be that oil itself is not impure; it simply conducts impurity well and hence should not be used.
There is ample evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls that the Qumran Community used baptism regularly (Josephus says it is twice a day) as a way of preserving their moral and religious purity. True purification comes from the ‘spirit of holiness’ and true cleansing comes from the humble submission of the soul to all God’s precepts. One of the most conspicuous features of the ruins of the monastery at Qumran is the incredibly complicated system of aqueducts and water tanks that provided enough water in the desert for people of the community to undergo their baptismal rites.
The community accepted only those who could prove they had already changed their way of life. An initiate often had to wait a year or two before being allowed to take part in the ritual washings at Qumran (which consisted of immersion and sprinkling). The washings were not connected with the expectation of a messiah, or of anyone else. They were simply means of expressing in symbol the moral or spiritual purity which the Qumran Community hoped to preserve amongst its members.
Professor H.H.Rowley has pointed out that ‘baptism’, in the sense that we usually understand, is not really the right word to describe what occurred at Qumran. The Essene ‘baptisms’ were a means of affecting a ritual purification in the lives of those who were members, rather than being a rite of admission to the sect.
Another point on which the scrolls and ancient descriptions of the Essenes coincide has to do with the property of individual Essenes. Pliny mentions that the Essene group on the west side of the Dead Sea ‘has no money’. Josephus also talks admirably of the Essenes common ownership of property: “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 property or inordinate wealth; the individual’s possessions join the common stock and all, like brothers, enjoy a single patrimony. (Jewish war)
Deliberate lying with regard to property was punished by a year’s exclusion from the ‘pure meal’ and by a one-fourth reduction in rations. It should be noted that neither of these scholars says the Essenes were poor, rather they shared their goods for the benefit of the community instead of amassing private property.
Josephus also saw fit to record the way in which the Essenes ate their communal meals, and he seems to know more about the Essene meals than the scrolls divulge. Only members partake in the meal, and this is verified by the procedure for admission to the group. The candidate is not allowed to touch the food at the meal until he has completed a full year trial and passed an examination. Only after another year is he permitted to have the wine as well. One of the punishments listed for several offences in the Manual is exclusion from the meal for a stipulated time. The Rule of the Congregation also depicts a meal, one that characterised the last days. At that meal too, all must sit in their appropriate rank, and the priest blesses the bread and wine before anyone eats.
Josephus also relates the toilet habits of the Qumran Community. He states they are stricter than the Jews in abstaining from work on the seventh day in that they do not venture to remove any vessel or even to go to stool. And though this discharge of excrements is a natural function, they make it a rule to wash themselves after it, as if defiled.
Finally, both Josephus and the Manual of Discipline mention a small detail. The historian writes: “They are careful not to spit into the midst of the company, or to the right” (Jewish Manual). The Manual stipulates “Whoever has spat in an Assembly of the Congregation shall do penance for thirty days”. Why both mention this minor rule is not known, although it must have been sufficiently unusual to call attention to itself.
In conclusion, the Qumranites can be called an eschatological community in the sense that they were convinced the end was near and ordered their beliefs and community practices accordingly. They had many beliefs and practices which were particular to them, and others they had adapted from Jewish customs. The Qumran Community would appear to be thorough and organised, with an established set of rules and regulations.
