Lecture 17 -- The Life of the Essenes

Summary Outline

Josephus was writing like other ancient Greek and Roman authors to

educate but also to entertain his readers. Like other ancient Greek and

Roman authors, Josephus typically focuses on things that are exotic,

that make them different from everyone else.   The reason Josephus

singles out the toilet habits of the Essenes is because their toilet habits

were different from everyone else’s.

In this lecture, we’ll look at some of the archaeological evidence that

sheds light on the everyday life of members of the sect at Qumran and

relate it to some of my own research on the archaeology there.

The full and final archaeological report by the excavators of Qumran was

never published, but in 1994, a large volume that contains photographs and

raw field notes was issued. I was invited to write a review of it. In searching

the book for something that would interest readers, I found a description of a

room with a pit dug into its dirt floor and one doorway opening to a ritual bath.

This pit was filled with layers of dirty, smelly soil and had been identified as

a toilet. I was intrigued-a toilet at Qumran? But after researching toilets in

the Roman world, I became convinced that this identification was correct.

If indeed this is a toilet at Qumran, do we have any information from our

literary sources about the toilets and toilet habits of this sect? Yes, in fact,

there are three such sources: the war scroll, the Temple Scroll, and the

writings of Josephus.

The war scroll, concerned with the 40-year-long apocalyptic war at the end

of days, contains a passage that mandates the placement of toilets relative

to war camps. In the temple scroll, which describes this sect’s ideal temple

and ideal Jerusalem, there is also a mandate for the placement of the toilets

relative to the city. They are to be farther than a Sabbath day’s journey from

the city (apparently, toilets weren’t to be used on the Sabbath) and enclosed

in roofed rooms with a pit dug into the floor. This description closely matches

what we have in the archaeology of Qumran. The toilet at Qumran is a pit

that was dug into the dirt floor of a room that was completely enclosed and

was roofed over.

Interestingly, Josephus says that the Essenes didn’t use the toilet on the

Sabbath. He also says that a new member of this sect had to find a private

spot in the desert, dig a hole, cover himself with his mantle while defecating, 

bury the result, then wash himself. This sect had a very modern Western 

concern with toilet modesty and privacy, unlike any other group in the Roman 

world. This description in Josephus perfectly complements what we read in 

the temple scroll and what we see at the Qumran site. And Josephus also

seems to suggest, because these people washed afterward, that this sect 

considered defecation to be ritually polluting, an attitude unique among the 

Jews. I do not think it is a coincidence, therefore, that the only doorway in the 

room with the toilet at Qumran opens onto a ritual bath.

The toilet room at Qumran offers a wonderful display of intersection of

information from varied sources. 

Important Term

Temple Scroll: A work found at Qumran that describes an ideal future city

of Jerusalem and temple.

Questions to Consider

1. What do archaeology and literary sources (e.g., the Dead Sea Scrolls,

the writings of Josephus) teach us about the lifestyle and beliefs of the

Qumran community?

2. What do you think is the importance of the Dead Sea Scrolls?

Lecture 17-Transcript

The Life of the Essenes

We’ve spent a lot of time so far talking about the archaeology of Qumran

and the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the identification of this sect as the Essenes.

What I’d to do now is look at some of our archaeological evidence that sheds

light on the everyday life of members of this sect. I’d like to relate this to

some of my own research on the archaeology of Qumran.

The first thing that I have to mention is that although the scandals about the

Dead Sea Scrolls are long over-the Dead Sea Scrolls are now fully published

and have been fully accessible to the public for well over a decade-that is

not the case with the archaeological material from de Vaux excavations at

Qumran. de Vaux died in the early l97Os without ever having published a

full and final scientific report on his excavations at Qumran. He did publish a

number of preliminary reports and a sort of synthetic overview, but he never

published a scientific archaeological report. Until now, that material, which

has been inherited by successive generations of archaeologists at de Vaux’s

home institution, the Ecole Biblique. Until now, that material has never been

published, and is still in the hands of the Ecole Biblique. No one, including

myself; has access to that material without permission of the archaeologists

at the Ecole Biblique.

I actually think that there is still a big scandal about Qumran and that is

the lack of publication of the material hom de Vaux’s excavations. Having

said that, in 1994, a volume was published on de Vaux’s excavations by the

current archaeologists at the Ecole Biblique-by a man named Jean-Baptiste

Humbert. Together with another archaeologist, Alain Chambon, they

published a very large volume that contains photographs from the time of de

Vaux’s excavations and de Vaux’s raw field notes. This is, of course, the first

step-hopefully-in a process towards final publication.

When that report was published in 1994, I was invited to write a review

of it. I was very happy to be invited to review it because it meant that I

received the volume for free, so I didn’t have to pay for it. But, the bad news

was then I had to actually read it and write a review of it. If you’ve ever

read notes from an archaeological excavation, you know that there can be

nothing that’s dryer or more boring. Reading through de Vaux’s notes, you

know, we excavated through I0 centimeters of dirt mixed with stones and a

few potsherds.

As I read through this volume, in order to write a review of it, what was

always at the back of my mind? What sort of valuable information can I

extract from this volume that was never published previously, and that will

be interesting to readers of this review? I combed through de Vaux’s field

notes and finally found something very, very interesting and important in a

room on the eastem side ofthe settlement. In this room, which de Vaux called

Locus 51, de Vaux describes finding a pit dug into the 'dirt floor of this room.

The room with this pit has one doorway. It opens south onto the miqveh, the

ritual bath with the earthquake crack that we talked about originally in our

tour of the site of Qumran.

de Vaux describes this pit as a pit that was dug into the dirt floor of the room.

It had a circle of stones around the top and a terracotta pipe sunk into it.

The photographs of this pit-which are from a volume with photographs

from the time of the excavation-show it very clearly. In fact, what appears

to be a ceramic jar is not a jar at all. In fact, it’s the dried mud lining of the

pit. When the pit was dug, they dug it into the dirt floor. In order to keep the

sides of the pit from collapsing, they lined it with mud. The mud then caked

and hardened. What the photographs from the time of excavation show then

is de Vaux having dug away from around the outside of the pit, leaving just

the dried, caked-mud lining with the terracotta pipe set down into the middle

of it.

In this volume that was published in 1994, de Vaux describes this pit as

being filled with layers of dirty, smelly soil, He identifies it as a toilet. I was

intrigued-a toilet at Qumran? Was De Vaux correct, in fact, in identifying

this installation as a toilet? I set out to try and ind out. The logical thing to

do would be to analyze soil samples from the pit to see it; in fact, it was a

toilet. But, I have no access to the excavated material from Qumran. Even

if I did, I find it doubtful that de Vaux would have saved soil samples for

analysis, since he excavated back in the early 1950s. That was not an option.

The next best option was to do research on toilets in the Roman world to see

whether this pit fits the profile of an ancient toilet.

I began to do research on toilets in the Roman world. Very quickly I came

across a very interesting kind of toilet called a Roman luxury latrine. It turns

out that there have even been books written on these kinds of toilets. Roman

luxury latrines are perhaps the most famous kind of ancient toilet. They are

found all throughout the Roman world. I happen to show an example from

the Scholastica baths at Ephesus. But, toilets like this are found all around the

Mediterranean. How did Roman luxury latrines operate? Basically, Roman

luxury latrines are usually attached to a bath house, that is, usually they are

part of a bath house.

The way that they worked was that the Romans would bring in a constant

source of running water by way of aqueduct. The water in the aqueduct

then would be channeled through the various rooms in the bath house.

After having gone through all of the other rooms in the bath house, it would

then be channeled in an underground channel along the sides of the room

of the latrine. You have an underground channel running along the walls.

Built over the channel was a row of stone or wooden seats. The holes in the

seats then allowed the waste to fall down into the channel with the water

below. The channel with the water would then carry the waste away from the

bath house.

Roman luxury latrines are very interesting. For our purposes, for the purposes

of Qumran, they’re really not all that relevant. This is because, in order to

have this kind of toilet facility, you have to have a constant stream of running

water being brought into the latrine. We don’t have that at Qumran. There is

no constant source of running water. For the purposes of understanding the

Qumran toilet, Roman luxury latrines are really not all that helpful. But, there

actually is a couple of things about Roman luxury latrines that are pertinent

to our discussion.

Of course, the thing that strikes most modern Westerners automatically,

when we look at Roman luxury latrine, is the fact that you have rows of seats

side-by-side without any toilet privacy. As many as sixty people could sit

side-by-side, in full view of each other, in a Roman luxury latrine without

any problem at all. What Roman luxury latrines illustrate is the fact that the

modern Western notion of toilet privacy did not exist in the ancient Roman

world. People simply sat in full view of each other in these latrines.

Another interesting thing-not really relevant to Qumran-to notice about

luxury latrines is the fact that, at the base of the seats, there is a channel cut

into the pavement. What was that channel for? There are a couple of things-

probably to carry off spillage and many scholars think the channel was used

for a stream of water that held sponges on sticks. This was because, in the

Roman world, there was no toilet paper. What did you do when you finished

using the latrine? You would take a sponge on a stick that was then dunked

into that water in the channel and you used it to wipe yourself off When

you were done, you put it back into its place. This is an example of what is

probably the height of toilet luxury in the Roman world, these Roman luxury

latrine installations. But again, for our purposes at Qumran, they’re really

not all that relevant.

I found, as I was doing my work, my research on toilets in the Roman world,

a lot of interesting little tidbits. First of all, I found that a lot of people didn’t

have access to toilet facilities. That is, people wandered around and there

wasn’t always a Roman luxury latrine necessarily in the area. You didn’t have

access to other built toilet facilities. What I found is that, in the ancient world,

it was very common for people to literally relieve themselves anywhere. When

I say anywhere, I mean anywhere. I found examples of shops at Pompeii where

the shopkeepers wrote on the outside of the shop, “Don’t go here.” I found

examples of Roman laws trying to prohibit people from relieving themselves

in other kinds of public places. What this indicates by the way, again, is that

there was no concept of toilet privacy in the Roman world.

What did you do if you were in a house and you had to use the toilet? Many

houses in the ancient world were not equipped with toilet facilities. People

would use, well, the analogy would be a chamber pot. They would take,

for example, the bottom part of a jar or something like that and they would

use that. Then, they would toss the contents out onto the streets below. The

streets were used for emptying the contents of chamber pots.

If you’ve ever been to ancient cities like Pompeii, you may have noticed

that the curbs of the sidewalks are very high above the street. In fact, they’re

so high that you actually have stepping stones going across the street. Did

you wonder why you have high curbs with stepping stones? Now you

know why. By the way, having high curbs with stepping stones is a big

improvement over not having high curbs with stepping stones, which is why

cities like Pompeii were considered among the more advanced cities in the

ancient World.

We do have examples of houses in the Roman world that have built toilets

inside of them. When we do have houses with built toilets, what do these

toilets look like‘? One of the best examples that I’ve found of a built toilet

facility is not from the Roman world. It’s from Iron Age Jerusalem, from our

House of Achiel in the City of David. It dates to around 600 B.C. It’s a very

similar type of toilet facility to what we find in Roman houses because toilet

technology did not change in the intervening centuries.

What do these sorts of built toilet facilities look like when a house actually

has one? Basically, what it consists of is a pit that is dug into the dirt floor

of a room. Set above that pit, we have a stone or a wooden toilet seat with a

hole in it. When the pit, which is a cesspit, became filled, a manure merchant

would be called to come and empty the contents of the pit. The contents of

the pit were then sold to be used as fertilizer in the agricultural fields. I like

to say, by the way, that if we could actually be transported back 2,000 years

in time, we would first of all be bowled over by the odorama. I doubt that

most of us would sLu°vive even a week because we lack immunity to the

diseases that were circulating because of practices like this.

When we have built toilet facilities in Roman houses, they look very similar

to what we find at Qumran. It was a cesspit dug into the floor of the room

that had a stone or a wooden seat above it. What we’re missing at Qumran

is the seat. I actually think that de Vaux may have found the seat because,

in his field notes, he describes finding in the next room over a square block

of stone pierced by a hole. He didn’t know what it was. There is no picture

of this block of stone, so I’ve never seen what it looks like. But, from the

description, I think he may have actually found the toilet seat at Qtunran.

After doing this research on toilets in the Roman world, I became convinced

that de Vaux was correct in identifying the pit at Qumran as a toilet.

That raises the next interesting question. If indeed this is a toilet at Qumran,

do we have any information from our literary sources about the toilets and

toilet habits of this sect? I started to do research on that and very quickly

found that yes, we do. We have three sources that talk about the toilets and

toilet habits of the sect-number one, we have the War Scroll; number two,

the Temple Scroll; and number three, Josephus.

l’m not going to look at the passage from the War Scroll, except to describe it

a little bit. The War Scroll, of course, is the scroll that describes the 40-year-

long apocalyptic war at the end of days between the forces of good and

forces of evil, the sons of light and the sons of darkness. There is a passage

in the War Scroll that mandates the placement of the toilets relative to the

War camps. We have that reference there. But, what I do want to do is focus

on the description in the Temple Scroll.

First of all, what is the Temple Scroll? The Temple Scroll is a document

which may or may not be a sectarian composition. That is, we are not sure

whether the Temple Scroll was composed by members of this sect, or simply

used by them. Even if it wasn’t composed by members of the sect, it certainly

was authoritative at Qumran because it is represented among the Dead Sea

Scrolls by multiple copies. The Temple Scroll is a document which describes

this sect’s ideal temple and ideal Jerusalem-not a heavenly temple, not an

apocalyptic temple, but what Jerusalem and the temple will look like in the

future when they’re in control.

The scroll is written in a very particular way. It is written as though God is

speaking. This is coming out of the mouth of God. What better way to give

something authority than to have God telling you to do it? The scroll is so

detailed in its description of this ideal future city of Jerusalem that even the

placement of the toilets relative to the city of Jerusalem is mandated. We’re

going to look at the passage. I want you to note that, in this scroll, the word

toilet, the Hebrew word toilet, is hand or a place for a hand. The term hand or

place for a hand is actually a term that comes from Deuteronomy. When they

were writing this scroll, they took that term from a passage in Deuteronomy.

Let’s now read what the scroll says about the toilets in this future city of

Jerusalem. It says, “And you shall make them a place for a hand to which

they shall go out, to the northwest of the city.” In this ideal future city of

Jerusalem, the toilets are to be located outside the city and to the northwest

of the city. “Roofed houses with pits within them, into which the excrement

will descend.” Notice, the toilets here are to be built toilet facilities consisting

of an enclosed roofed room with a pit dug into the floor and the excrement

then is to go down into the pit, “so that it will not be visible at any distance

from the city, three thousand cubits.”

Notice a couple of very interesting things about this. The toilets are to be

enclosed so that you cannot see them from outside. If somebody is using the

toilet, they will be within an enclosed facility. There is a concern that the

toilets will not be visible at any distance from the city, so they’re to be in a

secluded location. They are supposed to be not just outside the city and to the

northwest of the city, but at a distance of 3,000 cubits. Now, 3,000 cubits-a

cubit is approximately the length from the tip of my elbow to the tip of the

fingers. As Yigael Yadin, who published this scroll, noted, a distance of 3,000

cubits places the toilets outside the Sabbath limits. What does that mean?

That means that that is farther than you are allowed to walk on the Sabbath

according to biblical Jewish law. That’s right. You couldn’t reach the toilets

on the Sabbath. What did they do? I don’t know. It doesn’t say what they did.

I’m just reporting what it says.

It’s very, very interesting; we also have a passage from Josephus that

describes the toilet habits of the Essenes. You know what? As peculiar as it

looks to us that they didn’t go on the Sabbath, Josephus remarked on exactly

the same thing. He starts out, in his description of the toilet habits of Essenes,

by saying, “On the Sabbath they do not even go to stool.” He thought

that was pretty odd too. Josephus here is going to give a fairly long and

detailed description of the toilet habits of the Essenes. This is actually pretty

interesting. Why does Josephus provide a long and detailed description of

the toilet habits of the Essenes? It’s not as obvious as it may seem. As odd as

it looks to us that in the Roman world up to 60 people could go to a Roman

luxury latrine, sit side by side, and do it in full view of each other, there is

not a single ancient Roman author that describes that.

Why does Josephus describe in detail the toilet practices of the Essenes?

Josephus was writing like other ancient Greek and Roman authors to

educate, but also to entertain his readers. Like other ancient Greek and

Roman authors, Josephus typically focuses on things that are exotic, that

make them different from everyone else. Josephus and other ancient Roman

authors do not describe the typical practice of going in full view of each other

on a Roman luxury latrine because they took that for granted. The reason

Josephus singles out the toilet habits of the Essenes is because their toilet

habits were different from everyone e1se’s'. One of the things that made them

different was the fact, as he starts out by saying, that they don’t go on the

Sabbath. That was different, even from all of the other Jews. Then Josephus

goes on to further describe their toilet habits. What does he say? “On other

days they dig a trench a foot deep with a mattock-such is the nature of the

hatchet which they present to neophytes.” In other words, when you became

a new member of this sect, you were presented with a little hatchet so that

you could dig your own little pit. By the way, in cave ll at Qumran, de Vaux

found an iron pick, which he identified as possibly one of these picks that

was presented to neophytes.

He says, on other days when you have to go what did they do? They would

take the pick that they were given when they became a neophyte and they

would dig a trench in the ground, a pit into the ground, “-and wrapping

their mantles about them, that they may not offend the rays of the deity, sit

above it.” They go, they dig their little pit in the ground, and then they wrap

their mantle about them and sit above it. Then he says, “They then replace

the excavated soil in the trench. For this purpose they select the more retired

spots. And though this discharge of the excrements is a natural function, they

make it a rule to wash themselves after it, as if defiled.”

Let’s take apart this little passage here in Josephus because it’s very, very

interesting. First of all, he’s describing what they do on other days, not on

the Sabbath. He says they take their little pick and dig a hole in the ground.

They then squat. Then, after they’re done, they fill it back in with dirt. They

wrap their mantle about them while they’re going. He says they select retired

spots. On the one hand, the description that we have here in Josephus looks

different from what we just saw in the Temple Scroll, but I actually think

these two sources are complimentary. The Temple Scroll is describing what

built, that is, permanent, toilet facilities, should look like in this future

city of Jerusalem. It’s very interesting to notice that the description in the

Temple Scroll very closely matches what we have in the archaeology of

Qumran. This is because the toilet at Qumran is a pit that was dug into the

dirt floor of a room in a room that was completely enclosed and was roofed

over. The description in the Temple Scroll actually matches very closely the

archaeological remains of the toilet that we have at Qumran. It’s apparently

referring to that kind of built toilet facility.

Josephus, on the other hand, is describing what appears to be a very different

practice, but I think it’s not exactly so. Josephus here is not describing what

the Essenes do when they have access to a built toilet facility-why not? It’s

because that’s like what everybody else does if you have access to a built

toilet facility, you use the built toilet facility. What Josephus is singling out

here as different is what this sect did when they did not have access to built

toilet facilities. What did everybody else do when they didn’t have access to

built toilet facilities? We saw-they simply went anywhere. That is not the

case with this sect. Instead of just going anywhere, they go to pains to End

a remote, secluded spot, dig a pit in the ground, and wrap their mantle about

them that they may not offend the rays of the deity.

In other words, this sect-and this is Josephus is singling out as so odd-

had a very modem Western concern with toilet modesty and toilet privacy.

There were no other groups in the Roman world that had such a concern.

That’s why Josephus is singling it out for description. Notice that this

perfectly complements what we read about in the Temple Scroll where built

permanent toilet facilities must be enclosed, roofed facilities-which we

also see in the archaeology at Qumran. When they did not have access to

built permanent toilet facilities, members of this sect, unlike everyone else,

sought out a remote spot, dug a pit in the ground, and wrapped their mantle

about themselves. Notice too that, in both the Temple Scroll and Josephus,

there is a concern that the excrement must go down into a pit, be hidden, and

buried inside a pit.

Josephus ends his passage in a very, very interesting manner. He says, “And

though this discharge of the excrements is a natural function, they make it a

rule to wash themselves after it, as if defiled.” Why is this so interesting? It

suggests, what Josephus seems to suggest here, is that this sect considered

defecation to be a ritually polluting activity. Why is this interesting? In

normative Rabbinic Judaism, that is, the Judaism that became eventually

normative-that we still observe today-defecation and excrement are

not connected with ritual impurity. In fact, there are rabbis who argue that

it’s quite to the contrary, that these acts are connected with purity, rather

than ritual impurity. In other movements, sects, and groups in Judaism,

including the prevailing type of Judaism that is observed until today, there

is no connection between excrement, defecation, and ritual impurity. This

group differed, therefore, from all other Jews in considering defecation to be

a ritually polluting activity. Therefore, what Josephus is describing here is

that, after using the toilet, they then immersed themselves in a ritual bath in

order to purify themselves.

I do not think it is a coincidence, therefore, that the only doorway in the room

with the toilet at Qumran opens onto that miqveh, that ritual bath with the

earthquake crack running through it. What I think is that we see, reflected in

the archaeology of Qumran, is this very same principle that Josephus raises

in his description of the Essenes. This sect differed from everyone else in

their toilet practices and concern with toilet modesty and toilet privacy. They

differed from all other Jews even in considering defecation and excrement to

be a ritually polluting activity.

What we have here, in looking at the toilet at Qumran, is a very interesting

insight into the everyday life of this community. It’s a community with

habits so peculiar that they even differed from everyone else in the way

that they used the toilet. What we have here, with this example of the toilet

at Qumran, is a wonderful display of intersection of information from our

outside sources. In this case, it’s Josephus, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the

archaeology of the site of Qumran.

Lecture 16 -- The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Essenes

Summary Outline

The Qumran sect, the Essenes, were an exclusive community, whereas

with Jesus, we see just the opposite. We see an inclusive point of view,

where everyone is welcomed to become a member of this group. In my

opinion, then, we must distinguish between Jesus and his movement

on the one hand and the Essenes on the other hand and show not only

similarities between them but also very important and philosophical

differences in their practices and in their way of life.

n this lecture, we consider how the Dead Sea Scrolls relate to the

archaeology of Qumran and what they tell us about the community that

lived there. The Dead Sea Scrolls are basically a library of religious

literature. About one-quarter of them are copies of the Hebrew Bible. We

have represented at Qumran examples of all of the books of the Hebrew

Bible except for Esther (which may have simply not been preserved). These

copies of the Hebrew Bible are by far the earliest that have been found, and

they actually represent several versions of the Hebrew Bible that were later

replaced by a standardized version called the Masoretic text. There are also

a few fragments of the Septuagint, the ancient Greek translation of the

Hebrew Bible.

Other kinds of works represented include a Targum, or Aramaic translation

of the Hebrew Bible (Aramaic being the everyday language of the Jews); a

Pesher, or commentary on a book of the Hebrew Bible; apocryphal works,

such as Tobit and Ecclesiasticus; and so-called pseudepigrapha, such the

book of Jubilees and the book of Enoch. Finally, we have works that can

be described as sectarian; that is, they describe the beliefs and practices of

the group that lived at Qumran. Examples of these sectarian works include

the Damascus document, the war scroll, the community rule or manual of

discipline, and perhaps, the temple scroll.

The sectarian scrolls identify the initial leader or founder of this sect as a

figure called the Teacher of Righteousness. His main opponent was a figure

referred to as the Wicked Priest. The sectarian scrolls also tell us that some

members of this sect were married, had families, and lived in towns and

villages around the country, including Jerusalem, but some members went to

live apart in the desert (for example, at Qumran).

To become a member of this sect was not easy. There was no private

property. Full admission was open only to unblemished adult males (that is,

those without physical or mental handicaps, a criterion for the priesthood).

Although not all members came from priestly families, all full members lived

a priestly lifestyle. Why would anyone choose to live this sort of lifestyle?

The appeal was apocalyptic expectation. This sect anticipated the end of

days, when there would be a war between the forces of good and evil. They

called themselves the Sons of Light; everyone else, including all the other

Jews, were the Sons of Darkness.

Other peculiarities of this sect include their belief in predeterminism--the

idea that God preordains everything, including the moral makeup of an

individual--and their anticipation of two Messiahs. To the usual royal

Messiah of Israel descended Hom David, they added a second priestly

Messiah descended from Aaron-not stuprising considering the priestly

orientation of the sect. 

Important Terms

Pesher: A type of biblical commentary or interpretation that was popular

at Qumran.

Septuagint: Ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible.

Targum: Ancient translation of the Hebrew Bible into Aramaic.

Questions to Consider

1. What is the relationship of the Qumran community to the Essenes?

2. Do you think Jesus was an Essene?

Lecture 16-Transcript

The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Essenes

Now that we have talked about the archaeology of the site of Qumran, let

us consider how the Dead Sea scrolls relate to the archaeology and what

they tell us about the community that lived at Qumran. First of all, let me

clarify by saying that when I use the term “Dead Sea scrolls,” I am using it to

describe the 900 plus scrolls that were found in the eleven caves surrounding

Qumran. These scrolls represent the library of the community that lived at

Qumran. I use the word library to indicate that there was a deliberate process

of selection involved in terms of what kinds of literature were included in

this collection and what types of literature were not. Specifically what we

have here is a collection of Jewish religious literature. There are no historical

works. For example, 1 and 2 Maccabees are not represented among the

Dead Sea scrolls. There are no personal documents: deeds to land, marriage

contracts, personal correspondence. Instead, all of the scrolls reflect types of

ancient Jewish religious literature.

What do we have represented among these works of Jewish religious

literature? First of all about one-quarter of the copies of the Dead Sea scrolls

are copies of the Hebrew bible. That is what many of you might refer to

as the Old Testament. We have represented at Qumran examples of all of

the books of the Hebrew bible except for the book of Ester. It is not clear

whether Ester was originally represented by a copy that was not preserved

or whether it was never there to begin with, but we do have copies of all

of the other books in the Hebrew bible represented at least by one copy,

and in some cases by multiple copies. These copies of the Hebrew bible are

important because they are by far the earliest copies of the Hebrew bible that

have even been found.

Until the discovery of the Dead Sea scrolls, the earliest copies of the Hebrew

bible that we had dated are to the 9“‘ and l0‘*‘ centuries A.D. The Dead Sea

scrolls date mostly to the 2nd and lst centuries B.C., some of them a little

earlier, some of them a little later. They take us back much closer to the time

when the Hebrew bible was actually edited and written down, and we can

then compare the copies of the biblical text that we have at Qumran with

the copies of the biblical Hebrew text that we have today and see whether

any changes have been made over the course of the centuries. I know what

you are wondering. Have any changes been made? The answer is actually

yes and no, and here is the reason why. The text to the Hebrew bible that

we use today is called the Masoretic text, a Hebrew word which means the

traditional text. It is the same standardized text that is used everywhere. That

is, you can go anywhere in the world today, open a copy of the Hebrew bible,

and you will find the same identical text, but this was not always the case. In

antiquity, in the time of Qumran, there were different variants of the biblical

Hebrew text that circulated among the Jewish population. By variants I mean

not copies that varied widely from each other, but they did vary sometimes in

word order sometimes in a sentence here or a sentence there being omitted or

added, and so these variant copies circulated among the Jewish population.

It was not until after the time of Qumran, after 70 A.D. that Judaism decided

that there should be one standardized authoritative version of the biblical

Hebrew text in circulation, and when that happened, all of the other variant

texts ceased to be copied and therefore disappeared. What is so important

about the Dead Sea scrolls from Qumran is that we have represented copies

of the proto Masoretic text, the text that is basically the basis for the texts

that we used today, but also copies of variant text that were not preserved

because they Went out of use centuries ago.

ln addition to copies of the Hebrew bible, we have a few fragments from

Qumran of the Septuagint. The Septuagint is the ancient translation of the

Hebrew bible into Greek, a translation that was apparently was made in the

Hellenistic period, and that translation into Greek serves us the basis for the

Catholic text, the Catholic translation of the Hebrew bible, which is based on

the Greek not on the Hebrew; whereas, the protestant Old Testament is based

on the Hebrew text. I should mention parenthetically that contrary to popular

reports, there are no examples of New Testament found at Qumran.

In addition to copies of the Hebrew bible and a few fragments of the

Septuagint, we have other examples of works related to the Hebrew bible

from Qumran. These include a kind of work that is usually referred to as a

Targum. A Targum is a translation of the Hebrew bible into Aramaic because

by the time of Qumran, by the time of Jesus, the Jewish population in Judea

spoke Aramaic as their everyday language, and they needed to have the

bible translated for them into Aramaic. So we have copies of these Aramaic

translations represented among the Dead Sea scrolls. We also have a kind of

work at Qumran that is call Pesharim, or Pesher is the singular in Hebrew. A

Pesher is a commentary on or interpretation of a book of the Hebrew bible.

Famous example of Pesharim from Qumran would include the Pesharim

Habakkuk, a commentary on the book of Habakkuk, one of the twelve minor

prophets, and a Pesher Nahum which we already discussed in relation to

Alexander Jannaeus.

There are also works from Qumran that are sometimes as described as

apocrypha. By apocrypha, I mean works that are included in the Catholic

canon of sacred scripture but not in the Jewish or Protestant canons.

Examples of apocrypha from Qumran would include the book of Tobit and

Ecclesiasticus or the wisdom of Ben Sira, and we have works from Qumran

that can be described as pseudepigrapha. This is an extremely mushy

category of literature basically referring to Jewish religious works that were

not included in the Catholic canon of sacred scripture or in the Jewish and

Protestant canons, but sometimes were preserved in the canons of other

churches such as the Ethiopian church. Examples of pseudepigrapha from

Qumran would include the Book of Jubilees and the Book of Enoch.

Finally, we have works from Qumran that can be described as sectarian. By

sectarian I mean works that describe the beliefs and practices of the sect

that lived at Qumran and which deposited the scrolls in the nearby caves.

Examples of sectarian works would include the Damascus document, the

war scroll, the community rule or manual of discipline and maybe the temple

scroll. These sectarian scrolls, these sectarian scrolls, tell us about this sect.

They give us some of the information that we already discussed including

that this was a sect that was originally founded by and at least initially led

by dispossessed sadici priests that apparently formed sometime around

the middle of the 2“d century B.C., and these works give us a lot of other

information about the sect. They tell us for example that the original leader

or perhaps refounder of the sect is a figure who they refer to as the teacher

of righteousness.

One of the peculiarities of the Dead Sea scrolls is that almost always when a

real person, a real historical figure is mentioned, they are mentioned not by

their real name but -by a nickname. For example, the teacher of righteousness,

the Wicked Priest, the lion of wrath, the Man of Lies, and one of the games

that scholars play is trying to identify these nicknamed figures with known

historical figures. If you have ever come across any theories that identify the

Teacher of Righteousness with Jesus, James, John the Baptist, or anyone else

in the circle of Jesus, these theories are certainly wrong because these scrolls

that refer to these figures were composed well before the time of Jesus. In

fact, there can be little doubt that the Teacher of Righteousness was one

of these dispossessed Zadokite priests. How do we know this? We know,

because his name tells us so. His name Teacher of Righteousness, Morah

Hasidic in Hebrew, is a pun on Morah Hatzadik, the high priest, the teacher

of the Zadokites. So the Teacher of Righteousness was Undoubtedly one of

these dispossessed Zadokite priests, which one exactly, we simply do not

know for sure.

The scrolls tell us that the initial leader or founder of this sect was a figure

they referred to as the Teacher of Righteousness. His main opponent is a

figure who they refer to as the Wicked Priest. The sectarian scrolls also tell

us about members of this sect. They tell us that some members of this sect

were married and had families and lived in towns and villages around the

country including in Jerusalem, but some members went to live apart in the

desert. That is, some members practiced desert separatism. Qumran was

one such desert community. Whether there were any others we do not know

because no archaeological remains have ever been identified of any other

such settlement.

To become a member of this sect was not easy. First of all, full admission

was not open to everyone. Full admission was open only to unblemished

adult males. By unblemished I mean you could have no physical or mental

handicaps. You had to be a perfect unblemished adult male in order to apply

for admission to the sect. Once you applied for admission, you then had to

undergo a period of initiation that lasted between two to three years. During

the course of the period of initiation, you went through a successive series

of stages. During the course of initiation, at some stage you gave up your

personal possessions to the community because this community practiced

the pooling of possessions.

Each stage of admission, if you were admitted, symbolized the attaining

of a higher and higher of level of Jewish ritual purity, until finally if you

were admitted as a full member at the end, you were living your everyday

life at the same level of ritual purity required for priests officiating in the

Jerusalem temple. Although not all members came from priestly families,

all full members lived a priestly lifestyle, so this was a priestly community

living without a temple. It is hard to describe how difficult this lifestyle was.

It meant that if you were a full member, you were living your life according

to this sect’s interpretation of Jewish law which was generally speaking

stricter than that of other groups. It meant that you were observing Jewish

ritual purity laws at their highest level on an everyday basis, which meant

for example that you could eat and drink nothing but the pure food and drink

of the sect. Why would anybody choose to live this sort of lifestyle? You

would choose to live this way if you thought that the end of days was at

hand and only you were going to be saved, and that is exactly what this

group believed.

This was an apocalyptic sect that anticipated the eminent arrival of the end

of days, and they believed that when the end of days arrived there would

be a 40-year-long war between the forces of good and the forces of evil.

They were the forces of good. They called themselves the sons of light.

Everyone else including all the other Jews were the sons of darkness. One

of the peculiarities of this sect is that they believed in predeterminism.

Everything is preordained by God, and by the way, not only all future

events are preordained by God but your personal makeup as an individual,

how many parts of you are good and how many parts of you are evil, that is

preordained by God. In other words, there is no human free will at all, and

so this 40-year-long apocalyptic war is preordained by God, and the outcome

of the war is preordained by God, victory for the sons of light. This victory

then would usher in a Messianic era. Another one of the peculiarities of this

sect is that they anticipated the arrival of not one but two Messiahs. To the

usual royal Messiah of Israel descended from David, they added a second

priestly Messiah descended from Aaron, this is not surprising considering

the priestly orientation of the sect.

Who was this sect? A lot of times you read about them or hear about them

referred to as Essenes, but nowhere in the Dead Sea scrolls is the word

“Essene” ever mentioned, at least not by that name. Instead, we hear about

Essenes from contemporary outside sources. That is from people who lived

at the time Qumran existed but were not members of the sect. Our most

important sources on the Essenes are Flavius Josephus, the Jewish historian

who lived in the let century A.D. Philo Judaeus, the Jewish philosopher who

lived in Alexandra in Egypt in the late 1st century B.C. and lst century A.D.,

and Pliny the Elder, the same Pliny, who wrote natural history and died when

Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79. These authors all describe a Jewish sect called

the Essenes with beliefs and practices very similar to what we read about in

the Dead Sea scrolls and reflected in the archaeology of the site of Qumran,

and so many scholars identified the Essenes with the group at Qumran based

on the testimony of these outside authors.

Furthermore, Pliny has a very interesting passage describing the Essenes.

He is the only one of our ancient authors who actually places the Essenes

as living on the shore of the Dead Sea to the north of Ein Gedi and so many

scholars, including myself, identify the Qumran community with the Essenes

described in our ancient sources. Some scholars argue that the Essenes

should not be identified with the community that lived at Qumran. One of

the problems they point out is that the word “Essene” is never mentioned in

the Dead Sea scrolls. We only read about Essenes in these outside historical

sources. In my opinion, that argument is not decisive. There are a couple

of reasons that could explain why Essenes are not mentioned in the Dead

Sea scrolls. For example, some scholars have pointed out that Josephus,

Philo, and Pliny wrote or came down to us in Greek and in Latin; whereas,

the majority of the Dead Sea scrolls are written in Hebrew with a smaller

number in Aramaic. One possibility is that word “Essene” does occur in the

Dead Sea scrolls but by a Hebrew or Aramaic term that was then translated

or rendered as “Essene” in Greek and Latin.

For example, some scholar have said maybe the word Hasid, the Hebrew

word meaning “pious one” was rendered Essene, Essenne in Greek and in

Latin, or maybe the word Osay, which in Hebrew, means the doers i.e. those

who observe Jewish law maybe that was rendered Essene. One possibility

is that Essene does occur in the,Dead Sea scrolls but by a term that was

then translated a little differently into Greek and Latin. Some scholars have

pointed out maybe Essene does not occur in the Dead Sea scrolls because

Essene was a term that was used by outsiders to refer to this sect, whereas

they never referred to themselves as Essenes, just as the Pharisees did not

call themselves the Pharisees. For example, the members of this sect refer

to themselves by other names such as the sons of light, the sons of Zadok,

the members of the Yahad; that is the community. So maybe Essene does not

occur in the Dead Sea scrolls because it was outsiders who used it to refer to

them, not they themselves. So the fact that Essene does not occur in the Dead

Sea scrolls is not necessarily decisive for arguing against the identification of

the community that lived at Qumran as Essenes.

If we take a little bit closer look at Pliny’s passage we see something else.

Pliny emphasizes that the members of this sect consisted entirely of adult

men. He says, “they were a people unique in its kind and admirable beyond

all others in the whole world without women and renouncing love entirely.”

Then he says, “owing to the throng of newcomers. The people is daily reborn

in equal number; indeed, those whom wearied by the fluctuations of fortune,

life leads to adopt their customs, stream in in great numbers.” In other

words, Pliny indicates that members of this sect were not married, they were

adult celibate men, and that the sect maintained itself or sustained itself by

drawing in new people all time, new members all the time. Our other sources,

Josephus and Philo, also suggest that the Essenes where a sect that consisted

of adult celibate men, and this has been the subject of a lot of discussion

again among scholars who disagree about the identification of this sect at

Qumran, the sect associated with the Dead Sea scrolls with the Essenes, and

what is the problem here? Well there are several problems.

If we look at the Dead Sea scrolls and specifically at the sectarian literature,

we will see that nowhere in the sectarian literature among the Dead Sea

scrolls is adult male celibacy mandated. In fact, it’s quite to the contrary.

Many of the sectarian scrolls, such as the Damascus document for example,

legislate for marriage, childbirth, divorce, suggesting in fact that members

of this sect were married and had families, so how do we then reconcile

that with the testimony of our ancient authors, and let us now remember too

the picture that we got from the cemetery at Qumran where we saw that

the excavated graves consist over whehningly of adult males with only three

adult women and no children represented. How do we then reconcile all of

this testimony? Some scholars do it by claiming well the community that

lived at Qumran and was associated with the Dead Sea scrolls were not

Essenes. Josephus, Philo, and Pliny were describing another group that was

adult celibate male but not the Qumran community.

In my opinion actually again, the different kinds of testimony can be

reconciled. First of all, we cannot just compare the testimony of Josephus,

Philo, and Pliny on the one hand with the testimony of the Dead Sea scrolls

on the other without being critical, because these are very different kinds of

literature. The Dead Sea scrolls, the sectarian scrolls, represent the literature

that was used internally by the sect that contains its legislation, the rules

for everyday life; whereas, Josephus, Philo, and Pliny are writing for very

different kinds of audiences, and let us think for a minute now in particular

about Josephus and Philo.

Josephus and Philo were Jewish authors living in a Diaspora context, at least

Josephus certainly was by the time he wrote his works; he is writing at the

end of his life in Rome. Philo is in the Diaspora the whole time; he is in

Alexandria in Egypt. There are living in a Greco-Roman world where Jews

are a minority, and Josephus and Philo both are attempting in their works

to show that whatever Greek and Roman culture have to offer in terms of

philosophy and lifestyle, Judaism did it iirst and Judaism does it better. In

other words, that Judaism is superior to anything that the Greeks and Romans

have to offer. That is basically what Josephus and Philo are trying to do,

and this explains why Josephus and Philo spent so much time talking about

the Essenes who were a very small and marginal group relative to the other

groups in Judea at this time, but they spent a lot more time talking about the

Essenes in detail because the Essenes fit their agenda.

The Essenes are an example of a Jewish group that could be described as

living the Greco-Roman philosophical ideal. What was the Greco-Roman

philosophical ideal? It was that you live your life in sort of an ascetic lifestyle

denying yourself physical pleasures including marriage, and instead devote

your life to study, and this is basically what the Essenes did, and therefore

Josephus and Philo highlight them. What is the problem here? The problem

is well how do we still reconcile this with the fact that from the Dead Sea

scrolls we learn that at least some members of this sect were married and

had families. How do we reconcile this fact? Let’s think about this for a

minute. First of all, only adult men, unblemished adult men, could become

full members of this sect. Why was that? It’s because they were living a

priestly lifestyle. Every full member lived his everyday life as if he was a

priest officiating in the Jerusalem temple. Only unblemished adult men could

serve as priests in the Jerusalem temple.

Yes, there were women in this sect. There were women who either married

into the sect, and married members, full members, or were born into the

sect but, women could not obtain the same status, the same level of full

membership as men could because by definition women could not serve as

priests in the Jerusalem temple. There were women in the sect for sure, and

some members were married for sure, but the role of women in the sect was

certainly not the same as the role of men. By the way, members of this sect

who were women, who either were married to full members or were children

of full members were expected to live their life according to Jewish law just

like every other Jewish woman was.

Let’s think about priests in the ancient Jerusalem temple. The priests who

served in the ancient Jerusalem temple were not celibate. They were married

and had families and lived around the country, and they served in the temple

in rotations, what is called courses. So they would leave their families for

a couple of weeks, go to Jerusalem, serve their rotation in the temple, and

then go home. While they were in the temple serving, they had no contact

with their families because of purity concerns. Because of purity laws,

they had no contact with their families during the time they served in the

Jerusalem temple. That was the case for an ancient Jewish priest serving in

the Jerusalem temple.

Let’s zip back to Qumran, what do we have? We have a community where

every full member is living his everyday life as if he was a priest officiating

in the Jerusalem temple. What I think is going on is that some full members

practiced what we might call occasional celibacy, and like the priests in the

Jerusalem temple, would leave their families for certain periods, and it may

be that even though it not mandated by Dead Sea scrolls, some members may

have practiced permanent celibacy, and it is this group which is practicing

occasional and perhaps permanent celibacy that is highlighted by our ancient

sources, by Josephus and Philo and then picked up by Pliny, because it serves

their purposes of illustrating that there is a Jewish sect, a Jewish group that is

living the philosophical ideal of the Greco-Roman world.

What was Jesus’ relationship then to the Essenes? Most people are interested

in the Essenes and the Dead Sea scrolls because they think that the Dead

Sea scrolls tell us something about Jesus and think that Jesus might have

been a member of the Essene sect. Let me first of all categorically say that

is a mistaken impression, and I want to explain why, and I hope that now

having gone through the archaeology of Qumran and talked about the Dead

Sea scrolls that you can understand the problems with this point of view.

It is true that there are similarities between Jesus and his movement and

what we read about in the Dead Sea scrolls and among the Essenes. The

similarities include the practice of having communal meals, the pooling of

possessions, the dualism between light and dark, and most significantly I

think the fact that these were apocalyptic movements that anticipated the

eminent arrival of the end of days. In my opinion, many of the similarities

between Jesus’ movement and the Essenes stem from the fact that these were

both apocalyptic movements but what is important to remember is that in the

late Second Temple period in Judea we had various groups of movements

that if you take any two of them at any given moment, will have similarities.

They are all Jewish groups, which means that they are all living according to

Jewish law, and sometimes according to the same practice and interpretation

of Jewish law, but what distinguishes them are their differences of

interpretation and practice on specific points of Jewish law. In other Words if

you take any two groups there are going to be similarities and differences. If

we take the Essenes and Pharisees, there will be similarities and differences.

If we take the Essenes and Jesus’ movement, there will be similarities and

differences and so on.

What then are the sum of key differences between Jesus and his movement

and the Essenes? First of all, there’s this idea of predeterminism. Certainly

unlike at Qumran, we do not find this idea among Jesus and his movement

that everything is preordained by God and that there is no human free will

at all. That is a big difference. Another difference is that at Qumran there

was an anticipation or an expectation that there will be two Messiahs,

and I should mention also that nowhere in the Dead Sea scrolls is Jesus

ever mentioned.

In my opinion, however, there are two really, really, really big differences

between Jesus and his movement on the one hand and the Essenes on the

other. The first has to do with the observance of purity laws. The community

that lived at Qumran took to the extreme the observance of Jewish purity

laws. Every full member lived his everyday life observing Jewish purity laws

more strictly than everybody else, and observing the purity laws that applied

to the priests which were again stricter than for everybody else. Whereas,

with Jesus we see pretty much the opposite. We see Jesus going out of his

way to come into contact with the most impure and marginal members of

Jewish society whether they were women with a hemorrhage or a menstrual

period, lepers, corpses.

In other words, Jesus goes out of his way to come into contact with the sorts

of people who no member of the Qumran sect would have come into contact

with, and by the way I should say that I do not believe that Jesus advocated

abolishing the observance of biblical Jewish purity laws. I think however

that he was against the expansion of the observance of those laws beyond

the boundaries of the temple cult. That by the way is a debate that I think

distinguished many of these different groups from each other, as to what

extent is it necessary to observe the purity laws outside the temple cult.

Another big difference between Jesus and the Essenes, or Jesus and the

Qumran community, is an exclusive versus inclusive point of view. As I

mentioned, it is very difficult to become a member of the Qumran community.

First of all, full membership is not open to everyone, and once you have

applied for membership, you have to undergo a long and rigorous period of

initiation, and not everybody passed that period of initiation. So the Qumran

sect, the Essenes, were an exclusive community; whereas, with Jesus we

see just the opposite. We see an inclusive point of view where everyone

is welcomed to become a member of this group. In my opinion then, we

must distinguish between Jesus and his movement on the one hand and the

Essenes on another hand and show not only similarities between them, but

also very important and philosophical differences in their practices and in

their way of life.

Finally, was John the Baptist an Essene? Could some of the similarities

between Jesus’ movement and the Essenes stem from John the Baptist? We

do not know for sure. If there is any one figure in early Christianity who

might have been an Essene at some point, it is John the Baptist because of

course he is wandering around the area where Qumran is located at the time

Qumran existed. He is the son of a priest, and of course he is obsessed with

ritual emersion in water, with what becomes known as baptism, and he is

living an ascetic lifestyle. His diet is very simple. His clothing is very simple,

so it may be that at some point John the Baptist was a member of the Essene

sect, or at least had some direct contact with them, but by the time we hear

about him, and by the time he dies, he certainly not a member of his sect,

because his practices and his diet and his clothing are all very different from

what characterizes the Essene movement.

In our next lecture what I would like to is turn to look at some of our

archaeological evidence for the everyday life of members of the Qumran sect.