Who Were the Essenes?
There are variances in what is known about the Essenes–variances brought about by differences in the writings about them in their own time, by what has been learned from the Dead Sea Scrolls, and by what was disclosed during Edgar Cayce readings. The contemporary writings provide a good foundation for an understanding of all that has happened since. Writing around A.D, 20, Philo of Alexandria, the Jewish philosopher, said this:
“They were a sect of Jews, and lived in Syria Palestine, over 4000 in number, and called Essaie, because of their saintliness; for hosio—saintly, is the same word as Essaeus. Worshipers of God, they yet did not sacrifice animals, regarding a reverent mind as the only true sacrifice. At first, they lived in villages and avoided cities, in order to escape the contagion of evils rife therein. They pursued agriculture and other peaceful arts; but accumulated not gold or silver, nor owned mines. No maker of warlike weapons, no huckster or trader by land or sea was to be found among them. Least of all were any slaves found among them; for they saw in slavery a violation of the law of nature, which made all men free brethren, one of the other.
“Abstract philosophy and logic they eschewed, except so far as it could subserve ethical truth and practice. Natural philosophy they only studied so far as it teaches that there is a God who made and watches all things. Moral philosophy or ethic was their chief preoccupation, and their conduct was regulated by their national (Jewish) laws. These laws they especially studied on the seventh day, which they held holy, leaving off all work upon it and meeting in their synagogues, as these places of resort were called. In them, they sat down in ranks, the older ones above the younger. Then one took and read the Bible, while the rest listened attentively; and another, who was very learned in the Bible, would expound whatever was obscure in the lesson read, explaining most things in their time-honored fashion by means of symbols. They were taught piety, holiness, justice, the art of regulating home and city, knowledge of what is really good and bad and of what is indifferent, what ends to avoid, what to pursue—in short, love of God, of virtue, and of man.
“And such teaching bore fruit. Their lifelong purity, their avoiding of oaths or falsehood, their recognition of a good providence alone showed their love of God. Their love of virtue revealed itself in their indifference to money, worldly position and pleasure. Their love of man in their kindliness, their equality, their fellowship, passing all words. For no one had his private house, but shared his dwelling with all; and, living as they did in colonies (the tasous), they threw open their doors to any of their sect who came their way. They had a storehouse, common expenditure, common raiments, common food eaten in Syssitia or common meals. This was made possible by their practice of putting whatever they each earned day by day into a common fund, out of which also the sick were supported when they could not work. The aged among them were objects of reverence and honor, and treated by the rest as parents by real children.”
Writing around A.D. 300, Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea, and called one of the Fathers of the Church, said this:
“Even in our own day, there are still men whose only guide is God; men who live by the true reason of nature, not only themselves free but filling their neighbors with a spirit of freedom. They are not very numerous indeed. But that is not strange. For the highest nobility is ever rare; and then these men have turned aside from the vulgar herd to devote themselves to a contemplation of nature’s verities. They pray, if it were possible, that they may reform our fallen lives; but, if they cannot, owing to the tide of evils and wrongs which surges up in cities, they flee away, lest they too be swept off their feet by the force of its current. And we, if we had a true zeal for self-improvement, would have to track them to their places of retreat, and, halting as suppliants before them, would beseech them to come to us and tame our life, grown too fierce and wild; preaching, instead of war and slavery and untold ills, their gospel of peace and freedom, and all the fullness of other blessings.”
Around A.D. 70, Pliny the Elder, the naturalist, wrote:
“The Hessenes live on the W. side away from the shores (of the Dead Sea), out of reach of their baneful influences, a solitary race, and strange above all others in the entire world. They live without women, renouncing all sexual love. They eschew money, and live among the palm trees. Yet the number of their fellows (convenarum) is kept up and day by day renewed; for they flock to them from afar many who, wearied of battling with the rough sea of life, drift into their system. Thus for thousands of ages (strange to tell) the race is perpetuated, and yet no one is born in it. So does the contrition felt by others for their past life enrich set of men. Below them lay Engadi, a town once second only to Jerusalem in its fertility and groves of palms. Now ‘tis but one more tomb. Next comes Masada, a fort on a rock, and, like the former, not far from the Dead Sea.”
Josephus, who wrote between A.D. 75 and A.D. 85, went into greater depth about the Essenes, but he claimed to have lived among the Essenes for a while and was thus better acquainted with their life. Some of his account conflicts with those of his contemporaries, even somewhat with himself, but not with Cayce. In The Wars of the Jews, Josephus reported:
“For there are three philosophical sects among the Jews. The followers of the first of whom are the Pharisees; of the second the Sadducees; and the third sect, who pretends to a severer discipline, are called Essens. These last are Jews by birth, and seem to have a greater affection for one another than the other sects have. These Essens reject pleasures as an evil, but esteem continence and the conquest over our passions, to be virtue. They neglect wedlock, but choose out other persons’ children, while they are pliable, and fit for learning; and esteem them to be of their kindred, and form them according to their own manners. They do not absolutely deny the fitness of marriage, and the succession of mankind thereby continued; but they guard against the lascivious behavior of women, and are persuaded that none of them preserve their fidelity to one man.
“These men are despisers of riches, and so very communicative as raises our admiration. Nor is there any one to be found among them who hath more than another; for it is a law among them, that those who come to them must let what they have be common to the whole order, insomuch that among them all there is no appearance of poverty or excess of riches, but every one’s possessions are intermingled with every other’s possessions and so there is, as it were, one patrimony among all the brethren. They think that oil is a defilement; and if any one of them be anointed without his own approbation, it is wiped off his body; for they think to be sweaty is a good thing, as they do also to be clothed in white garments. They also have stewards appointed to take care of their common affairs, who every one of them have no separate business for any, but what is for the use of them all.
“They have no certain city, but many of them dwell in every city; and if any of their sect comes from other places, what they have lies open for them, just as if it were their own; and they go into such as they never knew before as if they had been ever so long acquainted with them. For which reason they carry nothing with them when they travel into remote parts, though still they take their weapons with them, for fear of thieves. Accordingly there is, in every city where they live, one appointed particularly to take care of strangers and to provide garments and other necessaries for them. But the habit and management of their bodies is such as children use who are in fear of their masters. Nor do they allow of the change of garments or of shoes till they be first entirely torn to pieces or worn out by time. Nor do they either buy or sell anything to one another; but every one of them gives what he hath to him that wanteth it and receives from him again in lieu of it what may be convenient for himself; and although there be no requital made, they are fully allowed to take what they want of whomsoever they please.
“And as for their piety toward God, it is very extraordinary; for before sun-rising they speak not a word about profane matters, but put up certain prayers which they have received from their forefathers, as if they made a supplication for its rising. After this, every one of them are sent away by their curators to exercise some of those arts wherein they are skilled, in which they labor with great diligence till the fifth hour. After which they assemble themselves together again into one place; and when they have clothed themselves in white veils, they then bathe their bodies in cold water. And after this purification is over, they every one meet together in an apartment of their own, into which it is not permitted to any of another sect to enter; while they go, after a pure manner, into the dining room, as into a certain holy temple, and quietly set themselves down; upon which the baker lays them loaves in order; the cook also brings a single plate of one sort of food and sets it before every one of them; but a priest says grace before meat; and it is unlawful for any one to taste of the food before grace be said. The same priest, when he hath dined, says, grace again after meat; and when they begin and when they end they praise God, as He that bestows their food upon them; after which they lay aside their white garments and betake themselves to their labors again till evening; then they return home to supper, after the same manner; and if there be any strangers there, they sit down with them. Nor is there ever any clamor or disturbance to pollute their house, but they give every one leave to speak in his turn, which silence thus kept in their house appears to foreigners like some tremendous mystery, the cause of which is that perpetual sobriety they exercise and the same settled measure of meat and drink that is allotted to them, and that such as is abundantly sufficient for them.
“And truly, as for other things, they do nothing but according to the injections of their curators; only these two things are done among them at every one’s own free will, which are to assist those that want it and to show mercy; for they are permitted of their own accord to afford succor to such as deserve it, when they stand in need of it, and to bestow food on those that are in distress, but they cannot give any thing to their kindred without the curators. They dispense their anger after a just manner and restrain their passion. They are eminent for fidelity and are the ministers of peace; whatsoever they say also is firmer than an oath; but swearing is avoided by them and they esteem it worse than perjury; for they say that he who cannot be believed without swearing by God is already condemned. They also take great pains in studying the writings of the ancients and choose out of them what is most for the advantage of their soul and body; and they inquire after such roots and medicinal stones as may cure their distempers.
“But now, if any one hath in mind to come over to their sect, he is not immediately admitted but he is prescribed the same method of living which they use, for a year, while he continues excluded; and they give him a small hatchet and the forementioned girdle and the white garment. And when he hath given evidence, during that time, that he can observe their continence, he approaches nearer to their way of living and is made a partaker of the waters of purification; yet is he not even now admitted to live with them; for after this demonstration of his fortitude, his temper is tried two more years, and if he appear worthy they then admit him into their society. And before he is allowed to touch their common food, he is obliged to take tremendous oaths; that, in the first place, he will exercise piety toward God; and then that he will observe justice toward men; and that he will do no harm to any one, either of his own accord or by the command of others; that he will always hate the wicked and be assistant to the righteous; that he will ever show fidelity to all men and especially to those in authority, because no one obtains the government without God’s assistance; and that if he be in authority, he will at no time whatever abuse his authority, nor endeavor to outshine his subjects either in his garments or any other finery; that he will be perpetually a lover of truth and propose to himself to reprove those that tell lies; that he will keep his hands clear from theft and his soul from unlawful gain; and that he will neither conceal any thing from those of his own sect nor discover any of their doctrines to others, no, not though any one should compel him so to do at the hazard of his life. Moreover, he swears to communicate their doctrines to no one any otherwise than as he received them himself; that he will abstain from robbery and will equally preserve the books belonging to their sect, and the names of the angels (or messengers). These are the oaths by which they secure their proselytes to themselves.
“But for those that are caught in any heinous sins, they cast them out of their society; and he who is thus separated from them does often die after a miserable manner; for as he is bound by the oath he hath taken and by the customs he has been engaged in, he is not at liberty to partake of that food that he meets with elsewhere but is forced to eat grass and to famish his body with hunger till he perish; for which reason they receive many of them again when they are at their last gasp, out of compassion to them, as thinking the miseries they have endured till they came to the very brink of death to be a sufficient punishment for the sins they had been guilty of.
“But in the judgments they exercise they are most accurate and just; nor do they pass sentence by the votes of a court that is fewer than a hundred. And as to what is once determined by that number, it is unalterable. What they most of all honor, after God Himself, is the name of their legislator (Moses); whom, if any one blaspheme, he is punished capitally. They also think it a good thing to obey their elders, and the major part. Accordingly, if ten of them be sitting together, no one of them will speak while the other nine are against it. They also avoid spitting in the midst of them or on the right side. Moreover, they are stricter than any other of the Jews in resting from their labors on the seventh day; for they not only get their food ready the day before, that they may not be obliged to kindle a fire on that day, but they will not remove any vessel out of its place, nor go to stool thereon. Nay, on the other days, they dig a small pit, a foot deep, with a paddle (which kind of hatchet is given them when they are first admitted among them); and covering themselves round with their garment, that they may not affront the divine rays of light, they ease themselves into that pit, after which they put the earth that was dug out again into the pit; and even this they do only in the more lonely places, which they choose out for this purpose; and although the easement of the body be natural, yet it is a rule with them to wash themselves after it, as if it were a defilement to them.
“Now after the time of their preparatory trial is over, they are parted into four classes; and so far are the juniors inferior to the seniors that if the seniors should be touched by the juniors they must wash themselves, as if they had intermixed themselves with the company of a foreigner. They are longlived also; insomuch that many of them live above a hundred years, by means of the simplicity of their diet; nay, as I think, by means of the regular course of life they observe also. They contemn the miseries of life and are above pain, by the generosity of their mind. And as for death, if it will be for their glory, they esteem it better than living always; and indeed our war with the Romans gave abundant evidence what great souls they had in their trials, wherein, although they were tortured and distorted, burnt and torn to pieces, and went through all kinds of instruments of torment, that they might be forced either to blaspheme their legislator or to eat what was forbidden them, yet could they not be made to do either of them, no, nor once to flatter their tormentors or to shed a tear; but they smiled in their very pains and laughed those to scorn who inflicted the torments upon them and resigned up their souls with great alacrity, as expecting to receive them again.
“For their doctrine is this: That bodies are corruptible and that the matter they are made of is not permanent; but that the souls are immortal and continue for ever; and that they come out of the most subtle air and are united to their bodies, into which they are drawn by a certain natural enticement; but that when they are set free from the bonds of the flesh, they then, as released from a long bondage, rejoice and mount upward. And this is like the opinion of the Greeks, that good souls have their habitations beyond the ocean, in a region that is neither oppressed with storms of rain or snow or with intense heat, but that this place is such as is refreshed by the gentle breathing of a west wind that is perpetually blowing from the ocean; while they allot to bad souls a dark and tempestuous den, full of never ceasing punishments. And indeed the Greeks seem to me to have followed the same notion, when they allot the islands of the blessed to their brave men, whom they call heroes and demi-gods; and to the souls of the wicked the region of the ungodly in Hades, where their fables relate that certain persons, such as Sisyphus and Tantalus and Ixion and Tityus, are punished; which is built on this first supposition, that souls are immortal; and thence are those exhortations to virtue and dehortations from wickedness collected; whereby good men are bettered in the conduct of their life, by the hope they have of reward after their death and whereby the vehement inclinations of bad men to vice are restrained by the fear and expectation they are in, that although they should lie concealed in this life, they should suffer immortal punishment after their death. These are the divine doctrines of the Essens about the soul, which lay an unavoidable bait for such as have once had a taste of their philosophy.
“There are also those among them who undertake to foretell things to come, by reading the holy books and using several sorts of purifications and being perpetually conversant in the discourses of the prophets, and it is but seldom that they miss in their predictions.
“Moreover, there is another order of Essens who agree with the rest as to their way of living and customs and laws but differ from them in the point of marriage, as thinking that by not marrying they cut off the principal part of human life, which is the prospect of succession; nay, rather, that if all men should be of the same opinion the whole race of mankind would fail. However, they try their spouses for three years; and if they find that they have their natural purgations thrice, as trials that they are likely to be fruitful, they then actually marry them. But they do not use to accompany with their wives when they are with child, as a demonstration that they do not marry out of regard to pleasure but for the sake of posterity. Now the women go into the baths with some of their garments on, as the men do with somewhat girded about them. And these are the customs of this order of Essens.”
In his Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus reports this:
“Now there was one of these Essens, whose name was Manahem, who had this testimony: that he not only conducted his life after an excellent manner but had the foreknowledge of future events given him by God also. This man once saw Herod when he was a child and going to school, and saluted him as king of the Jews. Now at that time Herod did not at all attend to what Manahem said, as having no hopes of such advancement; but a little afterward, when he was so fortunate as to be advanced to the dignity of king and was in the height of his dominion, be sent for Manahem and asked him how long he should reign. Manahem did not tell him the full length of his reign; wherefore, upon that silence of his, he asked him farther, whether he should reign ten years or not. He replied: ‘Yes, twenty; nay thirty years; but did not assign the just determinate limit of his reign. Herod was satisfied with these replies, and gave Manahem his hand and dismissed him; and from that time he continued to honor all of the Essens. We have thought it proper to relate these facts to our readers, how strange soever they be, and to declare what hath happened among us, because many of these Essens have, by their excellent virtue, been thought worthy of this knowledge of divine revelations.”
A matter of interest in these excerpts is the time factor. By the present calendar, Philo wrote about the Essenes at the time that Jesus was about twenty years old, and yet he wrote about them in the past tense. Pliny and Josephus, who wrote between fifteen and twenty years of each other, both used the present tense. Eusebius, who wrote over two hundred years later, first quoted Philo in the past tense and then commented on men of his own time who led Essenic lives. And Pliny observed that the Essenes had perpetuated themselves without marriage for “thousands of ages.” Regardless of other variances in the accounts, it would appear that the Essene sect had been around for a long time, was influential at the time of Jesus, and remained so for a long time after. Philo’s estimate of their number—four thousand—may seem small, but it is known that the Pharisees, the strongest sect or party in Jesus’s time, numbered only seven thousand. The puzzling questions linger: Why are the Essenes not mentioned in the Bible? Why are they not, as a sect, mentioned in the Seven Dead Sea Scrolls or on any of the thousands of fragments? Where did they come from? How could they have remained so uninvolved in the life of Jesus? Where did they go?
The Scrolls provide answers to some of the questions to a degree. So do the Edgar Cayce Life readings. First, the Scrolls.
1. The St. Mark’s Isaiah Scroll is the oldest of the seven, dated at approximately 250 B.C. Made of strips of leather stitched together, it is about twenty-five feet long and a foot wide. The text, which is complete, is in fifty-four columns of Hebrew. In content, it differs only slightly from the Masoretic text. The Hebrew word “masora” means “tradition” and, this case, it applies to the scholars charged with the responsibility of determining that recopied versions of the Old Testament were accurate. The task was difficult. Written Hebrew was, at first, comprised only of consonants, and, unless the reader was already familiar with the text, there was always the risk of misinterpretation. To overcome this, scholars introduced grammatical markings into the word forms, indicating the missing vowels. Even this was not a complete safeguard. It has been established that some of the people who recopied sacred texts were not beyond injecting their own interpretations, thus changing thought context and even actual circumstances. When, during the third and fourth centuries A.D., the Fathers of the Church put together the Bible as we know it today, they had available to them earlier Hebrew and Aramaic texts of the same event but which differed from each other, and so they had to depend on Divine Guidance in deciding which account was accurate. The Masoretic text considered accurate was compiled in the tenth century. The similarity between its Book of Isaiah and the St. Mark’s Isaiah Scroll shows what tremendous detective work these scholars must have done to determine accuracy in this particular passage of the Old Testament.
2. The Hebrew University Isaiah Scroll, acquired by Sukenik, was probably written in the first fifty years of Christianity, but it is not as well preserved. One large section contains most of the second half of the book, with pieces missing. Smaller sections contain earlier parts of the book. Again, the similarity to the Masoretic is distinct.
3. What was at first considered to be the St. Mark’s Lamech Scroll (because the name Lamech could be seen before the damaged scroll was opened) turned out to be a Genesis Apocryphon. It is in Aramaic and was probably written within fifty years before Christ. In places, it is Genesis verbatim, but in others it goes afield, such as in descriptions of Sara’s beauty and of Abraham’s journey through Canaan.
4. The St. Mark’s Commentary on Habakkuk Scroll, written in Hebrew during the first fifty years of Christianity, is six inches wide and five feet long, but missing parts indicate it was originally several inches longer. The Book of Habakkuk has long been a point of difference among exegetes, mainly in terms of dating it. In it, God tells Habakkuk that He will send the Chaldeans (Babylonians) against the Jews as punishment for their wickedness. Since the Babylonians became the dominant power in this region around 600 B.C., Habakkuk, being a prophetic book, would have been written before that. However, some scholars have translated the Hebrew word form for “Chaldeans” as “Kittims”—Greeks, and the Greeks took over the region around 400 B.C., which reduces the age of the book.
As far as anybody knows, no “first” copy of any book of the Bible exists. Almost certainly, the Habakkuk Scroll is a copy of an earlier scroll, which, as yet, makes it impossible to determine when the commentary was first written. However, on the reference to the Chaldeans, the commentator says: “This refers to the Kittims (or Kittaeans), who are indeed swift and mighty in war, bent on destroying people far and wide and subduing them to their own domination.” In a later reference to the prophesied invaders, he says, “Like a vulture they come from afar, from the isles of the sea, to devour all nations; and they are insatiable.” Babylonia was an inland nation; the Greeks had islands, including Cyprus, once known as Kittim. This would seem to settle the matter but, as with much debate about the Bible, probably won’t. Already it has been pointed out that the Jews usually referred to their enemies as Kittims or Kittaeans so that nobody would know whom they are talking about in case the document fell into the wrong hands.
One thing definitely settled is that the commentator was an Essene. He refers seven times to the “Teacher of Righteousness,” which is sometimes translated “the teacher who expounds the Law aright” Other Dead Sea Scroll material establishes that the Teacher of Righteousness was once the head of the Qumran community and was killed by an unidentified “Wicked Priest.”
5. One of the St. Mark’s Scrolls has the title “Manu of Discipline,” but Professor Sukenik and his son General Yadin have suggested “The Order of the Community.” In two pieces, the scroll, as found, is six feet long and ten inches wide. However, in the Jordanian collection is a strip of the same coarse leather containing two columns of writing on the same subject, and it was definitely part of the same document. It is written in Hebrew, around 100 B.C.
The manuscript refers to a “Covenant of steadfast love,” which is described as a community whose members are united in God. There is then a discussion of the two “spirits” in man—the Spirit of Light and Truth which exists in conflict with the Spirit of Darkness and Error. One is reminded of the Edgar Cayce concept of the Soul, seeking a return to God, in strife with the lingering animal nature of the form it is occupying. The rest of the document sets forth the community’s purpose, theology, communal life, probationary periods; and its legal, moral and liturgical practices, and it is quite similar to the information in Josephus about the Essenes.
The scroll is also remarkably similar to what has become known as the Damascus Document or Zadokite Document, which was found in the book repository of a medieval synagogue excavated in Egypt around 1878, and it was written in the Tenth Century A.D. Its two names evolve from the fact that it tells about a group of Jews who left Juda during a period of paganism and settled in Damascus and the priests with the group are called “sons of Zadok.” Zadok was the priest who anointed David and was the High Priest of the Temple. Many of the rules and customs of this group are similar to the rules and customs described in the Manual of Discipline. The document also contains references to the Teacher of Righteousness and the Wicked Priest. Significantly, fragments of this document have been found in the Qumran caves, written much earlier. This has led some scholars to believe that there was a relationship between the two communities, even to the extent that they were the same group.
6. Another Hebrew University Scroll is titled: “The War of the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness.” Written in Hebrew probably between 50 and 1 B.C., it is nine feet long and six inches wide and was found in its original linen wrapping. It consists of nineteen substantially preserved columns of text giving an elaborate description of an eschatological war to take place between the two factions, with God and His angels intervening to wipe out evil. General Yadin says that the strategem outlined in the document is definitely Roman, which could mean that the Roman technique had been observed and copied or that the plan was outlined by a Roman who had joined the community. The enemies are identified as the Kittims (or Kittaeans) of Egypt and Assyria. Both countries were traditional enemies of the Jews, but the reference to the Kittims could well mean the Greek or Roman dominators of Egypt and Assyria. Scholars point out that for two or three centuries before Christ and even in the time of Christ, many Jews were expecting the end of the world following a great war. Furthermore, this expectation is found in the contemporary literature of people of other lands. A similar idea is, for that matter, in Revelations. To some scholars, the scroll indicates that the war would last forty years and at the time of Divine intervention God would send the Messiah to lead to victory and then to rule a world of peace for the rest of time. Other scholars specify that the scroll is damaged at this point and that (1) the word form for “God” has been interpolated by others, that (2) the verb referring to the Messiah’s appearance may be “begets” but is probably “is come,” and that (3) the text is not clear on whether the Messiah would be of the entity of the Christ—thus the Second Coming in today’s terms—or merely be a ruling king who was a good man and had been anointed by the High Priest when he took office. Contributing further to the uncertainty is the knowledge that the Essenes were a peaceful people who would not make weapons of war and who bore arms—a knife—only when they were traveling and felt they needed protection from robbers.
7. Also a Hebrew University Scroll are the Thanksgiving Psalms, so called because they usually begin with, “I thank you, O God …,” In Hebrew, the scroll was written within fifty years before Christianity. They were in four bundles when Sukenik acquired them, three of them crushed together and therefore separated into thirteen inch fragments in order to read them. There are eighteen psalms in all, similar to the Old Testament but not of equal poetic beauty, and some of them are believed to have been written by the Teacher of Righteousness, who remains a man of mystery.
The debate among the scholars on the real identity of the Teacher of Righteousness and the Wicked Priest present the mere student with a chaotic confusion of possibilities. It is enough to acknowledge that both men did exist at one time and at the same time, one being a holy man, the other obviously not so holy. That the Teacher of Righteousness was a priest, maybe a High Priest, is indicated both in the Qumran scrolls and the Damascus Document. It appears that he might at one time have been a man of great authority in the land, and he was either forced out of power or decided to give up power in order to get away from the evil surrounding it. If he lived in the Second Century B.C., as some evidence suggests, he probably supervised the construction of the Qumran monastery or house of studies. There is evidence that the building was erected around 150 B.C., give or take several years, and was destroyed around A.D. 68, the evidence being in the form of coins and artifacts found during the excavation. If the Teacher lived in the First Century B.C., and some evidence supports this, then the house of studies was already there and was being used for purposes which the Teacher approved or he would have gone somewhere else. Other evidence indicates that the structure was not occupied for a period of thirty years, beginning in 31 B.C. It is known that an earthquake shook this area that year, which may be why the people went away. The fact that they returned on the eve of Christianity may be significant.
The likelihood for the earlier existence of the Teacher is supported by the fact that the Manual of Discipline Scroll, written around 100 B.C., refers to him in the past tense. He was dead. According to the documents, the Teacher could foretell the future, which made him a prophet. The Sadducees, who accepted as Law only the Pentateuch, rejected the writings of the prophets and prophets themselves. For three hundred years before Christ, anyone who claimed to be a prophet faced execution during a Sadducee reign. It is probable, then, that it was a Sadducean High Priest who brought about the death of the Teacher, by crucifixion. This was a Roman, not Jewish, form of execution, which leads some scholars to believe that the death might have taken place at a later date.
The Teacher foretold his death, even the form of it, and he also foretold that he would return. The Qumran literature suggests that the Teacher’s return would be preceded by the return of Elijah or the “son” of Elijah. Throughout the writings, there is a strong Messianic anticipation, sometimes in association with the death of the Teacher, and this had led some scholars to deduce that the brotherhood at Qumran believed that its resurrected (reincarnated?) Teacher would be the Messiah. Both the Manual of Discipline and the Damascus Document refer to another manuscript with the word-form title of “HGW.” Nobody can figure out what that means because there are no vowel indications. But both documents say, in effect, “All that is not delineated here can be found in HGW.” In view of the many gaps in the Qumran picture and of all the guesswork resulting from them, this makes “HGW” a tremendously important document. It is puzzling, therefore, that not a scrap of it has been found. Was there just one copy of it at Qumran? Was it found in a cave by some early Bedouin who then lost it or destroyed it? It is known that certain sacred writings existed at this time that were of such mystical scope that they could be read only by those specially trained because their contents might shatter the faith of lesser men. Sometimes such books were even destroyed to put them out of circulation. Was “HGW” such a book? Shall we ever know?