Page 38 - The Glad Tidings of the Messiah

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The Essenes and the Dead

Sea Scrolls

Unlike the other groups, whose members
lived in Jerusalem or other towns and cities, the
Essenes lived in remote corners of the Jordanian hinter-
land. They were a more devout people, in comparison to
the others, and had a more spiritual nature. They shared
the common belief of the people: The Messiah (pbuh)
would come soon, would correct the deviations and aber-
rations of the Children of Israel, and would free the Holy
Land from Roman occupation. This sect's members were
totally hostile to Hellenistic culture and Roman rule, and
were trying their best to live by the Mosaic law. They iso-
lated themselves from the outside world, living in caves
in the Jordanian hinterland and spending all of their time
working on scriptures, in order to await the Messiah
(pbuh) in dedication and worship.
Flavius Josephus wrote about this group in his book,
but when scholars realized that the scrolls found in the
caves of Qirbet Qumran in 1947 near the western shore of
the Dead Sea belonged to the Essenes, they suddenly be-
came the best-known group of all, and their sect's impor-
tance to history was raised by the interpretations of the
scrolls' contents. Further excavations yielded a total of