10 Minute Topics: Essenes

The next in a weekly series of 10 minute topics teaching about various topics within Judaism. This week's topic is: Essenes.

The Essenes were a Jewish religious group that flourished from the 2nd century BCE to the 1st century CE that some scholars claim seceded from the Tzadokite priests. Being much fewer in number than the Pharisees and the Sadducees (the other two major sects at the time) the Essenes lived in various cities but congregated in communal life dedicated to asceticism, voluntary poverty, and abstinence from worldly pleasures, including marriage and daily baptisms.

Sources:
Essenes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essenes)

Boccaccini, Gabriele (1998). Beyond the Essene hypothesis: the parting of the ways between Qumran and Enochic Judaism (William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1998) p. 47.

Lawrence H. Schiffman, Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls: Their True Meaning for Judaism and Christianity (Doubleday, 2005) p. 87.

The Wars of the Jews (http://www.sacred-texts.com/jud/josephus/war-2.htm)

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Judaism
• Jewish
• Sadducees
• Pharisees
• Essenes
• Josephus
• Temple
• Priest
• Jerusalem
• Torah
• Dead
• Sea
• Scrolls
• Qumran
• Tzadokite
• Zadokite

[ArtLoversStudio18]

Lawrence Schiffman is an incredibly reliable and intellectually challenging reference. Your research is, as usual, very impressive.

[becomingjewishorg]

Thank you.

[aaronchieko]

great info, but moooonoooo-tone! ehhh...

[taliesin939939]

i might note that some essenes were said to have married. also, the link between qumran and the essenes hasnt been fully proven. there were some sadducees who believed in those things? i never knew they had sadducees like this, thinking it one of the major things that separated them from pharisees. but if they were sadducees then why did they not focus on the ritual in the second temple rebuilt by the persians? it was also my thought that the sadducees had a more literal interpretation of torah

[Albertross21]

Thanks for this. I have to research it for my Religious Studies essay.

[hmorganman]

I sincerely hope that this video inspires people to READ the research and books authored by real historians and other credentialed professional scholars. There are enough of them to make ignorance inexcusable. Video images are convenient but it is well documented that they can be used to misdirect and manipulate.

[WolfClant]

is there a jewish story-telling in this chanel?

[ArtLoversStudio18]

Btw, L'shana tova.