Judea, and without the onus that it later received from the Rabbinical scholars. It is for these reasons -- and especially because the Qumran scrolls are the oldest known copies of Jewish scripture in existance -- that Qumran and the sect that produced these scrolls are so vital to the study of Judaism and Christianity. Who wrote them? What kind of people occupied this monastic compound in the harsh, rocky and barren Judean wilderness that overlooked the Dead Sea? A widely held theory is that Qumran was inhabited by the Hebrew sect called 'the Essenes.' This was an ascetic Jewish religious community that existed in Palestine at the time the occupation of the Qumran site flourished, and which was both contemporary with and pre-dated John the Baptist, Jesus of Nazareth and the Roman destruction of the Jerusalem temple in 70 A.D. The Essenes must have been quite important during these times because information concerning them in the ancient literature is more prevalent than for the other two major Jewish sects, the Pharisees and the Sadducees. First hand reports concerning the Essenes comes to us from the Jewish philosopher of the Egytian dispersion, Philo of Alexandria, who lived between 30 B.C. and 40 A.D. Philo's writings about the Essenes comes down to us through two works, 'Quod omnis probus Fiber sit' and 'Apologia pro Judais.' The second work has been lost but the information was retained in Eusebius' 'Praeparatio Evangilica.' Another writer contemporary with the Essenes was Flavius Josephus, the famous Jewish historian and priest-general at the time of the Jewish war. His most elaborate description of this group is contained in 'The Jewish War', followed by an interesting, but far less detailed account in 'Jewish Antiquities.' Josephus wrote his first work sometime between 70 and 75 A.D., and the second somewhat later, but before 100 A.D., the year of his death. Another first-hand report...
