nora
(Nora)
#1
Jubilees, Qumran, and the Essenes
ownership of property, common to the Essenes and the yahad, whereas
members of the Damascus Covenant maintained private property.^24
There are two significant discrepancies between the Essenes, on the
one hand, and the yahad and the Damascus Covenant, on the other hand.
Essene abstinence from taking oaths is not attested in the scrolls, which
specify regulations for taking oaths before judges to affirm lost property and
mention vows as a normative and even frequent practice.^25 Essene rejection
of slavery is inconsistent with evidence from the Damascus Covenant, since
CD 11:12 prohibits "pressing" one's servant or maidservant (to work) on the
Sabbath. However, there is no mention of servants in the Community Rule.
Presumably, neither the yahad nor the Essenes used servants, since they both
maintained common property and aimed at socioeconomic equality. Inter
estingly, recendy discovered ostraca from kh. Qumran mention the delivery
of a slave named Hisdai from Holon, and may attest to the dwellers' readi
ness to accept slaves as property.^26
Several relatively minor differences are also notable, since they pertain
to social order, rituals, and taboos, on which sects put great emphasis.
Josephus's Essenes differ from both the yahad and the Damascus Covenant
in their social structure and types of leadership. The Essene overseers
(epimeletai) care for the needs of the entire community. They have complete
authority in directing the members' work.^27 Josephus also refers to Elders,
who are the leaders of the Essene group.^28 The role of the Essene Elders re
sembles the total authority of overseers and certain priests in the Damascus
24. CD 13:15-16; 14:12-18. For the Essene communal ownership of property, see Philo,
Hypothetica 10.11; Philo, Quod omnis probus liber «'t86; Josephus, Jewish Wiir2.i22; Josephus,
Ant 18.20; Pliny the Elder, Natural History 5.73. For the yahad see, e.g., lQS 6:19-23; for the
Damascus Covenant, see CD 13:14-16; 14:12-17.
25. CD 9:8-12; 16:1-7. For the Essenes, see Philo, Quod omnis probus liber sit 84;
Josephus, Jewish War 2.135; cf- Ant 15.371. On oaths in the Damascus Document, see
Schiffman, Law, Custom, 204-11,220-27. Beall, Josephus' Description, 69-70, draws upon the
silence of the Community Rule in relation to oaths other than those of joining converts, for
creating a false parallelism with Philo and Josephus, while resolving the evidence from the
Damascus Document's different stages of development.
26. For the Essenes, see Philo, Hypothetica 11.4; Quod omnis probus liber sit 79;
Josephus, Ant 18.21. For CD 11:12, see Schiffman Law, Custom, 125-26. For the ostraca, see
F. M. Cross and E. Eshel, "Ostraca from Khirbet Qumran," /£/47 (1997): 17-28. The conclu
sion that the dwellers in kh. Qumran accepted slaves as property is reasonable even if one re
jects the reading of yahad in line 5, a reading according to which the ostraca attest to the ad
mission of a new member and his property into the yahad.
27. Josephus, Jewish War 2.123,^12 9> 134-
28. Josephus, Jewish War 2.146.
