Jubilees, Qumran, and the Essenespreparation of bread and the priestly prayer/blessing before the meal.^65 They
do not justify the conclusion that the yahad and the Damascus Covenant
were part of the Essene movement or emerged from it. Nevertheless, it is im
possible to deny that there is a certain relationship between them.
In contrast to the yahad and the Damascus Covenant, the Essenes pose
three major taboos and boundaries on marriage, oaths, and slaves. More
over, it seems that the Essenes have much in common with both the yahad
and the Damascus Covenant: the communal ownership of property, gradual
admission to the sect, and communal meals of the yahad, on the one hand,
and the Sabbath prohibitions and social hierarchy of the Damascus Cove
nant on the other. In their attitude toward the temple, the Essenes "serve
God not with sacrifices of animal, but by resolving to the sanctity of their
minds," which is quite similar to the yahad's conception of prayer and mo
rality as (temporal) substitutes for the sacrificial rites.^66 But the Essenes also
send donations to the temple, as in the Damascus Document.^67 It therefore
seems that the Essenes adopt practices from both the yahad and the Damas
cus Covenant.
The Essenes also have a more complex, one may even say dialectic, ide
ology, combining strict segregation with attempts to gain public power
through prophecies that concern the politics of the late Hasmonean and
Herodian dynasties.
The strict boundaries, the dual dependence on practices of both the
yahad and the Damascus Covenant, and the use of public predictions for po
litical reasons indicate that the Essenes were a more complex movement
than either of the Qumran sects. I think the most plausible explanation for
this complexity is that the Essenes were a later development of the yahad and
the Damascus Covenant.^68 Such social or religious complexity seems to be a
result of a process of evolution over several generations, and the adoption of
new modes of behavior that are incorporated into older practices.
- Josephus, Jewish War 2.131; lQS 6:4-5.
- Philo, Quod omnis probus liber sit75; lQS 9:4-5; Regev, "Abominated Temple," 269-
71- - Josephus, Ant 18.19; CD 11:18-20.
- This conclusion holds as long as we follow Josephus and Philo and regard the
Essenes as one more or less unified movement, rather than a conglomerate of different
groups that differ in various practices.