Essenes: a community of religious people who played an important role in the life of Jesus Christ. The name Essene means "expectancy," referring to their expectancy of the coming of the Messiah. They were students of astrology, numerology, phrenology, reincarnation and prophesy, who believed that by strict observance of spiritual law they could purify themselves so the Messiah might enter the Earth plane and take on a physical body. According to the readings of Edgar Cayce, they prepared Mary to be the mother of Jesus who played an important role in educating Jesus.
One of the three orders of Jews during the Second Temple Period; a separatist group that formed an ascetic monastic community and, in response to apocalyptic visions, retreated to the wilderness.
A Jewish sect believed to be responsible for the Qumran library.
members of ascetic Jewish sects that went to live into a desert and dedicated themselves to religion.
Ancient Jewish sect of ascetics and mystics which existed from the second century B.C. to the second century A.D. A secret school of mysticism which is known to have aided Jesus during his life.
(ES·senes, but pronounce ES·senes). A Jewish extremist monastic group, which flourished from the second century BCE to the second century CE, holding rigid and austere beliefs with Gnostic overtones. For the most part they shunned the company of women and held themselves aloof from Jewish society which they saw as worldly and corrupt. More Information.
A Jewish sect identified by the first century CE historian Josephus as separatist, communitarian, with a high degree of ritual purity, and rigid laws of membership with an inner core which probably was celibate. Most scholars believe they constituted the group at Qumran and wrote some of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
A sect of Judaism begun a couple hundred years before Yeshua --- the Dead Sea Scrolls found at Qumran were Essene manuscripts.
Jewish sect - followers probably found at Qumran.
A Jewish group that lived in retreat in the wilderness of Judea between the first century B.C.E. and the first C.E., according to Josephus, the elder, Pliny, and Philo. See also Dead Sea Scrolls and Qumran.
movement of Judaism that existed around the time of the dawn of Christianity. It died out shortly after the destruction of the Temple.
The Essenes (sg. Essene, IPA: ) were followers of a religious way of living in Judaism that flourished from the 2nd century BC to the 1st century AD. Many scholars today argue that there were a number of separate but related groups that had in common mystic, eschatological, messianic, and ascetic beliefs that were referred to as the "Essenes".
