Beyond the Qumran Community: The Sectarian Movement of the Dead Sea Scrolls

Much is still controversial. I am recommending Collins' work to my students because his approach is unexpectedly objective and thorough in its coverage of the critical issues, history, and interpretive problem. I am grateful for this well written work.

Good information about the history of the sect but disappointing because it doesn't go into the theology of the writings.

Collins presents all points of view in his book on the Qumran community. His writing is also very clear, and accessible even to the general reader.He has an interesting overviews of the Yahad and the historical background to the community.I was especially fascinated by his chapter on the Essenes. Both Pliny and Josephus give favorable reports about the Essenes, and Josephus spends a disproportionate length of time on them. He says "the Essenes behave with semnotes...They show self-control...in their attitudes toward passions, sex, and women. The Essene community of goods illustrates the Jewish pursuit of koinonia...which is the opposite of misanthropia, the vice with which Jews were often charged" (p 137).But was the community of Qumran an Essene community? Perhaps the greatest objection is the presence of women there, because the Yahad taught celibacy.Most fascinating in connection to later Christianity is the presence in the scrolls of a belief that some people after death, the just, would reach heaven, whereas others would reside in "a dark pit shaken by storms" (p 151).The connection between the Therapeutae and the Essenes, although their doctrines seem to coincide on many points, is still too obscure to many any definite judgment. The Therapeutae did allow for women, most of them virgins, however, and drank no wine and ate no meat.A fine addition to the discussion.