Leaving Masada, we traveled North to Khirbet Qumran, located on the shores of the Dead Sea. There is no indication that Qumran, meaning "two moons," was ever directly connected with Jesus or the early Christian community. Jesus is never mentioned in any of the documents discovered at Qumran. It is doubtful that Jesus' lax attitudes about Mosaic Law would have appealed to the Essene residents of Qumran, who initially settled there to avoid the influence of the Hasmonean priest-kings.
The Essenes probably founded the settlement at Qumran as a fortified farm during the late second or early first century BC. It was ultimately tranformed into a monastic settlement. The Essenes escaped to the desert to prepare for what they expected to be God's ultimate victory over the usurpers who had taken over the Temple. These high priests of Jerusalem were feared by the Essenes much more than the Romans.
When the Essenes were ultimately attacked by the Romans, they hid their secret scrolls in storage jars with bowls for lids.
The jars were hidden in nearby caves in the summer of 68 AD.
The scrolls remained hidden until 1947, when they were discovered by a Bedouin shepherd. The surviving scrolls include verbatim copying of books of the Old Testament, together with documents describing the Essene rules and beliefs as a community. You can actually view some of the Dead Sea Scrolls online at
http://www.deadseascrolls.org.il/featured scrolls
The Essenes were characterized by their withdrawal from the world, communal life, rejection of foreign influences, desire for ritual purity, and their expectation of the imminent apocalyptic battle between the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness. Rather than the violent standoff experienced at Masada, the Essenes' rejection of Roman dominance was characterized by withdrawal.
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