MUSEUMS

Ancient Artifacts of Holy War

The mystical Essenes had a message for the world: You’re either with us or against us

By Josie Glausiusz

The Shrine of the Book

At the Israel Museum

Jerusalem

www.imj.org.il/eng/shrine

“This is the day appointed by Him for the defeat and overthrow of the Prince of the Kingdom of wickedness.” So begins a prophecy written on parchment 2,100 years ago by the Essenes, an ascetic Jewish sect that followed an isolated life of purity and celibacy in Qumran, a plateau in the desert beside the Dead Sea. In a graceful Hebrew script, the text predicts a 40-year war to be fought in seven major battles, at the end of which the “Sons of Light” (the righteous sectarians themselves) would vanquish the evil “Sons of Darkness” (everyone else) and march upon Jerusalem to worship God in the Temple.

The War of the Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness was found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, which constitute one of the greatest archaeological finds of the 20th century. Dating from the third century B.C. to the first century A.D., the manuscripts—most of them Hebrew but some in Aramaic or Greek—were discovered in 1947 by a bedouin shepherd seeking his lost goat in a desert cave. They are now housed in the Israel Museum in a circular white building called the Shrine of the Book, which is shaped like the cap of the clay pot in which the first seven scrolls were found. Reopened in 2004 after a three-year renovation, the Shrine also boasts a fascinating array of Essene artifacts, some of them on display for the first time.

Calling themselves the Yahad (meaning “community”), the Essenes venerated the prophet Isaiah, whose messianic visions reflected their belief that they were living at the end of days. The Dead Sea Scrolls, which predate previously discovered biblical texts by one thousand years, include the complete Book of Isaiah and partial copies of 23 other books of Hebrew Scriptures that, with minor variations in wording, are nearly identical to those read today. But the war scroll is unique to the Essenes, as is their Manual of Discipline, which opens with initiation rites for new members that include an oath binding them to contribute “all their knowledge and strength and wealth” to the community and to adhere to the sect’s divinely revealed solar calendar. An obsession with purity and time is reflected in the group’s possessions: a limestone sundial; a mattock, or hoelike metal implement, for burying feces; two-handled cups for ritual hand washing; and tiny phylacteries (leather boxes encasing parchment inscribed with holy verses), which some members wore all day, strapped to the head and arms. Most surprising, though, are women’s delicate hairnets, combs, and bracelets strung with colored glass and stone beads—a hint, perhaps, that not all the male devotees were immune to feminine charms.

The sight of these objects and the dimly lit, crumbling remnants of the oldest extant biblical texts kindles a profound feeling of awe. At the same time, it evokes a poignant sense of prying into a private and deluded world that was, for all its self-appointed redemptive mission, doomed. In A.D. 68, the Romans crushed a widespread Jewish revolt in the region and destroyed the Qumran settlement. Instead of conquering the world, the Essenes were themselves annihilated.

BOOKS

We All Live in a Tiny Bathysphere