Not sure about this one.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/portrait/essenes.html

The Manual of Discipline is a text that envisions a community living in almost total isolation, a community that is self-contained, that is governed very strictly by a Board of Governors, or a series of overlapping authorities, governing community in which everybody owes obedience to their superiors. There's an oath of entry; it is a very much monastic community, for want of the better word, a community with little or no private property. That point is debated in the text but it seems at least that you surrendered if not all, then at least some of your property to the kind of community pot; in turn, then, the community would look out for you and look after you. So, it is very much a community where the individual has somehow been merged into a communal group… Like a monastic community, there is no private property and, most striking of all, there are no women, and as a result, there are few children. It is a group almost exclusively consisting of adult males, who are to spend their life following the rules of the group and acting out the theological principles and beliefs of the group…

See https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/portrait/community.html for the manual of discipline …

Each chapter of the association has a leader known as the Instructor, probably the foremost priest, who guides deliberations about rules for the group's government, association funds, and biblical interpretation. Indeed, the heading of the text from Cave 1 states that this copy belonged to an Instructor, who may well have referred to the work when instructing new converts. Decisions are by majority rule. The local chapters comprise at least ten men who meet for meals and Bible study. Each year they conduct a full review of the membership. At that time a man's rank can change, for better or worse, according to his behavior and biblical understanding. The use of military terminology is notable. Members are described "volunteers" and are organized into groups of thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens. The method of organization is that used in the holy war conducted under Moses and Joshua when Israel first attacked the Canaanites and took possession of the land of Israel. This choice of terminology was, of course, deliberate. The group thought of itself as warriors awaiting God's signal to begin the final war against the nations and the wicked among the Jews. Meanwhile they sought to live in a heightened state of purity as the Bible required for holy warriors…

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