Status Updates From The Complete Dead Sea Scrol...

Somehow I had gotten the impression that the Essenes were a bunch of, basically, hippies - guys who were obsessed with the evils of societies who thus went to found a commune in the desert. Which they were! But they were also obsessive about maintaining internal hereditary hierarchies, nursed elaborate revenge fantasies against all foreigners... sadly my running hypothesis is now "yeah these guys kinda sucked"