Essene

Noun. Member of a first-century ascetic Jewish sect, in ancient Palestine from the second century BCE to the second century CE. The Essenes are believed to have been the authors of the Dead Sea scrolls.

This is an unmodified, but possibly outdated, definition from Wiktionary and used here under the Creative Commons license. Wiktionary is a great resource. If you like it too, please donate to Wikimedia.

This entry was last updated on RefTopia from its source on 3/20/2012.