ESSENES. The Essenes were a sect of Jews during the Hasmonean and Roman periods of Jewish history (c. 150 BCE–74 CE). This group was noted for its piety and distinctive theology. The Essenes were known in Greek as Essenoi or Essaioi. Numerous suggestions have been made regarding the etymology of the name, among which are derivation from Syriac ḥaseʾ ("pious"), Aramaic asayyaʾ ("healers"), Greek hosios ("holy"), and Hebrew ḥashaʾim ("silent ones"). The very fact that so many suggestions as to etymology have been made and that none has carried a scholarly consensus shows that the derivation of the term cannot be established with certainty. No Hebrew cognate appears either in the Dead Sea Scrolls, taken by many scholars to be the writings of this sect, or in rabbinic literature (the Talmuds and midrashim). Only with the Jewish rediscovery of Philo Judaeus (d. 45–50 CE) and Josephus Flavius (d. 100 CE...