Essenes - According to the historian Pliny the Elder, the Essenes lived a communal life in the wilderness of Judea, beside the north-western tip of the Dead Sea. In 1947, what is likely to have been the library of the Essene community was discovered in eleven caves at Qumran. Translations of these 'Dead Sea Scrolls' as they came to be called, reveal that this community was a Jewish sect of monastic persuasion whose daily life comprised, for the most part, study and prayer.
There is no mention of the Essenes - they probably existed from the second century BC to the second century AD - but they were clearly a part of the Jewish life of the time, even though they chose to withdraw to the ascetic life. Was there a connection between the Essene community and John the Baptist's appearance 'in the wilderness of Judea'? (Matthew 3.1) It is unlikely that his preaching would have seemed alien to the Essenes: perhaps he had spent time within their community...
Kings of Other Lands
Seti I - Pharaoh from 1305 BC to 1290 BC and was probably the pharaoh during whose reign the Exodus was conceived, planned and, may be, executed, though it is likely that the Exodus took place at the beginning of the reign of Seti's son, Ramses II. Some scholars will argue that Seti I may have been the pharaoh 'who did not know Joseph' (Exodus 1.8) and enslaved the Hebrews, but the stronger argument places the enslavedment much earlier, during the reign of Ahmose, some two hundred years earlier.
Ramses II - Pharaoh of Egypt and the son of Seti I. He reigned from 1290 to 1224 BC and was probably the pharaoh of Exodus, though some scholars have made arguments against this proposition.
