Customer Reviews

Essene Book of Everyday Virtues: Spiritual Wisdom From the Dead Sea Scrolls

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This is a great book to help you feel grounded and whole. Kenneth explains the daily life and practices of the Essenes, something I knew nothing about until I picked up this book. This is truly an uplifting book that can help you have a better understanding of yourself and your spirit. This is a great book to read a little bit from each day to help you uplift your spirit.

I bought this book about a year ago while I was taking the Dead Sea Scrolls class from Dr. Ken L. Hanson at UCF. I have really enjoyed reading this book. It is a wonderfully fantastic and spellbinding book. I would highly recommend to all today's readers of all denominations and faiths who seek to heighten their own personal spiritual growth in this cruel and secular world. It really helps me to connect with God deeply and I believe it makes me more mystical.:) Professor Hanson has that perfect eloquence that I am so caught up with his buoyancy and persistent good humor. I really admire this awesome professor. He reminds me of one of my favorite characters, Indiana Jones. And he should be one! Amen!

In the Essene Book Of Everyday Virtues: Spiritual Wisdom From The Dead Sea Scrolls, Kenneth Hanson (Judaic Studies, University of Central Florida, Orlando) draws upon the writings of the Essenes (or Sons of Light as they called themselves) discovered in Israel in 1947. These writings consisted of 38 books of the Hebrew Bible (the oldest known copies in the world) as well as apocryphal material, original rule books for community living, psalms, and books of prophesy, and are the basis (along with accounts by Josephus (an ancient Jewish historian) and contemporary archaeological discoveries), and are the legacies from which Professor Hanson has developed a kind of ethical handbook for contemporary readers. With an emphasis on community, simplicity, learning and perseverance which were hallmarks of the ancients, the Essene Book Of Everyday Virtues underscores how in these present times, so many centuries later, what those long-lost ascetics, scholars, visionaries, and holy men have to offer us in achieving lives of spiritual wealth and abundance today. Essene Book Of Everyday Virtues is a wonderfully fascinating and informatively engaging read that can be confidently recommended to modern readers of all denominations and faiths seeking to enhance their personal spiritual growth while living in a secular world.

I purchased this book because I was so amazed at how reading Kenneth's, secrets of the lost bible, has transformed my life even further. I've read a lot of books on different cultures and religions, but he always manages to find the perfect balance between story telling and how it applies to our lifes. I decided since secrets of the lost bible was so damn good, I'll try another of his books, even though I wasn't particularly interested in the Essenes. Long story short, I'm glad my path took me to this book.

If you are looking for information about the Essene culture, life style, or beliefs this is a great book to read.