Sea. The basic community lived under strict discipline in the desert, but associate members with similar if not identical beliefs lived in villages and some even in cities throughout Palestine. According to Josephus they numbered about four thousand around A.D. 50. The written Torah was at the center of the life and belief of the Essenes. The group’s distinctive interpretation of the Torah came from the “Teacher of Righteousness.” The Essenes were even more insistent than the Pharisees on strict