Just published, an inscribed potsherd discovered at
Qumran provides an amazing parallel to a practice of Jesus’ first
community of followers. According to the Book of Acts, members of that
community sold their possessions and distributed the proceeds according to
individual need.
Riches they [the Essenes] despise, and their
community of goods is truly admirable; you will not find one among them
distinguished by greater opulence than another. They have a law that new
members on admission to the sect shall confiscate their property to the
order, with the result that you will nowhere see either abject poverty or
inordinate wealth; the individual’s possessions join the common stock
and all, like brothers, enjoy a single patrimony (Josephus, War
2:122—123, Loeb ed.).
The company of the believers were one in heart and
soul. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they had
everything in common... There were no needy persons among them, for those
who owned pieces of land or houses sold them and brought the proceeds and
put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each person
according to his need (Acts 4:32, 34-35).
A potsherd recently unearthed at the Essene settlement
of Qumran is of primary importance for understanding the development of the
primitive Jerusalem church.1 The Dutch theologian Hugo Grotius
(1583—1645) already noted in his New Testament commentary2
the similarity between the New Testament’s description of the
Je
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