The Judaean cultural context of community of goods in the early Jesus movement Part VI, The employment of extended entrance procedures in fully property-sharing groups

This paper first considers the objections which have been raised against the long-standing earlier view that the Rule of the Community from Qumran (1QS) legislates for a complete communalising of property amongst full members. It is argued that these objections are incorrect, since all the texts concerned can be read comfortably within the social context of real situations faced by probationers and full members of the fully property-sharing echelon of the Essene covenantal organisation, the yachadh. The paper then goes on to argue that the complexity of the regulations of 1QS VI.13–23 governing the extended process of entry into the yachadh, especially the probationer’s handing of his property into the community’s administration in the last year of the entry procedure while still retaining title to his property at 1QS VI.20, yields very strong arguments supporting, when compared with other cases of the probationer’s loss of the right to administer his own property in the final stage of probationary membership in various fully property-sharing communities through history, the view that 1QS legislates for the complete sharing of property amongst fully property-sharing members.