Anyone familiar with the Essene?

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=478&letter=E


This might give you some of the info you are looking for.

How familiar do you need? I'm currently working my way through a long, dull list of books on NT backgrounds which cover quite a lot about Jewish sects of the time. I could pretty easily lay my hands on what Josephus has to say, for instance, or the details of the DSS/Qumran community. Let me know if you have specific questions and I'll see if I have the info you're after.

Qumran didn't exist in 6 BC, that's the modern Arabic name. Joshua 15:61-62 lists the cities belonging to the tribe of Judah. The assumption is that its ancient biblical name was Secacah since Secacah is singled out as the Dead Sea settlement in the famous Copper Scroll from Cave 3.

I'm paraphrasing material from Carsten Peter Thiede's book "The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Jewish Origins of Christianity (page 14). Another good source, of course, is Josephus.
I mentioned Qumran in my first century novel and then went back and changed it after reading Thiede's book. I'm sure there's quite a lot about the Essenes out there. Although I'm not specifically interested in the Essens, here are couple of others that I've found helpful in my research:
Carsten Peter Theide, and Matthew D’ancona. Eyewitness to Jesus, New York, Doubleday, 1996
Carl J Somer. We Look for a Kingdom, San Francisco, Ignatius Press, 2007
Good Luck

Bard:
I came across this reference in a book I'm reading about Rabbi Gamaliel (Hillel's grandson) for research and thought of you. First, a couple of other points about the Essenes that you may already know. They were not confined to Qumran. They had settlements and synagogues in many Jewish cities. They had a large presence in Jerusalem...hence the Essene Gate that they passed through on thier way to do their bodily elimination beyond the city gates.
Some thirty years before Christ, Menahem served as VP of the Sanhedrin under Hillel who was nasi. Both Hillel and Menahem believed that they could forestall judgement by being a light unto the Gentiles. Shammai (leader of the competing school) disagreed. Around 20 BC he replaced Menahem. Here's the interesting part from the Jerusalem Talmud:
Menahem the Essene and 160 Essene disciples left the Jewish community on a mission to the Gentiles to take the world the Noahide Covenant, thus assuring obedient and observant Gentiles a place in the world to come.

There's a viewpoint of the Essenes fraught with possibilities, eh? I find the Talmuds and the Mishnah tough reading, but you might want to look into them as well.