How did the Essenes live near the Dead Sea. The place is a desert.?

Question

If you see films of this place, nothing grows there and the Dead Sea is dead because it has no life in it. So what did these people live on?

Answer 1

I'm guessing they had similar habits to the bedouins, some of whom live in Jordan near the dead sea. So I'm guessing meats (lamb, goat) and milk (sheep and goat's again). Plus you can still grow things in the desert, it's just much harder.

Oh and the dead sea is 'dead' because it's so salty that nothing can live in the actual sea.

Answer 2

They lived up on the edge of the plateau not down in the bottom of the Jordan River Valley!

Answer 3

There are a lot of people who live in the desert. If you are talking about the Essene community that recorded and preserved the Dead Sea scrolls, then yes, there is historical proof that this particular group lived near the Dead Sea (not the Reed Sea, as some people have tried to tell you!) There is evidence that this community was self sufficient in that they raised their own food - goats, sheep, etc. They were also located on high ground, and there is evidence that they had sisterns to collect rain water, and a system for circulating that water throughout the community. There are also signs that they had contact with the "outside" world. Most likely this wasn't a community where someone lived the entirety of their lives - it was almost a rotation system. Some people would be there for a few  years, work, learn, etc, and then take that knowledge to other Essene and Christian communities which were scattered across the Levant and Mediterranean.

Answer 4

They actually lived near the freshwater Reed Sea, which was mistranslated from the Hebrew into "Dead", and not salty!