Secret Groups in Ancient JudaismWere there groups in Ancient Judaism that cultivated esoteric knowledge and transmitted it secretly? With the discovery and burgeoning study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and particularly of the documents legislating the social structure of the Qumran group, the foremost paradigm for analysis of the group's social structure has become the sect. This is still dominant, having replacing the monastic paradigm used by some of the earliest scholars of the