Organized as the YAHAD, same name as used by early Christians in ACTS,. though could have been a common name for religious communities in general. In SOMMER, p. 98, we find: "Thus, the revelation of the Jewish "New Covenant" which has just been brought to us in such detail by the Dead Sea discoveries, enriches very substantially our knowledge. In the last two centuries B.C. and the first century A.D. this represented a movement in Judaism as widespread as it was deep, both inside and outside Palestine. It is from the womb of this religious ferment that Christianity, the Christian ˜New Covenant emerged." SOMMER, p. 99, goes on to say: "In the Christian Church, just as in the Essene Church, the essential rite is the sacred meal, whose ministers are the priests. Here and there at the head of each community there is the overseer, the "bishop". And the ideal of both Churches is essentially that of unity, communion in love "even going so far as the sharing of common property".
An intriguing passage is found in BROWNLEE, p. 22, "And it shall be when they arrange the table to eat, or arrange the wine to drink the priest shall first stretch out his hand to invoke a blessing with the first of the bread or the wine to drink, the priest shall first stretch out his hand to invoke a blessing with the first of the bread and the wine."
GASTOR p. 20, carrying this thought forward says: "FOURTH-and, perhaps, most important-even if, for arguments sake, this document did refer to a divine eschatological Messiah attending a banquet with his disciples, it would still not be a eucharist in the Christian sense, for there is not the slightest suggestion that the bread and wine were regard as his flesh and blood or that consumption of them had any redemptive power. At most, it would be an agape, or "love-feast." We would agree with this because the present LDS practice is more like the ancient practice and not the eucharist of more than 750 Christian denominations and off shoots.
They were called Saints: DANIELOU, on p. 99 quotes a Scroll source: "God gave them a heritage partaking of the lot of the saints (DSD xi. )7). Similar to Paul in Col. l:12.
SHONFIELD p. 30, quoting from the DAMASCUS TESTAMENT "The former saints whom God pardons. The commentator speaks of the "first" or "former saints" whom God pardones. These are the repentant remnant from Israel and Aaron of the first part of the Testament of Damascus who lived at the time of the period of wrath." The people of Qumran considered themselves to be Saints. Today, the LDS call themselves, the "Latter Day Saints".
SOMMER, p. 98 states: "Thus, the revelation of the Jewish "New Covenant", which has just been brought to us in such detail by the Dead Sea discoveries, enriches very substantially our knowledge.In the last two centuries B.C. and the first century A.D. this represented a movement in Judaism as widespread as it was deep, both inside and outside Palestine. It is from this form of this religious ferment that Christianity, the Christian "New Covenant emerged." And on p. 99 he writes: "In the Christian Church, just in the Essene Church, the essential rite is the sacred meal, whose ministers are the priests. Here and there at the head of each community there is the overseer, the "bishop". And the ideal of both Churches is essentially that of unity, communion in love "even going so far as the sharing of common property." On page 24 he writes: "The outstanding interest of the Dead Sea documents is to be found in another direction: its lies rather in all that they tell us of the religious milieu of the JEWS in the last TWO CENTURIES BEFORE THE CHRISTIAN ERA. It is precisely this that we may now proceed to learn." What the Jews believed from 400 B.C. to the time of Christ is of great interest to LDS scholars. The Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic Canons were developed during that period. The Canon of the Brass Plates was already in place before 600 B.C.