Umm, no. On both counts. Assuming for the moment that the Essenes and the Qumran community are one and the same, they were extremely confident about the future. They knew that the last battle was coming and who would win it. It's a rather bleak future for those who aren't Essenes, but for the Essenes it's quite triumphant.
They're not Christians either. They were an explicitly Jewish sect that predates Christ by about 150 years. There is a theory that John the Baptist was an Essene originally, but it's just a theory with no evidence, and even if it's true, it's pretty clear that he must have departed from the sect to undertake his ministry.
Andrew E. Larsen
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