Scholars have long observed a variety of ancient authors who describe a revered ascetic group identified as Essenes. In the past most of the scholarly attention on the Essenes has examined these ancient writers for historical reconstruction purposes. However, in more recent years scholarship has recognized the importance of first exploring the literary purpose for a writer's inclusion of the Essenes. This is especially the case with the Jewish historian, Josephus. While several scholars have engaged in a literary analysis of Josephus' Essenes from select passages, there remains a need for a comprehensive study of all of the Josephan Essene passages. With this in mind, I engage in a comprehensive literary analysis of all of the Essene passages in Josephus, concentrating on Josephus' rhetorical portrait of the Essenes within the context of his narrative world and then explicating the contribution of this portrait to his overarching literary agendas I utilize a compositional-critical approach, which includes both vertical and horizontal analysis of each of the Josephan passages within their larger literary context, the identification of intentional connections between the Essenes and other revered groups in antiquity, and a comparison of Josephus' portrait of the Essenes with other portraits from ancient sources (Philo. Pliny, Dio Chrysostom, and Hegesippus). Based upon the analysis, I argue that Josephus' portrait of the Essenes contributes significantly to his larger apology for Judaism with a non-Jewish Roman audience in the wake of Rome's defeat of the Jews. Throughout his oeuvre he portrays the Essenes as an ideal community of Jewish philosophers. This ideal community serves as a foil for the Jewish rebels, stands in continuity with renowned Jews of a bygone age, mirrors as well as surpasses respected philosophical groups of the Greco-Roman world, validates the control of the Jewish God over the affairs of men, and embodies the virtue of an idealized Jewish nation.