First, here is a good summary statement of the end-times eschatology of the Essenes, as revealed in the Dead Sea Scrolls (emphasis mine):
The sect's eschatology is derived from its understanding of human history as being built up in stages determined by God and linked together to move toward an inevitable goal, the eschaton. This defined order of the ages that unfolds progressively and successively in predetermined periods of time The order of these ages according to 4Q180 (The Ages of Creation) consecutively enumerates these periods beginning with the time prior to the creation of man (cf. CD 2:7; 1QS 3:15-18; 1QH 1:8-12). The history of mankind is traced from the Creation (1QS 4:15-17) and leads up to the eschaton or the "latter generation" or the "end-time," finally culminating in the "Latter Days" (QpHab 4:1-2, 7-8, 10-14; cf. 2:5-7). This culminating period also looks forward in its description of this age ending the era of wickedness as "the decreed epoch of new things" (1QS 4:25; cf. Dan. 9:26-27; 11:35-36; Isa. 10:23; 28:22; 43:19). The dividing point of this order of the ages is the destruction of the First Temple (586 B.C.), with ages preceding it termed "the generations of wickedness," and those that follow after (the post-destruction/post-exilic period) as "the generations of the Latter Days."The present age of wickedness will escalate until the final conflict between the "sons of darkness" and the "sons of light." According to the War Scroll the final age was to be preceded by a period of tribulation or "birth pangs [of the Messiah]" (1QH 3:7-10), which "shall be a time of salvation for the People of God" (1QM 1). Central to this coming age of conflict is the image of eschatological evil rulers and deceivers (counterparts to the true Messiah). In Dead Sea texts which depict this period of great spiritual declension of Israel, the "apostasy" is said to be spearheaded by a figure refer to as "Belial" and a "son of Belial." The term appears also in the New Testament at 2 Cor. 6:15. In other texts, this figure is called "son/man of sin" (cf. CD 6:15; 13:14; 1QS 9:16; 10:19). This expression is quite similar to an expression found in the Pauline description of the eschatological desecrator, the Antichrist, in 2 Thess. 2:3b. It is complemented by another term "son of iniquity" in 1QS 3:21, which is comparable to the phrase "the man of lawlessness" paired with "man of sin" in 2 Thess. 2:3. Even the phrase "the mystery of lawlessness," found only at 2 Thess. 2:7, has an almost identical expression at Qumran: "the mystery of iniquity" (1QH 5:36; 50:5. In addition, Hebrew University professor of Second Temple Judaism, David Flusser claims to identify an Antichrist figure (a wicked king who calls himself the "son of God") in the late first--century B.C. Aramaic pseudo-Daniel fragment 4Q24. In his opinion it proves that the idea of Antichrist is pre-Christian and clearly of Jewish origin.
http://www.worldofthebible.com/studies/dedseascroll.doc
Here are some quotes from Jewish and early Christian apocalyptic literature:
[1] "Forces of his will come and profane the sanctuary citadel; they will abolish the perpetual sacrifice and install the disastrous abomination there . Those who break the covenant he will corrupt by his flatteries, but the people who know their God will stand firm and take action. Those of the people who are learned will instruct many; for some days, however, they will be brought down by sword and flame , by captivity and by plundering. And thus brought down, little help will they receive, though many will be plotting on their side. Of the learned, some will be brought down, as a result of which certain of them will be purged, purified and made white -- until the time of the End, for the appointed time is still to come ...He will reach out to attack countries: the land of Eygpt will not escape him....reports from the East and the North will worry him, and in great fury he will set out to bring ruin and complete destruction to many.... At that time Michael will stand up, the great prince who mounts guard over your people. There is going to be a time of great distress, unparalleled since nations first came into existence. When that time comes, your own people will be spared." (Daniel 11:31-12:1)
[2] "Oh king, wrath is coming to the world, and your years shall be shortened ... such is your vision and all of it is about to come unto the world. Amind great signs, tribulation is coming upon the land. ... After much killing and slaughter, a prince of nations will arise [and overthrow] the king of Assyria and Egypt, he will be ruler over the land, [and all] will be subject to him and obey him. .... His son will be called The Great, and be designated by his name. He will be called the Son of God, they will call him the Son of the Most High. But like the meteors that you saw in your vision, so will be their kingdom. They will reign only a few years over the land, while people trample people and nation tramples nation." (4Q246:1:2-9, 2:1-3; this is the false Messiah, whose description word-for-word anticipates the later description of Jesus in Luke 1:32-33: "He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High ... and of his kingdom there will be no end")
[3] "The first attack of the Sons of Light shall be undertaken against the forces of the Sons of Darkness, the army of Belial: the troops of Edom, Moab, the sons of Ammon, the Amelekites, Philistia, and the troops of the Kittim of Assyria. Supporting them are those who violated the covenant. The sons of Levi, the sons of Judah, and the sons of Benjamin, those exiled to the wilderness shall fight against them against all their troops, when the exiles of the Sons of Light return from the Wilderness of the Peoples to camp in the Wilderness of Jerusalem.... It is a time of distress for Israel, a final battle against all the nations. The purpose of God is eternal redemption, but annihilation for all nations of wickedness. All those prepared for battle shall set out and camp opposite the king of the Kittim and all the forces of Belial that are assembled with him for a day of vengeance by the sword of God.... When [Belial] prepares himself to assist the Sons of Darkness, and the slain among the infantry begin to fall by God's mysteries and to test by these mysteries by those appointed for battle, the priests shall blow their trumpets of assembly so that another battle line might go forth as a battle reserve.... The God of Israel removes Belial ... to his hell ... until every source of iniquity comes to an end. For the God of Israel has called out a sword against all the nations." (1QM1, 15; compare Daniel 11-12 and Revelation 16:13-16, 19:19-20)
[4] "Watch over your life, do not let your lamps go out, and do not be unprepared, but be ready, for you do not know the hour when the Lord is coming. Gather together frequently, seeking the things that benefit your souls, for all the time you have believed will be of no use to you if you are not found perfect in the last time. For in the last days the false prophets and corrupters will abound , and the sheep will be turned into wolves, and love will be turned to hate. For as lawlessness increases, they will hate and persecute and betray one another. Then the deceiver of the world will appear as a son of God and will perform signs and wonders , and the earth will be delivered into his hands. and he will commit abominations the likes of which have never happened before. Then all humankind will come to the fiery test, and many will fall away and perish, but those who endure in their faith will be saved by the accursed one himself. And then there will appear the signs of the truth: first the sign of an opening in heaven, then the sign of a sound of a trumpet, and third, the resurrection of the dead -- but not of all, rather as it has been said, the Lord will come, and all his saints with him. Then the world will see the Lord coming upon the clouds of heaven." (Didache 16:1-8)
[5] "God will very rightly repay with injury those who are injuring you, and reward you, who are suffering now, with the same peace as he will give us, when the Lord Jesus appears from heaven with the angels of his power. He will come in flaming fire to impose the penalty on all who do not acknowledge God and refuse to accept the Good News of our Lord Jesus. It will be their punishment to be lost eternally, excluded from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his strength on that day when he comes to be glorified among his saints and seen in his glory by all who believe in him....To turn now, brothers, to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and how we shall all be gathered round him. Please do not get excited too soon or alarmed by any prediction or rumour or any letter claiming to come from us, implying that the Day of the Lord has already arrived. Never let anyone deceive you in this way. It cannot happen until the Great Apostasy has taken place and the Man of Lawlessness, the Son of Perdition, has appeared. This is the Enemy, the one who claims to be so much greater than all that men call god, so much greater than anything that is worshipped, that he enthrones himself in God's sanctuary and claims that he is God....The Lord will kill him with the breath of his mouth and will annihilate him with his glorious appearance at his coming. But when the Man of Lawlessness comes, Satan will set to work: there will be all kinds of miracles and a deceptive show of signs and portents , and everything evil that can deceive those who are bound for destruction because they would not grasp the love of the truth which could have saved them." (2 Thessalonians 1:6-2:10)
[6] "Beliar the great ruler, the king of this world, will descend, who has ruled it since it came into being; indeed he will descend from his firmament in the likeness of a man, a lawless king, the slayer of his mother: who himself even this king. He will persecute the plant which the twelve apostles of the Beloved have planted. Of the twelve, one will be delivered into his hands. This ruler in the form of that king will come and there will come and there will come with him all the powers of this world, and they will hearken unto him in all that he desires. And at his word the sun will rise at night and he will make the moon to appear at the sixth hour. And all that he has desired he will do in the world: he will do and speak like the Beloved and he will say: 'I am God and before me there has been none.' And all the people in the world will believe in him. And they will sacrifice to him and they will serve him saying: 'This is God and beside him there is no other. ' And they greater number of those who shall have been associated together in order to receive the Beloved, he will turn aside after him. And there will be the power of his miracles in every city and region . And he will set up his image before him in every city. And he shall bear sway three years and seven months and twenty-seven days. And many believers and saints having seen him for whom they were hoping, who was crucified, Jesus the Lord Christ, and those also who were believers in him -- of these few in those days will be left as his servants, while they flee from desert to desert, awaiting the coming of the Beloved. And after one thousand three hundred and thirty-two days the Lord will come with his angels and with the armies of the holy ones from the seventh heaven with the glory of the seventh heaven, and he will drag Beliar into Gehenna and also his armies. And he will give rest of the godly whom he shall find in the body in this world, and the sun will be ashamed....But the saints will come with the Lord with their garments which are now stored up on high in the seventh heaven: with the Lord they will come, whose spirits are clothed, they will descend and be present in the world, and he will strengthen those, who have been found in the body, together with the saints, in the garments of the saints, and the Lord will minister to those who have kept watch in this world. And afterwards they will turn themselves upward in their garments, and their body will be left in the world. Then the voice of the Beloved will in wrath rebuke the things of heaven and the things of earth and the things of earth and the mountains and the hills and the cities and the desert and the forests and the angel of the sun and that of the moon, and all things wherein Beliar manifested himself and acted openly in this world, and there will be a resurrection and a judgment in their midst in those days, and the Beloved will cause fire to go forth from Him, and it will consume all the godless, and they will be as though they had not been created." (Ascension of Isaiah 4:2-18)
[7] First, in ch. 6:1-8, the breaking of the first four seals brings the ride of the Four Horsemen, unleashing war, famine, and plague. When the sixth seal breaks, "there was a violent earthquake and the sun went as black as coarse sackcloth, the moon turned red as blood all over, and the stars of the sky fell to the earth like figs dropping from a fig tree when the wind shakes it...The Great Day of his anger has come, and who can survive it?" (6:12-17) ... "Next I saw four angels, standing at the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the world back" sealing the righteous "servants of our God" before the angels can wreck havoc on the earth (7:1-8), and "a huge number of people from every nation, race, tribe, and language" are revealed in heaven, "who have been through the great persecution" but are now rewarded with eternal life in heaven (7:9-17). The seventh seal gives seven trumpets to seven angels who blow them, bringing woes to the earth (8:1-9:21). The fifth trumpet opens the Abyss and a mighty army emerges (described as the Parthian army), led by "their emperor, the angel of the Abyss, whose name in Hebrew is Abaddon" (9:11). This "beast that comes out of the Abyss is going to make war on [the two witnesses prophesing in the Great City] and overcome them and kill them " (11:7), but the witnesses come back to life. After the seventh trumpet, John has a vision of the woman and the Dragon, where it is revealed that the Dragon is "Satan the Devil" (12:9), and the Dragon delegates his power and "his worldwide authority" to the Beast and "the whole world marvelled and followed the Beast. They prostrated themselves in front of the dragon because he had given the Beast his authority; and they prostrated themselves in front of the Beast, saying, 'Who can compare with the Beast? How could anybody defeat him?' ... It was allowed to make war against the saints and conquer them, and given power over every race, and all the people of the world will worship it....Then I saw a second Beast ... a servant to the first Beast, making the world and all its people worship the first Beast.... And it worked great miracles, even to calling fire from heaven onto the earth while people watched. Through the miracles which it was allowed to do on behalf of the first Beast, it was able to win over the people of the world and persuade them to put up a statue in its honour....the number of the Beast, it is the number of a man, the number 666 [cf. Nero Caeser in Hebrew] (13:3-18)....In ch. 14:6-13, angels announce the Day of Judgment, urge everyone to praise God because he is about "to sit in judgment" and those who worshipped the Beast "in fire and brimestone they will be tortured ... and the smoke of their torture will go up forever and ever" (14:10). Then in 14:14-20, the angels are given a "sharp sickle" because "harvest time has come and the harvest of the earth is ripe" (14:14-15) and they proceed to harvest those for the "winepress of God's anger" (14:19). In ch. 16-18, God judges and punishes Babylon the Great (Rome), where the Beast ruled from. The Beast and the kings of the earth gather for a final battle, but "the Beast was taken prisoner, together with the false prophet who had worked miracles on the beast's behalf" and were then thrown into the Lake of Fire (19:19-21). Then the dragon was overpowered and thrown into the Abyss for a thousand years (20:1-3). Then the righteous dead "came to life, and reigned with Christ for a thousand years. This is the first resurrection; the rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were over" and the Dragon is released from the Abyss for a second judgment. Then the wicked and Satan were thrown into the Lake of Fire, while the righteous were given eternal life in the heavenly Jerusalem (ch. 21). (Revelation 6-21)
[8] "In the fourth year of that king, the Man of Lawlessness will appear, saying, 'I am the Christ,' although he is not. Don't believe him! When the Christ comes, he will come in the manner of a covey of doves with the crown of doves surrounding him. He will walk upon the heaven's vaults with the sign of the cross leading him. The whole world will behold him like the sun which shines from the eastern horizon to the western. This is how he will come, with all the angels surrounding him. But the Man of Lawlessness will begin to stand again in the holy places. He will say to the sun, 'Fall' and it will fall. He will say, 'Shine,' and it will do it....He will cause the lame to walk, he will cause the deaf to hear, he will cause the dumb to speak, he will cause the blind to see. The lepers he will cleanse. The ill he will heal. The demons he will cast out. He will multiply his signs and his wonders in the presence of everyone. He will do the works which Christ did, except for raising the dead alone. In this you will know he is the Man of Lawlessness, because he is unable to give life....Then when Elijah and Enoch hear that the shameless one has revealed himself in the holy place, they will come down and fight him... The shameless one will hear and he will be angry, and he will fight with them in the marketplace of the great city. And he will spend seven days fighting them. And they will spend three and a half days in the market place dead, but on the fourth day they will rise up and scold him.... Sixty righteous ones will gird on the breastplate of God and run to Jerusalem to fight with the shameless one...and he will be angry and command to kindle altars. And the righteous ones will be lifted up and burned. And on that day the heart of many will harden and they will flee from him saying, 'This is not the Christ. The Christ does not kill the righteous.' ...And on that day the earth will be disturbed, and the sun will darken , and peace will be removed from the earth....It will come to pass on that day that the Lord will hear and command the heaven and the earth with great wrath. And they will send forth fire. And the fire will prevail over the earth seventy-two cubits. It will consume the sinners and the devils like stubble. A true judgment will occur....On that day, the Lord will judge the heaven and the earth. He will judge those who transgressed in heaven, and those who did so on earth....After these things, Elijah and Enoch will come down and lay down the flesh of the world and receive their spiritual flesh. They will pursue the Man of Lawlessness and kill him since he is not able to speak. On that day, he will dissolve in their presence like ice which is dissolved by a fire. They will say to him, 'Your time has passed by for you. Now therefore you and those who believe you will perish.' They will be cast into the bottom of the Abyss and it will be closed for them. On that day, the Christ, the king, and his saints will come forth from heaven. He will burn the earth. He will spend a thousand years upon it. Because the sinners prevailed over it, he will create a new heaven and a new earth. He will rule with his saints and they are with the Christ for a thousand years." (Apocalypse of Elijah 3-5)
[9] "In the last days, there shall be false Christs and arouse expectations saying: 'I am the Christ, and I have now come into the world.' And when Israel perceives the wickedness of their deeds they shall turn away after them and deny him, even the first Christ whom they crucified and therein sinned a great sin. But this deceiver is not the Christ. And when they reject him he shall slay with the sword, and there shall be many martyrs. Then shall the twigs of the fig-tree, that is, the house of Israel, shoot forth: many shall become martyrs at his hand. Enoch and Elijah shall be sent to teach them that this is the Deceiver which must come into the world and do signs and wonders to deceive. And thus shall they that die by his hand as martyrs, and shall be reckoned among the good and righteous martyrs who have pleased God in their life . And he showed me in his right hand the souls of all men, and on the palm of his right hand the image of that which shall be accomplished at the last day: how the righteous and the sinners shall be separated, and how they do that are upright in heart, and how the evil-doers shall be rooted out to all eternity. We beheld how the sinners wept in great affliction and sorrow, until all that saw it with their eyes wept, whether righteous or angels, and he himself also. Behold now what shall come upon them in the last days, when the day of God and the day of the decision of the judgement of God comes. From the east to the west all the children of men will be gathered together before my Father that lives forever. And he shall command Hades to open its bars and give up all that is therein. And the wild beasts and the fowls shall he command to restore all the flesh that they have devoured, because he wishes that men reappear; for nothing perishes before God, and nothing is impossible with him, because all things are his. For all things come to pass on the day of decision, on the Day of Judgement , at the word of God....And in soul and spirit shall the great Uriel give them at the commandment of God; for God has set him over the resurrection of the dead on the Day of Judgement ....Under the heaven shall be a sharp fire that cannot be quenched and flows to fulfill the judgement of wrath. And the stars shall fly in pieces by flames of fire, as if they had not been created...and so soon as the whole creation dissolves.... As for the elect that have done good, they shall come unto me and not see death by the devouring fire. But the unrighteous and the sinners, and the hypocrites shall stand in the depths of darkness that shall not pass away, and their chastisement is the fire, and angels bring forward their sins and prepare for them a place where they shall be punished forever." (Apocalypse of Peter 8-21)The reference to the "desolating sacrilege" occurs in Mark and Matthew derives from Daniel 9:27, 11:31 which refers to the removal of the altar of continual offering and the "setting up" of the "abomination that makes desolate" in the temple. The phrase shiqqusim meshomem (which evokes the idols and "baals" of the wicked kings of old by punning the Baal epithet shamen "heavenly king"; cf. also 1 Kings 11:7 ) originally referred to the installation of the altar of Zeus Olympius in the Temple by Antiochus Epiphanes IV in the year 168 B.C.:
"Now on the fifteenth day of Chislev, in the one hundred and forty-fifth year, they erected a desolating sacrilege upon the altar of burnt offering. They also built altars in the surrounding cities of Judah." (1 Maccabees 1:54)
"The king sent an old men from Athens to compel the Jews to abandon their ancestral customs and live no long by the laws of God; and to profane the Temple in Jerusalem and dedicate it to Olympian Zeus , and that on Mount Gerizim to Zeus, patron of strangers, as the inhabitants had requested. The imposition of this evil was oppresive and altogether intolerable." (2 Maccabees 6:1-3)
The name Antiochus chose for himself, Epiphanes (Greek for "revealing" or "appearance") also contributed to the apocalyptic expectations. There were thereafter other sacrileges and threats of sacrilege that the phrase was used to connote: (1) King Herod (37-4 B.C.) "made and set up over the great gate of the Temple a sacred and very precious great golden eagle" (Josephus, Antiq. Jud., 1. XVII, c. vi, 2 ), (2) The attempts during the time of Tiberius Caesar and Pontius Pilate (A.D. 26-36) to set up imperial eagle standards (i.e. the bird of Jupiter) which also bore the Caesar's image at the Tower of Antonio overlooking the Temple; according to Josephus, the Temple priests resisted the sacrilege saying, "Kill us, if you will, but take that abomination of desolation out of our Holy City and from the neighborhood of our holy temple" (Ant. Jud., 1. XVIII, c. iii (iv), 1, De bell. Jud., ix (xiv), 2-3), (3) According to Philo (20 BC.-A.D. 42), "Pilate laid up in the Temple by night the imperial emblems, and from that time the Jews were involved in rebellion and mutual troubles" (Philo Jud.; cf. Leg. ad Caium 38), (4) The order by Caligula in A.D. 39 to erect his statue in the Temple in Jerusalem while leading a large army to the city (Ant. Jud., XVIII, 261; Tacitus, Histories 5.9), (5) Following the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, General Titus and his army "brought their [eagle] ensigns to the Temple and set them over against its eastern gate, and there did they offer sacrifices to them, and there did they make Titus Emperor" (De Bell. Jud., 6.6.1). The Babylonian Talmud, Gittin 56b also relates a story about Titus defiling the Holy of Holies with a prostitute and slashing the curtain that seperates the Holy of Holies. With the continued threat of sacrileges at the hands of the Romans (who knew that one of the main things that made the Jews different was that "they allow no images (simulacra) in their cities and temples," Tacitus, Histories 5.4), the expectation of a further fulfillment to Daniel 9:27, 11:31 remained pretty constant through the first century. In fact, the threat by Caligula must have made a deep impression because it appears distinctly in Revelation 13:14-15 as the "statue of the Beast [emperor]" that is set up for worship, and 2 Thessalonians 2:4 probably refers to the same thing regarding the Rebel "enthroning himself in God's sanctuary". Although the threat did not materialize because of Caligula's death, Jews believed that his successors would pick up where he left off: "Fear remained that some emperor would command the same thing" (Tacitus, Annals 12.343 ). Thus when Titus marched to Jerusalem in A.D. 70 and began to take the city, there would have surely been speculation that he would do as threatened by Caligula. The continued presence of the same theme in Revelation and 2 Thessalonians suggests that this expectation of long standing continued but in an altered form. And the Nero redivivus legend that took hold on the Roman Empire in the 80s and 90s (that Nero would return to destroy Rome with the Parthian army, cf. Suetonius, Tacitus, Revelation, Sibylline Oracle 4, etc.), led to the expectation attested in the Ascension of Isaiah and Revelation above that the resurrected Nero would be the Antichrist -- a false Messiah who like Christ was raised from the dead or who like Christ was incarnated in the flesh (that is, the Devil incarnate).