show_no_mercy

I was reading the wikipedia article on John Allegro, and it says that he thought that the Essenes of the first century are the matrix of Christianity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_M....istian_origins

Does anyone have any thoughts on that? From what I've read, the Essenes pretty much disappeared from the scene after the destruction of the second temple in 70 CE. This is also the time period that Christianity started writing their gospels. Is there any connection, or is it just coincidence?

Minimalist

I don't think it is a coincidence. The Essenes were known pacifists and would have sat out the Great Revolt. Afterwards, they might have had a major incentive to distance themselves from the Jews while the Romans were still pulling the bodies of the rebels off of their spear points. Somewhere I saw a chart (from Philo? ) of Essene sayings which ended up in the mouth of Jesus. The similarity was astounding.

mountainman

The consensus of opinion from the ancient historians on the relationship between the dead sea scrolls and christianity is that there is none. From the article that was cited from wiki we have ....

So it appears that the DSS an enry point to early christian origins as the author appears have assumed, is unsupported.


People who seek data concerning the Essenes usually need to start with Philo as others have mentioned, and at the same time be extremely attentive as Philo described in great detail the similarities and differences between the people he descibed as the essenes and the therapeutae.

If you are impressed by the destruction of temples by the Romans in the Roman empire in the epoch of antiquity in which christian origins is sought then there was no greater destruction of the temples staffed by the therapeutae of Asclepius in the fourth century. The literary physician Galen was such a therapeutae of Asclepius, and received exemption from military service under Marcus Aurelius for this reason.

The connection between the Essenes and christianity is mooted only in the similarities noted by the crafty Eusebius in his mentions of the writings of Philo.

Finally there is the work called Essenic Philosophy and its Parallels

In conclusion however you will often jumped on for citing Graves without a disclaimer, and for the background to this controversy you could do no better that to consult the article by Carrier at the IIDB website on the assessment of the material presented by Graves. IMO it is also quite reasonable to examine Graves and his material on the basis that the essence of his thesis has not yet been refuted either in whole or in part as far as I am aware.


Best wishes,


Pete

robto

Certainly the Essenes are important for the study of Christianity. They represent one of the strands of Judaism from which early Christianity arose, and many Christian beliefs are closely paralleled in the DSS. But there are also some major differences that make it unlikely that Christianity was a direct offshoot of Essenism. The main one, I think, is that Essenes held a very strict observance of Mosaic law, while Christians took a much more flexible view, as in the story of Jesus and followers picking grain on the Sabbath.

The Graves website unfortunately gives no references, so how can we check these claims? Asceticism was widespread - it doesn't necessitate a historical connection.

bacht

Two differences seem clear: The Qumram group was withdrawing from the Temple service because of errors and impurities they perceived in Hasmonean times. The Judean Christians seem to have maintained a connection with the Temple.

Also the Qumranites were ascetics/monastics, while the Christians lived in the towns and cities alongside normal Jews.

aa5874

Where did you source this information? As far as I know, there are no non-apologetic credible source that can corroborate any thing about Judean Christians before the fall of the Temple.

bacht

Good point. The only reference seems to be Hebrews, where the earthly service is contrasted with the heavenly. Revelation similarly focuses on the sanctuary to come, but in neither case do I see polemic about the existing temple such as that found in Malachi eg.

There is the prophecy about the temple's destruction in Mark, should we read this back to pre-Revolt attitudes?

Cesc

I think there's a clear cut connection between "essenism" - that is, the entire movement and followers of the Teacher of Righteousness - and the origin of Christianity. I would even go so far as possibly viewing "Jesus Christ" as a later myth based on the legend of their beloved, inspirational, and suffering Teacher, who they arguably regarded as a latter-day Joshua ben Nun (Jesus son of Fish). I'm utterly amazed at how little this hypothesis has been explored, seeing how astonishingly amazing the parallels are. If indeed this Teacher of Righteousness was crucified by King Jannaeus around 88 BCE on the "Teachers Oak" at Gilgal ("Golgotha"), as Allegro argues, I dont think there can be any doubt.

You should read "The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Christian Myth (or via: amazon.co.uk)" by John Allegro if you want to hear his full scholarly arguments. The earliest Christian communities might very well have been some of the 'camps' of the Essene movement developing in a new direction after the destruction of the Temple and the subsequent decentralization of the entire movement. Perhaps the truth is somewhere in between.

The stories of Peter seems unequivocally to be nothing more than a dramatized mnemonic of the role of the Essene main "Overseer" (the Essene title 'caiaphas' - or 'cephas' as a word play on the Aramaic "stone", 'kepha'), recognized by many scholars as the equivalent of the later Christian "Bishop".

From the DSS - Habakkuk commentary scroll:

The righteous shall live by faith [Habakkuk 2:4]
Interpreted, this concerns all those who observe the Law in the House of Judah, whom God will deliver from the Hall of Judgement because of their suffering and because of their faith in the Teacher of Righteousness.

Doug Shaver

It doesn't matter whether it's apologetic or non-apologetic. The only thing that matters is whether it is credible. Apologetic sources can include some highly credible material.

spamandham

Normally, when we read a 'prophecy' that is specific, not obviously forthcoming, and is verified externally to have come true, we conclude the 'prophecy' was written after the fact.

This puts a 'no earlier than' date of 70 CE on any portion of Mark which refers to that destruction, directly or indirectly, including through symbolism. ...and since it's unlikely a work such as Mark would be written while the temple was being destroyed, we can probably add at least another 10 years as a no earlier than date (typically, it is dated as no later than 80 CE).

Further, there are parts of Mark that appear to be constructed from stories in Josephus. Enough so, that IMHO, we should not consider dates earlier than around the early 2nd century for the majority of Mark, and dates as late as the mid 2nd century should not be considered unreasonable, since Mark also shows signs of attempts to catholicize by someone who was not from the time or place of the story.