Itha

T.P. Laine has written a book "Kuka hän oli?" (Who was he?) where he claims that Jesus belonged to the Essenes.

"The Essenes believed that certain holy texts and ancient tradition contained information about God's plan: that the time of wrath shall begin with great signs from heaven. When a comet resembling a fiery sword - "God's sword" - would appear in the sky at the estimated time, then His Holy War against the transgressors of the Law would begin.

Also the Essenes would join the Holy War. As God's loyal servants they would use their earthly swords and kill the unlawful ones who succeed in escaping from His heavenly sword.

Although the Essenes tried to keep the war preparations as their own secret only, the leaders of the Pharisees and the Sadducees also understood what Jesus meant with his parables and warnings. A religious war was threatening to destroy the whole Jewish nation. Pilate, the Roman procurator whose duty was to - maintain law and order in Judea condemned Jesus, the war leader, to be crucified."

The book is available only in Finnish but an introduction can be found from the page
http://kotisivu.mtv3.fi/tp.laine/kotisivu.htm

I am not an expert, but I think that the first part of the Laine's book is good (his observations about the similarities between Jesus and the Essenes) but some of his claims are not believable.

- Itha from Finland

spin

The Pesher Habakkuk, which talks about the righteous teacher thought to have been the spiritual teacher of the community which wrote the scrolls, is dated through carbon dating to 111 BCE to 2 CE. This is far too early for Jesus having had anything to do with the scrolls.

The Essenes by the reports of Josephus and Philo were pacifists. There is no reason to believe that the scrolls had anything to do with the Essenes (despite popular writings on the matter -- you find many scholars now only talking of the "scrolls community").

Nobody would have ever thought of Jesus having any connection with the small celibate sect of Essenes before the scrolls were discovered and speculation began to run rampant about them because the scholars working on many of them wouldn't publish.

Laine's proposition is absurd.


(Hüvä päivää.)


spin

Toto

From Which Religious Sect Did Jesus Emerge? by Sid Green, in the II library, comes to a similar conclusion, except that he avoids some problems by just saying that Jesus came from the Essenes.

I have not studied this in depth. I think that there was someone here who disputed Green's thesis vigorously, but that was before the index crashed.

spin

Green just doesn't know what he's talking about. It's that simple, doesn't have the history, doesn't have the linguistics, doesn't have the Jewish cultural background. Nice guy, but.... one has to be a complete duffer to come to that sort of conclusion with the data available.

Do you wonder why most of the people who deal with the dead sea scrolls have got to be either totally conservative (essene wafflers) or nutters (jesus, paul, john, james, donald duck...)? Can there be no middle ground?


spin

boneyard bill

Almost all of his comparisons with the scrolls, which weren't necessarily Essene documents, comes from the book of Matthew. He mostly ignores the other gospels where Jesus takes a more liberal approach to the law and is far less apocalyptic. One is inclined to think that Laine has shown that Matthew had a connection to the scroll community but not necessarily that Jesus did.

Unless he can show that Matthew is more authoritative on the life and teaching of Jesus than the other gospel writers, he is not justified in ignoring those parts of the other gospels that do not support his thesis. Sounds like he's just out to write a controversial book that will sell.