Chapter 2

The Essenes

“The next day he (John) saw Jesus coming to him.

‘Look,’ he said, ‘there is the Lamb of God … “This is

God’s Chosen One…The next day John was standing with

two of his disciples when Jesus passed by. John looked

towards him and said, ‘There is the Lamb of God’…The

two disciples …followed Jesus. When he turned and saw

them following him, he asked, ‘What are you looking for?’

They said, ‘’Rabbi’ (which means a teacher), ‘Where are

you staying?’ ‘Come and see”, he replied. So they went

and saw where he was staying, and spent the rest of the

day with him. It was then about four in the afternoon…The

next day Jesus decided to leave for Galilee.

John 1:29-43

You have noticed that it is the opinion of this study that Jesus was either

an Essene during his early years, or spent some of his early wilderness time

with, or near, the Essenes. He could have encountered small communities

of this Jewish sect in one of the various towns where Essenes were located,

or in the large community of Essenes living at Jerusalem. Or, the Essene

infl uence, if there were such an infl uence, could have taken place in the

wilderness at Qumran. How can I possibly say this? Why would I say this?

A few authors have used the word “Qumran” in a title in order to sell books,

not the best reason to use such an unsupportable theory. Yet, we cannot

let the possibility of Qumran infl uence go unexamined. A few of John’s

disciples traveled with Jesus to fi nd out more about him. Jesus invited them

to spend some time with him where he was staying. This places Jesus in

the kind of setting where the Essenes were living. Jesus did spend time

with another Jewish sect, that of John the Baptist, in a wilderness setting,

in an area closer to the Jordan River. Thus, it is very possible that he also

had contact with the Essenes.

Perhaps you the reader have during your early years visited a number

of particular churches of different denominations in your search for faith,

or meaning in life. In your search, you may have even studied different

religions. Jesus with his wonderful inquisitive mind must have searched

various religious traditions in his young adult years, looking at possible

ways to express that growing consciousness within him and the calling that

was stirring him to move out into the wilderness countryside. There were

a number of traditions just within Judaism itself, the Essenes being one of

the three major traditions. There were certainly other places of infl uence

Jesus could have and probably did visit. Jesus’ search may have taken him

to Samaria, a place where most Jews would never think of visiting. Here

he may have seen exorcisms and healings, perhaps performed by traveling

magicians. He was probably very interested in learning from his own

hometown area rabbis and was infl uenced by one or more of them. He may

have visited Jerusalem watching itinerant rabbis with healing ministries.

He may have traveled to other cities and seen cynic philosophers dressed

in their scruffy clothing haranguing the crowds. The city of Sepphorus

which did have Cynics was only four miles from his home town of

Nazareth. There were also pre-Christian Gnostic groups in some of these

cities talking about their secret knowledge, ideas that would continue to

infl uence some of his followers for centuries. He certainly spent time in

the wilderness with his cousin John the Baptist’s sect because we know he

later left that movement and took along a few of John’s disciples into his

own movement. There were also the Essenes. I examined a map showing

fi rst century Jerusalem and there in the south-west wall was the Gate of

the Essenes, an exit from the city to probable Essene ritual baths situated

just outside the wall. There were Essenes all around in the fi rst century

and, there were Essenes at Qumran, in the wilderness not too far away.

These Essenes had collections of books in their library. They would have

attracted an inquiring mind.

Thus, I would like to suggest that Jesus not only met some Essenes

in Jerusalem, or elsewhere, during his late teens and early twenties, but

visited Qumran at their wilderness center. There seems to be a number

of points of contact and infl uence between Jesus and the Essenes. There

are a few scholars who are not correct in their suggesting that Jesus spent

his entire ministry there, but it seems to me, his penetrating mind would

compel him to see if the Essene way of looking at the faith might be the

authentic way and the way to bring in the kingdom or reign of God. Perhaps

Jesus wanted to examine their great library, or perhaps even to join them for

awhile by doing the three year apprenticeship. Qumran burials show that

the community that lived there was mostly, though not entirely, male. This

young future rabbi from Nazareth would then have met hundreds of young

men with deep religious commitment, especially the celibacy commitment,

a commitment that was part of Jesus’ life style during his ministry, no matter

what Holy Blood, Holy Grail and The DiVinci Code suggest.

It is a great mystery why one does not read about the Essenes in the

New Testament. They were an important religious group in Jesus’ day.

The Essenes possessed a large monastic complex and quite an extensive

library. They were not just some small non-conformist sectarian group

living off in the wilderness. There were Essenes all over the land. Josephus

mentions later that there were still 4,000 Essenes in his day. Some of these

Essenes evidently saw Herod as one of the possible expected Messiahs.

They seemed to have expected two Messiahs to come to Israel. The New

Testament mentions Pharisees, Sadducees, scribes, and Herodians. Could

the scribes or the Herodians mentioned in the Gospels be the Essenes with

the New Testament authors deliberately not using the name “Essene?” 1

We learn a great deal about the Essenes from Josephus, the fi rst century

historian, and from the Dead Sea Scrolls. I do not think that Jesus spent the

three years there doing the required internship to become an Essene, but I

do think that he spent some time with Essenes, and then rejected that overly

strict Essene life style early in his stay with them. Why is there absolutely

no mention of the name “Essene” or “Qumran” anywhere in the New

Testament? The Essenes were one of the three main religious traditions

of Judaism at that time. Why not mention them? Not mentioning them

would be like writing a book on Judaism today and mentioning Reform

Judaism and Conservative Judaism, but not mentioning anything about

Orthodox Judaism, leaving out even the name entirely. This would be like

writing a book on Christianity today and mentioning Roman Catholicism

and Eastern Orthodoxy, but not mentioning anything about Protestantism.

There would have to be an amazing oversight, or reasons of prejudice, or

reasons of embarrassment, to leave out the word “Essene.”

If in the writings of Josephus there is a wealth of information about the

Pharisee movement, about the Sadducee movement, and about the Essene

movement, why is there no mention of the Essenes in the New Testament?

There are plenty of references to Pharisees and Sadducees. There could be

a few reasons. The fi rst reason why there is a lack of a mention of Essenes

could be merely an oversight. The gospel writers may have just neglected

to mention them. That does not seem very likely though, that all the writers

would have this same accidental oversight. A second reason may be that

there was just no need to mention them, in the same way that though there is

some mention of Zealots in the Gospels, there is no mention of the even more

radical Sicarri sect. Thirdly, there may be some reason of prejudice why

Essenes would not be mentioned. This could be very possible. Disagreement

and bad feelings could have caused followers of Jesus to simply not bring

up the name Essene deliberately. There may also be a fourth reason, the

reason of embarrassment. The New Testament writers, while they may

have been prejudiced against the Pharisees and Sadducees because of the

many confl icts with Jesus, still mentioned them. Perhaps Jesus had rejected

the strict Essene life style and teachings. Or, perhaps Jesus had something

against them that we do not know about, some embarrassment, something

very distressing, or some serious hurt. There would have also been some

embarrassment if Jesus had been a part of the Pharisee movement in his

early years, and yet the Pharisees are mentioned often. Thus, it may be

something very embarrassing. There seems to be a deliberate hiding or

neglecting of the name “Essene” and that suggests to me that Jesus may

have been a stronger part of that movement than we would have thought.

It would then just not be at all appropriate, for whatever unknown reason,

that he or his followers ever mention that name again! This then suggests

to me that Jesus had a fi rm Qumran contact, perhaps even as a short term

resident there. A fi fth reason could be some of the 3,000 new members in

ACTS 4 were ESSENES who discarded their name.

At that time, at Qumran, or in contact with Essenes elsewhere,

Jesus perhaps began experiencing an even stronger, growing messianic

consciousness. It could be that he found no spiritual fulfi llment with the

Essenes, or no hints of the coming kingdom, and that he then left them

under unusual circumstances (voluntarily demitting his membership or

involuntarily being excommunicated?), determined to shake the dust of

his feet from that settlement and never mention them again. His followers

seem to have done the same.

With all the study on the Essenes and their probable possession of

the Dead Sea Scrolls over the last number of years, we now have a better

understanding of the Jewish soil out of which the early Church emerged

and we now understand that many of the beliefs and practices of the early

church that were thought to be unique were, in many cases, prefi gured in

the wilderness, and specifi cally at Qumran. 2

What did both Jesus and the early church receive from the Essenes?

One of the profound views of the world that still exists in much of the

church today is an imminent, apocalyptic, eschatological way of looking at

the future. This simply means a soon to happen big bang end is the direction

things are going. Eschatological thinking is being concerned about the end

of time; apocalypse is that the end will be prophetic and cataclysmic, and

imminent means that it will take place soon. We see apocalyptic words

placed on the lips of Jesus by the gospel writers, words like the “kingdom

will break in like a thief in the night.” There was this kind of apocalyptic

thinking that history is moving toward a sudden end in the near future in

both the Essene community and in the early Christian community, both

seeing themselves as chosen communities for the end of time. This is not

seen in Pharisee and Sadducee thinking, nor in Zealot and Sicarri views

except the battles that they might personally wage in attempting to eject the

Roman occupiers. This apocalypticism then was not just in the Christian

community, but had a foundation in Essene thought. 3

Language also is very similar in Essene thinking and in Jesus words

as to suggest an infl uence of the Essenes on Jesus and the early Church.

This can be seen dramatically in the Fourth Gospel, in the use of words

like light and darkness. Thus theological vocabulary was the same in many,

many ways for both Essenes and Christians. Shanks has pointed out that

a German scholar in 1966, Herbert Braun, published a two-volume work

on Qumran showing a chain-like list of all the possible New Testament

passages and Qumran parallels, 326 pages of rather small print, perhaps

not all convincing, but the quantity is rather convincing that there were

Essene/Jesus movement relationships beyond what we can imagine. 4

Major theological beliefs were the same or similar such as the concept

of Messiah. The Christians looked for one Messiah where the Essenes

looked for two Messiahs, a king Messiah and a prophet Messiah. Other

Jewish groups also had strong messianic expectations in Jesus’ day. The two

Messiah idea seems to have emerged again in the Middle Ages, Moshiach

ben Yosef and Moshiach ben David, Messiah son of Joseph and Messiah

son of David. Mention of this can be found in some Jewish encyclopedias.

Two specifi c characteristics of the promised one are found, a Messiah who

suffers, a prophet type, and a Messiah who delivers, a king type. There

is the teaching of a God who is portrayed as broken hearted over the sins

of the people and a God who is compassionate over the oppression of the

people. Both a suffering Messiah and a conquering Messiah seemed not

to be able to be fulfi lled in one person, suggesting the possibility for some

Jews that there be two Messiahs. Jesus seemed to want to portray himself

as one who would suffer for his people while also providing a kingdom

where God ruled, a forgiven and liberated eternal kingdom. 5

Communal life can be seen to be very similar in Essene and early

Christian thought. The use of baptism, common liturgical meals,

community of goods, leadership, liturgy, all show an Essene infl uence. We

did not know this before the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered and studied.

Organizational practices and some rituals were also the same.

Some of this commonality can be because both the Essene sect and

the Christian sect existed at the same time in the fi rst century. This could

mean then that the styles were just similar and not borrowed. They may

be common in other groups also and we just do not know about it. Yet, the

similarities are a little too striking.

We know Jesus spent time in the wilderness. He was a part of John the

Baptist’s group out in the desert hills. Baptism, which was characteristic

in a purifi cation form in Essene practice and in repentance form in John

the Baptist practice, was performed on Jesus. Jesus had a place to stay

in the wilderness. That stay could be a short time, or a long time. One is

infl uenced by others even if one rejects the others. John the Baptist, and

Jesus too, may even have themselves been Essene rejects. Either way, this

John and Jesus relationship was in the wilderness of Judea, near the Jordan

River, not too far from Qumran.

You would expect that if Jesus spent time with the Essenes at Qumran

he would be infl uenced in some way by their teachings. There should be

some signs. There are. There are the apocalyptic teachings, the language,

the organizational similarities, the liturgical practices that all point to the

possibility of calling Jesus that Messiah from Qumran. There are also the

strong eschatological similarities, a looking to an end to all of history.

The use of the name Melkizadek is another parallel. Both the Qumran

sect and the Jesus sect use this name. A few texts of Qumran mention his

name as does the Letter to the Hebrews in the New Testament, Melkizadek

being a priest to whose order Jesus belonged. Melkizadek is said to be

king of righteousness and king of Peace (Salem). He is without father and

without mother, no genealogy, and has neither beginning days nor end of

life, but resembles the Son of God, continuing his days forever (Hebrews

7:1-3). For Qumran, Melkizadek seems to function as the heavenly high

priest as Jesus does in Hebrews.

The Qumran Essenes seem to have been many men together sharing a

common communion type meal, a meal that was messianic in nature. The

type of common communion meal was also characteristic of Jesus and

his followers. It was also messianic in nature. This banquet style of daily

evening meals with peasant families after walking from village to village

was so characteristic of Jesus’ style that it earned him, as he reported, a

reputation of being a glutton and drinker.

The holding of all things in common was characteristic both of the

Qumran people and the earliest Christ people. The Jesus group had a

common treasury, with money held by the treasurer, Judas.

The Essene teaching of the Son of the Most High seems to be similar

to the Gospel writers speaking of the Son of God and the Son of Man.

The Essene teaching of resurrection seems to have strong parallels in

what the Gospel writers affi rmed in the aftermath of Jesus’ death.

In conclusion, can I prove that Jesus was an Essene, or that he spent

a great deal of time at Qumran beyond a shadow of doubt? No, I have

made the suggestions of why I believe that Jesus was infl uenced by the

Essenes. You can decide for yourself if you feel that this is true. I wanted

you to know that not only was Christianity strongly infl uenced by a sect of

Judaism that we knew little about, but Orthodox Judaism itself has as its

foundation an enormous amount of Essene thinking, beyond that which

can be imagined. One author has said that the Essenes were the “Fathers”

of many component parts of the traditions in the Mishnah. 6 He said

that the traditions were “certainly infl uenced more extensively by the

Essenes than is usually acknowledged today.” 7 This powerful infl uence

was because of the great biblical knowledge possessed by all Essenes,

which existed at the time by neither the Pharisees, nor the Sadducees. The

Essenes required a three year preparatory course of study to enter their

community, intensive study and the reading of the Scriptures for hours a

day. They had to have had a tremendous infl uence. They did not disappear

after the destruction of Qumran in 68 and Jerusalem in 70. There were still

many Essenes left. “The Essenes can at last be recognized as the center

of Judaism in the time of Jesus.” 8 They had a high reputation with

both Philo and Josephus, and thought by some scholars to be the “scribes”

mentioned in the gospels, and perhaps also the Herodians, the Herodians

being not a political group, but a religious group according to later writers

such as Hyppolytus of Rome, Epiphanius of Salamis, and Philastrius of

Brescia. 9 An Essene Menahem supposedly greeted schoolboy Herod

as “King of the Jews” causing Herod’s patronage of the Essenes during

his reign, being called Herodians because they were Herod’s “special

favorites.” 10

I even have begun to think that the man carrying the water jug leading

the disciples to the upper room in the Essene Quarter of Jerusalem was an

Essene, that the upper room was an Essene meeting place, and that many

of the earliest 3,000 converts in Acts 4 were Essenes who discarded their

name Essene, continuing the Essene phrase “People of the way!”