![]() Is that because the Essenes were so ideologically and sociologically different from Jesus and the Pharisees that they moved in completely different orbits? Or is it because the Essenes represented an integral component of Second Temple Judaism that both early Christians and the Rabbis sought to marginalize by omission? The Rabbis seem to have forgotten all about them. They are variously imagined as a small, marginal community, an idiosyncratic group that disappeared itself into oblivion, a thriving multi-regional network of village communities, and/or as a militant sect of apocalyptic pacifists ready to participate in great eschatological acts of violence. ![]() The Essenes represent an historical enigma within Early Judaism. See Also: Jesus, the Essenes, and Christian Origins: New Light on Ancient Texts and Communities (Baylor University Press, 2018). Like the historical Jesus, “the Essenes” can easily become a screen upon which one projects one’s own interests and ideological location(s), whether that be Jesus’ “hidden years,” a window into the “secret history” of early Christianity, or an historically non-existent fabrication by Philo, Josephus, and Pliny. ![]()
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