Archive for the ‘Christian Origins’ Category

I have received a few really angry letters or e-mail messages from readers of The Jesus Dynasty, not very many out of thousands, but maybe a dozen or so. Most often these people have condemned me with a good degree of passion for besmirching the holiness and chastity of Mary, the mother of Jesus, in my presentation of her as a Jewish woman, married and the mother of seven children. In our Western cultural tradition there is a deeply ingrained aversion to the so-called “material” world of nature, in contrast to a “higher” spiritual world beyond. This “dualistic” view of reality is transmitted to us in a thousand ways, carried historically by a dominant Christian culture heavily influenced by Platonic thinking.

In this view reality, or the “creation,” is sharply divided into two separate opposing realms. These can be characterized by a series of contrasting and non-intersecting opposites:

Material-/-Spiritual
Earthly-/-Heavenly
Visible-/-Invisible
Human-/-Divine
Mortal Body-/-Immortal Soul
Death-/-Eternal Life
Decay-/-Incorruption

In such a scheme of things there is a real problem with explaining the origin of the lower material world into which we as humans are born, as well as proposing a lifestyle that would set one on the proper course of disengagement and devaluation of the physical world, in favor of the higher and better world above. After all, humans, with their decidedly “animal” bodies, are born into a world of death, so that the divine nature within them is seen as “trapped” “imprisoned” or “fallen” into such a lower realm. In the more extreme dualistic systems, often characterized as gnostic, the creation itself is seen as the work of a lower inferior god or angelic power, not the work of the supreme God who could have no part in creating such an inferior realm, and much less in placing humans in such a hopeless state. Asceticism, or the denial of the material world and the desires of the physical body, was seen as the highest form of spirituality in that humans could shun sexuality and the pleasures of the body, detaching themselves from all that is below, in preparation for their eternal life in heaven. Birth and life in this world could be seen, ironically, as “death,” while death could be labeled as “birth,” into the higher spiritual world, a transit and escape from the lower realm. Thus the philosopher Empedecles, wrote of his own birth, metaphorically imagining his soul’s entrance into this world, “I wept, I wept, when I saw this dreadful place!” And the apostle Paul, a dedicated sexual ascetic himself, exhorts his followers: “For we look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen; for the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” He speaks of our “bodies of humiliation” and imagines life in a transformed heavenly body, free of decay, and of course, of sensuality and especially sexuality.

This ascetic dualistic perspective is so ingrained in our cultural baggage that it is equated by most with religion and spirituality itself. Accordingly, Jesus understood as “God in the flesh,” and Mary his mother, as the “holy mother of God” are immediately put in tension with the clear teaching of the church that both Jesus and Mary were fully human. If “incarnation” is taken seriously, in its full implications, Jesus and Mary, as subject and vehicle of this merger of the divine and the human, have to remain “human”–or almost so. But therein lies the problem. To what degree can “the divine” truly participate in the human? An ascetic lifestyle is a given, and was widely admired through the Hellenistic-Roman culture. But what about sex and death? Those were the sticklers. Christians had a tremendous problem with imagining Jesus or his mother as sexual beings, so the idea of the perpetual virginity of Mary and the celibate Jesus go hand in hand. And for Jesus, and later his mother, to die and be buried, their bodies rotting and decaying, and going back to the dust, as with every other human being, became a problem as well. Heavenly life, for them at least, was finally seen to involve an “assumption” of their physical bodies, made incorruptible, directly into heaven, so that there could be no earthly remains.

Assumption by Venuti, Malta, 1896

That is why the Talpiot Jesus tomb is such a potential scandal to millions of Christians. If it could indeed be shown that the bones of Jesus were found in an ossuary, that he had a wife and a child, and that Mary, his mother, bore other children, and her bones were also buried with her son, then for many the whole structure of Christianity is threatened. Notions of perpetual virginity, lifelong celibacy, and bodily resurrection and/or assumption into heaven would each be called into question. Of course Protestants and Roman Catholics do not agree on all these matters. Although Luther and the Reformers did argue for the perpetual virginity of Mary, it is common to hear Evangelical Christians say they have no problem with Mary living a normal sexual life and having other children. And Protestants have never had a problem with finding the bones of Mary, who is assumed to have died and returned to the dust. But Jesus of course is another matter. I believe there is a deep seated aversion to thinking of Jesus as living a normal sexual life. What one might hear is that we have no “historical record” of Jesus having a wife or children, but it is clear to me, having grown up in conservative Christian circles, that much more is at stake on the “gut” level. As “fully human” as Jesus might have been, one does not get far imagining the Son of God being aroused sexually and having intercourse. Even to write of such things, as I am doing here, is just considered inappropriate and in bad taste. And how much more so for his mother? If we don’t like to think of our own parents having sex, then all the more so for the Holy Family, one and all. Perhaps that is why the wives and children of none of the apostles or brothers of Jesus are ever named in our Gospel records. It is not only a profoundly “male” story, as told by the Synoptics and John, but it is also a profoundly asexual one. But what was the reality?

Historians are left to deal with the social, cultural, and religious world of 1st century Roman occupied Jewish Palestine when they deal with any historical figure of the period, and Jesus all the more so, since understanding him in his own time and place has such an impact on our lives today. In that world of historical reality humans have fathers, and only in mythological stories, not to be taken literally, are they fathered by gods; men and women marry and have children, it is the cultural norm; and humans die and are buried together in tombs, with their bones being collected in various ways by the living in memory of the dead. Theology is one thing, history is another, and on these matters of sex, birth, and death there can clearly be a conflict but little contest. If we are after the historical Jesus, as Schweitzer saw so clearly a hundred years ago, we have to pursue the “purely historical,” and leave the mythological and the metaphorical in their proper places. And in the case of Jesus that means recovering a 1st century Jew and his family, living and dying as others Jews of the time.

The emphasis of the Torah on God’s creation declared as “very good,” with the first commandment or blessing upon humans being “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth,” created a real tension with Hellenistic forms of dualism and gnosticism, that devalued the world and sexuality. The world is light and life and death is realistically seen as the loss we all experience, a return to the dust. There is little if any asceticism of this type in the Hebrew Bible and celibacy of this type unknown in Jewish sources of this period.* Although Josephus says an elite group among the Essenes practiced celibacy there is no such emphasis in any of the Dead Sea Scrolls, and we have to consider that Josephus is casting his portrait of this group in image of a Pythagorian philosophical school to gain currency with his Roman audience. The only Jewish celibate we know about is Paul, and in his halting defense of his position he appeals to neither Scripture nor tradition, and he fails to use Jesus as his model. The silence is pretty indicative that he is pushing something that is unconventional among the original followers of Jesus. His influences here have been shown to lie in Stoic-Cynic debates regarding the advisability of marriage and having children. Theophrastus and Epicurus, long before Paul, had already argued that married life and the pursuit of philosophy were incompatible because of the cares and responsibilities imposed upon a married man by his wife.

Jesus’ only allusion to the single life, found in Matthew 19:10-12, is really about the prohibition against divorce and taking a second wife while the first was alive, forbidden by him, echoed by Paul, and also part of the teachings of the Dead Sea Scrolls sect. The disciples are so taken with his strict teaching in this regard that they say to him, “If such be the case, then if would be better never to marry,” and Jesus’ reply makes it clear that once married the only choice is to live together or live separately, but single. He is not discussing any kind of ascetic life here but rather offering stern warning about the inviolate and permanent nature of marriage, “til death do we part.”

From the point of view of the Torah and the Hebrew Prophets, and indeed most forms of ancient Judaism, any aversion toward the idea of Jesus and his mother Miriam living sexual lives represents a misplaced sense of “holiness.” In the Hebrew Bible the notion of ritual purity or “holiness,” that is separating the “sacred” from the “profane,” had first and foremost to do with the sanctity of the Temple. The prohibitions regarding menstruation, childbirth, seminal emissions, and contact with corpses, had nothing to do with asceticism, but with separation of these signs of “mortality” from the Temple precincts. The English translations of “clean” and “unclean” carry unfortunate and misleading connotations. The concept of “holiness,” was extended to ethical and moral “separation” from the defilements of sinful behavior, but never, in any texts, are the natural functions of the body, or sex, or the enjoyment of physical pleasures, seen as morally tainted or somehow connected to anything evil.

Theologically speaking, “incarnation” is embedded in the monistic view of the cosmos represented in the Creation Hymn of Genesis 1:1-2:3. There humans are made, male and female, “in the likeness and image of God,” with no dualistic sense of alienation from either the “physical” world or the Creator. Notions of a lost and fallen physical world, alienated from the True God Above, and in need of a “rescue mission” from Divine Son of God sent into the world below, were a long time coming. Unfortunately, in terms of Christian theology, these “entrance and exit” points for the Son of God (virgin birth, bodily resurrection & assumption to heaven), have become watch marks of orthodox dogma for many, so that being a Christian is defined in terms of whether one literally assents to such propositions rather than whether one is aligned with the message of the “Kingdom of God” that Jesus preached.

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*The evidence cited by van der Horst, “Celibacy in Early Judaism,” Revue Biblique 109 (2002) 390-402 and S.D. Fraade, “Ascetical Aspects of Ancient Judaism,” in A. Green (ed.), Jewish Spirituality From the Bible Through the Middle Ages, London: SCM Press, 1985, 253-288, notwithstanding.

One of the highlights of my time in Jerusalem last week was spending time with John Dominic Crossan and his wife Sarah. They were in the country filming for a upcoming Discovery television special on Jesus that is to air this Christmas. We had wanted to get together to discuss the Talpiot tomb face to face, but I had also invited him to come and spend an evening with me, Shimon Gibson, and my students to talk about his views of the “last days of Jesus,” and particularly how he reads the narratives in the Synoptics and John regarding the empty tomb of Jesus. We gathered last Saturday evening in the lovely courtyard of Beit Schmuel, the Guesthouse that is part of the “Progressive Judaism” center (known as “Reform” in the US) and spend a couple of stimulating and delightful hours together. Most of my students had read Crossan’s major books on Jesus, as we used them in a course I taught last Fall on the “historical Jesus,” so he was addressing a highly motivated and prepared group.

If there is any one thing that Crossan’s work on the historical Jesus and Christian Origins has made clear it is that everything turns on the question of method. In working with our New Testament Gospels, as well as other materials such as the reconstructed Q source, the Gospel of Peter, and the Gospel of Thomas, one has to formulate a clear understanding of how such materials will be weighed and evaluated and the methods one will use to try and get at what is historical and what is theological, mythological, or parabolic.

To those outside the field of critical biblical studies who read the Bible “literally,” it means what it says and it says what it means. But the historian must properly ask, given Mark’s core narrative of Jesus last week in Jerusalem, which sections most likely reflect actual history, and which were created by Mark or his community for theological purposes? Did Jesus ride down the Mt. of Olives on a donkey, was he examined by Pontius Pilate, did Joseph of Arimathea take him corpse and bury it in a nearby tomb, and did women visit that tomb Sunday morning and find it empty? And when Jesus speaks or teaches to what degree do we have what he actually said and to what degree are we hearing the theological memory of his followers four or five decades after his death who are passing on traditions from Jesus relevant to their own concerns and times? In other words, to what extent is Mark, our core story, reflecting the situation related to the devastation of 70 CE and the first Jewish Revolt (see Mark 13 sandwiched within the narrative), and interpreting Jesus as the Christ he came to be? Or alternatively, to what extent is Mark’s story related to the historical Jesus and his own situation 40 years earlier–and how would one know? Further, since Matthew and Luke basically follow Mark’s passion narrative, what about John? Is John an independent source from Mark, or is his heavily theologized narrative of the last days of Jesus essentially Mark written over with his own vision of things? Crossan is convinced John has no independent story but represents further theological embellishment rather than “history.” It is the “how would one know” that has to do with method. The choices scholars such as Crossan make might seem arbitrary to the casual reader, but as much as anyone in the field Crossan has sought to set forth his method and the assumptions he employs therein, and has challenged colleagues to offer critique and evaluation. And they have surely done that.

In terms of the arrest, trial, crucifixion, and burial of Jesus as related by Mark, Crossan is very skeptical. He does not think that Jesus knew beforehand that he was to die in Jerusalem and that he purposely offered himself as a sacrifice for sins to fulfill Isaiah “Suffering Servant” image, or that he asked followers to sacramentally “eat his flesh” and “drink his blood” at a Last Supper.He has no doubt that Jesus was crucified, but he thinks the accounts of the trial before the “whole Sanhedrin,” and the scene before a somewhat sympathetic Pilate are constructed by Mark. He also is doubtful of the Joseph of Arimathea burial story. He would see each of these elements as constructed by Mark and the post-70 CE community to fit their developing view of Jesus as Christ, Lord, and Savior, much in keeping with Paul’s theology. Crossan does not think we can ever know what happened to the body of Jesus, since he understands the entire “empty tomb” narrative to be a late apologetic contruction in an effort to push a more “literal” view of the resurrection of Jesus. Here he would go to Paul, where we find the earliest traditions on faith in Jesus as resurrected, but in a “spiritual body” with appearances akin to that Paul claims he had years after Jesus’ death–not a resusitated corpse walking about but a heavenly vision of power and glory.

My own approach, method, and conclusions are quite different from that of Crossan as readers of The Jesus Dynasty know. I do consider John an independent source from Mark, though I think the author of John knows Mark’s gospel and writes his own account aware thereof. But by and large I accept the basic narrative framework of Mark as historical, i.e., Jesus rode into the city and allowed himself to be proclaimed king, he taught in the Temple all week and confronted the religious authorities, he ate a last supper in the lower city, was arrested in Gethsemane, betrayed by Judas, tried at the house of Caiaphus, taken before Pilate, crucified, and buried by Joseph of Arimathea. None of these events themselves do I have reason to doubt, though I do accept fully that Mark’s theological thread of interpretation runs through them all, and when we encounter Christological interpretation closer to Paul than to what we know of the teachings of Jesus, I agree with Crossan that we are dealing with theology not history.

One element I try to include in my book is the question of how these narrative frames fit within what we can reconstruct of Herodian Jerusalem today. In other words, how do the texts read “on the ground”? Shimon Gibson has devoted years to this subject and though we disagree on some of the “locations” or settings for a few of the events (he thinks the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is likely the place of crucifixion, I put it on the Mt of Olives), I have learned much from him. The morning after our gathering at Beit Schmuel, Gibson and I took Crossan and his wife Sarah around the Old City to highlight this “on the ground” side of the Markan story. We looked at the rock hewn tombs (now empty!) in Akeldama, the site of Pilate’s judgment seat along the Western Wall of the Old City, outside Herod’s Palace area, and of course, the Talpiot tomb, as a potential place of “secondary burial” for Jesus and his family.

Crossan in Front of “an” Empty 1st Century Rock Hewn Tomb

My impression was that being “at the scene” in these ways, including passing by the newly discovered Pool of Siloam mentioned only in John, did give Prof. Crossan some new perspectives to think about as he continues to read his texts and refine his methods. It seems to me that the “realistic” narratives that Mark and John offer, that conform so closely to what we can see today, go a long way toward supporting an approach of “eyewitness” testimony along the lines that Richard Bauckham has been developing. In other words, Mark and John have received much of their narrative framework and teaching materials from traditions and communities who lived in the place where it all happened. This would be particularly true for the “last days of Jesus,” when we get to Jerusalem, and perhaps less true for the Galilean materials. My own approach is a strange mixture in that I doubt the theological overlay but tend to trust the essential narrative framework, and ironically, I find time and time again the narrative framework helps one to peel back the later theology.

Gibson showing Dom and Sarah the original 1st century steps that led up to Pilate’s Judgment Seat at the Western Wall of the Old City

As for the Talpiot tomb, I think Dom Crossan remains curious and open, wanting to know more. He does not find the idea that Jesus would have been given such an honorable burial by devoted followers to be farfetched, and I think I was able to convince him that it is more in Matthew, who makes the tomb “belong” to Joseph the “rich man,” where one finds the theological overlay regarding Jesus’ burial, not in the burial itself, which would be expected. Sarah, Dom’s wife, seems to be quite convinced on her own that Talpiot has a high liklihood of being the “real thing.” I look forward to discussing with her some of her reasoning in this regard and how she and her husband might differ on the subject, though Crossan did issue a formal quote back in March on the subject of the Talpiot tomb in which he said it was “The final nail in the coffin of biblical literalism?” His main concern, as I understand it, is that if the tomb was disturbed in antiquity, which appears to be the case, how might that effect what we see and interpret today?

At the “garden tomb” in east Talpiot with Gibson,Dom, and Sarah Crossan

I have always found Dom Crossan to be one of the most gracious scholars in our field, despite his heatedly controversial stands. He treats his opponents with respect and it becomes obvious in any conversation with him that his views of Jesus, his teachings, his death, and his “parabolic” resurrection, are life and breath to him, not detached academic excercises. How and why Jesus lived and died deeply matters to him. His parting word to my students, when we showed him a 1st century Roman crucifixion nail, was that he would not care a whit if the bones of Jesus were found, in the Talpiot tomb or otherwise, but he would care very much if there was evidence Jesus was never really crucified and died comfortable and happy in old age–with Mark’s entire story being fiction. This reminded me of a story Norman Perrin told us at the University of Chicago back in 1972. He was pressed by conservative students who objected to the way he insisted, much like Crossan, that much of the Markan narrative was constructed and not historical. They asked him, given his minimal view of the historical Jesus, what was the bottom line with him. In other words, if so much of the passion narrative is constructed, what is the historical core, without which we would have nothing. He replied, “If it could be shown that rather than forgiving his enemies, Jesus was dragged to the cross, kicking and screaming and cursing his enemies, then everything would change.”

I have been reading with the greatest learning and pleasure April DeConick’s book, Recovering the Original Gospel of Thomas. The price is a bit higher than one is used to paying for a paperback book ($40) but this is a serious academic book, yet it is written in a style and on a level that the interested non-specialist can surely follow.

I mention this because it seems to me the controversy between so-called “conservative” scholars such as Craig Evans or Ben Witherington, and more “critical” scholars such as Crossan or DeConick, on the historical value of works such as The Gospel of Thomas has really been miscast. There is no point in batting back and forth the old conundrum of which text is more “legendary” or “mythological,” Mark or Thomas, or even Q or Thomas, since all of these texts reflect the heavily theologized viewpoints of their authors/communities and no ancient texts on either the events or teachings in the life of Jesus are in any way or form “history as it actually happened” (a naive concept at best). In other words, Thomas is neither “early” nor “late,” it is both!

What I think DeConick’s work has done is provide us with a way of looking at the complex traditions that come to us in this collection of 114 saying of Jesus preserved for us in this 2nd-3rd century Copic collection we know as the Gospel of Thomas. This material as we now have it is indeed “secondary” and “embellished” and “developed” and “theological.” Even the scholars who have greatly valued this text and given it priviledge, recognize our need to read it critically. It neither dropped from heaven nor was it taken down stenographically from the mouth of Jesus.

What DeConick does is attempt to trace the developing history of this text, with its various expansions and and interpretive glosses. Not only does this allow us to see how a given saying attributed to Jesus in an earlier period was developed and recast, and what sort of community perceptions the various stages reflect, but through her groundbreaking work we are offered a glimpse back to the “original” and earliest layers of this work. DeConick identifies what she calls “kernel” sayings, and lo and behold, those materials seem to give us a rare glimpse into the Jerusalem community of James the Just, the brother of Jesus.

When I have my students read the Gospel of Thomas (take a look, it’s on the Web in various translations) in my basic course in Christian Origins they are either attracted or repelled, depending on their own presuppositions. Some find it so different and strange in contrast to what they have become used to in hearing and reading materials from Mark, Matthew, Luke, and John, while others find it “exotic” and appealing in that they think it offers them some mystical/secret alternative version of things that the Church has repressed and kept back from us.

Anyone who is interested in Christian Origins needs to become thoroughly familiar with the sayings traditions in the stage they are available to us through the Nag Hammadi Copic Gospel of Thomas. However, it takes some hard work, just as with the Synoptic tradition and John, to sort through the various layers and read with sensitivity and critical skills “beyond” the surface meaning of the text in its present form.

For this reason I posted DeConick’s essay about the accuracy and reliability of the New Testament gospels on this Blog last week. I think many might think her statements are too extreme, and that surely the material in the N.T. is of infinitely more value historically than a slightly “whacko” book like Thomas (a description of one of my students on an exam last semester). But this would be to miss her very valuable point. A critical reading and historical examination of the kinds of non-canonical texts she mentions, and others as well, in fact offer us the chance to construct a much fuller portrait of the movement that John, Jesus, and James inaugurated. If Acts and Eusebius are not “the story,” as I have recently written, then we have a lot of hard work before us. The good news is that much survives and I can not think of any field of historical investigation that is more exciting than Christian Origins at the beginning of this 3rd. millennium. If I may misquote/misapply the prophet Hosea: After two days he cause us to live, and on the third day he will raise us up. What an amazing time in which to live.

I few days ago I mentioned the new Forbidden Gospels Blog by Dr. April DeConick, I am posting here, with her permission, Dr.DeConick’s recent reflection on the matter of whether or not our canonical Gospels (Mark, Matthew, Luke & John) are inherently more historically “reliable” than those that never made it into the New Testament. I want to comment further here on this issue but I thought putting this view before my readers might be useful.
Saturday, February 3, 2007

The Accuracy and Reliability of the New Testament Gospels?
Why do so many scholars hold so strongly that the New Testament Gospels, particularly the Mark, Matthew and Luke, are more accurate and reliable for reconstructing history than the non-canonical when it was proven by Professor Wrede in 1902 (The Messianic Secret) that the author of Mark was a theologian not an historian? The New Testament Gospels (and the apocryphal Gospels) are not histories, nor are they even historiographies. They are theological treatises whose main interests are Christological.

The New Testament texts don’t have anymore intrinsic reliability for reconstructing the “historical” Jesus and Christian origins, than early non-canonical texts. The virgin birth stories in Matthew and Luke are no less legendary and fanciful than the account found in the Infancy Gospel of James. The miracle stories of Jesus in the four New Testament Gospels are no less fantastic than those performed by the child Jesus in the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. The passion narratives in the New Testament are no less contrived in order to “prove” that Jesus’ suffering and death had fulfilled the Scripture than the crucifixion narrative in the Gospel of Peter. The account of the pre-existence of Jesus in the first chapter of John is no less mythical than the accounts of his pre-existence in the Gospel of Truth. The reports of the miraculous deeds of Peter, Paul and Philip in the New Testament Acts are no more reliable than their deeds recorded in the apocryphal Acts which bear their names. The wild apocalyptic story in Revelation is no more an account of the end of our world than equally wild descriptions found in the visions of the Pastor Hermas or the Apocalypse of Peter. The sayings of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels are no more the verbatim words of Jesus than those recorded in the Gospel of Thomas, the Dialogue of the Savior, or the Secret Book of James. They are just more familiar to us because they have been part of the Christian tradition for so long. Has familiarity been mistaken for historicity?

Dr. April DeConick

Isla Carroll and Percy E. Turner Professor of Biblical Studies at Rice University

There are two widely accepted assumptions about early Christianity that I think we have to radically question. I am dealing with both of these as I am working on my new book on Paul so I thought I might do a bit of thinking out loud here.

The first assumption is that the essential story line we read about in the New Testament book of Acts is an accurate version of the early years of the Jesus movement following the crucifixion. John Dominic Crossan, the most well-known writer on the historical Jesus, properly calls the period from 30 AD when Jesus was executed, to around 50 AD when we get our first letter of Paul, the Dark Ages of early Christianity. In other words we have almost no surviving texts or evidence from this period. The account given in the book of Acts, particuarly chapters 1-14, is almost wholly shaped by the author’s (traditionally called “Luke”) devotion to Peter and Paul, and his commitment toward showing how everything prepared the way for Paul’s entrance on the scene and his resulting ministry. Luke links up Jesus’ final words at the end of his Gospel, namely, “that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem” (Luke 24:47) with his final scene in Acts that pictures Paul in Rome, doing just that, preaching the gospel to the gentiles. Acts might well be called “From Jerusalem to Rome: The Story of Paul’s Triumph.” Luke is anxious of course to show great harmony between Peter and Paul, and even a kind of tacit agreement of James, the brother of Jesus, whom Luke has to relunctantly admit was the leader of the Jesus movement at that time. In fact the “kerygma” or “preaching” of the apostles according to Luke, as reflected in Peter’s speeches in Acts 2:22-38 and 3:11-26, is pure “Paulinism” in terms of its basic parameters–that Christ was sent from God as Messiah, that he died for the sins of mankind, that he was raised from the dead, and that he has ascended to heaven, soon to return as apocalyptic Judge.

Many readers can find comfort in the continuity that runs from Paul’s own rendition of the “gospel” in 1 Corinthians 15 (written in the 50s AD), and these early “sermons” of the pillar apostles, Peter and John (with James left out or muted). However, I have become convinced, along with a number of my colleagues, that the book of Acts is probably the most misleading document in the New Testament canon. The story of what those earliest days of the Jesus movement were actually like, when James the brother of Jesus was in charge, and Peter and John were considered his “right” and “left” hand men, has been largely lost and painted over.

Fortunately, this is not wholly the case. It is indeed possible to shed some light on this “dark age” of early Christianity. In fact Paul’s own letters are one of our best sources. There we can still find reflected key elements of the alternative story that Luke consciously overwrites. Indeed, I am convinced that Paul’s most vociferous enemies are in fact those he sarcastically refers to as the “so-called Pillars” of the Church, namely James, Peter, and John. And we have other sources as well, here and there, sometimes in bits and pieces and fragments. The composite picture that develops is quite astounding. What we have is a far cry from any form of faith that might properly be called “Christianity.” Rather what emerges is a Jewish sect, known in those days by the name Nazarene, that is thoroughly a part of what we call “late 2nd Temple Judaism,” every bit as much as the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Zealots, or the Essenes. In fact, broadly considered, this “Jesus movement” might more properly be called “the messianic movement in pre-70 AD Palestine.” It was led and shepherded by James the brother of Jesus. It’s closest parallels in terms of its apocalyptic vision of things are probably now best preserved for us in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The second grand assumption about early Christianity that I think we should radically questioned is the portrait of its clean break with Judaism and its subsequent harmonious (despite a few evil heretics) and unbroken advance into the second and third centuries. This is the tale presented to the world by that undaunted “father” of Church History, Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea (c. 300 AD). Even though many folk have not read and will never actually read his Ecclesiastical History, this composite work has fundamentally shaped the basic picture of the “advance of Christianity” that most of us have in our heads. It goes something like this: God sent his son to die for our sins; he was raised from the dead, ascended to heaven, and he commissioned his Twelve apostles, and a bit later, Paul, as the apostle to the Gentiles, to preach the new Christian message to all the world; Christianity decisively broke with an obsolete Judaism and spread like a flame through the Roman world; despite Jewish hatred and Roman persecution the Church triumphed as the spiritual Kingdom of Christ on earth.

We now know, thanks to the discovery of and recovery of many alternative ancient sources, including the Nag Hamaddi texts found in Egypt in 1945, the newly edited and translated Pseudo-Clementine literature, the Didache, and various Syriac and Arabic sources, that what has often been called “Jewish Christianity,” was in fact the mainstream faith of the family oriented followers of Jesus and James before 70 AD. In fact, Paul’s influence in his own time was probably quite weak in both numbers and geographical spread until the last decades of the 1st century and early decades of the 2nd. That is when Paul’s letters were edited, collected, and circulated, Mark, which basically reflects the Christology of Paul began to have its influence, and Luke, Paul’s great propogandist, published his composite work Luke-Acts. At that point the Jewish messianic movement in Palestine had been crushed, Jesus’ brother Simon, who succeeded James, had been killed, and the so-called “Jewish” followers of Jesus, scattered to the east, were known as “Ebionites” by their orthodox Christian foes.

It is really quite difficult for us to imagine a “Christianity” other than that which became orthodoxy, that is, a version of faith in which Jesus is a human being with a human father, there is no eating of the “body and blood” of Christ at the center of its liturgy, no teaching about the bodily resurrection of Jesus as the divine and preexistent Christ, Lord, Son of God, and Savior, and no assertion that the fundamentals of Jewish faith were obsolete or superceded by a “new Testament.” And yet, in fact, that is precisely what we are called upon to imagine if we really want to trace the movement that arose after the death of Jesus through his chosen successors for at least the first 40 years. These are the issues and ideas I am now working out in my book on Paul which I hope will be published late this year.

Josephus reports four main sects or schools of Judaism: Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and Zealots. The earliest followers of Jesus were known as Nazarenes, and perhaps later, Ebionites, and form an important part of the picture of Palestinian Jewish groups in late 2nd Temple times.

The Ebionite/Nazarene movement was made up of mostly Jewish/Israelite followers of John the Baptizer and later Jesus, who were concentrated in Palestine and surrounding regions and led by “James the Just” (the oldest brother of Jesus), and flourished between the years 30-80 C.E. They were zealous for the Torah and continued to walk in all the mitzvot (commandments) as enlightened by their Rabbi and Teacher, but accepted non-Jews into their fellowship on the basis of some version of the Noachide Laws (Acts 15 and 21). The term Ebionite (from Hebrew ‘Evyonim) means “Poor Ones” and was taken from the teachings of Jesus: “Blessed are you Poor Ones, for yours is the Kingdom of God” based on Isaiah 66:2 and other related texts that address a remnant group of faithful ones. I am convinced that Nazarene comes from the Hebrew word Netzer (drawn from Isaiah 11:1) and means “a Branch”—so the Nazarenes were the “Branchites” or followers of the one they believed to be the Branch. It is often confused with a completely different word, the Nazirite or Nazir, that refers to individuals, male or female, not a group, who took on a special vow based on Numbers 6. The two terms are spelled differently in Hebrew or Aramaic.

The term Nazarene was likely the one first used for these followers of John/Jesus/James (The Three J’s, as I refer to them in my classes), as evidenced by Acts 24:5 where Paul is called “the ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes.” Here we see the word used in a similar way to that of Josephus in writing of the four sects/schools of Judaism: Pharisees; Sadducess; Essenes; and Zealots. So the term Nazarene is probably the best and broadest term for the movement, while Ebionite (Poor Ones) was used as well, along with a whole list of other terms: Saints, Children of Light, the Way, New Covenanters, et al. We also know from the book of Acts that the group itself preferred the designation “The Way” (see Acts 24:14, 22, etc.). The term “Christian,” first used in Greek speaking areas for the movement, actually is an attempt to translate the term Nazarene and basically means a “Messianist.”

The Essenes (possibly from ‘Ossim, meaning “Doers of Torah”), who wrote or collected the Dead Sea Scrolls, pioneered certain aspects of this “Way” over 150 years before the birth of Jesus ( see my “Basic Facts on the DSS“). They were a wilderness (out in the Arava, near the Dead Sea–based on Isaiah 40:3), baptizing (mikveh of repentance as entrance requirement into their fellowship), new covenant, messianic/apocalyptic group. They believed they were the final generation and would live to see the end and the coming of the Messiahs of Aaron and of Israel (priest and king). They saw themselves as the remnant core of God’s faithful people—preparing the Way for the return of YHVH’s Glory (Kavod) as set forth in Isaiah 40-66. They too referred to themselves as the Way, the Poor, the Saints, the New Covenanters, Children of Light, and so forth. Perhaps their most common designation was the Yachad–the brotherhood or community, and they referred to themselves as brother and sister. They were bitterly opposed to the corrupt Priests in Jerusalem, to the Herods, and even to the Pharisees whom they saw as compromising with that establishment to get power and influence from the Hellenistic/Roman powers. They had their own developed Halacha (interpretation of Torah), some aspects of which Jesus picks up (ideal of no divorce, not using oaths, etc.). They followed one they called the True Teacher (Teacher of Righteousness) whom most scholars believe lived in the 1st century BCE and was opposed and possibly killed by the Hasmonean King/Priests at the instigation of the Pharisees. John the Baptizer seems to arise out of this context and rekindle the apocalyptic fervor of the movement in the early decades of the first century AD.

To some extent the terminology is flexible; there are a variety of self-designations used by the John/Jesus/James movement, most of which had previously been used by the Essenes. In that sense you might call the Jesus movement a further developed messianic “Essenism,” modified through the powerful, prophetic influence of Jesus as Teacher.

Later, when Christianity developed in the 3rd and 4th centuries and gradually lost its Jewish roots and heritage, largely severing its Palestinian connections, the Gentile, Roman Catholic Church historians began to refer to Ebionites and Nazarenes as two separate groups—and indeed, by the late 2nd century there might have been a split between these mostly Jewish followers of Jesus. The distinction these writers make (and remember, they universally despise these people and call them “Judaizers”), is that the Ebionites reject Paul and the doctrine of the Virgin Birth or “divinity” of Jesus, use only the Hebrew Gospel of Matthew, and are thus more extreme in their Judaism. They describe the Nazarenes more positively as those who accept Paul (with caution) and believe in some aspect of the divinity of Jesus (virgin born, etc.). What we have to keep in mind in reading these accounts from the Church fathers is that they are strongly prejudiced against this group(s) and claim to have replaced Judaism entirely with the new religion of Christianity, overthrowing the Torah for both Gentile and Jew.

I think it best today to use the collective term Ebionite/Nazarene in an attempt to capture the whole of this earliest movement, and it would be useful to revive the term Yachad as a collective designation for the community of the Hasidim/Saints. I use Ebionite/Nazarene as an historical designation to refer to those original, 1st century, largely Palestinian followers of Jesus, gathered around Yaaqov (James) in Jerusalem, who were zealous for the Torah, but saw themselves as part of the New Covenant Way inaugurated by their “True Teacher” Jesus. James is a key and neglected figure in this whole picture. As the blood brother of Jesus, authority and rights of guidance were passed on to him. When he was brutally murdered in 62 C.E. by the High Priest Ananus (see Josephus, Antiquities 20.197ff), Simeon, a second brother [sic "cousin" according to Hegesippus] of Jesus took over the leadership of the Jerusalem based movement. Clearly we have the idea here of a blood-line dynasty, and according to the Gospel of Thomas, discovered in 1946 in upper Egypt, this dynastic succession was ordained by Jesus himself who tells his followers who ask him who will lead them when he leaves: “No matter where you are, you are to go to James the Just, for whose sake heaven and earth came into being” (GT 12). Indeed, when Simeon was crucified by the Emperor Trajan around 106 C.E., a third brother of Jesus, Judas, took over the leadership of the community.

As far as “beliefs” of the Ebionites, the documents of the New Testament, critically evaluated, are among our best sources. There are fragments and quotations surviving from their Hebrew Gospel tradition (see see A. F. J. Klijn, Jewish-Christian Gospel Tradition, E. J. Brill, 1992), as well as the text of “Hebrew Matthew” preserved by Ibn Shaprut, and now published in a critical edition by George Howard (The Hebrew Gospel of Matthew, Mercer University Press, 1995). Based on what we can reliably put together from other sources we can say the Ebionite/Nazarene movement could be distinguished by the following views:

1) Jesus as the Prophet like Moses, or True Teacher (but not to be confused with YHVH God of Israel), who will anoint his Messiahs on his right and left hand when he is revealed in power following his rejection and death. These two figures, the Davidic Nasi (Prince of the Yachad) and Priest, will rule with him in the Kingdom of God.

2) Disdain for eating meat and even the Temple slaughter of animals, preferring the ideals of the pre-Flood diet and what they took to be the original ideal of worship (see Gen 9:1-5; Jer 7:21-22; Isa 11:9; 66:1-4). A general interest in seeking the Path reflected in the pre-Sinai revelation, especially the time from Enoch to Noah. For example, divorce was shunned, even though technically it was later allowed by Moses.

3) Dedication to following the whole Torah, as applicable to Israel and to Gentiles, but through the “easy yoke” halacha of their Teacher Jesus, which emphasized the Spirit of the Biblical Prophets in a restoration of the “True Faith,” the Ancient Paths (Jeremiah 6:16), from which, by and large, they believed the establishment Jewish groups of 2nd Temple times had lost.

4) Rejection of the “doctrines and traditions” of men, which they believed had been added to the pure Torah of Moses, including scribal alterations of the texts of Scripture (Jeremiah 8:8).

How the earliest group(s) viewed Paul is unclear. By some reports he was tolerated or accepted as one who could go to the Gentiles with a version of the Nazarene message (Acts 15, 21). Others apparently believed he was an apostate from the Torah and founder of a new religion—Christianity.

For further reading, see H-J Schoeps, Jewish Christianity (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1969), still useful and quite readable for students.

I wanted to call attention to a new Blog recently inaugurated by Dr. April DeConick, who holds a named chair in Biblical Studies at Rice University. I have shared a few seminars and programs with Dr. DeConick over the past few years and we share a passion for Christian Origins and with many common ideas and approaches. Dr. DeConick calls her new effort The Forbidden Gospel Blog.

Dr. DeConick’s early posts are a a fascinating and instant draw. She has some very important new insights into the Gospel of Judas that appear to overturn what the public was told last April in the publicity barrage that accompanied its release. Her remarks titled “Beyond the New Testament,” are a summary of the paper she delivered at the Scripture and Skepticism Conference last week at UC Davis that drew a standing and sustained ovation.

I particularly look foward Dr. DeConick’s discussion of the Gospel of Thomas. This is her specialty and her thesis, that Thomas, at its core, can be traced back to the Jerusalem community of James the Just, is a vital contribution to our attempts to recover the historical “brother of Jesus” and explore this non-Pauline strand of the early Jesus movement.

I offer Dr. DeConick my warmest best wishes and sincere thanks for taking the time to share with us all her knowledge and insights. Be sure and visit her Blog regularly. You will not be disappointed.

I wanted to pass along some of the thoughts on Albert Schweitzer and an Apocalyptic Jesus that I presented at the Scripture and Skepticism Conference here at UC Davis this weekend.

I dedicated my book, The Jesus Dynasty to the memory of Albert Schweitzer:

Ad memoriam Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965).
Missionary, philosopher, historian extraordinaire.
In whose shadow we all stand.

Albert Schweitzer’s influential work titled Von Reimarus zu Wrede was published in 1906—just one hundred years earlier. The better-known and brilliantly titled English edition, The Quest of the Historical Jesus, came out in 1910 (translated by W. Montgomery with a preface by F. C. Burkitt).

Schweitzer opens his rather dense 400 page survey of historical Jesus research down to his own time with the sentence: “Before Reimarus, no one had attempted to form a historical conception of the life of Jesus.” He refers of course to Lessing’s anonymous publication of Hermann Samuel Reimarus’s writings in 1778, in particular the fragment “Vom dem Zweke Jesu und seiner Jünger” (“The Aims of Jesus and His Disciples”) of which he says “This essay is not only one of the greatest events in the history of criticism, it is also a masterpiece of general literature.” (p. 15). Schweitzer knows his heroes over the next 128 years and he celebrates them exuberantly.

Schweitzer focuses on what he calls “three great alternatives” that historical research on Jesus had to meet. The first he calls the “purely historical or purely supernatural.” This he considers decisively settled by David Friedrich Strauss’s first “Life of Jesus” published in 1835. The second had to do with determining the priority of Mark and the Synoptic tradition over John’s gospel, which he sees as satisfactorily worked out by the Tübingen school and Holtzmann. And finally, most important, what he calls the eschatological question. Here his hero is Johannes Weiss with the publication of his work on the preaching of Jesus concerning the kingdom of God in 1892.

In Schweitzer’s final and most important chapter he argues that the union of what he calls “thoroughgoing skepticism” and “thoroughgoing eschatology” represents an impassible and enduring obstacle to traditional Christian theology. Jesus, according to Schweitzer, “lays hold of the wheel of the world to set it moving on that last revolution which is to bring all ordinary history to a close. It refuses to turn, and he throws himself on it. Then it does turn; and crushes him” (p. 370-71). And yet, even with this perspective, this “negative theology” as Schweitzer calls it of a “failed messiah,” he leaves the reader with his final chapter that he calls “Results.” He writes that “Jesus means something to our world because a mighty spiritual force streams forth from him and flows through our time also,” and “…it is not Jesus as historically known, but Jesus as spiritually arisen within men, who is significant for our time and can help it. Not the historical Jesus, but the spirit which goes forth from him and in the spirits of men strives for new influence and rule, is that which overcomes the world.” (pp. 399, 401).

Apocalypticism and apocalyptic ways of thinking and living in their late 2nd Temple Jewish manifestations focus on the imminent “end of the age” and the wholesale overthrow of the powers that be, both visible and invisible. From the standpoint of the apocalyptic group it involves nothing less than a “cosmic takeover” through the power and agency of God, followed by a new world order, namely the rule of God and the triumph and vindication of the people of God. It has a clear linear and temporal focus, but the (normally) unseen heavenly world of Satan, the demons, and the corrupt state of the cosmos are an essential and ever present foreground. John the Baptist, Jesus, James, Peter, and Paul all lived and violently died with this imminent hope of cosmic reversal on their lips. What they most expected to happen never came about, and what they could have never imagined, namely the 2nd century AD heyday of Roman glory and power, and the terrible destruction of Jewish life in the land of Israel, became a reality. This is and remains the fundamental historical reality. So what are we to make of this disappointment and failure?

With Schweitzer I see Jesus as a full and willing participant and key agent in these failed apocalyptic hopes and dreams. Without discounting the important ways in which Jesus’ message that the “kingdom of God has come upon you,” reflected a “realized eschatology” with revolutionary social and political implications “here and now,” (as per Crossan, Borg, Wright), I nonetheless want to face squarely the stark implications of all those bodies that did not rise, and those dead messiahs who never returned. When prophecy fails, particularly prophecy grounded on the interpretation of authoritative texts, there are three classic responses: postponement, marginalization, and allegorizing. On one level each of these is an attempt to affirm that failure is actually success and what seems to be defeat and disappointment is victory.

There are of course ways, perhaps commendable ones, in which the ancient language and imagery of apocalyptic thinking might provide powerful symbolic expression to the human struggle against evil and the hope of a transformed world. But I would want to sharply distinguish between the symbolic and the operational, and between projection and agency. It is one thing to imagine and hope, it is quite another for individuals and groups to radically alter and shape their lives and choices based on what they expect to happen (i.e. Paul’s advice to his followers not to get married since the end is near!). All bone fide apocalyptic movements carry with them profound social and political implications and more often than not, as Cathy Wessinger has reminded us, the “millennium” comes violently.

The late Norman Perrin, my New Testament professor at the University of Chicago, used to tell us that there was one thing certain in the study of the long history of Jewish and Christian apocalypticism—a 100-percent failure rate. H.H. Rowley published a collection of essays that he had delivered in 1942, during the darkest days of WWII, titled The Relevance of Apocalyptic. Rowley never discounted the symbolic power and potential theological meaning of apocalyptic symbols. But he offers at one point an astute observation. At the time, Hitler had taken most of Europe and General Rommel had orders to march to Jerusalem, link up with the Arab allies and crush the Zionists once and for all. One could hardly imagine a better candidate for the Beast than Nazi Germany with its Führer. In both the United States and Britain, the Bible prophecy movement was having a heyday. Rowley wrote:

“Yet where for more than two thousand years a hope has proved illusory, we should beware of embracing it afresh. The writers of these books were mistaken in their hopes of imminent deliverance; their interpreters who believed the consummation was imminent in their day proved mistaken; and they who bring the same principles and the same hopes afresh to the prophecies will prove equally mistaken” (p. 173).

Clearly historians who see Jesus as an apocalyptic visionary are not advocating any literal appropriation of the thought world that Rowley here censors. On the other hand, even Schweitzer, in his final chapter, with all his thoroughgoing skepticism and thoroughgoing eschatology, cannot resist a bit of theologizing, or perhaps sentimentalizing, of his own.

Although this paper deals with an apocalyptic Jesus, let me close with some thoughts on Paul, our earliest and most direct source for the kind of apocalyptic thinking that characterized the Jesus movement up through the end of the 1st century CE. Broadly speaking Paul presents a Hellenistic way of salvation—a particular scheme of apotheosis, or “immortalization,” set within the parameters of late 2nd Temple Jewish apocalypticism. The broad contours of his religious experiences—epiphany, the reception of oracles, visions, the journey to heaven, secret revelations—these are all well known to us, especially from the Greek magical papyri, the Hermetic texts and various forms of esoteric Judaisms of the period. Add to that his specific expectations regarding his mission to the Gentiles, the conversion of Israel, and the imminent parousia of Jesus as cosmic Lord, and you have it—his own particular vision and version of that most general Hellenistic (and human) hope—escape from mortality and the cosmic transformation of the world. And yet it is those very apocalyptic “particulars” that make Paul really Paul. His was not a scheme of salvation for any place or for all time. Although he has endured and been appropriated in many different ways over the centuries, from the standpoint of the history of Judaism, he belongs in those crucial years of hope and promise, before the terrible days of August, 70 AD, when many such dreams came to an end as the Romans crushed the Jewish Revolt, destroyed the Temple and the city of Jerusalem, and locked down the Jewish population in Galilee and Judea with an overwhelming military occupation force.

For Paul the “appointed time” of the End had drawn very near (1 Cor. 7:26, 29, 31). How near, it is difficult to say, but he wrote that in the early 50’s AD. If he, like others in the movement before 70 AD, expected the fulfillment of Daniel 11 and 12, with the “desolating sacrilege” set up in the Temple at Jerusalem, then events such as Gaius’s attempt to have his statue placed there (41 AD), and Nero’s persecution of the Christians in Rome, would have fired the apocalyptic speculations of the movement to a white hot temperature (witness Mark 13). Apparently his plans to go to Spain never worked out, due to his arrest under Nero (Rom. 15:28), so his grand hope of bringing the bulk of Israel to accept Jesus as Messiah through his Gentile mission became more and more hopeless. By AD 70 it was becoming increasingly difficult to maintain any immediate hope for the “redemption of Israel.” Others would pick up the pieces in various ways, but Paul was gone and what emerged in his name, even in the short decades after 70, was the beginning of a new and very different story.

There is an interesting discussion on James Crossley’s Blog, Earliest Christian History that picks up on some of the issues related to the ending of Mark and what evidence it might offer for alternative traditions regarding the empty tomb and resurrection appearances (see my Dec 17th post “The Priority of Mark: Some Important Implications“). I want to take up some of these in future posts, particularly regarding the notion that Paul’s account in 1 Corinthians 15 of the various “resurrection appearances” is “earlier” than Mark, and thus somehow more reliable or historical, as well as what we might imagine to be the case within Mark’s community regarding the notion of the “resurrection” of Jesus–which Mark clearly affirms.

Crossley, in my view, is one of the most fascinating scholars of “Christian origins” around. His latest book, Why Christianity Happened: A Sociohistorical Account of Christian Origins (26-50 CE) [Note please the early dates!) is a "must read" for those of us ever fascinated with new approaches to understanding Jesus, Paul, and the "movement" or "movements" that emerged under their influences. Crossley teaches at the University of Sheffield and studied with Maurice Casey. There is an interesting interview with him by Jim West (featured as Biblioblogs.com “Blogger of the Month”). Crossley’s previous book, Date of Mark’s Gospel offers an alternative early date (40s AD) to the standard dating (65-70 AD), and has stirred a fascinating discussion as to Mark’s relationship to Jesus and Paul.

One question I am often asked when I speak and teach is whether and how Jesus might have been related to the Essenes, and/or the Dead Sea Scroll Community. Now that becomes one question or two depending on whether one equates the group know to us from Classical sources (Pliny, Josephus, Philo) as the “Essenes” with the sect that produced the Scrolls. And what about the site of Qumran? To put things succinctly:

1. Are the scrolls connected to the site of Qumran?
2. Is the group that wrote the scrolls the one known to us in Classical sources by the name “Essene”?

I would say YES, absolutely, to each question, despite those who have argued, even recently, to the contrary.

On the 1st question the archaeology is absolutely clear, see the magisterial work by Jodi Magness, The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls, as well as the introduction to the Scrolls as a whole by James Vanderkam and Peter Flint, The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls. There is also a nice opening essay on this subject by James Charlesworth in his edited volume, Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The second question I think is equally clear. If you read the basic Classical sources, namely Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews 13 & 18; Jewish War 2; Philo, Every Good Man is Free 75-91; Hypothetica 11; Pliny Natural History 5, the parallel between the Qumran sect and the “Essenes” as they are therein described are overwhelming. I lean very strongly toward the view that the Greek word ’essaioi or ’ossaioi= the Hebrew ‘ossim, meaning the “Doers,” referring to the ‘ossim haTorah, that is the “Doers of the Torah (1QpHab 8:1). It is most interesting that Paul uses this very phrase in Romans 2, as does James in his letter.

The Qumran group considered as apostate those they called the “Seekers of smooth things” (haChalqot), taken from Dan 11:32. In other words those who gave a “light” interpretation of Torah.

When it comes to Jesus and his movement there are some rather amazing parallels with the Qumran/Essene community. Here are some of the more striking elements that both movements shared:

1) Apocalyptic: “This the time for the preparation of the way into the wilderness” (1QS 9) “From the day of the gathering in of the Teacher of the Community until the end of all the men of war who deserted to the Liar there shall pass about 40 years” (CD(B) 2)

2) Prepare the Way in the Wilderness: “They shall separate from the habitation of unjust men and shall go into the wilderness to prepare there the way of Him” (1QS 8)

3) Messianic in Hope and Orientation: “They shall be ruled by the primitive precepts in which the men of the Community were first instructed until there shall come the Prophet and the Messiahs of Aaron and Israel” (1QS 9)

4) Community of the New Covenant: “None of the men who enter the New Covenant in the land of Damascus and betray it shall be inscribed in its Book from the day of the gathering in of the Teacher of the Community until the coming of the Messiah(s) of Aaron and Israel” (CD 8)

5) Water Initiation Rites: “And when his flesh is sprinkled with purifying water and sanctified by cleansing water, it shall be made clean by the humble submission of his soul to all the precepts of God” (1QS 3) “They shall not enter the water to partake of the pure Meal of the saints unless they turn from their wickedness” (1 QS 5) (Josephus)

6) Spiritual Temple is the Community: “He has commanded that a Sanctuary of men be built for Himself, that there they may send up, like the smoke of incense, the works of the Torah” (4Q174) “They shall atone for sins without the flesh of holocausts and the fat of sacrifice and prayer shall be an acceptable fragrance of righteousness” (1QS 9) (Josephus, Philo)

7) Communal Sharing of Property and Wealth: “All those who freely devote themselves to His truth shall bring all their knowledge, powers and possessions into the Community of God” (1QS 1) (Josephus? Philo)

8) Forbidding of Divorce: Fornication is “taking a second wife while the first is alive, whereas the principle of creation is ‘male and female’ he created them.” Two not three or more…(CD 4:20)

What makes these eight all the more noteworthy is that they are characteristic tags of identity, that is matters that define the entire essence and orientation of a group, not peripheral details. And further, as far as we know, neither the Pharisees nor the Sadducess shared a single one of these characteristics.

From this material alone I think we can say that Jesus and his movement fit best against the background or the kind of apocalyptic/Messianic Judaism that we see reflected in the Scrolls. But that is not to say that Jesus or his followers were “card carrying” members of the Essenes. I rather think they were not. There are also sharp and strong differences. The Essenes, at least as we know them in the Scrolls, would have likely considered Jesus a teacher of “smooth things.” His relations with women, Gentiles, even Roman soldiers, and his attitude toward Sabbath observance and ritual purity, as well as other Halachic matters would have seen to them as lax and lacking. I do not think that he violated such things with a “high hand,” but that he interpreted the Torah on the principle that “Laws are for people, not people for laws.” One good example is the Scrolls forbid helping an animal that has fallen into a pit or well on Shabbat, whereas Jesus, agreeing with the Pharisees, asks, “Which of you would not help such a creature on the Shabbat?”

We also have to remember that the Essene community known from the Scrolls tends to be a reflection of the group in the 1st century BCE–nearer to its founding and before it profound disappointment with apocalyptic expectations “Dead Messiahs Who Don’t Return“). Who is to say that all those even loosely associated with the group, a hundred years after the death of the Teacher, would have maintained that original strictness in terms of observing the Torah? I think it likely that scores of “Essenes” and “Essene types” or sympathizers were drawn to John the Baptizer and Jesus and James. That is why I am so fond of Robert Eisenman’s designation: The Messianic movement in Palestine…He does not get caught up on labels and modern disputes about who calls whom what. What links the groups is the language, the core ideas, the vocabulary, and the key concepts they shared. I do indeed think we can best understand Jesus and his movement, before and after his life, in that wider context we see reflected in the Scrolls.