(February 7, 2016 at 2:17 am)Wyrd of Gawd Wrote:(February 6, 2016 at 9:16 pm)pocaracas Wrote: So much ink is used on these discussions and yet... One only scratches the surface...The Essenes didn't believe in physical resurrections and they didn't take craps on the Sabbath.
Why do you guys use the bible as the only source of information?
The bible is a simple compilation of books that were in circulation concerning the life of this Christ character. But there were many more books in circulation than the ones that made it into the bible.
Some are lost forever, some have been found in pieces, some are remarkably complete.
Based on those, it is interesting to note some striking similarities between the Christ figure and the Teacher of righteousness. This Teacher was an Essene, a particular branch of Judaism present, at the time, between Jerusalem and Damascus. Preaching poverty, help your fellow man, and denouncing the dominant Jewish faction, the Pharisees, as bearers of a false view of God, or something...
It is my opinion that many of Jesus' religious and political views that ended up in the bible stem from this Essene group.
Couple that with some young upstart wannabe Teacher of righteousness who goes into Jerusalem to preach his message and actually gets strung up for going against the ruling class...and you have the makings of a historical Jesus.
Is there any evidence for this, beyond the coincidences? No.
Is this more plausible than magic son of a god? Yes.... But, then again, most alternatives are more plausible than magic.
Riiight... all of them?
Like all protestants agree with every detail of the interpretation of the book...
Maybe you missed the finer point of my speculation:
"It is my opinion that many of Jesus' religious and political views that ended up in the bible stem from this Essene group."
Just because some features of Jesus' religiosity don't match match the Essenes, it doesn't mean that the person (or the ideas attached to the character in the stories) didn't have some basis on that group.
It was certainly the closest to what is claimed about Jesus... it would make sense that the early christians would try to add their own twists and features based on their own lives and customs.
"The early christians", as Min has suggested, were not based on Jerusalem... Paul's church was remarkably far from there... Tarsus, in Southern Turkey. It is perfectly plausible that he incorporated some of his own culture into his view of what Jesus was... no matter how much christians would want to claim that he only reported verbatim what he got from actual eye-witnesses and friends of Jesus... that is just not how humans work.
Thus, you get the Sabbath ignored.
Physical resurrection must have come forth at a somewhat later time.
The earliest gospel, Mark, in it's original penning, is missing the actual resurrection... as time goes on, the story gets filled and details are added.
It's no surprise that it would not feature in the Essene view.
