Message #30689

[Kilika]

I hear ya! They are a crafty lot.

Something that keeps coming to mind for me about the so-called "Essenes" is how much they seem to resemble what I would expect the brethren of that time to do, to distance themselves from Caesar's world, and "touch not the unclean thing".

More and more, I am thinking those people were in reality not some outcast Jewish rebels practicing a weird version of Judaism, but that it was actually a Christian community set up to "preach the gospel" and to make copies of what text they had at the time. A kind of central location for supplies, scrolls, whatever the ministry needed, away from mainstream society. Remember that scripture describes the brethren as having "all things common". And what they have found that they call "ritual baths" they claim are part of the Judaic law of washing, is actually baptismal baths for immersion baptisms, or simply bathtubs for nothing more than bathing. Regardless, I really have pause in accepting what the most common descriptions of them are.

One clue I think that ties it together is here...

"Bring Zenas the lawyer and Apollos on their journey diligently, that nothing be wanting unto them." Titus 3:13 (KJB)

"The cloke that I left at Troas with Carpus, when thou comest, bring [with thee], and the books, [but] especially the parchments." 2 Timothy 4:14 (KJB)

Now, it may be that they ended up referring to Zenas that way because he was a lawyer, or, it could be that the distinction was made because the ministry used lawyers and had a need for them, which would mean that the brethren weren't just a few outcasts running around yelling the sky is falling, but serious about their work and understood the law in relation to scripture and Caesar's world of law. Most of these people were converted Jews anyway, so they I think had a decent grasp on the concepts of law.

What's telling to me is the mention of, "...the books, but especially the parchments".

What books or parchments? To me, I believe, that part of those materials were Old Testament copies, and some New Testament writings/letters from fellow apostles and disciples of the ministry, and more importantly, accounts of Jesus when He was in the flesh, basically news about what He said and did, written down by people who followed Jesus around as those events took place, like news reports, to eventually be gathered together as a bible.

And I think many of those books and parchments used in the ministry may have been at least made into copies, if not originally written, there at Qumran by the so-called "Essenes".