Jesus and the Essenes

 

The Essenes waited expectantly for the kingdom of God. When the signs were right, they would send forth prophets to warn the people of Israel, calling them to repentance. That this point was reached is made evident by the message of John the Baptist and Jesus, the gospel of the kingdom. What they taught along with that message was lost or distorted until the revelation of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Those scrolls give us a greater understanding of their doctrines and expectations.

Though the Essenes sought perfection, they did not believe that it could be obtained on earth in their mortal form. Their philosophy was that, if something was of this world, it was subject to error. This included their predictions. They could discern the times and signs, but there was no guarantee that their predictions would be right. Therefore, when the diviners of the signs considered that the end time was near, a Nasi, the messianic leader, was sent out into the community to test the attitude of the people.¹

This policy would safeguard the Essenes as a whole, while allowing God to show whether the signs were correct or not. John the Baptist was one such leader; Jesus was his heir—the Nasi, the prince, the leader of a vanguard whose duty was to recruit an army of believers. As mentioned earlier, the Qumran writings never referred to the Nasi as the Messiah, probably because that status depended upon God. The Nasi was simply the leader of the congregation of Israel in the last days, but the Semitic root nsr, meaning protector or savior, suggests that by God’s will he would become the Messiah.

The Essenes’ Commentary on Nahum explains that prior to the battle with the sons of darkness, the ranks of the believers would be expanded by the conversion of the wayward Jews.² As the kingdom drew nigh, the numbers of such converts were expected to mushroom as the new covenant would attract the lost sheep of the house of Israel back to the fold. The phrase, "the simple-hearted folk of Ephrain will withdraw from their company," (ibid) refers to the Jews who were expected to return to the fold by the end time.

We’ve stressed the secretiveness of the Essenes, because it is crucial to scriptural understanding. For centuries, they had read the Scriptures, watched the stars, studied the times and current events; waiting for the signs that would covertly foretell the coming of the kingdom. Not even their own younger generation understood the hidden things of the elders.³ When they met as strangers, they used coded words and phrases for identification.

Most, if not all, of the parables spoken by Jesus were Essene teachings. Their beliefs and training were in direct opposition to Roman rule, and were, in fact, subversive. Therefore, it was necessary to code their speech and messages. Thus, when Jesus spoke in parables, he was speaking in allegories. For example, in Luke 3:9 and Matthew 3:10, the message is expressed as a parable: "every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire." It was up to every Jew who was not righteous to look to his own salvation by repentance and baptism, lest he be baptized with fire. Note that John the Baptist, like Jesus, spoke in parables. Both illustrated their meaning with analogies or allegories that would not have been meaningful to a Gentile unfamiliar with the messianic expectations of the Essenes. Another good example is found in Mark 2:18-20:

 

And the disciples of John and of the Pharisees used to fast: and they come and say unto him, Why do the disciples of John and of the Pharisees fast, but thy disciples fast not? And Jesus said unto them, Can the children of the bridechamber fast, while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. But the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then shall they fast in those days.

 

The generally accepted interpretation of this passage is that Jesus was the bridegroom and that his disciples could not fast so long as he was with them. The insinuation is that Christ has done away with fasting, yet immediately, he seems to say there will be a time when it will be appropriate—after he is killed. If Jesus died on the cross as part of God’s plan to atone for mankind’s sins, as the Church would have us believe, then the crucifixion was no occasion for fasting! The last portion, “…and then shall they fast in those days,” (Mark 2:20), has been interpolated. The writer of Mark was writing after the destruction of the Jerusalem temple, about 40 years after the events of the Gospels, so he could put words like this in the mouth of Jesus to make him seem to predict the future, but the addition is illogical. Here again, Jesus is supposedly breaking the Law, yet later, we find his Apostles teaching and living that Law.

Jesus would never have ignored a fast unless there was a strong reason for it—or unless it was a parable, not an actual event. In Jewish tradition, the bridegroom is God, and the bride, or the children of the bride chamber, is the children of Israel.⁴ God and Israel are betrothed, not Jesus and his disciples.

This is a distorted kingdom parable. In Jewish tradition, the bride and bridegroom fast until the wedding. Then the fast is lifted for the wedding feast. In other words, the bride (the children) enters the house (the kingdom) of the bridegroom (God). The preceding fast is broken, and the joyous wedding feast (messianic meal) begins. In this case, Jesus was not recommending that Jews should not fast; he was making an analogy between the kingdom and the feast after the wedding fast. Jesus would have used it in this sense, implying that there was cause for rejoicing, because God was with the elect, and they would soon be entering his kingdom. This has been distorted into Jesus feasting when others fasted. The next verses (Mark 2:21-22) introduce another example:

 

No man also seweth a piece of new cloth on an old garment: else the new piece that filled it up taketh away from the old, and the rent is made worse. And no man putteth new wine into old bottles: else the new wine doth burst the bottles, and the wine is spilled, and the bottles will be marred: but new wine must be put into new bottles.⁵

 

Both of these sayings seem to compare the newness of the Christian religion with the oldness of Judaism emphasizing the need to split cleanly with the old in favor of the new. If this is so, it is something added by Mark and not something that Jesus said; because at that time, as we have already seen, Christianity wasn’t even an idea.

These sayings have to be given their proper context. The linking of these two mini-parables with the verses about marriage and fasting above suggests that Jesus might have been using a parable to describe the nature of the kingdom in the context of the destruction of the temple. He is promising that the kingdom will be accompanied by a new temple, just as the old priesthood was incompatible with the new one that would be provided by the Essenes. Elsewhere (Matthew 26:61), he is accused of threatening to destroy the temple.

While it may seem that Jesus was introducing changes, we must recognize the fact that such changes would contradict his plain statements that the Law would not be altered nor voided. For that reason alone, such Scriptures should not be interpreted in contradistinction to that Law. As a rule of thumb, to discern between truth and fiction concerning Jesus, compare his words and actions to the Jewish Law; if it contradicts the Law, then it is almost certainly a later interpolation.

The writer of Mark makes it obvious that parables are meant to obscure, not to clarify, but theologians who hold the opposite view have generally ignored this. The Pharisees used parables to clarify, so today’s clergy draw upon this concept as proof that Jesus used them in the same way. The fallacy of this theory is that Jesus was an Essene, not a Pharisee. Mark is quite explicit that the parables are allegorical. In Mark 4:13, Jesus says that the parables are allegorical. How can today’s clergymen maintain that they are not? Nor should their meaning be sought in the mystical interpretations of the later Church, but rather in what we know of the traditions of the Essenes, and in what we can determine of the sect we call the Nazarenes.

In Mark 3:23, the evangelist tells us that Jesus spoke in parables, further proof that Jesus was an Essene. For the Nazarenes, he was the Master, the Maskil, whose duty was to impart knowledge with discretion and keep it secret from the wicked.⁶ This tells us that the parables are allegorical and not, as theologians stoutly maintain, simple stories. If you still doubt this fact, read Matthew 13:14–15, where Jesus uses a quotation from Isaiah to explain why he was teaching in parables.

 

And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive: For this people’s heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.

 

Christians are willing to believe that some of the meaning of the parables has been lost. It only appears, so, because the context is that of an Essene sect, working to help bring in the Jewish kingdom of God on earth—not the later invention of a spiritual indwelling kingdom. Once this is realized, the Gospels become much clearer.

Essenes regarded Scripture as mysterious. The use of the phrase, mystery of the kingdom of God, emphasizes the link between the New Testament and the Qumran scrolls. Paul often uses the word mystery (sometimes translated as secret) in his epistles. The Essenes interpreted old documents as prophetic of current events. Their sages sought to read in the Scriptures the hidden things of God, and having discovered them, sought to conceal them from unrighteous ears. This is the real significance of the parables of Jesus. They look like simple moralistic folktales, but there is more to them than meets the eye—or ear! Those who had ears to hear, who had been taught and had grasped the method, would understand references intended to baffle the ignorant. Let’s look at one more example, Mark 8:14-21:

 

Now the disciples had forgotten to take bread, neither had they in the ship with them more than one loaf. And he charged them, saying, Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, and of the leaven of Herod. And they reasoned among themselves, saying, It is because we have no bread. And when Jesus knew it, he saith unto them, Why reason ye, because ye have no bread? Perceive ye not yet, neither understand? Have ye your heart yet hardened? Having eyes, see ye not? And having ears, hear ye not? And do ye not remember? When I brake the five loaves among five thousand, how many baskets full of fragments took ye up? They say unto him, Twelve. And when the seven among four thousand, how many baskets full of fragments took ye up? And they said, Seven. And he said unto them, How is it that ye do not understand?

 

Here, Mark has occasion to depict the disciples as fools, using a speech of Jesus in which he likens the kingdom of God to bread. Disciples who supposedly have just witnessed two miraculous mass feedings squabble because they have only one loaf of bread with them. That could not be the context of this passage; Jesus was not speaking of food. The feeding of the multitudes was not a miraculous multiplication of bread. It was a ritual meal eaten by the new converts signifying their acceptance into the Nazarene ranks. A similar ritual is described in the Damascus Rule, where the people were assembled for the feast of the renewal of the covenant and to allow initiates to be recognized.⁷ At that meeting, all the people were arranged in ranks by the thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens—just as Jesus arranged the masses (See Mark 6:39-40).

Jesus spoke about leaven as part of the mass conversion of the Nazarenes. Many of these people would have been Hellenistic Jews who had fallen under the influence of Romano-Greek culture, but in view of the coming kingdom, were glad to be accepted as part of the chosen. These were the sinners and tax collectors. They could not be expected to understand common scriptural symbolism, let alone the esoteric speeches of the trained Nazarenes. Where genuine misunderstandings are recorded in Mark, they are misunderstandings of ordinary disciples, not the twelve Apostles.