Was Jesus the Essene Teacher of Righteousness?

[spamandham]

Long before the purported life of Jesus, the Essenes followed a man known as the Teacher of Righteousness, known in Hebrew as Moreh ha-Zedek (Zedek means righteousness, and is the same word used in Melchizedek).

 

From this site

 

In the spring of 1950 Andre Dupont-Sommer, Professor of Semitic Languages and Civilizations at the Sorbonne, presented to the academic community a paper about the Moreh ha-Zedek which caused a sensation.

 

"Jesus," he claimed, "appears in many respects as an astonishing reincarnation of the Teacher of Righteousness. Like the latter, he preached penitence, poverty, humility, love of one's neighbor, chastity.... Like him, he was the Elect and the Messiah of God.... Like him, he was the object of the hostility of the priests.... Like him, he was condemned and put to death. Like him he pronounced judgment on Jerusalem, which was taken and destroyed by the Romans for having put him to death.... Like him, he founded a Church whose adherents fervently awaited his glorious return.... All these similarities -- and here I only touch upon the subject -- taken together constitute a very impressive whole."

 

In 1950, Andre Dupont-Sommer could not have simply come out and suggested that Jesus and the Teacher of Righteousness were one in the same.

 

The ancient historian Josephus wrote of the Essenes. According to Josephus, they were mostly pacifist, ascetic, celibate, separatist, and apolitical mystics, although some were married and some were revolutionary zealots. Some resided in Jerusalem according to Josephus. Josephus wrote of three sects of Jews; Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes. The New Testament is very critical of the first two, but never mentions the third. That makes a lot of sense if the Essenes are in fact the heritage of Christianity.

 

The Teacher of Righteousness predates Christianity by as much as ~200 years. If The Teacher of Righteousness and Jesus are one in the same, that would explain why there is such a collective fog regarding the man Jesus in the earliest Christian writings, and it would also explain how it was possible for such divergent Christian sects to have been in existence only 20 years after Jesus' supposed crucifixion; they were offshoots of the much older Essene tradition.

 

To read more about the Essenes from Josephus, see this site. The similarities between early Christianity and Essene tradition are so striking that they simply can not be denied.

 

There is speculation that the "The Liar" referred to in the Damascus Document of the Dead Sea Scrolls is none other than Paul himself, who from their perspective, was attempting to corrupt Essene tradition with pagan concepts. More detail on this theory here

[Saviourmachine]

Long before the purported life of Jesus, the Essenes followed a man known as the Teacher of Righteousness, known in Hebrew as Moreh ha-Zedek (Zedek means righteousness, and is the same word used in Melchizedek).

What support do you have to suggest that the inhabitants of Qumran were Essenes? (Identity of the Qumran community [Gromacki])

 

...Andre Dupont-Sommer...

"Jesus," he claimed, "appears in many respects as an astonishing reincarnation of the Teacher of Righteousness. Like the latter, he preached penitence, poverty, humility, love of one's neighbor, chastity.... Like him, he was the Elect and the Messiah of God.... Like him, he was the object of the hostility of the priests.... Like him, he was condemned and put to death. Like him he pronounced judgment on Jerusalem, which was taken and destroyed by the Romans for having put him to death.... Like him, he founded a Church whose adherents fervently awaited his glorious return.... All these similarities -- and here I only touch upon the subject -- taken together constitute a very impressive whole."

Not so fast! Who was for example the Absalom in the Commentary on Habakkuk? (Absalom, brother of Jannaeus [Goranson])

And who was the "Wicked Priest"? VanderKam suggests that it was a high priest: "...'the Wicked Priest' (in Hebrew 'hak-kohen ha-rasha') is a pejorative play on one form of the title high priest - hak-kohen ha-ro'sh. If so, the Wicked Priest was a Jewish high priest."

This Wicked Priest commited a crime against the Teacher of Righteousness and was handed over to his enemies by God (Commentary on Psalms).

 

There is speculation that the "The Liar" referred to in the Damascus Document of the Dead Sea Scrolls is none other than Paul himself, who from their perspective, was attempting to corrupt Essene tradition with pagan concepts.

What date are the scrolls assigned? Is there any place that Paul could be referenced by them? And if "the Liar" is the same as the "the Man of Mockery" then there are also the "Men of Mockery". (Commentary on Isaiah). Who are the 'warriors' who went back to the Liar? (Damaskus Document)

 

[1] The meaning of the dead sea scrolls [VanderKam & Flint]

[spamandham]

What support do you have to suggest that the inhabitants of Qumran were Essenes? (Identity of the Qumran community [Gromacki])

 

It is my understanding that is the current consensus. If it can be shown to false, oh well. The following is a fairly well thought out essay that supports the supposition. The Qumran community. The link you provided does not refute that supposition, but admittedly, this is all speculative.

 

What date are the scrolls assigned? Is there any place that Paul could be referenced by them?

 

Some date from the third century BCE, ranging through 68 CE. It is my understanding that those that refer to "the liar" are in the latter period and could well be Paul in that regard, but I have no first hand evidence and so my information could well be wrong.

 

My opening post is speculative in nature. I would greatly appreciate any correction to the underlying assumptions.

[Mythra]

In Paul Johnson's "A History of Christianity", he takes it for granted that the Essenes were the ones who lived at Qumran.

 

He makes the inference that some of the New Testament ideas are Essene in nature. Such as all of the "your body is the temple of God", all of the "cleansing" and "purifying" statements, and much of the eschatological references.

 

But, he says that the similarities end about there. The Essenes were not a "turn the other cheek" bunch. They were militaristic. Radical. Affiliated with the Zealots.

 

They ended up being annihilated when the Romans came and invaded Qumran in 70 CE. (I think that was the year)

 

Johnson mentions "The teacher of righteousness" as being the possible founder of the Essenes, but it's obvious that knowledge of him is lacking. Even his placement in time seems to be an estimate (150 BCE)

[spamandham]

But, he says that the similarities end about there.  The Essenes were not a "turn the other cheek" bunch.  They were militaristic.  Radical.  Affiliated with the Zealots. 

 

I think this is an overgeneralization. From what I've read about the Essenes (which is of questionable quality), there were several subsects ranging from peace at all cost vegans to zealots trying to overthrow Rome.

 

Johnson mentions "The teacher of righteousness" as being the possible founder of the Essenes, but it's obvious that knowledge of him is lacking.  Even his placement in time seems to be an estimate (150 BCE)

101657[/snapback]

 

That's interesting. It's my understanding that Essenes are as ancient as Judaism itself, with the TOR showing up in written works somewhere around 150 BCE as you mentioned. My understanding is that the Qumran sect dates to about 300 BCE.

[SpaceMonk]

Sorry to drag up an aging thread but someone may be interested in this book which deals with the same issues:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/159143044...283155&v=glance

 

I haven't read it myself, but I read an interesting article about it in New Dawn Magazine, which is what attracted to this thread...

[Heimdall]

The fact that quite a few of the scrolls in the Qumran library were Essene works, and not really interesting to other sects, does seem to point the finger at the Essenes as the proprietors of Qumran. If you put stock in the 4thd century Bishop Epiphanius, Jesus was born before Herod, during the reign of Alexander Jannaeus, who ruled Judaea between 103-76 BC. "AJ" even had a "falling out" with the Essenes and as I recall executed the Righteous Teacher. Maybe Christ Cult is older than you think - something that I keep trying to point out to Cultists. The religion could have been over a century old when Mark first put pen to paper! - Heimdall

[Saviourmachine]

It is my understanding that is the current consensus. If it can be shown to false, oh well. The following is a fairly well thought out essay that supports the supposition. The Qumran community. The link you provided does not refute that supposition, but admittedly, this is all speculative.

The text from Pliny the Elder about the Essenes - describing some behaviour of a group near Engada/Engedi and Masada - is pretty convincing IMHO. However, the assertions about Jesus and Paul are very speculative. I already listed some persons that should be identified in that case. I can't create the theory for you, regarding these gaps. If you know more or encounter information regarding the issues I mentioned, I would like to hear it.

[Mythra]

I'm reading a very interesting article (practically a book) online about the dead sea scrolls, and this thread came to mind. Here is a brief exerpt:

 

The origins of some Christian rituals and doctrines can be seen in the documents of an extremist Jewish sect that existed for more than 100 years before the birth of Jesus Christ. This is the interpretation placed on the 'fabulous' Dead Sea Scrolls by one of an International Team of Scholars. ... John Allegro said last night in a broadcast that the historical basis of the Lord's Supper and part at least of the Lord's prayer and the New Testament teaching of Jesus were attributable to the Qumranians. (Emphasis added.)

 

This is a bombshell as anyone with even a superficial knowledge of Christianity will not fail to note. So, what we now call Christianity, as well as its teachings - which generations of faithful have been told to be the sacred word of the Only Son of God - happened to grow out of an extremist Jewish sect that had existed for more than a century before the birth of Jesus Christ. And this extremist Jewish sect, as we already saw goes back at least to Mattathias Maccabaeus and his successors who ruled the Holy Land from 152 BC to 63 BC. In summary, both the message and the actions attributed to Jesus can be traced at least to Mattathias and his followers as part of the whole Zealot tradition.

 

Allegro later went on to point out that there exists a Qumran text in which the term 'Son of God' has actually been used. (We now know that the phrase occurs at many places as we shall see in the next chapter.) In a letter to Father de Vaux he emphasised that it was used by the Qumran people who also referred to the coming of a Davidic Messiah whom they called 'Son of God'. This shatters the last shred of any claim for the uniqueness of Jesus, who, according to orthodox Christians, is descended from the line of David as the Only Son of God.

 

Further, the early Church and the Qumran community were both messianic in spirit and awaited the arrival of a Messiah. In Christianity this is seen to have been fulfilled by Jesus - the Only Son of God. In the Qumran texts, as we already saw, we find Teacher of Righteousness whose description parallels that of Jesus, and may in fact be seen as his prototype. We may therefore conclude that the authors of the Gospels have taken the messianic spirit that pervades the Qumran texts and presented Jesus as the fulfillment of those expectations. This is exactly what several Biblical scholars beginning with Dupont-Sommer have contended.

 

 

 

Here

[spamandham]

Oh my, that is interesting. If it can be shown that John the Baptist was from Qumran or a close offshoot, then I think there may start to be a solid case for the evolution of the Christ myth as originating in the teacher of righteousness, whom John used as a teaching aid in his stories, and gave the character the name Jesus. This would tie in Jesus with John.

 

Paul would have based his Logos concept of Jesus on somewhat parallel concepts - folding in the little he had heard about Jesus secondhand from John's followers (basically just the name and vague moral concepts).

 

The Gospel writers finish the merging of the mystical Jesus of Paul with the wise teacher Jesus of John, resulting in a fully historicized Jesus.