JESUS CHRIST WAS NOT AN ESSENE!

One of the more common lies concerning Jesus Christ that is now being circulated by the rebellious and the scoffers was that Jesus Christ – and John the Baptist – were Essenes. It is even said that the Sermon on the Mount was an Essene prayer (which even if it were true disproves the existence and deity of Jesus Christ how?). But here is a description of Essene Judaism from The Crises and Responses of Intertestamental Judaism by J. Julius Scott.

1. The Essenes were monastic, ascetic, and puritanical. Jesus Christ ate rich meat and drank wine and associated with prostitutes, publicans, and other sinners.

2. The Essene life was open to adult males. Jesus Christ specifically sought to include women and children in His ministry.

3. The Essenes rejected the other forms of Judaism as illegitimate, and refused to worship in the temple or synagogues. Jesus Christ told His disciples that they could listen to the teachings of the Pharisees so long as they did not follow their hypocritical ways, and regularly worshiped and ministered in the temple and synagogues.

4. The Essenes were so strict in their observances of customs that they refused to so much as light a fire or use the bathroom on the Sabbath. Jesus Christ specifically opposed and defied such false doctrines, particularly by making a point of openly healing on the Sabbath.

5. While some Essenes lived in cities, they were for the most part a reclusive, secretive community that accepted new members only after an arduous yearlong initiation process during which the applicants had to demonstrate their piety. Jesus Christ lived and taught openly among the people and allowed all who were desiring as such to follow Him and be called His disciples.

6. The Essenes rejected being anointed with oil, Jesus Christ allowed Mary Magdalene to do so.

7. The Essenes stressed living by morals, ethics, and the law: Jesus Christ emphasized living by faith.

8. The Essenes imposed a strict caste system by rank. Jesus Christ taught that the first shall be last and the last shall be first.

9. The Essenes had a very elevated opinions of themselves, regarding themselves as the only true righteous that through whom God would act to bring the Messiah into the world and everyone else as apostate and heretical. Jesus Christ took on the status as a humble servant, even to the point of objecting when someone called Him good (righteous) saying that only the Father was righteous.

10. Like the Pharisees, the Essenes held the common people in low regard, as being not sufficiently pious or knowledgeable of the law to be counted worthy of consideration. Those same people were the specific targets of Jesus Christ’s ministry.

Now some of these attempts are to a point understandable, as it has been postulated by those who advocate eastern religions that the Essene sect of Judaism came about due to Jewish exposure to and assimilation of their beliefs and practices philosophy (see Was Jesus An Essene?), and are therefore part of the popular trend of claiming Jesus Christ for their own religion (as even the Pharisees that rejected Him are now doing, see Jews Against Jesus II: Claiming That Jesus Was A Pharisee). But most of the efforts are just outright lies by people who are so zealous in their opposition to Christ that they will knowingly use lies to attempt to dissuade people from it. An example of this, though he did not raise the Essene diversion in particular, was this fellow Lary Crews who posted this comment. In it, he makes the spectacular lie that no first century extrabiblical documents mention Jesus Christ. Of course, it is impossible that such a person has never heard of such an important figure as Flavius Josephus, who wrote of Jesus Christ about 70 AD, so the only possible explanation is that Crews was simply lying and is hoping that Christians would be so poorly educated as to believe him. Crews also claimed that since Jewish philosopher Philo lived during the time of Jesus Christ and never mentioned him that Jesus Christ never existed. Perhaps it is that a Hellenized Jew who lived IN EGYPT and died in 50 AD while Christianity was but a small sect within Judaism (Jews did not cast off and begin to regard Christians as apostates until after 70 AD, when they included a prayer cursing Christians in their synagogue liturgy … the curse remains but the explicit reference to Christians has been removed) that had only recently begun to spread past Judea and Samaria had simply never heard of Him or did not see any reason to pay any special respect towards the existence of what could have easily been perceived as being yet another messianic figure that had been killed by the corrupt Jewish leaders and Rome. And Josephus is not alone; there are many others, and an excellent reference is this document compiled by people that do not believe in Jesus Christ! Proving The Existence of The Historical Jesus Christ contains links by those that do as well.

That is why I keep saying that there is a war going on, saints. Now is not the time to be some passive lover of the world moderate. There are people out there willing to use any lie to cause people to deny Jesus Christ, and not only are these people often in our classrooms, but they are also oft in our pulpits! It is time for real Christians to study and show ourselves approved so that we will be empowered to stand against the craven lies of the enemy. And if you are someone that has been following after these lies that I have exposed for what they are, please Follow The Three Step Salvation Plan, for you now have no excuse!