Was John the Baptist an Essene?

• emphasized the role of the holy spirit
• perceived believers as comprising a spiritual temple
• shared all possessions in common
• traveled light without money, cloaks, etc.
• emphasized baptism

Quid est Veritas? said:

Neither Pliny nor Philo nor Josrphus mentions vegetarianism for the Essenes. They were ascetic though, like John the Baptist. The assumption of vegetarianism is a modern one based on reports of their compassion and reverence for life, but it has no actual support.


Paul was a Pharisee and continued to call himself thus after conversion. The fact that Paul was taken in by the other Apostles and his position in the later Church, clearly shows this is no impediment.

Jesus did not act like an Essene. According to all our ancient sources: They kept the Sabbath strictly, were obsessed with purity and kept rigid hierarchies. They opposed feasts and Temple sacrifice. They strictly interpreted the Law. Josephus explains their peculiarities in some detail.

Jesus ate with sinners and foreigners. He saved the adulteress from being stoned. He allowed his followers to pluck wheat on the Sabbath and healed on it. He went to the Temple and praised those giving alms there. He turned the water to wine at Cana. Very little of what Jesus did is Essene-like.

The early Church did baptise, but the Jews already practiced ritual mikveh immersions. Similarly the sending out of disciples in twos and the messianic content of Jesus's ministry is not specific to the Essenes either.

This just sounds like an attempt at Rejection of Paul's teachings by forcing an ill-fitting connection between Jesus and the Essenes. If anything, of the three/four schools of Second Temple Judaism, Jesus's teachings fits the Pharisees best, although not perfectly. Christianity is obviously a hybrid of them all as Jesus brought the Law into fulfillment.

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Quid est Veritas? said:

John the Baptist is an enigmatic figure, the Forerunner, the Voice in the wilderness. I have often seen it claimed nowadays that he was an Essene.

Now there is some evidence in its favour:
1. He baptised in water. The Essenes practised immersion as well. Both seem to have expected purity thereafter, a change in the person's life. John practised a Baptism of Repentance and forgiveness of Sins.
2. John was active at the River Jordan, while Pliny records that the Essenes lived around the Dead Sea. Thus geographically it fits as well.
3. John had a group of followers similar to an Essene sect.
4. John the Baptist spoke of the one to come after him. Essene groups seem to have had a lot of messianic content.
5. John practised severe asceticism in diet and lifestyle like many Essene groups.

Against it:
1. John the Baptist was a public figure and widely seen as a holy man, to such an extent that there was an outcry when he was killed and calamities that befell Herod Antipas blamed on his murder. Essenes were secretive and kept to themselves.
2. Josephus never calls John an Essene.
3. His followers do not seem to follow the strict hierarchy we see Essene groups adopt.
4. He is never explicitly called an Essene in the New Testament.

Ambigious evidence:
1. His father Zechariah was a temple priest. Essenes were largely opposed to the Temple service as corrupted. This can be taken either that he was of the Temple or that he rejected the veniality thereof that he saw from his father's life. There is an extra-biblical story that his parents were killed and he grew up an orphan in the wilderness. This can be interpreted either way.
2. Mandaean sects that revere him have some Essene tendencies, but this may simply be from Syncreticism.

This is a subject I would like some discussion on. I tend to discount the Essene connection myself, but there is a lot of evidence backing it up though.
If he was an Essene, then it would explain some Essene ideas that people pick up in early Christianity - which may derive from some of his former followers like Andrew. I have even seen people try to categorise Jesus as an Essene recently based on Messianism and connection to John, something I think holds little water, but I think this an important topic in understanding the mileau of the gospels.

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Quid est Veritas? said:

Many groups called themselves the Way. It is natural if you believe you are following something, to call your beliefs the Way of. Buddhism calls itself the way of the Buddha, or Taoism speaks of the Way too. Even Stoicism is often framed as the Via or road.

As they note, it isn't surprising that the Christians used the term, but that does not necessarily imply Essenic influence either.

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bougti said:

I don't think that there's enough information about John the Baptist for us to be able to put together a very accurate image of him.

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