The Essene Messiah

[ZoneChaos]

Does anyone think that the Essene way of life had any affect on Jesus' life and ministry or on that of his apostles and friends / family?

I've recently been trying to reconcile a verse in Matthew with the Luke account of Christ's death and resurrection.

In Matthew 12:40 it states that "...the Son of Man will be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth."

In Luke it says that Jesus is buried just before the Sabbath, (Luke 23:50-56) which would be dusk on Friday in the Jewish calendar, and is resurrected by Sunday morning (Luke 24:1-3).

Thus, relative to our calendar, he spent Friday night and Saturday night in the tomb, but was risen by Sunday morning, but relative to the Jewish calendar he spent Saturday night and Sunday night in the tomb and was risen by Sunday morning.

My thoughts weree that maybe the teachings of the essence played a role here in determining when Jesus actually celebrated the sabbath. The essene I believe celebrated the sabbath a day earlier than "mainstream" Jews, and if Jesus was following the Essene sabbath, perhaps Kuke and Matthew do match up, if the sabbath mentioned in Luke is the same as teh Essene's.

The problem I see with this is that it opens the door for peopole to attribute Essene beliefs to Jesus, some of which are totally off the wall when it comes to Jesus' teachings...

 

[pmarquette]

That way of life is essentially what Clueny reform did
during the late middle ages . Asceticism , monestaries ,
prayer , study , alms , intercession .

That is basically what the second and third chapter of
Revelation is about . The church , our areas of need
and error , the means to return to our first love ,
Jesus , his church , our lives to serve Him .

 

[ZoneChaos]

But do you think it has any affect on Christ's ministry? Did he practrice any / some of the Essene way of life? I think I read somewhere that Mary was an Essene, though not a practicing one...

 

[McCravey]

Don't let the legalism of the moment get in the way of the power of the act!

 

[Knight]

There is no Biblical evedince to support Christ's ministry being influenced by the essenes. He is God why would He need any influence.

Though I will admit there are some similarities with John the Baptist's ministry. However, there is no evedince of this either.

 

[ZoneChaos]

There is no Biblical evedince to support Christ's ministry being influenced by the essenes. He is God why would He need any influence.

Though I will admit there are some similarities with John the Baptist's ministry. However, there is no evedince of this either.

While i don't count them as scripture, nor inspried by God, alor of information has been uncopvered historically about the Essene in the Dead Sea scrolls. I would doubt any of it if it seemed to contradict the bible, but most of it does not, it simply records information.

One of the thigns I discovered recently was that they followed a different calendar that the Temple did, thus the Sabbath they recognized was on a different date. This is what got me focused on the scriptures in Matthew and Luke...

 

[Knight]

I tend to think that the Essene mindset paved the way for Christ's ministry. However, I still do not think that this sect influenced His ministry.

 

[Foundthelight]

As I understand, and please correct me if I am wrong, He died before susnet Friday. Thus, in the Jewish way of thought, Friday is the first day. Dusk Friday to dusk Saturday is the second day, and the third day starts at dusk Saturday and runs till dusk Sunday. He arose during the third day.

The error in our western way of thinking is that we interpret 3 days as 3 24-hour periods and believe that He must have been buried for a total of 72 hours. This is not necessarily how it would have been interpreted in Isreal 2000 years ago.