Jesus, the Essenes, and Christian Origins - by Simon J Joseph (Hardcover)

About the Book

By bringing this holistic analysis of the evidence to bear, Joseph adds a powerful and insightful voice to the decades-long debate surrounding the Essenes and Christianity.

Book Synopsis

The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the caves near Qumran in 1947 sparked near endless speculation about the possible connections between the Essenes--purportedly the inhabitants of the settlement--and the birth, nature, and growth of early Christianity. Jesus, the Essenes, and Christian Origins sheds new light on this old question by reexamining the complex relationships among Qumran, the historical Jesus, the Essenes, and Christian origins within first-century Palestinian Judaism.

Author Simon J. Joseph's careful examination of a number of distinctive passages in the Jesus tradition in light of Qumran-Essene texts focuses on major points of contact between the Qumran-Essene community and early Christianity in four areas of belief and practice: covenant identity, messianism, eschatology, and halakhah (legal interpretation), placing the weight of his argument for continuity and discontinuity on the halakhic topics of divorce, Sabbath, sacrifice, celibacy, and violence.

Joseph focuses on the historical, cultural, chronological, and theological correspondences as convergence. This not only illuminates the historical Jesus' teachings as distinctive, developing and extending earlier Jewish ethical and halakhic thought, it also clarifies the emergence of early Christianity in relationship to Palestinian Essenism. By bringing this holistic analysis of the evidence to bear, Joseph adds a powerful and insightful voice to the decades-long debate surrounding the Essenes and Christianity.

Review Quotes

With his precise study of the texts and his methodological prudence, Simon Jospeh helps his readers enter this field of research.

--Mark Rastoin "Recherches de Science Religieuse"

...A stimulating dialogue partner for historical Jesus scholars, especially regarding Jesus's halakhic teaching.

--Cecilia Wassén "Dead Sea Discoveries"

...judicious, clearly argued and well documented.

--David Wenham "Journal for the Study of the New Testament"

[Jesus, the Essenes, and Christian Origins] is well written and solidly researched and deserves to have a voice in the continuing discussion

--Michael O. Wise "Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society"

From the outset the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1948 has led to a variety of hypotheses about the possible relationship of the Essenes, a Jewish sect that populated Qumran, the site where the scrolls were found, to Jesus and early Christianity. In this marvelous work Simon Joseph... offers a detailed, well-researched, and eminently balanced assessment of this intriguing potential relationship.

--Donald Senior "The Bible Today"

The question of the relationship between Jesus and the Essenes has, as Simon Joseph notes, 'fascinated biblical scholars and the general public for over three hundred years' (163), and more so since the discovery of the Judean Desert Scrolls in 1947. In the time that has elapsed since their publication, what has changed in ways that affect this inquiry is not the data but rather scholars' approach to its interpretation. Joseph offers a concise survey of both the evidence and scholarship concerning it and raises a forceful argument in favor of an actual connection and familiarity between Jesus and the Essenes.

--Aryeh Amihay "Reading Religion"

About the Author

Simon J. Joseph teaches in the Department of Religion at California Lutheran University. He is the author of Jesus, Q, and the Dead Sea Scrolls: A Judaic Approach to Q, The Nonviolent Messiah: Jesus, Q, and the Enochic Tradition, and Jesus and the Temple: The Crucifixion in Its Jewish Context. Dr. Joseph is also an elected member of the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas (SNTS).