Just as Mark used Josephus’ description of the siege of Jerusalem to inform the “prophecies” of Jesus Christ, so too he used Josephus’ description of the Jewish sect of Essenes to give Christ a life story.
Mark names John the Baptist as Christ’s forerunner, and Josephus refers to an Essene chief named John. He also says the Essenes were known for ritually purifying themselves with cold water. Josephus only mentions two other Essenes by name, and they happen to share their names with Jesus’ most important disciples: Simon and Judas.
Josephus says Essenes “reject pleasures as an evil”, and “neglect wedlock, but choose out other persons children, while they are pliable, and fit for learning, and esteem them to be of their kindred, and form them according to their own manners”. This is exactly what the unwed Jesus does while picking up young brothers in the countryside. In fact Simon is the first person he turns into a “fisher of men“.
The parallels to Christianity are constant. Josephus calls the Essenes “despisers of riches” who hold all property in common, just as Jesus gives his highest praise to the poor woman who throws her last shekel in the treasury. Essenes must say grace before eating. They even provide the blueprint for the purported Roman persecution of Christians:
Our war with the Romans gave abundant evidence what great souls they had in their trials, wherein,although they were tortured and distorted, burnt and torn to pieces, and went through all kinds of instruments of torment, that they might be forced either to blaspheme their legislator, or to eat what was forbidden them, yet could they not be made to do either of them, no, nor once to flatter their tormentors, or to shed a tear; but they smiled in their very pains, and laughed those to scorn who inflicted the torments upon them, and resigned up their souls with great alacrity, as expecting to receive them again.
-Josephus. Wars of the Jews
Got that? Essenes were tortured by Romans, tempted to blaspheme just as Jesus the Nazirite was tempted with wine and vinegar on the stake, yet they remained gay in spite of it all, because their souls would rise again. Josephus says “their doctrine is this: That bodies are corruptible, and that the matter they are made of is not permanent; but that the souls are immortal, and continue for ever”.
Here’s another direct inspiration for Mark’s telling of Jesus Christ: the power of prophecy:
There are also those among them who undertake to foretell things to come, by reading the holy books, and using several sorts of purifications, and being perpetually conversant in the discourses of the prophets; and it is but seldom that they miss in their predictions.
Yet there are also pointed contradictions: Josephus says the Essenes do not anoint themselves, preferring to be sweaty, making an Essene leader called “the anointed” distinctly oxymoronic. Josephus also says Essenes inflicted capital punishment on those who questioned the authority of Moses, and were strictly observant on the Sabbath, whereas Jesus redefined some of Moses’ laws and declared himself lord of the sabbath.
Furthermore, the Dead Sea scrolls, our primary archaeological resource for the history of ancient Judea, were kept and manufactured in a community that shares much in common with Josephus’ description of the Essenes. They lived outside of Jerusalem in Qumran, unlike the Pharisees and Saducees who lived in the city. They did expect a Messiah (or two) except one who would kick the asses of the Graeco/Roman invaders (called Kittim) who were menacing Judea. This community of scribes was dispersed by Romans in 68 CE preceding the siege of Jerusalem. The Dead Sea scrolls speak of a teacher of righteousness and a 40 year war between the sons of light and the sons of darkness.
In conclusion, Mark’s treatment of Jesus as an Essene relies rather obviously on Josephus’ Wars of the Jews. Yet the real Jewish sect at Qumran apparently described by Josephus held major points of difference with Christianity, and it also diverged from Josephus’ own description. I don’t think this is much of a problem, it just shows that Josephus took distinct literary license in his moralistic and partisan history.
Mark combines Paul and Josephus into a parable about the Jewish rejection of Roman authority. It is Mark who first uses Christ as a symbol of Caesar (again drawing from Josephus’ Wars, which says that Pilate removed images of Caesar from Jerusalem after the pious Jews demanded it). Like the history of Christ, the history of Caesar developed in stages, and Caesar eventually began to imitate Christ in return.
Read more:
https://kalkallim.substack.com/p/how-we-know-that-jesus-christ-was
The Essenes were not “Jewish”, that’s a big misconception and something that’s been shoved down our throats for many years. Josephus describes them as being “in no way different than the Dacians…” That’s the critical piece of information that’s been suppressed, and continues to be suppressed to this day, as a simple google search can confirm. They translate that passage in any way possible (mostly using ‘Dacae’ for Dacians) in order to confuse but, as Joan E. Taylor has conclusively proven in “The Essenes, the Scrolls, and the Dead Sea”, it can only mean “Dacians”. As for what the hell were the Dacians (present-day Romanians) doing there in those times, see Eugen Lozovan’s work (Dacia Sacra etc). The implications here are mind-boggling if you take them to their natural conclusion.
Philo of Alexandria has a whole treatise on the Therapeutae in Egypt of whom the Essenes in Palestine were thought to be a sect. Philo goes into detail about their lifestyle and practices, especially, as their name indicates, their healing abilities and practices. The gospels show Jesus to be nothing if not a healer. My own research has led me to conclude that the gospels' Jesus is based on Paul's teaching and on the tradition of the Righteous Teacher, who led the Essenes a 100 years before the gospels until he was executed by the Jewish authorities. And, for what it's worth, clairvoyants (today usually referred to as remote viewers) also don't find Jesus in the 1st century AD, but in the 2nd BC.