Interesting documentary. All I have learned about the Dead Sea Scrolls have come from Bart’s textbooks. To the “Children of Light” waiting for a coming ruler, one being a priest and the other a messiah and that could be a reference to Jesus is pure speculation. As to the War Scroll it details the final war between good and evil that will take place at the end of time. The war will take 40 years, the first six of which involve overcoming the “Kittim” (the Romans), the rest being devoted to campaigns against other nations. The future to them was still in their lifetime. The notion that John the Baptist came out of the Essene sect is an interesting concept.
I am not sure everyone agrees that Antiochus was pushing for Judean reform. His role as demon was: pillaging the Temple of Jerusalem. His father had done the same in Elam and its seems its something not recomended to do if you want the respect of the people who go to that particular temple.
It seems the modernizing or Hellenizing was a completely internal development, which the documentary alludes to. Hellenizing was not a process of killing people with different religious ideas, but a syncretic policy. If the “Sons of Light” left Jerusalem because of Hellenism, it would seem they could return a few years later under the Maccabees. I would think they left because the Maccabees usurped the Zadokite line that supposedly had run the Temple since it was built. That would explain 200+ years in the desert since the Maccabees (Hasmoneans) ruled during that time frame.
I think the growth rate of Christianity is overstated. It took 300 years for the Christian sect to become massive. The numbers of Jews killed in the Jewish revolts demonstrate a faster growth rate of Judaism, especially after the mass conversion of Judea’s neighbors in Samaria, Galilee, and Idumea. And those numbers are only given for the Jews of the Roman Empire. Babylon was a major center of Judaism as well.
I could see Jesus seeing himself as Essene. I am not sure they would have seen Jesus as Essene.
BDEhrman
FreedomBen
evgendob
Robert
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