bcnatan said
While reading The Life of Josephus today, I noticed that Josephus decided to study the three most prominent sects of his time. This is the quote I’m referring to: “At about the age of sixteen I determined to gain personal experience of the several sects into which our nation is divided. These, as I have frequently mentioned, are three in number—the first that of the Pharisees, the second that of the Sadducees, and the third that of the Essenes.” (Loeb Edition). Would it be possible to infer that “Christianity” was not big enough at the time to be considered a prominent sect by the time Josephus was 16 (AD53-54ish)? In Destroyer of the Gods, Hurtado argues that, based on Rome’s reaction to the movement, Christianity was not considered “just another sect.” However, his evidence is mostly from 2nd to 3rd Century, while Josephus is in the 1st. Or would it be the case that Christianity, at this point, would have been sharply distinguished from Judaism already?

Thoughts on this?

Thank you!  

AD53-54ish, Christianity does not have Mark, Matthew, Luke-Acts, or John at this point. Without these books, the movement would not be sufficiently established.

Joseph Raymond, author of Herodian Messiah: Case for Jesus as Grandson of Herod
(Joseph Raymond passed away.)

Essenes per Josephus and Philo:
No female members, nor children.

The Biblical Jesus:
Women traveled with Jesus.

The essene prohibiton against women members, according to Philo, bordered on the pathological.

“No one of the Essenes ever marries a wife because woman is a selfish creature and one addicted to jealousy in an immoderate degree, and terribly calculated to agitate and overturn the natural inclination of a man, and to mislead him by her continual tricks.”
– Philo, Hypothetica (11:14)

Clearly, Jesus was not an orthodox Essene as described by Philo (a contemporary of the [Biblical] Jesus). Nor could he be considered a Pharisee. Recall Jesus railing against the “doctors of the law” (a/k/a the Pharisees).

One may conclude that the Nazarene movement was influenced by the Essenes but they were not orthodox Essene Jews. Jesus innovated upon Jewish tradition, but where do we find the source for this peculiar brand of Judaism?

The Therapeutae

When casting a net beyond the Essenes, Pharisees, and Sadducees looking for theology reminiscent of the teachings of Jesus, one need not look far to find comparable concepts. Below is Philo’s description of women participating in a Therapeutae feast.

“And the women also share in this feast, the greater part of whom, though old, are virgins in respect of their purity not through necessity … but out of an admiration for and love of wisdom, with which they are desirous to pass their lives [and] on account of which they are indifferent to pleasures of the body, desiring not a mortal but an immortal offspring.”

– Philo, On the Contemplative Life (68)

The emphasis upon celibacy is a prominent parallel between the Therapeutae and early Christianity. Two prominent features of the Therapeutae are found in the Nazarene movement (a) acceptance of women members and (b) emphasis upon celibacy. The connection between early Christianity and the Therapeutae was not lost on Church historian Eusebius who gushingly described the Therapeutae as proto-Christians (The History of the Church II: 17-18).