Open AccessThe Essay-Qumran Origin of Christianity: Pros and Cons
Author(s) -
Pavlo Pavlenko
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
ukraïnsʹke relìgìêznavstvo
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2617-9792
pISSN - 2306-3548
DOI - 10.32420/2008.45.1898
Subject(s) - christianity , judaism , german , secrecy , order (exchange) , religious studies , philosophy , history , classics , sect , literature , theology , law , art , archaeology , political science , finance , economics
Essayism or essayism is one of the largest and most authoritative currents of pre-Christian Judaism. According to the texts of Flavius, the essays, after the Pharisees and Sadducees, were the third "philosophical school" or "sect" within Judaism at that time.73 to say something like a secret order. And what characterized the essays in general was their remoteness from the people, their conscious secrecy, the system of rigid admission to membership, and strict religious discipline. And while in the religious literature the search for the origins of Christianity in the environment of the Pharisees, not to mention the Sadducees, is unpopular, then the Essenic version of the origin of the religion of Christ is quite common. The first who tended to such a point of view were the English deists and French encyclopedists (late XVII - XVIII centuries). Later, this version was supported by German rationalists, especially Wachter and Steidlin.