{"id":10191,"date":"2021-01-27T12:04:56","date_gmt":"2021-01-27T17:04:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pathway2truth.com\/wp\/?p=10191"},"modified":"2021-01-27T12:04:56","modified_gmt":"2021-01-27T17:04:56","slug":"luke-180-was-john-the-baptist-an-essene","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pathway2truth.com\/wp\/luke-180-was-john-the-baptist-an-essene\/","title":{"rendered":"Luke 1:80 &#8211; Was John the Baptist an Essene?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Problem<\/strong>: Luke records that John the Baptist \u201clived in the deserts until the day of his public appearance to Israel\u201d (Lk. 1:80). Since he was somewhat of a recluse, some scholars argue that John the Baptist was an Essene, living out on the periphery of society. Is this the case?<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><strong>Solution<\/strong>: This is doubtful for a number of reasons. First, the Essenes are never explicitly mentioned in the NT. Therefore, John the Baptist was never directly called an Essene. Second, the Essenes were a highly legalistic group, and John the Baptist was directly against this sort of teaching (Mt. 3:7-8).[1] Third, John the Baptist believed that Jesus was the Lamb of God, who would take away the sin of the world (Jn. 1:29). However, the Essenes believed that the Messiah would be purified by sin through suffering.[2] Moreover, the Essenes believed the Messiah would arise from their community \u2013not Bethlehem. Fourth, John the Baptist was a public figure \u2013even being mentioned by Josephus,[3] while the Essenes were a highly privatecommunity.<\/p>\n<p>[1] Gundry writes, \u201cTo maintain ritual purity, they even refrained from bowel movements on the Sabbath.\u201d Gundry, Robert Horton. A Survey of the New Testament. 4th Edition ed. [Grand Rapids]: Zondervan Pub. House, 2003. 66.<br \/>\n[2] Habermas, Gary R. The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ. Joplin, MO: College Pub., 1996. 78-79.<br \/>\n[3] Josephus Antiquities of the Jews 18:116-119.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>&#8220;And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, and was in the deserts till the day of his shewing unto Israel. (Luke 1:80)&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Problem: Luke records that John the Baptist \u201clived in the deserts until the day of his public appearance to Israel\u201d (Lk. 1:80). Since he was somewhat of a recluse, some scholars argue that John the Baptist was an Essene, living out on the periphery of society. Is this the case?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bible-errors","no-thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pathway2truth.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pathway2truth.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pathway2truth.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pathway2truth.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pathway2truth.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pathway2truth.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10191\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pathway2truth.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pathway2truth.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pathway2truth.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}