Ogdin

Hey y'all. Josephus wrote the following around 90AD: Josephus gives about a 60/40 split on Pharisees vs Essene Jews in his day and this is the ONLY cosmological/philosophical difference he mentions between the sects. The Pharisees are clearly the opponents of Jesus in the New Testament and many writers view Jesus as relating to the Essenes as described by Josephus and as relating to the total determinist community that is witnessed in the dead sea scrolls from the Qumran jewish sect. A cosmological determinism, rejecting the moral agency of humans, was THE major discussion point in the first century just as it is today in the discourse with science. Of course, the church seems to have gone entirely into the moral realism camp with free will, but there is a strong historical critical argument around the idea that Jesus was an Essene Jew who took a step from determinism, past the false idea that it means "we are all puppets and nothing we do matters," into the notion "we are all children of God." This accounts for much of the non-judgment and becomes a lens through which the text can be interpreted. And not just the new testament, but the older contents of the Torah as reflecting a deterministic philosophy that grounds people in the present moment and attacks ideas of "deserving" and "merit" and "ethics."