The Essene Christian Faith (M.A.Larson)

Texts now available demonstrate that Jesus, in all probability, had been an Essene; that he became convinced that he was the one foretold in the cultic scriptures, destined to terminate the earthly dispensation, conduct the Last Judgment, and inaugurate the ever-lasting Kingdom in Palestine. Of all the efforts thus far to demonstrate an Essene origin of Christianity, surely this is the most ingenious, elaborate, and determined. It is no free-wheeling, irresponsible exercise of fancy. An enormous amount of hard work and original thinking has gone into it. This book describes the world-encompassing events involving two personages who have exercised crucial influence upon history: the first of these died in comparative obscurity; but the second re-enacted the career of the former, then engineered his own spectacular immolation, and succeeded in founding the religion of the western world.