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November 16th, 2001
Received by H.R.
Cuenca, Ecuador
I see that you have received quite a lot of questions. And some
fit well into what we are dealing with now. So, let’s proceed
to answer some of them. I also know that there have been questions
on relatives and friends, who now live in the spirit world, but
I feel somewhat reluctant to answer them. It is not because of personal
reasons, for sure. But I am concerned that if I begin to answer
this kind of inquiry, I will end up responding to similar questions
quite frequently in the future. And this has not been the objective
of my coming.
I know that I have answered questions on your relatives, H___,
but I did so in order to give you some incentive, and I won't answer
any more questions of this kind. Of course, if some spirit of your
or of another person’s kin should come to deliver a message,
we will allow this.
But now let’s focus on what A__ wants to know:
- Was John the Baptist an Essene or did he have certain
Essene influence or education?
- What is the true story when Paul was taken prisoner
and then sent to Rome?
- Was Paul really an arrogant, proud person, lacking
a good sense of humor, did he suffer of deep depression, did he
stammer when speaking?
- What are the particulars of Paul's four mission
journeys, those mentioned the Bible.
- When Mary gave birth to Jesus, who assisted her?
Joseph? Or other people?
- How did the early Christian church develop? What
happened to Christianity in the centuries I, II, III, IV and V?
- Which were the social and economic classes that
Christians came from in the first five centuries?
- Jesus, as a good Jew, was a regular wine drinker?
We have to make a choice, because we cannot answer everything.
All those questions about Paul of Tarsus and the early church we
will answer in due course, when we deal with the respective topic.
The answers to those questions may easily fill whole libraries.
I intended to continue in a chronological order, and we are currently
dealing with Jesus' youth. And so, my dear A___, you will have to
wait a little bit more, but if God permits it, everything will be
clarified.
But now, let’s give some concrete answers: When Mary gave
birth to Jesus, who assisted her? Joseph? Or other people? As a
matter of fact, it was a midwife who helped Mary. In all Jewish
villages there were midwives. When the labor pains became more frequent,
Joseph, nervous and trembling like all young fathers-to-be, advised
his relatives, and they sent for the midwife.
Now, Jesus, as a good Jew, was a regular wine drinker? You make
me laugh, my brother. Yes, it is true. Jesus was a “regular
wine drinker.” He was a cheerful man. And drinking wine was
not and is not prohibited at all in Judaism. Only Islam prohibits
the consumption of any kind of alcohol, but not so in Judaism. In
Passover celebrations, the Jews don't drink just one glass of wine,
but several. Wine is a good invention. I also liked it.
Now we will deal with the question: Was John the Baptist an Essene
or did he have certain Essene influences or education? And the answer
is a very long one. In fact, this has already been answered through
Dr. Samuels, but I admit that the answer has not been very detailed.
[Inserted by H.R.] In “Revelation
2: Life and ministry of John the Baptist,” John informs:
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“It is not true, as some theologians
believe, that I tried to lead a reform movement independent
of Jesus, nor was I to any extent influenced by the Essenes,
whose views of purity led them to isolated communities away
from the so-called contaminations of the genuine Hebrew civilization,
or the Hellenistic influences, and where they carried out
their religious practices; for, like Jesus, I believed not
in retreat from the world but in carrying the message of God
to the people, and as I believed in ablutionals as symbolical
spiritual purity, I had of necessity to preach where water
was readily obtainable and that was the Jordan.”
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To begin with, we will go back many decades into the past, decades
before John the Baptist was born.
When Alexander Jannaeus, the Hasmonean king, died, his widow Salome
Alexandra governed with the help of the Pharisees. She arranged
that her son Hyrcanus be named High Priest. But soon afterwards,
a new conflict broke out in Palestine. Hyrcanus’ brother, Aristobulus
II rose up, defeating Hyrcanus at Jericho, and proclaimed himself
the new king and High Priest. The Sadducees supported him openly.
Hyrcanus’ loyal friend, Antipater, Herod the Great’s father,
called the Nabatean Arabs for help, and they expelled Aristobulus
from Jerusalem.
Aristobulus appealed to the Romans, or rather, to Scaurus, the
Roman legate in Syria, and he forced the Nabateans to withdraw.
Jerusalem once again was in Aristobulus’ hands.
Hyrcanus did not give in and appealed to Pompey, the Roman general
who had conquered Syria, and was in Damascus at that time. Aristobulus
found out, and also sent a petition, and to make matters worse,
there was a third petition from the people of Jerusalem that Pompey
might help them to abolish monarchy in Judea and to return to theocracy.
And now Aristobulus made a serious error. Instead of waiting for
Pompey’s decision, he attacked the fortress of Alexandrium.
This upset Pompey, and he took this as an excuse for attacking Jerusalem.
That part of the city’s population supporting Hyrcanus opened
the city’s gates voluntarily, but the followers of Aristobulus
withdrew into the Temple and fortified themselves there, offering
a strong resistance. Finally, Pompey broke the walls and killed
thousands of Jews. He even entered into the Holiest, thus profaning
the Temple, because, as I have already said previously, only the
High Priest was entitled to enter therein, and only once every year.
Aristobulus was taken prisoner and sent to Rome in chains. Years
later, when Julius Caesar freed him, Pompey’s followers poisoned
him.
This battle over Jerusalem happened in the year 65 B.C.
Now, my dear brother A___, you surely will wonder, what has all
that to do with the Essenes or with John the Baptist?
Well, what the history books don't tell is that the Sadducee priests
certainly knew that something serious would happen. And before the
war against Pompey broke out, they secretly rescued their most precious
and most fragile treasure, the scrolls of writings, from the Temple
and hid them in caves in the desert near the Dead Sea. There were
hundreds of them, and a good part has been recovered by now, more
than 800.
When thousands of years later these writings were discovered, writings
which now have worldwide fame as the Dead Sea Scrolls or the Qumran
Scrolls, the delighted investigators at first attributed them to
the Essenes. And this idea persists until the present time. But
as more scrolls eventually were discovered, it became clear that
they had nothing to do with the Essenes.
Among the texts there are the following ones: Lists for the priestly
service in the Temple (Mishmarot), mystic visions of the Temple
(SSS), priestly purity (MMT), a treasure of the Temple (Copper Scroll),
the preparation of the ashes of the red heifer, as the Book of Numbers
tells:
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“This is the ordinance of the law which
the LORD hath commanded, saying, Speak unto the children of
Israel, that they bring thee a red heifer without spot, wherein
is no blemish, and upon which never came yoke.”
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The leaders of this kind of cult were the sons Zadok, that is to
say, the Sadducees, as the Book of Ezekiel states:
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“But the priests the Levites, the sons
of Zadok, that kept the charge of my sanctuary when the children
of Israel went astray from me, they shall come near to me
to minister unto me, and they shall stand before me to offer
unto me the fat and the blood, saith the Lord GOD: They shall
enter into my sanctuary, and they shall come near to my table,
to minister unto me, and they shall keep my charge.”
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So you see, my brother A___, the discovery of these scrolls has
been the reason why a connection was established between John the
Baptist and the Essenes. But this is wrong. The Essenes rejected
the Temple cult in Jerusalem. They would never have written these
texts. Kirbet Qumran has nothing at all to do with this sect. It
is certainly surprising for many, but the texts of the Dead Sea
Scrolls are in fact Sadducee texts.
The Sadducees had backed Aristobulus, as we have already seen.
And thousands perished under the Roman swords, and those who could
escape, emigrated to Egypt or Babylonia. In later decades, there
were practically no Sadducees anymore in Palestine.
It was Herod the Great who re-established the Sadducee priestly
line. He ordered several Sadducee families back to Jerusalem, and
a few followed his call. Among them was the House of Boethus (and
its offspring, the House of Kathros), the House of Annas and of
Phiabi, humble families, which clung to power as long as they could,
once they had obtained it.
And from Herod's time on till the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus,
there was an uninterrupted chain of Sadducee High Priests, among
them Annas and Caiaphas.
The Sadducee cult was based exclusively on the Temple, and when
it finally was destroyed, the sect disappeared. Modern rabbinical
Judaism derives from pharisaical Judaism. The Pharisees survived
the tumultuous times of the first and second century after Christ.
I could tell you much more on the subject, but the message is already
very long and it may confuse the reader. In summary, the Essenes,
who didn't enjoy major importance in Jewish society, had absolutely
nothing to do with John the Baptist or Jesus. They did not live
in Qumran, and the so-called Dead Sea Scrolls are writings created
in Jerusalem, under Sadducee domain. The false attribution of these
writings to the Essenes caused Bible scholars to establish the connection
of John and Jesus with the Essenes, a completely false and untenable
connection. They came from a pharisaical atmosphere, and although
Essenes had much in common with Pharisees, for example their independence
from the Temple cult, Jesus and John chose their own way, independently
of the religious streamings of their time.
Perhaps it is also worthwhile mentioning that apart from the Sadducee
High Priest, there was also a class of chief priests, also Sadducees,
more or less 200 of them, and a great number of common priests,
like Zacharias, John's father, who belonged to the most diverse
sects, also to the Pharisees, and who frequently didn't live in
Jerusalem, but in the surrounding villages.
So then, having said that, I will now finish this message. I hope
it has been informative and may shed new light on a very difficult
topic, because the multifaceted Second Temple Judaism ceased to
exist many centuries ago, and it was very different from the more
uniform Judaism of the present times.
I wish for you our Heavenly Father's blessings. God bless you and
guide you in your spiritual adventure.
Your brother in Christ,
Judas
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