I mentioned the Dead Sea scrolls because at least some* of them were written by Essenes, another of the over half dozen Jewish sects of the first century. And the Essenes had different beliefs and teachings than the Pharisees (ancestors of today's Orthodox Judaism) as well as you Reformed Lutherans.
In the first century, most people know there were Pharisees, Sadducees, and Essenes. Most know there were Samaritans too, a group who differed from Jews only due to having another Temple. Most don't know that Samaritan's had synagogues and were scattered around the Mediterranean just like Jews ... in fact, the oldest known synagogue outside Israel is on a Greek island and was a Samaritan synagogue. In addition, there was another active Jewish temple in the first century - in Leontopolis Egypt. The priests there were of a family that had been Jerusalem temple priests but had been deposed during the turmoil of the Seleucid and Maccabee period. Worshipping at another temple surely makes the Leontopolis worshipping Jews a fifth sect, after Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and Samaritans. All these Jews used scriptures in the Hebrew language. In Greek cities, Jews used a translation known as the Septuagint. Thus a sixth sect, the Hellenistic Jews, who worshipped and prayed only in Greek in their synagogues. And now, we get to another Jewish sect, the followers of Jesus. Apparently, the only one you have a problem seeing as Jewish.
*I say some because many of the scrolls were simply copies of OT books. Essenes might have written those too but we can't say for sure cause there's nothing distinctive about them. The chief benefit of the DSS is that they show the Bible has remained essentially unchanged for 2000 years plus. |
