Excellent! That was much more concisely stated than I would have put things! One question, though. Why do you assert that Peter, John, Andrew and other Apostles were Essenes? They were simple fishermen on the Sea of Galilee, with no direct line of communication to the overwhelming preponderance of Essenes on the shore of the Dead Sea, over one hundred miles away. Not trying to crank you, I’m just curious to see what you have here.
Peter, John, and Andrew were disciples of John the Baptist (John 1:35-37). John the Baptist was an Essene, from his description, and the pre-Christian writings his follower, John picked up. (John 1:1-18 is an Essene prophecy, with interpretations interspersed within it.)
To be somewhat more precise: John the Baptist and his followers were heavily influenced by Essenes.
I did a little more fact-checking to be able to say a little mre about the Johannine-Essene connection:
John was in line to be a priest, but went to the desert, rather than the Temple. In doing so, he followed the Essenes’ founder. (It’s even been supposed that he may have been taken in by the Essenes after the death of his parents. Don’t forget that Elizabeth and Zecharais were both exceptionally old.) From his mastery of Greek, he studied Greek literature intensely, as well as certain apocryphal works associated with Greek, as the Essenes did.
The Essenes practiced baptism in the Jordan as a means of ritual purification and a symbol of new birth and repentance. They believed the Messiah’s return was imminent. They wrote much of John 1:1-18, which John appears to be interpreting for people familiar with the work. They have apocalyptic literature similar to the Book of Revelation, which may even have been partly authored by John the Baptist. Both dressed as Old Testament prophets, in clothes of camel hair, fastened with leather belts. Both ate locusts and honey. And, as I mentionned in the main piece, Jesus, John and his followers apparently followed the Essene Passover customs.
However, John wasn’t part of a movement, but was his own one-man movement, and he did seem to be proclaiming that Joe Everybody could be a priest, by baptising all comers... So when I say that they were Essenes, I mean in the sense of apparently subscribing to man Essene practices and Essene theology; It’s doubtful that they lived as part of an Essene community.