[Sorry for the delay; many problems lately] The answer would be rather involved. One needs to have an at least average understanding of the Dead Sea Scrolls. > The Essenes were embodied about 240 years prior to the ministry of Christ; their foundations were established on the principle that the founder was a 'Teacher of Righteousness', and that they were to prepare for another Teacher of Righteousness which was to come.
Upon the ministry of Christ and its completion, the Essenes disappeared. The evidence is purely circumstantial... in fact, now there are disputes whether the Essenes actually existed, and - if so - whether they wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls.
How did the Essenes prepare for the Teacher of Righteousness to come [in my opinion?] They prayerfully studied and scribed the existing Scriptural texts extant at the time; one needs to understand that - without mass printing media - the texts were laboriously hand-copied; errors, omissions and insertions inevitably occurred. Much the same as the Masoretes a millennium later, they 'cleaned up' the Torah, Chronicles and prophets in order to preserve a pristine Divine-given text for the coming Teacher of Righteousness to study in order to generate an accurate 'teaching' of God's Word.
A little-noticed miracle observed by modern scholars is that - upon the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls - it was noticed that the Dead Sea Scroll Scriptural texts and the Mosoretic text are nearly identical. By faith, I believe that is a miracle!
By the above theory, one tends to also believe that John the Baptist was also an Essene; in fact, his baptizing rituals were carried out near the very spot where the Essenes reputedly inhabited. If Elijah must first come to prepare the way for Messiah, then the Essenes could well fit the prophecy to a 'T'.
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Perhaps more to the point of this thread, socialism would have not been possible in the time of Jesus. No such political philosophy existed in that day. By definition 'socialism' requires ownership of property by the state; the state determines how much each person 'needs' and confiscates what it considers extraneous.
The early church - IMHO - is more akin to the person who decides to invest $5,000 in a mutual fund; at the same time a thousand other investors decide to invest between $2,000 and $10,000 in the same fund. The result is a 'collective' effort, but it certainly is not socialism; the contributions are voluntary, and the rewards are commiserate with the original investment. Of course this is only a general analogy, not a mirror image of the early church; but it serves to explain why early Christianity could NOT be connected with modern socialism.
Wow, I’m impressed. Are you a Biblical theologian? You and OneVike seem to have a lot in common with eachother. Do you know him? Because he seems to be real up on all that stuff also.
I have been following him for awhile. I started following him when he wrote the article about women and the 19th amendment and have been real impressed with his articles. I read his debates that he has on that site Post Scripts and he really has a way of shutting the opposition down.
I have also been blessed with all I have learned from many of the members that post comments on FreeRepublic. Anytime I click onto a post, I am treated to a free education on any of a number of topics. I would bet there is not a site on the WWW that has a better collection of minds then FreeRepublic can claim. JimRob could start some online college classes with all the learned and intelligent members this place is blessed with.
I’m surprised more people don’t know about this place, or maybe they do and try to avoid it because of all the logic and intelligence displayed. Well, I’m rambling. Sorry.
What you say, does make sense though and I guess you really did not take anything away from Christ. You are just saying that God used them like he used the sequestered Monks later on to preserve the scriptures. Right?
Only God used the Essenes you suggest to train John the baptist properly where he would not have received proper training from the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Scribes of the day. Those whom Christ called white washed tombs, who followed and taught men’s traditions as being above God’s laws.
Well, I’ll let this go and thanks again for all you offered. I’ll keep you in my prayers. I read about you and your friends trouble with lost keys and round trips. It sounded interesting just the same.
Take care.