for the coming of a Messiah, and for the Judgement of God. Believing that their salvation depended entirely on the forgiveness and grace of God, these two religious groups were devoted to pious living, and to preparing the way of God. We have now seen many similarities between the Essene tribe at Qumran and the primitive Christians, from structural and organizational parallels to similar religious beliefs. We must now approach the question of how these analogies help our understanding and interpretation of early Christianity. As we saw earlier, the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls revealed a previously unknown sect of Jews, whose discordance from other Jews in many ways situates it closer to Christianity that to Judaism. This discovery is important to the biblical scholar in that it provides some insight into the formative, intertestamental period in Christian history. While the existence of the Qumran brotherhood may put into question the originality of Christianity, the manuscripts of this sect contribute a great deal to our understanding of Christianity in that they bring to light previously unknown connections between the early Christians and a peculiar group of Jews. We know that there was indeed contact between the two groups through the figure of John the Baptist. Jean Danilou stresses that, “the discovery of the manuscripts has in an undeniable way confirmed the Baptist’s contacts with the monks of Qumran.” He goes on to suggest that, “[i]t is possible that he may have been an Essene. But it is more probable that he was only deeply influenced by Essenism.” It is this connection that highlights the importance of the similarities shared by these two groups. Despite their many differences, shared rituals and beliefs indicate that these two groups did not evolve independently. The influences of Essenism were of considerable importance in the development of a new religion, and can still ...
