Endnote 13 – The Dead Sea Scrolls and Early Christianity: Part One

Frank M. Cross, The Ancient Library of Qumran & Modern Biblical Studies (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, reprint, 1980), pp. 203–204. A revised edition was issued in 1961; a German translation in 1967; and a reprint in 1980. References to the book are to this latest version.

Mention should also be made of the very brief statement that J.T. Milik devotes to the subject in his Ten Years of Discovery in the Wilderness of Judaea, Studies in Biblical Theology 26 (London: SCM Press, 1959 [French edition, 1957]). He notes literary, institutional and doctrinal parallels and argues that Essene influence on the early Church increased after the time of Jesus and the first disciples, especially in Jewish Christianity: “Slightly later we find in one part of the Church Essene influence almost taking over and submerging the authentically Christian doctrinal element; indeed, It may be considered responsible for the break between the Judaeo-Christians and the Great Church” (pp. 142–143).