Baptizing in the Wilderness

 

 John the Baptist

baptized"in the Wilderness"

according to Mark 1:4 and

Matthew 3:1. The latter

text makes it clear that the

Wilderness of Judea is the

place specified...

Not until Barbara Thiering did her work on the Gospel Pesher did

anyone realize that Khirbet Mird [Hyrcanea] was a major Essene

site, and that for a long time John the Baptist was one of the most

favored preachers of the Herod family.

He was able to preach and baptize because the Herods had

constructed an aquaduct from the mountains [mainly Jabel Muntar]

to Hyrcania, filling up its several cisterns during the rainy season...

The largest remaining structure of this aquaduct is pictured above

with a man standing at the left for effect.

 

 ....It is, of course, well

known that the Herods

stayed occasionally at

Mird/Hyrcania, and some

of them are buried here,

but the ESSENE connect-

ion is NEW since Thiering

It is not easy to get to Khirbet Mird, since it is practically in the

center of the Wilderness of Judea, but a paved road goes almost

there, and if you know which off-road trail to take, less than a

mile of walking will take you the rest of the way.

When I took the above photo, in 1993, a little of the floor mosaic

could still be seen, and someone had set up the square stone at

one end to serve as John the Baptist's pulpit!

No room at the Inn!

 

 The "Inn" is an Essene nick-name for what is now

the MarSaba Monastery, which can be reached by

a winding road from Bethlehem....Perched on the

side of a cliff, one sees the Kidron brook far below.

As in other Essene sites, not everyone could sleep in this "Inn", only those who had

taken vows as a "Nazirite"..thus this site was also called "the NAZARA" or in the

Gospels, "Nazareth"....This was often the home of Joseph the Zealot, and Jesus

his son did much of his growing up at or near "the NAZARA" or "Nazareth".......

There were facilities at this site for the wives of married Essenes to give

birth to their children, but Mary was not allowed to give birth to Jesus here because

some questioned his legitimacy....Particularly was this so whenever Caiaphas was

High Priest at the Jerusalem temple...

All of the important people in Israel of the early first century AD

belonged to the Essenes, even Caiaphas.....Since Herod the Great

had liked and supported the Essenes, providing them with their

most holy site at Hyrcania/Mird, political expediency dictated that

every High Priest be at least a nominal member!

Of Joseph the Zealot's two oldest sons, Jesus and James, Caiaphas

preferred James, but the Annas family of priests favored Jesus, since

he showed Pacifist inclinations, and defied his Zealot father!

 

 This is the true meaning of

Luke 2:40-52, when Jesus

in the year 12 [not 12 years

old] went Jerusalem with

  

his family, and made known his Pacifist ideas to the Annas family [the doctors of

the law], and when his father and mother came to fetch him, said "I must be about

my Father's business." [Luke 2:49]....In the view of Jesus [and the Annas family]

God's "business" was PEACE not WAR....The Gospels even on a literal level

support these peaceful coexistence ideas of Jesus....

The NAZARETH Jesus returned to in Luke 2:51 was Mar Saba, the major

cult site of the Nazirites, a few miles southwest of Bethlehem, not the far-away

cross-roads village in Galilee, which may or may not have existed at that time...

 

 In Luke 4:16, Jesus is again in NAZARETH, "where

he had been brought up." Allowed to speak because

an Annas priest was in power, at least in Qumran, he

preached a "Jubilee" sermon,which they approved of.

 

 However, he also was complementary to the Samar-

itans and other non-Israelites [Luke 4:25-28] who

were also his political support at Qumran, and his

Nazirite audience made a threatening gesture...

The location of Mar Saba on the brow of a very steep precipice,

as shown in this photo I took over the railing in 1993, with the

Brook Kidron far below, is one of the features that allow us to

identify "Nazareth" the cult center of the Nazarites not far from

Bethlehem and Jerusalem as the "Nazareth" of Jesus's childhood

and youth, distressing as this may be to those in Galilee making

big money on Christian traditions.

If there was indeed such a precipice among those few houses

and farms thought to have existed in the first century where

the large city of Nazareth of Galilee is today, it would have

taken unusual efforts to take a struggling Jesus to this place,

while the opportunity for such a gesture exists

always at the Mar Saba location! [Luke 4:28-30]

 

 The map on the left, redrawn from Barbara

Thiering's Jesus and the Riddle of the Dead

Sea Scrolls, shows how the wilderness sites of

Mar Saba and Mird/Hyrcania were ideal for

people walking on foot up and down the wadis between the Dead Sea and the

city of Jerusalem to stop over and sleep on this 2 day journey...Mar Saba and

Mird are only a mile or so apart cross country, but one must climb down steep

cliffs to the Brook Kidron and back up the other side...Dr. Thiering promotes

the logical idea that priestly Essenes slept over at Mird, the "Holier" of the two

sites, while married Essenes and non-Essenes would sleep either in caves near

Mar Saba, or at a distance from Mird on the other side of that wadi......If they

were Nazirites they were welcome at what became Mar Saba.

 

 .........On the map of the old walled city of

Jerusalem on the left, the Essene Quarter

is the very lowest part, next to the temple. At

the extreme lower left is the Essene Gate,

with a street running from the gate into the

city....Josephus confirms that Jesus was indeed

seen by his friends and followers 3 days after

he was crucified [Josephus, Antiq. 8.3.3(63)]

Barbara Thiering PhD, in Jesus and the Riddle of the Dead Sea

Scrolls shows it was at the Essene Gate that Jesus made this

appearance, not far from David's tomb and the "Upper Room"

where tourists are now taken.....All of what used to be the Essene

Quarter is now outside the walls, including the "Upper Room",

but this was not the case in the early first century CE.

Josephus also plainly states that the Essenes were the second

largest religious cult or denomination in Judaism, outnumbered

only by the Pharisees, and more numerous than the Sadducees.

However He may have differed with some Essenes

[such as his Zealot father] on some issues, such

differences were tolerated, and Jesus was accept-

ed as a Messiah of the Essenes for 3 1/2 years.

Present scholars ERR in that they assume that the strict

regulations and extreme sectarianism of the Dead Sea Scrolls

reflected the actual practice of ALL of their members.

Begin Essene Tour.......A critique of Barbara Thiering's Work

<For a really good explanation of Mary Magdalene's role in all this, although a novel, like "The Da Vinci Code" read my book, available from LuLu.com. The cover picture is on the left! The title is "Mary Magdalene and the Sword EXCALIBUR" by Dr. Bob Holt. Published May 2006

One can convey a lot more information in a book than on a website, for obvious reasons. Only $9.95 plus shipping. Credit cards acceptable.

About the Gospel Pesher........healthark.com Home Page

Dr. Barbara Thiering's book "JESUS and the RIDDLE of the DEAD SEA SCROLLS" was published in GB, Australia, and the USA by Harpur Books in 1992. It gives the real story of Jesus, Mary Magdalene, Lydia [Jesus' second Essene wife] and the 12 Apostles and Paul [all Essenes]. We use this REAL HISTORY on this website, and always have used it. Those who wish to preserve and use the myths and fables beloved by all church leaders are entitled to do so!

"I went to Qumran and the other Desert Essene sites in the fall of 1992 and checked out the truth of Thiering's "Gospel Pesher" R. Holt