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My Premier Book:
Jesus the Wicked Priest
How Christianity Was Born of an Essene Schism
Imprint: Bear & Company
Decodes the Dead Sea Scrolls to reveal Christianity’s hidden Essene origins
• Reveals the Essenes as key figures behind Jesus’s trial, torture, and crucifixion
• Shows how Jesus, a former Essene himself, was deemed “the Wicked Priest” for his liberationist politics and humanist bent
• Examines the lost Christian doctrine of reincarnation and the secret role of Gabriel in the Virgin Birth
The Dead Sea Scrolls, discovered in 1947 at Qumran, are generally believed to have been written by a Jewish sect known as the Essenes between 350 BCE and 70 CE—but until now no convincing methodology has linked the Scrolls to the actual life and teachings of Jesus. Marvin Vining builds from the controversial work of Barbara Thiering to demonstrate that the Scrolls do speak directly to the origins of Christianity, and even reflect a mirror image of the Gospels from the perspective of Jesus’s enemies.
Christianity arose out of a schism between the exclusivist, rigid, and militant views of the Essenes and the inclusivist, tolerant, and nonviolent views of Jesus. Jesus was raised an Essene, but he refused to follow their orthodoxy. Vining shows that the Dead Sea Scrolls are written in a secret coded language called pesher in which Jesus emerges as the Wicked Priest, the antagonist to the Teacher of Righteousness who was the leader of the Essenes. Jesus the Wicked Priest revitalizes the Gospel message by revealing Jesus’s true role as a tireless social reformer and revolutionary teacher. Vining’s study reopens Christian doctrinal questions supposedly long settled, such as reincarnation and the virgin birth—even demonstrating that these two issues are related. The angel Gabriel was incarnate in a living human being, and he transmitted the seed of a holy bloodline to the Virgin Mary.
About the Author of Jesus the Wicked Priest
Marvin Vining, an attorney who is in the process of ordination in the United Methodist Church, spent fourteen years researching and writing this book. He is a Bible scholar who holds a master’s degree in philosophy and has studied theology for many years. He lives in Mississippi.
Why the Title?
Some readers may be put off by the title, Jesus the Wicked Priest, because they don’t understand its context. Jesus the Wicked Priest is not an anti-Christian book; it is a very pro-Christian book that seeks to recover the authentic gospel message through historical-critical research. Wicked Priest is how the Essene Dead Sea Scrolls authors referred to Jesus after he broke from them at the outset of his ministry. From that point forward, the Essenes considered Jesus a heretic and their principle enemy.
Praise for Jesus the Wicked Priest
Marvin Vining has produced a fascinating and engaging book with a provocative thesis—namely that the Dead Sea Scrolls refer directly to Jesus of Nazareth and that the Essene movement that they represent opposed him as the character they called ‘The Wicked Priest.’ This sort of connection between Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls, both in terms of chronology and history, has been dismissed in its more extreme forms as represented by Barbara Thiering, and in a more sophisticated version represented by Robert Eisenman by almost all scholars in the field. Vining skillfully puts the case back on the table. Although he is technically a ‘non-specialist,’ his grasp of the sources and issues is as admirable as his thesis is provocative. I believe Vining deserves a careful reading by non-specialists and those in the academy alike. He writes in an engaging and skillful way and I look forward to the fruitful debates that can potentially ensue in the field, based on his work.
—James D. Tabor, Ph.D., chairman, Department of Religious Studies, UNC Charlotte, author The Jesus Dynasty
Vining’s work is remarkable Christian scholarship. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the Essenes, Jesus, and the early Christian Church.
—Clayton Sullivan, Ph.D., author of Rescuing Jesus From the Christians
Sneak Preview
A central theme of Jesus the Wicked Priest is to make Christian orthodoxy fully answerable to all Jewish concerns. To better understand this type of approach to interfaith dialogue, some readers may find it helpful to look ahead to excerpts from the next book (still in progress) tentatively titled: Truth Is Ours? Seeking Christian Renewal by Testing Jesus Against Comparative Religion. Note in the "God the Mother" chapter how clearly Jesus's feminism emerges once we understand he was contrasting himself against the misogynistic Essenes.
Truth Is Ours? Except PDF (789KB)
Copyright © 2008 by Marvin Vining. All rights reserved.
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