Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

According to Flavius Josephus, it seems that the Essenes took part in the war against the Romans. Indeed the great Jewish historian relates that one of the four generals in charge of the fight against the Romans was an Essene , John the Essene, who was in command at Tamna and in the neighbouring: Emmaus, Lidda and Jaffa, in the central part of the Judaea. John the Essene was killed in the siege if the town of Askalon on the shore of the Mediterranean. If the rebellious Jews entrusted their defense to an Essene chief, it shows that the Essenes had also took part in the revolt. Flavius also relates that the Romans inflicted dreadful tortures upon the Essenes who kept laughing while they were being tortured and died without failing in their vows. From this passage also one might conclude that the Essenes fought against the Romans during the 67-71 war.

Of Judas the Essene Josephus relates ("Ant." xiii. 11, § 2; "B. J." i. 3, § 5) that he once sat in the Temple surrounded by his disciples, whom he initiated into the (apocalyptic) art of foretelling the future, when Antigonus passed by. Judas prophesied a sudden death for him, and after a while his prediction came true, like everyother one he made. A similar prophecy is ascribed to Simon the Essene ("Ant." xvii. 13, § 3; "B. J." ii. 7, § 4), who is possibly identical with the Simon in Luke ii. 25. Add to these John the Essene, a general in the time of the Roman war ("B. J." ii. 20, § 4; iii. 2, § 1), and it becomes clear that the Essenes, or at least many of them, were men of intense patriotic sentiment; it is probable that from their ranks emanated much of the apocalyptic literature.

Concerning John “the Essene” as meaning “from Essa” or Gerasa, instead of the name of the religious order, I think the most accurate conclusion is that John “the Essene” is philologically compatible with either reading, not expressed more strongly than that. I do not see cause for supposing the religious-order meaning (the sense in every other instance in which the word appears in Josephus) is excluded or less likely.

The argument that because the two other generals named with John the Essene–Niger the Perean and Silas the Babylonian–are identified by ethnicons, that John therefore also is, I think is more illusory of an argument than actual. As studies of Jewish names have brought out, most Jewish given names were so common that there had to be some further identifier to make clear who was meant in any first introduction by name of a figure, whether patronymic, tribe, trade/occupation, “from “, or acquired nickname in currency from exploit or physical characteristic or whatever. In the case of Niger and Silas, “Perea” is a region, and “Babylonian” is the major metropolis or its region far away. Josephus’s Gerasa or Essa, however, is a town which some scholars understand to be Jerash and others think is in Judea itself (War 4.487, archaeological location remains disputed), not a region or the famous Babylon. There is no obvious reason why John should be named on the basis of how the two others were named. That almost assumes Josephus originated the descriptor of John on the occasion of writing those lines (influenced by the other two names), as distinguished from using a known or recognizable already-existing nickname for John as the descriptor.

By far the most common descriptor in Josephus for names is patronymic, “son of “, and the reason that is not done in the case of Niger and Silas is sensible in that they come from afar. However there is no logic to assuming John also likely came from afar, simply because the other two generals, Niger and Silas, did.

As for the argument that John is not presented by Josephus as behaving in any way distinctive of Essenes the religious order, that also lacks positive force as an argument, if the nickname preexisted Josephus’s writing of that passage (Josephus does not tell everything). And since Josephus explicitly does say that during the recent “war with the Romans” the Essenes (by name) acted heroicly, smiled under torture, etc and etc (War 2.152), why assume that the heroic general John the Essene would not be the religious order term?

It may or may not be of interest that in Josippon, John the Essene (of Greek Josephus) is not called “Essene” but given a different expression instead, as follows:

“They [government of Jerusalem] sent therefore [to Ashkelon] Neger the Edomite, Shiloch the Babylonian and Jehochanan with a power of the common people” (Abbreviated English Josippon, 2019 Jacob Michaels edition from 1559 Morvyn, p. 90).

It is ethnicons for the other two, but John “with a power of the common people” (instead of “Essene”) is not an ethnicon, in Josippon.

One theory for “the Essene” as John’s descriptor, the origin of that nickname for John, draws on Josephus’s telling elsewhere of Essenes raising other men’s children, i.e. ancient practical means by which orphans or children of unwed mothers might be raised (War 2.120). In the recent Boccaccini conference on John the Baptist the paper by Clare Rothschild (4th day) made a good argument that Luke preserves a birth-origin story of John in circulation among the disciples of John. In that story John is supposedly born to aged elderly parents beyond the age of childrearing (local gossips questioned that story of paternity), however the aged parents do not raise the child themselves but John is raised “in the deserts” (Lk 1:80), perhaps a circumlocution for John raised by the Essenes who raised other men’s children. Of course this is story and legend.

Bottom line: philologically either meaning, the religious order or “from Essa”, works, and neither is excluded on philological grounds. Taking into account non-philological factors, I believe it more likely that “Essene” applied to John carries the religious-order sense in that instance, as the word does in every other use in Josephus.