ABSTRACT
I regard the Qumran/Essene movement and the Jesus/earliest church movement as independent and parallel phenomena within late Second Temple Judaism. Though John the Baptist may have had ties to the Essenes and some Essenes may have become Christians, I doubt that there was much direct influence from the Essenes (who are never mentioned in the New Testament) on Jesus and the earliest Christians. The Qumran scrolls are important for the study of early Christianity mainly because they tell us about the language, theological concepts, and organizational structures of a Palestinian Jewish group active from the second century BCE to the first century CE. They provide good parallels; but they are not the sources for the New Testament.
