Missing Links to Jesus: Evidence in the Dead Sea Scrolls presents pattern evidence demonstrating that Jesus was raised and influenced by the Dead Sea Sect.
Contact: McNeill Stokes, 404-352-2144, mcstokes@bellsouth.net
ATLANTA, Feb. 19 /Christian Newswire/ -- A new book compares the Dead Sea Scrolls with the teachings of Jesus and the beliefs and practices of early Christians to allow readers to answer questions about where Jesus spent his missing years. The author, an attorney, marshals the pattern evidence in this comparative study to show the uniquely similar teachings of Jesus and the Dead Sea Sect. This illuminates the mystery of the whereabouts of Jesus during his hidden years as well as what shaped his life and ministry.
McNeill Stokes emphasizes a striking commonality between Jesus and the Dead Sea Sect, known as the Essenes. Major events in the life of Jesus, as described in the New Testament, were prophesied in Essene literature using virtually identical language.
The book shows that the distinctive and highly moral Essenes recruited precocious youths and schooled them in Essene beliefs and practices to become leaders in their celibate society. Pattern evidence is presented of the high probability that the Essenes raised and influenced Jesus, his cousin John the Baptist, and his brother James. All three exhibited similar Essene values, beliefs, and practices.
The book emphasizes that John the Baptist is identified with the Essenes by the concurrent location, identical motives, likeness in his dress, diet, and celibacy, as well as very similar spiritual purification baptism ceremonies involving religious convictions, repentance, and water purification.
The book demonstrates that the teachings of Jesus are similar to the Essenes in an overwhelming number of beliefs and practices including: rewarding the righteous with salvation and resurrection and judgment for the unrighteous at the end of days, announcing New Covenants combining the current covenant with a future eternal covenant, practicing universal goodness and supportive companionship, practicing faith healings and exorcisms with the laying on of hands, unique similar writing styles of beatitudes, metaphors, parables, commentaries and community rules, communal meals of bread and wine celebrating the Messiah, and the willingness to die for their religious beliefs.
Missing Links to Jesus: Evidence in the Dead Sea Scrolls can be ordered on line from the publisher: Plowpoint Press at www.missinglinkstojesus.info for $24.95.
Contact: Kelly Crissman, Publisher
336-226-0282,
kelly@plowpoint.org
McNeill Stokes, Author
404-352-2144
mcstokes@bellsouth.net
