observers of early Christian history, such as Dr. Matthew Black; Dr. Hugh Schonfield; and Hyam Maccoby, who was visiting professor at Leeds University until his death in May 2004; make little more than passing reference to the Qumran-Essene effect. Their views can be summarized as follows: The oldest roots of the Christian movement in Galilee are to be sought in a group of dedicated Nazirites, sectarians who continued the ancient Israelite institution of the lifelong Nazirate. 9Even a modernist writer such as John Crossan, professor of Biblical Studies at De Paul University, Chicago, has a virtual blind spot when it comes to considering how the Qumran-Essenes might have influenced Jesus or the Christian Scriptures. When he does mention the Dead Sea Scrolls, his facts are questionable. 10 In all these works, the associations of Jesus and John the Baptist with Qumran are highly contentious, accepted by many Oldest known Icon of Christ Pantocrator from St. Catherines Monastery, Mt. Sinai (6th-7th century).scholars but disputed by others, as the following paragraphs point out.The present state of opinion from authoritative scholars such as Magen Broshi (former curator, Shrine of the Book, Israel Museum), Geza Vermes (professor emeritus, Oxford University), and Professor George Brooke (Manchester University), is weighted in favor of John the Baptist having been a member of the Qumran-Essene community at some period in his life. The tendency, however, is to resist drawing a similar association for Jesus. This resistance, as one would expect, is far stronger from Christian, particularly Catholic, commentators, such as Father Emile Puech (director of research, CNRS, Paris), Professor Carsten Peter Thiede (minister, Church of England), Father Jerome Murphy-OConnor (Ecole Biblique, Jerusalem), and Professor J. Van der Ploeg (University of Nijmegen, Holland).The more the emerging information is examined and the existing material reevaluated, the more apparent it becomes that the hotbed of spiritual industry bubbling away at Khirbet Qumran on the northwestern edge of the Dead Sea was a cauldron from which were cast many of the templates of early Christian ideasa background that early Christian writers were readily able to adapt to the experiences of Jesus.To assess what the relationship of John the Baptist and Jesus might have been to Qumran, it is necessary to understand a bit more about this strange, quirky, secretive, male-dominated, nonconformist Jewish community, and why the predominantly Christian researchers involved in early Dead Sea Scrolls studies tended to shy away from linking Jesus and John the Baptist to Qumran. The Qumran CommunityThe community that lived at Qumran never referred to themselves in their own documents as Essenes. The name is one applied to them by the Roman/Jewish historian Josephus. Since detaching themselves from the Temple environment, around 140 BCE., the community shunned its ceremonies and castigated the officiating Sadduceean priests for not adhering to the correct calendar, amongst other objections. However, the Second Temple was, to the Essenes, a place of intense contradiction. The holy place, central in concept to their inheritance, was occupied by alien forces and governed by the whims of Herod, a lackey of Rome. The Temples size and shape were