> He probably means that the Essenes, who existed > before > Jesus was born, were essentially Christians in their > beliefs and > rituals. A good case for this can be made. > (Try http://www.essene.com/ --"for entertainment > purposes only".) > If you insist on some tautological definition like > "Christians are those who profess belief in Christ, > etc", then > it is probably false that there were Christians > before Christ. > But if you want to call all of the early > Jesus-cults > "Christians", you might well cast your nets so wide > that you > catch the Essenes too.
That's an interesting point, but I would reject them as "christians" since I AM working from a narrow definition, that to be a christian implies a belief in Jesus and his role as a messiah. If this is what the Fool intended in his post, I allege he was being uneccessarily vague and imprecise. Damon. > > ---David > > So the doctrine of the Trinity was an attempt to > produce some > unity among the various early Christian sects? > (Either that, or > "Three gods for the price of one".) > _______________________________________________ > http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l > > ===== ------------------------------------------------------------ Damon Agretto [EMAIL PROTECTED] "Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum." http://www.geocities.com/garrand.geo/index.html Now Building: ------------------------------------------------------------ __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free web site building tool. Try it! http://webhosting.yahoo.com/ps/sb/ _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
