Were Jesus and Galileans not Hebrews ?

[Domias]

Sometimes it is possible to read on Internet that Galilee wasn't a Jew Land but a Pagan country, invaded many times by Greeks, Sumerians, Philistans, Celts and other non-Jewish people. But the Bible said that the Christ had the same blood than David. So what's your opinion ?

[Pine]

He was black

[pompandy]

Sometimes it is possible to read on Internet that Galilee wasn't a Jew Land but a Pagan country, invaded many times by Greeks, Sumerians, Philistans, Celts and other non-Jewish people. But the Bible said that the Christ had the same blood than David. So what's your opinion ?

Galilee had a huge gentil minority, sadly I never had found a percentage estimate, but probably It had a jewish majority except for Far North, and some Western areas(Phoenician in both) and Northeastern(Gaulanitis) (Syrian/Aramean), There were also Greeks(even before 1000 BC) but is difficult to differenciate between them and other non-Jewish groups like Syrians, for example Josephus interchange between Syrians and Greeks in his books. I don't know of Celts living there, I only know about the Galatians but they lived in Anatolia, althought they apparently had a great relation with Jews and even they were one of the first Christian converts, maybe they were Jews before Christianity because when they were already Christians they wanted to come back to Jewish Practices. Maybe some Jews had their blood but I think they were mostly diaspora Jews, especially from Anatolia where Jews have a large population.
He had the same blood of David and he was Jew, but he very probably like most Western Levantines, especially North and Central Levantines(like Galileans) by his times had Greek(probably Ionian or Dorian) (probably more than 15%), Anatolian and other minor ancestries.
So Galilee was mostly Jewish with a good amount of non-Jews and Jesus was probably a Jew of mostly Levantine ancestry and probably a good Amount of Greek/Anatolian and maybe other minor ancestries like Caucasian.

[Domias]

Yes, you're probably right.

[Jacques de Imbelloni]

Essenes


The Essenes (/ˈɛsiːnz, ɛˈsiːnz/; Modern Hebrew: אִסִּיִים‎, Isiyim; Greek: Ἐσσηνοί, Ἐσσαῖοι, or Ὀσσαῖοι, Essenoi, Essaioi, Ossaioi) were a Jewish-Samaritan sect during the Second Temple period that flourished from the 2nd century BCE to the 1st century CE.^[1]
The Jewish historian Josephus records that Essenes existed in large numbers, and thousands lived throughout Roman Judaea, but they were fewer in number than the Pharisees and the Sadducees, the other two major sects at the time. The Essenes lived in various cities but congregated in communal life dedicated to voluntary poverty, daily immersion, and asceticism (their priestly class practiced celibacy). Most scholars claim they seceded from the Zadokite priests.^[2]
The Essenes have gained fame in modern times as a result of the discovery of an extensive group of religious documents known as the Dead Sea Scrolls, which are commonly believed to be the Essenes' library. These documents preserve multiple copies of parts of the Hebrew Bible untouched from possibly as early as 300 BCE until their discovery in 1946. Most scholars dispute the notion that the Essenes wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls.^[3] Rachel Elior questions even the existence of the Essenes.^[4][5][6]
The first reference to the sect is by the Roman writer Pliny the Elder (died c. 79 CE) in his Natural History.^[7] Pliny relates in a few lines that the Essenes possess no money, had existed for thousands of generations, and that their priestly class (“contemplatives”) do not marry. Unlike Philo, who did not mention any particular geographical location of the Essenes other than the whole land of Israel, Pliny places them somewhere above Ein Gedi, next to the Dead Sea.
Josephus later gave a detailed account of the Essenes in The Jewish War (c. 75 CE), with a shorter description in Antiquities of the Jews (c. 94 CE) and The Life of Flavius Josephus (c. 97 CE). Claiming firsthand knowledge, he lists the Essenoi as one of the three sects of Jewish philosophy^[8] alongside the Pharisees and the Sadducees. He relates the same information concerning piety, celibacy, the absence of personal property and of money, the belief in communality, and commitment to a strict observance of Sabbath. He further adds that the Essenes ritually immersed in water every morning, ate together after prayer, devoted themselves to charity and benevolence, forbade the expression of anger, studied the books of the elders, preserved secrets, and were very mindful of the names of the angels kept in their sacred writings.
Pliny, also a geographer, located them in the desert near the northwestern shore of the Dead Sea, where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered.


Rules, customs, theology, and beliefs[edit]

The accounts by Josephus and Philo show that the Essenes led a strictly communal life—often compared to later Christian monasticism.^[35] Many of the Essene groups appear to have been celibate, but Josephus speaks also of another “order of Essenes” that observed the practice of being engaged for three years and then becoming married.^[36] According to Josephus, they had customs and observances such as collective ownership,^[37][38] electing a leader to attend to the interests of the group, and obedience to the orders from their leader.^[39] Also, they were forbidden from swearing oaths^[40] and from sacrificing animals.^[41] They controlled their tempers and served as channels of peace,^[40] carrying weapons only for protection against robbers.^[42] The Essenes chose not to possess slaves but served each other^[43] and, as a result of communal ownership, did not engage in trading.^[44] Josephus and Philo provide lengthy accounts of their communal meetings, meals and religious celebrations.
After a three-year probationary period,^[45] newly joining members would take an oath that included the commitment to practice piety towards God (το θειον) and righteousness towards humanity, to maintain a pure lifestyle, to abstain from criminal and immoral activities, to transmit their rules uncorrupted and to preserve the books of the Essenes and the names of the angels.^[46] Their theology included belief in the immortality of the soul and that they would receive their souls back after death.^[14][47] Part of their activities included purification by water rituals, which was supported by rainwater catchment and storage. According to the Community Rules, repentance was a prerequisite to baptism: "They shall not enter the water... for they will not be cleansed unless they have turned from their evil."^[48]
Ritual purification was a common practice among the peoples of Judea during this period and was thus not specific to the Essenes. A ritual bath or mikveh was found near many synagogues of the period continuing into modern times.^[49] Purity and cleanliness was considered so important to the Essenes that they would refrain from defecation on the Sabbath.^[50]
According to Joseph Lightfoot, the Church Father Epiphanius (writing in the 4th century CE) seems to make a distinction between two main groups within the Essenes:^[27] "Of those that came before his [Elxai, an Ossaean prophet] time and during it, the Ossaeans and the Nasaraeans."Part 18^[51] Epiphanius describes each group as following:

The Nasaraean—they were Jews by nationality—originally from Gileaditis, Bashanitis and the Transjordan... They acknowledged Moses and believed that he had received laws—not this law, however, but some other. And so, they were Jews who kept all the Jewish observances, but they would not offer sacrifice or eat meat. They considered it unlawful to eat meat or make sacrifices with it. They claim that these Books are fictions, and that none of these customs were instituted by the fathers. This was the difference between the Nasaraean and the others...^[52]

After this Nasaraean sect in turn comes another closely connected with them, called the Ossaeans. These are Jews like the former... originally came from Nabataea, Ituraea, Moabitis, and Arielis, the lands beyond the basin of what sacred scripture called the Salt Sea... Though it is different from the other six of these seven sects, it causes schism only by forbidding the books of Moses like the Nasaraean.^[51]

The Nasaraeans or Nasoraeans may be the same as the Mandaeans of today. Epiphanius says (29:6) that they existed before Christ. That is questioned by some, but others accept the pre-Christian origin of this group.^[53]
If it is correct to identify the community at Qumran with the Essenes (and claim that the community at Qumran are the authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls), then according to the Dead Sea Scrolls the Essenes' community school was called “Yahad” (meaning “community”) in order to differentiate themselves from the rest of the Jews who are repeatedly labeled “The Breakers of the Covenant”.