[dark_lord]

But there really isn't much resemblance between the Essenes and the early Christians. John the Baptist as he is portrayed in the Gospels bears no resemblance to what little we know about that sect.

That may be true. At the time of John the Baptist (and Jesus the Christ) there were three primary Judaic sects: the Essenes, the Pharisees, and the Sadducees. I find it interesting that Jesus beats up on the latter two in several places in the New Testament, but not the former. An excellent summary of the Essene sect can be found at this link.

There is a bunch of, IMO "crap", postings on the web that purport to claim that Jesus was an Essane, that modern Christianity is not the true path, blah blah blah. Mainly a bunch of bunk.

My belief is that the Christ was surely exposed to Essane teachings, and some of his teaching overlap with theirs, nor did he personally appear as hostile toward their teachings as he sometimes did towards the Pharisees and the Sadducees. But was he "brought" up as an Essane? Clearly not. Did he learn some Essane teachings while growing up? Possibly. Not important, though. His message was his message, and that's the end of it.

[geopyg]

Perhaps the reason why Jesus didn't confront the Essenes was that they didn't hold much power (did they?).

Another thought - weren't the first few apostles followers of John the Babtist to a degree (and therefore possibly Essenes?) But Jesus often had to correct them as well, particularily when it came to their idea of him as an earthly king and leader to free them from the Romans. (Just my .02 from what I remember from Sunday School.)

(P.S. Why am I responding to someone named "dark_lord" on a thread about religion!?)