Jesus the Man spiritual "father", Annas the high priest, "who taught peace with Rome and the promotion of Gentiles". He was rebaptized by John the Baptist in March, 29 AD. Thiering says that John is identical to the Essene Teacher of Righteousness, praised in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Jesus soon split from John, becoming one of the leaders of a party "called the Twelve Apostles", some of whom (including Judas Iscariot and Simon Magus) were zealots and others (including Jesus), pacifists. Because of his opposition to John, Jesus is referred to the Dead Sea Scrolls as the Wicked Priest. Thiering examines each of
Ethics in the Bible from morally edifying... Second, though Old Testament stories are about what we might call 'moral issues', it is often not easy to decide what is being commended and what deplored. Third there is a general problem about describing the moral world of biblical narrative... are we talking about the real world...or the imagined world?" Barton concludes, the Bible's moral "philosophy is more complicated than it might appear." Jewish philosophers Shalom Carmy and David Schatz explain one of many difficulties doing philosophy in the Bible is that philosophers dislike contradicting themselves whereas the Bible, by contrast, "often juxtaposes contradictory ideas, without