Consequences of Modern Biblical Scholarship
It is getting difficult to ignore the connection from the Essene movement to early Christianity; between finding John the Baptist's recipe for locusts at Qumran and the gospels of Matthew and Luke having near-direct quotes of the book of Sirach (3 copies in the DSS), Hodayot, Razim, Community Rule, and other DSS manuscripts, it is reasonable to speculate on that basis.
The Essenes, in turn, appear to be the exiled Zadokite priests usurped by the Seleucids, then sidelined by the Hasmoneans, who became obsessed with purification (to win back God's favor to take the priesthood back) and apocalyptic messianism (because surely the temple would fall without God's ordained priests in charge, and surely Elijah would return before then).
Christianity, then, appears to be a continuation of this tradition once the temple has fallen, but the world didn't end, so the prophecy must have been fulfilled, John the Baptist took on the role of Elijah (Matthew 11:14, 17:12-13; Luke 1:17), the prophet of the messiah, Yeshua/Joshua/Jesus, who must have obviated the functions that the temple was necessary for - that is, the ritual sacrifices necessary to extirpate sin and guilt, the maintenance of the covenant with God, and requests/thanks for divine intervention - which must have been replaced by a greater sacrifice.
This radically changes the interpretation of much of Paul's letters, for example the metaphor of the cultivated olive tree in Romans 11:
> “If the root is holy, so are the branches... you [Gentiles] were cut out of a wild olive tree and grafted, contrary to nature, into a cultivated olive tree... they [non-believing Israel] were broken off because of unbelief.”
This is normally interpreted to mean than the tree is the nation of Israel, the root is the Patriarchs, the unbelieving Jews were cut out, and the believing gentiles grafted in.
But from a Zadokite perspective, the root was the Zadokite covenant from Numbers 25:
> The Lord said to Moses, “Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the priest, has turned my anger away from the Israelites. Since he was as zealous for my honor among them as I am, I did not put an end to them in my zeal. Therefore tell him I am making my covenant of peace with him. He and his descendants will have a covenant of a lasting priesthood, because he was zealous for the honor of his God and made atonement for the Israelites.”
The "cultivated olive tree" was the faithful remnant of the old priesthood, i.e. the Essenes and then Christians; the "broken off" were the false priests, first the Hasmoneans, then the Herodians, and finally the Pharisees; and the gentiles were grafted in to that priestly covenant, implicitly outside of the temple.
Paul continues in Romans 11:
> “Lest you be wise in your own conceits, I want you to understand this mystery, brothers: a hardening has come upon part of Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And in this way all Israel will be saved.”
The same term "mystery" appears in the DSS and refers to revealed eschatological knowledge to the elect, which is that the non-elect, i.e. usurpers of the priesthood, have "hardened" until the gentiles are included, after which "all Israel," that is all of the elect, will be saved.
If true, the implications are staggering: Christianity is not, then, a splinter off of an older Judaic tradition, but in fact the legitimate heir of a pre-Maccabean priestly lineage which, in fact, predates the Mishnah-based Judaism which developed after the destruction of the temple in 70 CE.