Wikipedia:Today's featured article/July 9, 2007

The Ebionites were an early sect of mostly Jewish disciples of Jesus, who flourished in and around the land of Israel, as one of several Jewish Christian communities coexisting from the 1st to the 5th century of the Common Era. Where they took their name from is unclear, since the word appears in several religious texts, such as the Dead Sea scrolls, the Epistle of James, and the Gospel of Luke which features one of Jesus' most well-known blessings: "Blessed are the poor, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven." They are said to have dispossessed themselves of all their goods, and to have lived in religious communes. Since there is no authenticated archaeological evidence for the existence of the Ebionites, their nature and history cannot be definitely reconstructed from surviving references. The little that is known about them comes from critical references by early and influential theologians and writers in the Christian Church, who considered them to be "Judaizers" and "heretics". However, according to some of the modern scholars who have studied the historicity of the Ebionites, they may have been disciples of the early Jerusalem church, who were gradually marginalized by the followers of Paul of Tarsus despite possibly being more faithful to the authentic teachings of the historical Jesus. (more...)

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