The Essenes Were Nazarenes? Gary Wayne, Please Sit Down.

Okay, I’m going to tackle it...the Gary Wayne conspiracy maze.

If you've followed the podcast for a while, you might remember I mentioned Wayne in Episode 053: Q&A #4 - Manifestation, Discernment, and Gary Wayne.  That was back when The Genesis 6 Conspiracy was making the rounds.  His follow-up, the very original The Genesis 6 Conspiracy Part II, has been out for a bit.  I haven’t read it.  I don’t plan to.  From what I can tell, it might be marginally more “Christian” than the first book, but I wouldn’t bet on that fixing any of the problems of the first one.

My core gripe, then and now, is that Gary Wayne doesn’t seem all that interested in Christianity as Christianity.  He defines things through the lens of modern monotheism vs polytheism and connect-the-dot conspiracism, not the gospel, and not getting our minds in ancient context which didn't work within our modern boxes.  He’ll affirm the Bible, sure, but the interpretive filter is all modern paranoia and post-Enlightenment categories.  The end is nigh and oh look there's a Rothschild!  

Everything Wayne does is tinted by that lens:  modern problems, modern conspiracies, modern political anxieties--all retrojected onto the biblical story.  

Thus, in Wayne’s world:  

• Freemasonry?  Pre-flood.  
  
  
• Secret societies?  Cain’s descendants.  
  
  
• The Essenes?  Definitely mystical polytheists, proto-Gnostics, and oh yeah—they were also the Nazarenes mentioned in Acts.  

Sure. Totally. Sounds legit.
(That’s sarcasm, in case it wasn’t clear.)

I’ve been spending time combing through some of Wayne’s newer interviews, including one recently titled “The Real Truth About Enoch.”  Depending on his interviewer, Wayne shifts gears:  he can sound like a standard Christian apologist in one conversation, and like a tinfoil-hat-theorist with a whiteboard full of bloodlines and fallen angels in the next.  

But let’s zero in on one specific claim from that recent interview:  

Did the Essenes Call Themselves “Nazarenes”?

According to Wayne, yes.  He claims that after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD, the Essenes started calling themselves “Nazarenes” to hide within early Christianity--like theological chameleons--in order to preserve their secret teachings and mystery-religion roots.  

Here’s the problem:  there’s no evidence for that.  

• The Dead Sea Scrolls never use the term “Nazarenes” for the Essenes.  
  
  
• Josephus, Philo, and other ancient sources describe the Essenes with great detail--but never as “Nazarenes."  
  
  
• In the New Testament, particularly Acts 24:5, “Nazarenes” refers to the followers of Jesus of Nazareth, not to Essenes or any mystical sect.  
  
  
• Later church fathers like Epiphanius distinguish groups like the Nazōraioi (Nazarenes) and the Nasaraeans--but again, they don’t equate either of those with the Essenes.  

What Wayne offers isn’t historical evidence--it’s theological fan fiction.  It’s a case of speculative dots connected with yarn and vibes.  

The Deeper Problem: 19th-Century Occult History Masquerading as Biblical Theology

And here’s where it gets especially ironic.  

Wayne's claim is that all secret societies--Templars, Freemasons, Essenes, Gnostics--are connected through a continuous line from the pre-flood world.  That is not ancient revelation.  It's basically medieval and 19th-century occultism.  Which...should be part of what the whole idea is trying to warn everyone about, shouldn't it?  Think Helena Blavatsky, Theosophy, Rosicrucian manifestos.  Let me say the quiet part out loud.  This entire narrative structure—of hidden elites passing secret knowledge through time—is a modern esoteric framework, not a biblical one.  It's bizarre to me how much the very idea takes them so seriously.  

As the work of scholars such as Dr. Simon J. Joseph and others helps to uncover, these kinds of arguments are built on deeply anachronistic readings and esoteric historiography.  (Otherwise known as "making it up as you go along.")  They weren’t invented by biblical scholars--they were imported from fringe mystical movements trying to mix Christianity with Kabbalah, alchemy, and "Atlantis priests who knew better."  And yet they’re trying to warn the world about evil conspiracies connected to dark spiritual powers?  You’ve gotta be kidding me.  

So when someone like Gary Wayne comes along, using 1 Enoch, Dead Sea Scrolls, and Acts to stitch that narrative together, he's not uncovering a hidden biblical truth--he's repackaging old occult mythology in Christian wrapping paper.  

A Better Kind of Discernment

Let me be clear: I believe in spiritual discernment.  I believe there is evil afoot.  I believe in taking texts like 1 Enoch seriously, even when they're not canonical.  And in case I need to say it again...I believe there are real spiritual forces at play in the world, and that those spiritual forces are connected to what's going on with political realities and all other kinds of nonsense and chaos.  But here's the thing:  that belief comes from a biblical lens, which sees the mirroring of heaven and earth...not from the tangled web of leaps of logic and esoteric speculation that Wayne builds his case on. 

Good discernment doesn’t mean chasing secret codes--which includes rewriting history to make every ancient group part of one unified Watcher-worshiping global cabal.  Sometimes discernment just means insisting on actual evidence from the text and history and not making our current context the reality for all of time.  

Sorry, Gary.  The Essenes weren’t Nazarenes and Freemasonry isn’t older than the flood.  Evil doesn't need secret handshakes to get around.  

Just say no to Gnostic-Masonic-Enochian-Essene mashups.  Your theology--and your sanity--will thank you.