Ramchal and Christianity

Rabbi Moshe David Valli

It is unclear as to what the Ramchal believed about Christianity, but a student of Ramchal explains that Jesus was supposed to be the Mashiach ben Yoseph.

Hellenized Jews, Pythagoras, Josephus and the Essenes

The Questionable Origins of the Kabbalah

There's quite a lot of discussion happening on Facebook regarding the legitimacy of the Kabbalah(which is unquestionable IMHO), how it relates to other paths in Judaism and most importantly how one should approach the teaching itself.

Flavius Josephus describes a sect of Jews who lived during the time of the Second Temple who resembled Pythagoreans, a kind of orthodox Greek Philosophy.

The Essens also, as we call a sect of ours, were excused from this imposition. These men live the same kind of life as do those whom the Greeks call Pythagoreans, concerning whom I shall discourse more fully elsewhere. However, it is but fit to set down here the reasons wherefore Herod had these Essens in such honor, and thought higher of them than their mortal nature required; nor will this account be unsuitable to the nature of this history, as it will show the opinion men had of these Essens.

Simeon Bar Yochai and the Essenes

So we can use this to conclude that such mixing had existed before in the past. In fact there is no question that Simeon Bar Yochai(the author of the Zohar) would have encountered the Essenes and possibly learned from them(perhaps vice-versa). There are many claims that the Essenes were connected to early Christianity. 

For there are three philosophical sects among the Jews. The followers of the first of which are the Pharisees; of the second, the Sadducees; and the third sect, which pretends to a severer discipline, are called Essens.

Thus it's notable here that the New Testament mentions both the Pharisees and Sadducees, but not the Essenes. One may safely conclude that this is because the New Testament was written by the Essenes. 

Kabbalah, Rationalism and the Ramchal

Italian Jewry in the Early Modern Era: Essays in Intellectual History by ALESSANDRO GUETTA