James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls I (108 page)

Paul uses this ‘running’ imagery again in 5:7 to encourage his communities who were ‘running well’, not to fall back to ‘circumcision’ and ‘the Law’. Paul returns to it again in the crucial section of 1 Corinthians 9:24–26, where he sets forth his philosophy of ‘running the course to win’, as opposed to the ‘weak’ people with ‘their weak consciences’ – including presumably James – who oppose him.

Interestingly enough, even this imagery of ‘running’ reappears in the Habakkuk
Pesher
(Hab. 2:2), where it is applied to the Scriptural exegeses of the Righteous Teacher of Habakkuk 2:3 on ‘the Delay of the
Parousia
’ and Habakkuk 2:4.
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In 1 Corinthians, Paul mixes it with ‘winning the Crown (
Stephanon
)’ of stadium athletics generally, including boxing. Calculated to infuriate his opponents within the Movement, this is the imagery he uses generally in this letter in support of his position on eating ‘things sacrificed to idols’ and responding to ‘those who would judge him’ on the Authority he claims ‘to eat and drink’.

In Galatians, Paul follows up these assertions with the problem about whether ‘Titus who was with me, being a Greek, was obliged to be circumcised’. He grows extremely heated over this, virtually snarling at the ‘some who came from James’ and ‘those of the circumcision’ (2:12). This mounts to a crescendo, as he airs this problem in the next few chapters in his protestation ‘so your Enemy I have become by
speaking the Truth to you
’ (4:16) and his wish that ‘those throwing you into confusion would
cut themselves off
’ – having the dual meaning of throw themselves out of the Movement, but also ‘cut’ their own sexual members ‘off’ (5:12).

Not only is this a pun on circumcising – which will bear heavily on the Queen Helen episode and the malevolent refraction of it we shall presently identify in Acts, showing that this was the issue that was so infuriating Paul, but also on the language in the Damascus Document about the Children of Israel being ‘cut off in the wilderness’ because ‘they
ate blood
’.

In fact, in chapters 3–4 of Galatians, proceeding towards this climax, Paul, in delineating his new theology of how Jesus’ death redeems us ‘from the curse of the Law’, arrives at how ‘keeping days and months and times and years’ – so important to the Qumran ethos, that they are called there the ‘monthly flags and festivals of Glory’ – are ‘weak and beggarly elements’ that reduce one to ‘bondage’ (Gal. 4:9–10).

In Acts’ version of parallel events, which are at times so confusing as to be almost unfathomable, Stephen is stoned because of problems with so-called ‘Hellenists’ (6:9). Paul gets his vision ‘in the Way’ to Damascus, where Ananias meets him at the house of ‘Judas’; Ananias then also abets him in ‘confounding the Jews who dwelt in Damascus’ (9:22). Then, because ‘
the Jews were conspiring together
to put him to death’, Paul escapes ‘down the walls of Damascus in a basket and flees to Jerusalem to join himself to the Disciples’ (9:23–28), no mention of any intervening trip here ‘into Arabia’ as in Galatians 1:17. In Jerusalem, Paul is ‘with them’ in their comings and goings, that is, the Apostles and Barnabas, ‘speaking boldly in the Name of the Lord Jesus’ (9:28). Again this is totally opposed to the testimony in Galatians. The ‘Hellenists’, as in the case of Stephen previously – by now the code should be pretty clear (read ‘Zealots’) – now wish ‘to put him (Paul) to death’, but ‘the brothers brought him down to Caesarea’ and sent him away to Tarsus (9:29–30). The text adds at this point, ‘Then, indeed, the Assemblies throughout all of Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace’ (9:31).

Now there intervene the episodes about Peter learning ‘not to call any man (or ‘thing’) unclean’ and to accept Gentiles – to the chagrin of ‘
those of the circumcision
’ (10:14–11:2). After this, ‘
certain ones of them
, men from Cyprus and Cyrene (the same as those Hellenists from ‘Cyrene’, ‘Cilicia’, and ‘Asia’, persecuting Stephen above?) came to Antioch to announce the Good News to the Hellenists’. Previously ‘they had spoken the word to
no one except Jews
’ (11:19–20). This is the beginning of Acts’ picture of the Church ‘in Antioch’, where ‘the Disciples were first called Christians’ (11:26).

Two chapters later, Acts lists the founding members of this ‘Church’ or ‘Assembly’ as ‘Barnabas’, who had supposedly gone back to Tarsus to get Paul, ‘bringing him to Antioch’ (11:25), ‘Simeon who was called Niger’ (note the doubling here for names like Niger of Perea, the leader of the prorevolutionary Idumaeans who dies such a Jesus-like death at the hands of ‘the Zealots’, not to mention our old friend ‘Simeon bar Cleophas’), ‘Lucius the Cyrenian’ (possibly Luke), and someone called ‘Manaen, Herod the Tetrarch’s foster brother, and Saul’ (13:1).

As we have suggested, concerning names such as ‘James the brother of John’, we have a possible ‘shell game’ going on and the appellative, ‘Herod the Tetrarch’s’ or ‘Herod Antipas’ foster brother’ may really be descriptive of Paul, not the semi-nonsense name ‘Manaen’.

However this may be, at this point in its narrative Acts tells us that ‘in these days prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch’. Here we are allegedly still talking about ‘Antioch’
in Syria
, not ‘Antioch-by-Callirhoe’ of the Edessenes, some two hundred miles to the north-east (11:27). One of these, one ‘
Agabus
, rose up and predicted
by the Spirit
a Great Famine, that was about to be over the whole habitable world, which came to pass under Claudius Caesar’ (11:28). This then triggers the notice about Barnabas’ and Saul’s Famine-relief mission to the Elders in Judea (11:29–30), which is immediately followed in 12:1 by the one about how ‘at that time Herod the King stretched out (his) hands to mistreat some of the Assembly, and he put James the brother of John to death with the sword’.

Seizing Peter, too, because he saw this ‘was
pleasing to the Jews
’ (the opposite is more likely) – it was the time of the Passover again – ‘he imprisoned him’. This is the point at which Peter escapes and leaves the message for
‘James and the brothers
’ at ‘the house of Mary the
mother of John Mark
’, the first mention of James in Acts’ narrative (12:3–17). Peter then leaves to ‘go to another place’. Of course, all of this is completely anachronistic because ‘the Great Famine’ occurred between 46 and 48 CE and the events Acts appears to be describing occur before 44 CE and Agrippa I’s death, which Acts then apparently goes on to describe (12:19–23).

But all this was introduced by the mention of Barnabas’ and Saul’s mission on behalf of the Antioch Christian Disciples ‘to the brothers living in Judea’, because of the Famine purportedly predicted by
the prophet Agabus
(11:29–30), but nothing about what Paul and Barnabas actually did on this mission or where they went
is ever described
. Instead we get all this other intervening information and the section ends with the completely uncommunicative: ‘Barnabas and Paul returned from Jerusalem, having completed their mission also bringing with them John Mark’ (12:25), followed immediately at the beginning of the next chapter with the enumeration of the ‘prophets and teachers of the Church at Antioch’, which we have just described above.

Now Paul begins what are usually referred to as his ‘missionary journeys’, with a confrontation in Cyprus with a Jewish magician ‘called
Bar-Jesus
’, having much in common with Peter’s confrontation with Simon
Magus
in Caesarea – in this regard, one should remember the confusion in our sources between ‘Cyprus’ and Simon’s ‘Cuthaean’ origins in Samaria – and a sympathetic interview with the Roman proconsul there, ‘Sergius Paulus’ (13:6–12). It is at this point that ‘John Mark’ deserts them ‘to return to Jerusalem’ (13:13). After this, ‘some Jews arrive from Antioch and Iconium’, while Paul is teaching at Lystra ‘and persuaded the crowds’ – this still in Asia Minor – and Paul is stoned (14:19).

After this Paul and Barnabas return to Antioch. Then the ubiquitous ‘certain ones came down from Judea’ and taught the brothers: ‘Unless you circumcise after the tradition of Moses you
cannot be saved
’. This triggers the famous ‘Jerusalem Council’, relating to ‘the conversion of the Peoples’ or ‘the Nations’, which is pictured as going to deal with the issue of whether it was ‘necessary for them to circumcise and be charged with
keeping the Law of Moses
’, but never really does so (15:3–5). This, of course, completely parallels Paul’s obsession with these issues in Galatians, where he describes his return to Jerusalem after fourteen years, not because he was summoned, but as a result of ‘a revelation’, privately to explain the Gospel as he ‘proclaimed it among the Gentiles’, lest somehow he should have ‘
run in vain
’.

At the end of this ‘Conference’, as Acts pictures it, James makes the famous rulings, already amply described, the gist of which are carried down to Antioch in a ‘letter’ delivered by ‘Judas (now ‘Barsabas’) and Silas’, whom Acts describes as ‘themselves prophets’ (15:22–30). As far as Acts is concerned, everyone then ‘rejoices at the consolation’ and, supposedly, all ‘go in peace’ (15:31–33). Notwithstanding, ‘after some days’ Paul and Barnabas have a
violent quarrel
, ostensibly over ‘John Mark’, who had purportedly ‘withdrawn from’ their work in Pamphylia and ‘would not co-operate with them’ any more. It will be recalled, it was supposed to be
his
‘mother’ Mary’s house that Peter went to leave a message for ‘James and the brothers’ in Jerusalem. From ‘John Mark’, too, we never hear again. The language here is also significant, because of numerous parallels at Qumran.
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Paul now sets out for ‘Syria and Cilicia’ (at this point, allegedly with ‘Silas’), never apparently to travel with Jewish companions again, while Barnabas parts company with him and ‘sailed off to Cyprus’ with John Mark (15:32–41). Finally – and, one might observe, blessedly – in chapter 16 the ‘We Narrative’ cuts in. Obviously very little of this jibes with Galatians, except the repeated motif and seeming core issue of whether new converts were going to be required to circumcise themselves or not. Judging from Paul’s anger in Galatians over this issue, it is clearly not resolved by the time he writes this letter either.

Nor do those who come from James either in Galatians or Acts seem to have the same view of the so-called ‘Jerusalem Council’ as Paul does. In fact, these various messengers, who repeatedly ‘come down from James’ and ‘from Jerusalem to Antioch’ – one even called ‘Judas’ in Acts (namely ‘Judas
Barsabas
’) – have much in common with ‘Judas
Thomas
sending out Thaddaeus’ to Edessa, as reported in Eusebius’ Agbarus correspondence and its variations – whoever these two individuals really were.

However this may be, the whole issue of an intervening trip to Jerusalem by Paul for the purposes of Famine relief – supposedly triggered in Acts’ account by the coming down from Jerusalem to Antioch of ‘a prophet called Agabus’ (paralleling the notice about ‘Theudas claiming to be a prophet’ in Josephus) – is just not covered in the Letter to the Galatians at all. On the other hand, Acts does not treat what Paul was doing in the intervening ‘fourteen years’, between the time he stayed with Peter ‘for fifteen days’ in Galatians and met ‘James the brother of the Lord’ – before going off ‘to the regions of Syria and Cilicia’ – and the time he returned to put ‘the Good News as he announced it among the Gentiles’ before ‘those reckoned as important’. The reference to ‘Syria and Cilicia’
is
, however, mentioned at this point in Acts in conjunction with this new mission with this companion ‘Silas’
after
the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15:41).

The ‘prophet by the name of Agabus’ does, of course, reappear – again fortuitously – in chapter 21 of Acts, just before Paul is about to go up on his last visit to Jerusalem to his final confrontation with James. Once more, the issue is Paul’s teaching ‘all Jews among the Nations
not to circumcise their children nor walk in our ways
’ – probably the truth of the matter. This comes right after the notice about the majority of James’ followers being ‘Zealots for the Law’ (21:20–21). Even in the speech Acts now pictures James as giving, there is no doubt as to which national grouping he belongs. He is certainly
on the side of the Jews
– not those teaching them to desert
their ancestral customs
– but, of course, we are now in the ‘We Document’ in these events.

In the episode at Caesarea preceding this, Paul is pictured as staying at ‘the house of Philip the Evangelist, one of the Seven’, who ‘has
four virgin daughters who prophesied
’ (21:8–9). It will be recalled that later in Acts Paul is also pictured as staying in protective custody in Agrippa II’s palace (23:35). The Philip in Josephus, who was the head of Agrippa II’s army, likewise lived in Caesarea. Josephus specifically notes his ‘two daughters’, who miraculously escaped the mass suicide at Gamala in the early days of the War.

Interestingly enough, like the Saulus in Josephus, this Philip too is sent to Nero in Rome to give an account of his actions in surrendering Agrippa II’s Palace to the insurgents in Jerusalem, an event in which Josephus’ ‘Saulus’ seems to have been involved as well. Unlike Saulus, however, Philip seems to have returned safely to Palestine after this mission, Nero being too preoccupied with his own troubles by this time to see him.
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On the other hand, the ‘prophet by the name of Agabus’, once again described as ‘a
somebody who came down from Judea
’, now came to Paul at this house and ‘taking hold of his girdle and tying his hands and feet up’ in it (
thus
), cried out: ‘Thus says the Holy Spirit:
The Jews in Jerusalem
shall in this manner bind the man whose girdle this is and
deliver him up into the hands of the Nations
’ (21:10–12). Not only do we have our tell-tale ‘Gentile Christian’ anti-Jewish animus again, but the same words, ‘delivered up’, used throughout the Gospels to describe Judas
Iscariot
’s treatment of Jesus and in the Scrolls to describe God’s ‘Judgement’ or ‘Visitation’ for Vengeance on Jewish backsliders and Covenant-breakers. For Acts now, weaving in and out of the ‘We Document’, everyone present then begins to weep, begging Paul ‘not to go up to Jerusalem’, but he peremptorily dismisses these concerns, declaring he is ‘ready to be bound and even die in Jerusalem for the Name of the Lord Jesus’ (21:13).