James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls I (111 page)

Even more interesting, when considering Josephus’ terminology of ‘
Idumaean
’, Herod’s sister had married one ‘Costobarus’, whom Josephus in turn identifies as an ‘
Idumaean
’ or ‘
Edomite
’. This seems to be the line from which Paul’s
Herodian
namesake ‘Saulus’ descended, since ‘Saulus’ is always linked in these notices in Josephus, two or three generations further along, with the two names ‘Antipas’ and ‘Costobarus’, the latter of whom Josephus identifies as Saulus’ brother.
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Political motives aside, many of these so-called petty ‘Kings of the Nations’ or ‘Peoples’ (
Ethnon
) – as the Romans referred to them – were little more than minor ‘Arab Chieftains’ as Strabo correctly points out. Pliny even refers to Charax Spasini, the town where Izates resided on the Persian Gulf, as ‘a town of Arabia’ and its inhabitants also, therefore, as simply ‘Arabs’.
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It should be remarked that even in the Koran some six centuries along, we have an echo of these matters in the stories of ‘’Ad and Thamud’ and the fact that Muhammad regards all these ‘Tribes’ or ‘Peoples’ and the messengers who were sent to them as ‘
Arab
’ or ‘
Arabs
’.

His ‘
’Ad and Thamud
’, as suggested above, are clearly simply further garblings of the names ‘
Addai
’ and ‘
Thomas
’ and his stories, featuring them, are little more than echoes of these events centering about both Edessa and Adiabene. In claiming they ‘
denied the Messengers
’, Muhammad identifies the first of these as the
Arabian
prophet
Hud
‘
the brother of ‘Ad
’. ‘
Hud
’ in Hebrew is nothing but ‘
Yehudah
’ or ‘
Judah
’ and, therefore, our old friend ‘
Judas the Zealot
’ or ‘
Judas the brother of James
’ (or even ‘
Judas Barsabas
’) again – ‘
sent to teach the Truth to the people of Edessa
’ – all this now in the Koran!

To ‘
Thamud
’, which is always paired with ‘‘Ad’ in the Koran and basically replicates it, was sent ‘
their brother Salih
’, which simply means ‘
Righteous One
’ in Arabic; so, once again, we have both the themes of the ‘
Righteous One
’ and
his ‘brother’
! For Muhammad, ‘
Thamud
’ is an area abounding in ‘hills, springs, plains, and date palms’ (Koran 7.75 and 26.148–9), which is a very good description of the area around Edessa and Haran, Abraham’s homeland. It fits well the description Josephus gives of the Kingdom he calls ‘
Carron
’ (probably Edessa Carrhae – which he elsewhere identifies with Haran), that Izates’ father gave him, wherein allegedly was found the ark. Though Muhammad confuses the area ‘
Thamud
’ with the individual ‘
Hud
’, that he is dealing with the story of the evangelization of these areas by the individuals Judas
Thomas
and
Addai
(themselves confused in early Church sources), should be clear.

But Muhammad too repeatedly connects ‘
’Ad
’ and ‘
Thamud’
with ‘
the People of Noah
’ and with Abraham (Koran 7.65–79 and 14.10 – this, the
Surah
entitled ‘
Abraham
’). This is a very important conjunction, as both of these individuals were considered to be connected to these lands and the traditions about them. He also repeatedly mentions the ark (11.38–50, in the chapter dedicated to ‘
Hud
’, not to mention ‘
Salih
’ and 26.106–20). The conjunction of ‘
Hud
’ with ‘
Salih
’ is, of course, the conjunction of ‘Judas’ with ‘his brother, the Righteous One’ (probably James).

In Hippolytus’ version of these things, Noah’s ark is identified as landing ‘
in the Land of Adiabene
’ – in Josephus, these are the lands Izates’ father gives him. A final note – in these stories, Abraham’s city of origin, ‘
Haran
’, is usually connected in some manner with either the conversion of Helen or her sons, or that of ‘
King Agbar
’ correlating with it. This to some extent explains Paul’s concentration on ‘Abraham’ in his letters – not to mention Muhammad’s similar emphasis succeeding to him – and, by extension, James 2:21’s brusque response about the sacrifice of Isaac, an important matter in Hebrews 11:17–20 as well (also echoed in the Koran – 37.101–14). This will also be seen to be the focus of both the admonitions and comparisons in the Letter(s) known as ‘
MMT
’.

The Conversion of Queen Helen and Her Son Izates in Josephus

As Josephus then tells this story, ‘a certain Jewish merchant, whose name was Ananias, got among the women that belonged to the King and taught them to worship God according to the Jewish Religion’. Again one should remark the custom of multiple wives. The note here about Ananias being ‘a merchant’ is not surprising and adds to its authenticity, since certainly Charax Spasini, and Palmyra further north, were commercial centres. In this manner, Ananias ‘was brought to the attention of Izates, whom he similarly won over through the
co-operation of the women
’.
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‘At the same time another Jew’ (unnamed), instructed Helen, who ‘went over to them … and when he (Izates) perceived that his mother was very much pleased with Jewish customs, he hastened to convert and embraced them entirely.’ It is hard to decipher where all this action is taking place, as even in Josephus there are two different versions of Izates’ conversion. The first is at this Charax at the mouth of the Tigris on the Persian Gulf, but in this second note, Josephus portrays Izates as hurrying north where his mother seems to be.

This is the legendary conversion of Queen Helen and, aside from the romantic elements, it must be opined that the two conversions – Paul’s and Helen’s – have much in common, particularly as Acts relates the former. For his part, Josephus is anxious to point out that Izates brought this Ananias with him ‘to Adiabene’, when he was
summoned by his father to come into his Kingdom
. Who the ‘other Jew’ was, who converted Izates’ mother Helen, is impossible to say, but the reader should be apprised that in Josephus, anyhow, we are in the same time frame as Ananias’ purported conversion of Paul in Acts – at a time Paul by his own testimony had supposedly ‘gone away into
Arabia
’ (Gal. 1:17).

At this point in Josephus’ narrative – as in Acts and Paul’s letters – the issue of ‘circumcision’ arises. After Izates went back to Adiabene to take over from his brother Monobazus, whom Josephus portrays as holding his Kingdom for him after the death of his father ‘Monobazus’ (there would appear to be a few too many Monobazuses here), he finds the other sons of the King, ‘his brethren’, in bonds waiting to be executed as was the custom. Thinking this a barbarity and good politician that he is, Izates sends ‘them and their children as hostages to Claudius Caesar in Rome’ and the Persian King Artabanus ‘for the same reason’. This is the same kind of situation that Josephus describes thirty years later, when Titus decides not to punish these ‘sons and brothers of King Izates’ for rebellion, but returns them rather to their previous state of being surety for fealty to Rome.
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However, it now turns out that, Talmudic sources notwithstanding, Helen’s conversion is not quite what it appeared to be and she has, according to Josephus, been taught an imperfect form of Judaism by her teacher –
whoever
he was. Another teacher comes ‘named Eleazar’ (‘Lazarus’ in the New Testament), this now, the third teacher, who is specifically identified as ‘coming from Galilee’ – ‘a Galilean’, therefore, as the New Testament calls such types. Here we must be very insistent on reminding the reader about the name of those who followed Josephus’ ‘Fourth Philosophy’ of Judas the Galilean and
Saddok
, who opposed paying the tax to Rome, have ‘an inviolable attachment to liberty saying that God is their only Ruler and Lord’ and, therefore, will ‘not call any
man
Lord’.

Though at times Josephus is willing to apply the name of ‘Zealot’ to this group, particularly after the start of the Uprising against Rome and the destruction of the collaborating High Priests responsible for the death of James, and most particularly the group following one ‘Eleazar’ who take control of the Temple, others – such as those following the direct descendant of Judas above, Eleazar ben Jair, holed up on Masada – he also calls ‘
Sicarii
’, because of the Arab-style curved dagger they carried under their garments. With this – according to Josephus – they
assassinated backsliders
, as, for instance, persons of Josephus’ or Paul’s ilk, not to mention the High Priest Ananus and his brother Jonathan or Herodians of the kind of Agrippa II and Bernice. (According to others, they used it
to circumcise
.)

Even people like Niger of Perea, a hero of the early stages of the War, fell afoul of such groups in some manner and was considered deficient. But not people like the ‘kinsmen’ or ‘brothers’ of Kings like Izates and Monobazus of Adiabene, who, just as obviously, met with their approval. As we saw, quoting Hegesippus, Eusebius applies the name ‘Galileans’ to this group when enumerating the various parties ‘of the circumcision’,
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and even Josephus, when speaking of Izates’ final decision to circumcise himself, mentions such ‘zeal’.

This Eleazar is described by Josephus as very strict when it came to the ancestral Laws, and Izates, after encountering him, as ‘feeling that he could not
thoroughly be a Jew unless he was circumcised
and ready to act accordingly’. Helen however is horrified, because she feels he will be rejected by his subjects if he is circumcised. With the help of ‘Ananias’, described now in Josephus’ account as her son’s ‘tutor’, she talks him out of it.

It will be recalled that in Eusebius’ version of the conversion of King Agbarus, ‘
Ananias
’
was ‘the courier’
who delivered the King’s letter to Jerusalem and returned with Jesus’ response. In Josephus, ‘
Ananias
’ now argues that Izates might
worship God without being circumcised
, even though he did resolve to be a ‘
zealous practitioner of Judaism, worship of God being superior to circumcision
’. Paul, in Galatians 1:14, describes himself similarly, as once ‘progressing in Judaism beyond many contemporaries in my race, being more abundantly
zealous for the traditions of my fathers
’.

These Edessenes of the country around Haran or those of Adiabene, the area to which some thought the ancient Israelites were exiled after the Assyrian conquest at the end of the 700’s BCE, probably did consider themselves ‘
Children of Abraham’
, as many in these areas still do today, as those following the later revelation of Muhammad did – also someone considered
as once having been a merchant plying the caravan trade in these areas
. It should be appreciate, however, that Paul, while calling himself an ‘
Israelite of the Tribe of Benjamin
’ and even at times ‘
a
Hebrew
’, never actually calls himself a ‘
Jew
’. In fact, the opposite – he makes it clear that he is not ‘
of the Tribe of Judah
’ and, as we have already argued, people of ‘
Herodian
’ or
‘Idumaean’ Arab
extraction may well have and probably did consider themselves ‘
Children of Abraham
’ (as Muslims do to this day),
though not ‘Jews’
per se
.

One should also keep in mind the problems over ‘
circumcision
’ centering around these kinds of royal families generally. Josephus describes the problems
Herodian
Princesses, such as Agrippa II’s sisters Bernice and Drusilla, were having in contiguous areas of Asia Minor and Syria. Antiochus, the son of the King of Commagene (later, as we saw, ‘
Head of the Macedonian Legion
’ in the Jewish War), an area in between Paul’s reputed homeland of Cilicia and Edessa and ‘the Osrhoeans’ of Adiabene (an area not a city), had been promised Drusilla by her father Agrippa I.

In the end Drusilla’s marriage to Antiochus did not take place, because of
his refusal
to be circumcised
– something Agrippa I, though not Agrippa II, seems to have insisted upon (
therefore, Agrippa I’s more ‘Pious’ reputation
). Drusilla was then given to Azizus King of Emesa (present-day Homs, not far from Damascus) ‘
on his consent to be circumcised
’ at around the time Felix was sent to Palestine by Claudius. Claudius seems to have given Drusilla’s brother, Agrippa II, Philip’s Tetrarchy in Galilee and further territories of his around Damascus as a reward for this.
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