James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls I (2 page)

Josephus sums up this obsequiousness to Roman power in his preface to his eyewitness account of this period, the
Jewish War
, a work based in part on his interrogations, as a defector and willing collaborator, of prisoners. In criticizing other historians treating the same events, Josephus notes that all historical works from this period suffer from two main defects, ‘flattery of the Romans and vilification of the Jews, adulation and abuse being substituted for real historical record’.
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Having said this, he then goes on to indulge in the same conduct himself. That historical portions of the New Testament suffer from the same defects should be obvious to anyone familiar with them. But the Dead Sea Scrolls do not suffer from such defects, and were probably hidden in caves for this reason. The fact of Roman power was probably the principal reason why no one ever returned to retrieve them. No one could have, because no one survived. It was that simple.

Jesus

The quest for the historical Jesus has fascinated sophisticated Western man for over two centuries now, but the quest for the historical James has never been pursued. Rather than be disconsolate that the material regarding James is so fragmentary and often presented from the point of view of persons like Paul who disagreed with him, it is the task of the historian to revive him, to rescue him from the oblivion into which he was cast. This is not so difficult as it might seem, because materials about James exist – quite a lot of them. It remains only to place them in a proper perspective. This would be much more difficult to achieve for James’ brother Jesus. But is Jesus as well-known as most people think? Experts, lay persons, artists, writers, political figures from all ages and every place constantly assert the fact of Jesus’ existence and speak of him in the most familiar way, as if they had certain knowledge of him. Unfortunately, the facts themselves are shrouded in mystery and obscured by a cloud cover of retrospective theology and polemics that frustrates any attempt to get at the real events underlying them. Most who read the documents concerning him are simply unaware of this.

Questions not only emerge concerning Jesus’ existence itself, but also regarding the appropriateness of his teaching to his time and place. Where the man ‘Jesus’ is concerned – as opposed to the redeemer figure ‘Christ’ or ‘Christ Jesus’ Paul proclaims and with whom, via some personal visionary experience, he claims to be in contact – we have mainly the remains of Hellenistic romance and mythologizing to go on, often with a clear polemicizing or dissembling intent. In fact, Paul, portrayed as appearing on the scene only a few years after Jesus’ death, either knows nothing or is willing to tell us nothing about him. Only two historical points about Jesus emerge from Paul’s letters: that he was crucified at some unspecified date, and that he had brothers, one of whom was called James (Gal. 1:19). In fact, taking the brother relationship seriously may turn out to be one of the only confirmations that there ever was a historical Jesus.

Where the Gospels are concerned, Jesus is largely presented in the framework of supernatural storytelling. Hellenistic mystery cults were familiar over a large portion of the Greco-Roman world where Paul was active. They would certainly have provided fertile ground for the propagation of competing models among a population already well-versed in their fundamentals.

One attitude, particularly important in determining the historicity of Gospel materials, is the strong current of anti-Semitism one encounters lying just below the surface. This anti-Semitism was already rife in Hellenistic cities such as Alexandria in Egypt and Caesarea in Palestine, and ultimately led to the destruction of the Jewish populations there.

One can assert with a fair degree of confidence that while Messianic agitation in Palestine could be sectarian, it would not be anti-Jewish or opposed to the people of Palestine. Of course, there was internecine party strife, often vitriolic and quite unforgiving, but for a popular Messianic leader to be against his own people would be
prima facie
impossible and, one can confidently assert, none ever was – except retrospectively or through the miracle of art. The reader may take this as a rule of thumb.

Nor can we say that in the Gospels we do not have a composite recreation of facts and episodes relating to a series of Messianic pretenders in Palestine in the first century, familiar from the works of Josephus, interlaced or spliced into a narrative of a distinctly Hellenistic or non-Palestinian, pro-Pauline cast. This includes some light-hearted – even malevolent – satire where events in Palestine are concerned. Josephus displays a parallel, but inverted, malevolence, calling examples of the charismatic Messianic type of leader ‘religious frauds’ or ‘impostors more dangerous than the bandits and murderers’, and ‘deceivers claiming divine inspiration leading their followers out into the wilderness there to show them the signs of their impending Deliverance’.
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The Gospel of Matthew, even more than the other Gospels, has long been recognized as a collection of Messianic and other scriptural proof-texts taken out of context and woven into a gripping narrative of what purports to be the life of Jesus. In describing an early flight by Jesus’ father ‘Joseph’ to Egypt to escape Herod –
à la
Joseph in Egypt and Moses’ escape from Pharaoh in the Bible – not paralleled in the other Gospels – Matthew utilizes the passage, ‘I have called my son out of Egypt’ (2:15). Whether this passage applies to Jesus is debatable. In its original context (Hos. 11:1), it obviously refers to the people Israel as a whole. However, it does have very real relevance to a character in the mid-50s, whom Josephus – followed by the Book of Acts – calls ‘the Egyptian’, but declines to identify further. This Messianic pretender, according to the picture in Josephus, first leads the people ‘out into the wilderness’ and then utilizes the Mount of Olives as a staging point to lead a Joshua-style assault on the walls of Jerusalem.
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But the Mount of Olives was a favourite haunt, according to Gospel narrative, of Jesus and his companions. We will note many such suspicious overlaps.

For his part, Josephus, predictably obsequious, applauds the extermination of the followers of this Egyptian by the Roman Governor Felix (52-60 CE). Acts, too, is quick to show its familiarity with this episode, including Josephus’ tell-tale reticence in supplying his name. Rather it somewhat charmingly portrays the commander of the Roman garrison in the Temple as mistaking Paul for him (21:38).

Another example of this kind is the so-called ‘Little Apocalypse’ in the Gospels (Mt 24:4-31 and pars.). In Luke’s version, Jesus is depicted as predicting the encirclement of Jerusalem by armies, followed by its fall. All versions are introduced by reference to the destruction of the Temple and generally refer to famine, wars, and sectarian strife, along with other signs and catastrophes. This probably has very real relevance to a section in the
Antiquities of the Jews
, in which Josephus describes in gory detail the woes brought upon the people by the movement founded by ‘Judas the Galilean’ around the time of the Census of Cyrenius in 6–7 CE. This is contemporaneous with Jesus’ birth according to the Gospel of Luke, and is also referred to in Acts (5:37). Josephus calls this movement the ‘Fourth Philosophy’, but most now refer to it as ‘Zealot’. Here, as in the Little Apocalypse, Josephus portrays this movement – the appearance of which, again, is contemporaneous with the birth of Christ in Luke – as bringing about wars, famine, and terrible suffering for the people, culminating in the destruction of the Temple.

These ‘woes’ also have relevance to another Messianic character whom Josephus calls ‘Jesus ben Ananias’. This man, whom Josephus portrays as an oracle or quasi-prophet of some kind, went around Jerusalem directly following the death of James in 62 CE for seven straight years, proclaiming its coming destruction, until he was finally hit on the head by a Roman projectile during the siege of Jerusalem and killed just prior to the fulfillment of his prophecy.

The applicability of this story to the Historical Jesus (and in a very real way the Historical James) should be obvious. In fact, ‘Jesus ben Ananias’ was set free at the end of Josephus’
Jewish War
after having originally been arrested. The release of such a Messianic double for Jesus is also echoed in Scripture as it has come down to us in the release of another ‘double’. One Gospel calls him ‘Jesus Barabbas’ – the meaning of this name in Aramaic would appear to be ‘the Son of the Father’ – a political ‘bandit’ who ‘committed murder at the time of the Uprising’ and is released by Pontius Pilate (Mt 27:26 and pars.).

Variant manuscripts of the works of Josephus, reported by Church fathers like Origen, Eusebius, and Jerome, all of whom at one time or another spent time in Palestine, contain materials associating the fall of Jerusalem with the death of
James
– not with the death of Jesus. Their shrill protests, particularly Origen’s and Eusebius’, have probably not a little to do with the disappearance of this passage from all manuscripts of the
Jewish War
that have come down to us. As will also become clear, other aspects from the biography of James have been retrospectively absorbed into the biography of Jesus and other characters in the Book of Acts in sometimes astonishing ways.

In fact, in what suggests that the Gospels and some Dead Sea Scrolls are virtually contemporary documents – and that the authors of the former knew the latter – it will be shown that fundamental allusions from the Scrolls have been absorbed into Gospel presentations of Jesus’ relations with his disciples. It will be shown that the presentation of the disciples as peaceful fishermen on the Sea of Galilee incorporates a play on key ideological usages found in the Dead Sea Scrolls. This is the language of
casting down nets
familiar from Gospel accounts of Jesus’ appearances to his disciples along the Sea of Galilee both before and after his resurrection and in parallel notices in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Revelation. This language of
casting
or
throwing down
will also be shown to be integral to presentations of the death of James in virtually all traditions we are heirs to.

The ‘Galilean’ language in these and like episodes can also be thought of as playing on the name of the movement developing out of the activities of Judas
the Galilean
, the founder of the Zealot Movement mentioned above. Changing terms with ideological connotations into geographical place names tends to trivialize them. This is certainly the case with confusions relating to whether Jesus came from a place in Galilee called ‘
Nazareth
’ (never mentioned in either the works of Josephus or the Old Testament) or whether, like James, he followed a ‘
Nazirite
’ life-style or was a ‘
Nazrene
’ or ‘
Nazoraean
’, which have totally different connotations in the literature as it has come down to us.

These are complex matters and will doubtless be perplexing at first, but it is necessary to elucidate them to describe the true situation behind some of these highly prized scriptural re-presentations. It is hoped that the reader will soon get used to the kind of word play and evasions at work. The evidence, which might at first appear circumstantial, will mount up, allowing the reader to appreciate the validity of the explanations provided. This is not to say that the Jesus of history did not exist, only that the evidence is skewed and that the problem is more complex than many think.

The Study of James

The situation with regard to James is quite different and clearer, probably because except for the Gospels and the first eleven chapters of the Book of Acts it has not been so overwritten. Here, too, materials do exist outside the tradition of Scripture. Even scriptural materials regarding James, where not theologically refurbished, are very helpful. Where rewritten or overwritten, they can by comparison with external materials be brought into focus and sometimes even restored.

But one can go further. It is through the figure of James that one can get a realistic sense of what the Jesus of history might have been like. In fact, it is through the figure of James, and by extension the figure of Paul, with whom James is always in a kind of contrapuntal relationship, that the question of the Historical Jesus may be finally resolved.

The same is true with regard to ‘the brother of Jesus’. In the Gospels, Paul’s letters, and Josephus, no embarrassment whatsoever is evinced about this relationship with Jesus, and James is designated without qualification as Jesus’ brother. There are no questions of the kind that crop up later in the wake of the developing doctrine of the supernatural ‘Christ’ and stories about his supernatural birth, attempting to depreciate or diminish this relationship. These stories about the birth of ‘Christ’ are, in any event, not referred to by Paul and appear first in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, thus leading in the second century to embarrassment not just over Jesus’ brothers, but the fact of Jesus’ family generally, including sisters, fathers, uncles, and mothers.

Embarrassment of this kind was exacerbated by the fact that Jesus’ brothers (‘cousins’, as Jerome would later come to see them at the end of the fourth century) were the principal personages in Palestine and Jesus’ successors there, important in Eastern tradition. What exacerbated the problem of their relationship to Jesus even further in the second century was the doctrine of Mary’s ‘
perpetual virginity
’ and with it the utter impossibility – nay, inconceivability – that she should have had other children. This even led Jerome’s younger contemporary, Augustine, in the fifth century, to the assertion reproduced in Muhammad’s Koran in the seventh, that Jesus didn’t have any father at all, only a mother!
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