James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls I (37 page)

Herod Antipas, seeing ‘
the great influence John had over the masses
’ and the enthusiasm with which they received him, ‘feared he would lead them to rise up’ and revolt and, therefore, took him to Machaeros bordering his domain on the other side of the Dead Sea and the domain of the Arab King Aretas’ in Petra. There he had him put to death. No mention is made of Herodias, nor her daughter Salome’s tantalizing dance, though references to these characters abound in the surrounding materials in Josephus. Nor is there any mention of the hallowed and, shall we say, rather sensational picture – missing, in any case, from Luke and John –of John’s
head upon a platter
sent to Salome and Herodias. One should also add that it is to Josephus we actually owe the name of Herodias’ famous daughter ‘
Salome
’ at all – the Gospel writers being, seemingly, ignorant of the name of this fabled temptress!

In Josephus, this note about ‘
sending someone’s head
to someone
’ is also
part of the story of the execution of John
; but there it is, rather, the
Roman Emperor Tiberius
who wants the head of the
Arab King Aretas of Petra
‘
sent to him
’
for what he had
done to Herod Antipas
– that is, defeated him militarily after Antipas had divorced Aretas’ daughter in order to marry Herodias. This, Josephus says, ‘
the Jews considered vengeance on him for what he had done to John the Baptist
’ – another example of Gospel
lateral transference
and
inversion
and probably the truth of the matter.

It should be clear that Josephus’ presentation is the
demythologized
John, although highly mythologized portraits in the New Testament incorporating the kind of ‘birthday parties’ Romans loved so much (even today attractive to a wide popular audience) and flattering portrayals of the Herodian family certainly made better story-telling. The baptism in Josephus’ description of John was simply a water cleansing or immersion, and, no doubt – as in the accounts of ‘
Banus
’
and ‘
the Essenes
’ – a
cold water one
at that, ‘provided the soul had already been
purified
beforehand by
the practice of Righteousness
’. This is the Qumran view as well, just as it is the presentation we are developing of
the demythologized James
.

To show the tendentiousness of these various New Testament accounts, the Gospel of Mark, which has the fullest presentation of these materials, states that ‘Herod feared John,
knowing him to be a Righteous One
and
Holy
’ (6:20). In other words, Herod recognizes John as
a Zaddik
and Holy One. This replicates parallel materials in Josephus noting that Herod ‘
feared John
’, but
not
because he considered ‘
him a Zaddik and Holy
’. For Josephus, rather, Herod ‘
fears John
’ because of his influence over the crowd, ‘
who were greatly inflamed by his words’ and ‘seemed as if they were of a mind to be guided by John in everything they did
’. Therefore, the execution is with malice aforethought. As Josephus puts it, ‘
Herod thought it best, fearing an Uprising, to strike first
and
put him to death
,
lest he should later repent of his mistake when it was too late
’. It is a preventative execution, and here we have the typical New Testament reversal of themes, particularly the one of political revolution.

Essenes, Zealots, and Nazoraeans

To go back, now, to ‘the Essenes’ too, Josephus describes the them, both in the
War
and in the
Antiquities
. Both descriptions begin with the discussion of
Judas the Galilean’s activities at the time of the Census of Cyrenius
/
Quirinius
– coincident in Luke’s Gospel with ‘Jesus” birth moment. The discussion in the
War
ends up dwelling on so-called ‘Essenes’, while making short shrift of Sadducees and Pharisees, and ignoring Judas’ revolutionary ‘sect’ altogether. In the later
Antiquities
, Josephus drastically curtails his treatment of ‘
the Essenes
’. In fact, he cuts a section from his discussion of ‘
the Essenes
’ in the
War
and adds it to his presentation of Judas the Galilean’s ‘
Fourth Philosophy
’ in the
Antiquities
. This is the section about their willingness to undergo ‘
deaths of the most horrific torture
’, which Hippolytus connects to their refusal ‘
to eat things sacrificed to an idol
’. Josephus simply presents this last as ‘to eat the things forbidden them’.

The one thing Josephus makes quite clear about Judas’ sectarians is that ‘
they have an inviolable
attachment to freedom
, insisting that
God alone is their only Ruler and Lord
’, and ‘
having had God for their Lord, refuse to pay taxes to the Romans and submit to any mortal masters
’. For lack of a better term, many call these ‘Fourth Philosophy’ Innovators ‘Zealots’, even though Josephus never uses the term until the Uprising against Rome and this only after he has begun referring to the ‘pollutions’ in both the city and the Temple of those he designates ‘
Sicarii
’. When he does use the term ‘Zealots’, he really applies it only to one of several contending subversive groups – specifically the one
opposing
the High Priest Ananus, James’ executioner who seem, significantly, to be occupying the Temple.

Ultimately these let the unruly ‘
Idumaeans
’ into the city, who proceed to slaughter all the High Priests, ending up in possession of the Temple. For Josephus, these ‘
Idumaeans
’ along with ‘
the Zealots
’ are more blood-thirsty even than ‘
the
Sicarii
’, who end up in the fortress on Masada.
25
But, the common point between his first description of the ‘
Essenes
’ and his later description of Judas’ Galilean ‘
Innovators
’ is that: ‘They also think little of dying any kind of deaths, nor do they heed deaths of their relatives or friends, nor can any such fear make them
call any man Lord’
. But this is exactly what Hippolytus adds to his description of those ‘
Essenes
’ who ‘will
not slander the Law
or
eat things sacrificed to an idol
’. Immediately one recognizes this last as the characteristic of James’ followers at almost precisely this point in history.

In Hippolytus’ version of Josephus, the more extreme group of ‘
Essenes
’ – those who even kill persons ‘
refusing to undergo the rite of circumcisio
n’ – ‘
are called Zealots or
Sicarii
’.

Some have declined to such an extent in discipline, that as far as those are concerned who follow
the ancient customs
, they refuse even
to touch them
, and if they come in contact with them by chance, they
immediately resort to washing
, as if they had touched some one belonging to an alien tribe.
26

Like Josephus’ ‘
Zealots
’ above, these, too, ‘refuse to call
any man Lord
, except the Deity, even though someone tries to torture or even kill them’.

At one point Josephus described these ‘
Essenes
’ as recommending to the young Herod ‘
to love Righteousness and practise Piety towards God
’. He repeats this, in describing the final initiation of the novice into ‘
the Pure Food
’ of their Community after a three-year probation – in addition to ‘
swearing not to reveal any of their secrets to others even if compelled under mortal torture to do so
’ and ‘
to expose Liars
’, ‘he is made to take the most
tremendous oaths
that, in the first place,
he will practise
Piety towards God
and then, that
he will observe Righteousness towards men’
.
27

This is, of course, exactly what he pictures John the Baptist as teaching in the
Antiquities
. This is also the essence of ‘Jesus’’ teaching, according to the Gospels, and is central to James’ position as the letter transmitted in his name makes abundantly clear (James 2:5–8). We can now identify these ‘
Commandments
’ as the basic ideology of ‘
the Opposition Alliance
’, ‘
Piety
’ being the sum total of
all one’s obligations towards God
–
one’s ceremonial obligations
– and ‘
Righteousness
’,
one’s obligations to one’s fellow man
–
one’s
social obligations
. This is exactly how Josephus portrays them in his description of ‘
the Essenes
’ too.

Chapter 13

James as Opposition High Priest and
Oblias

James as
Oblias
or Protection-of-the-People

Both Eusebius and Epiphanius, again basing themselves on Hegesippus, tell us that James was known by two important cognomens, ‘the Righteous’ or ‘Just One’, and ‘
Oblias
’. Both are a consequence of James’ ‘
Holiness from his mother’s womb
’ and his having entered the Holy of Holies to make a
Yom Kippur
-style atonement on behalf of the whole people.

Neither writer is able properly to transliterate ‘
Oblias
’, providing only an approximate transliteration in the Greek. Nor has anyone ever discovered exactly what the Hebrew it was originally based on was, though Eusebius and Epiphanius
think
they know what the word meant. To be sure, there is always the possibility that the term was just another variation in the
B–L–
‘ language circle in Hebrew and Greek. There is something of this root in the mysterious ‘
Lebbaeus
’ name found in some versions of the Gospel of Matthew and attached to the Apostle ‘
Thaddaeus
’, an individual we shall also show to be part of James’ and Jesus’ family circle. ‘
Oblias
’ and ‘
Lebbaeus
’ probably represent something of the same thing, their relationship having to do with the curious recurrences of the letters
B
and
L
making up their names whether in Hebrew or Greek.

The first syllable, ‘
Ob
’, would seem to be based on some Hebrew description involving ‘Protection’, ‘Bulwark’, or ‘Strength’ (in Hebrew, ‘
‘Oz
’ or ‘
Ma‘oz
’). Both Eusebius and Epiphanius, though in the dark as to its precise derivation, think ‘
Oblias
’ means this. Eusebius tells us: ‘Because of his superlative Righteousness, he was called the Righteous One (
Dikaios
) and Oblias, which translates out in Greek, ‘Protection-of-the-People’ and ‘Righteousness’’ (
Dikaiosune
). He then adds, ‘
as the Prophets declare concerning him
’.
1
This is a very pregnant addition, for it means that James’ two cognomens, ‘
Zaddik
’ and ‘
Oblias
’, were to be found by searching Hebrew Scripture, particularly the Prophets, and Psalms.

For Epiphanius, James was surnamed ‘the
Zaddik’
and called ‘
Oblias
’, which for him means either ‘
Fortress
’ or ‘wall’.
2
It should be remarked that he leaves out ‘
of the People
’, as in Eusebius’
Oblias
as ‘Protection-of-the-People’, but otherwise he is in substantial agreement with Eusebius on this mysterious term’s meaning. In a later description of James, Eusebius provides a variation on the term – ‘
Bulwark
’, which still retains the general sense of Wall, Fortress or Protection. Whatever it means, it results from James’ superabundant Righteousness and his functioning in the Temple as a Priest or
Opposition
High Priest. Both Eusebius and Epiphanius present the epithet in this context.