James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls I (49 page)

In explaining this ‘
pollution
’ charge, the Damascus Document invokes the issue of ‘
blood
’, in this instance
menstrual blood
and the consonant charge of
sleeping with women in their periods
.
30
It uses this, not only to link the ‘fornication’ with the ‘
pollution of the Temple
’ charge, but in doing so, to imply that it is contact with Gentiles, in this case, their gifts and sacrifices in the Temple, that has occasioned the problem of ‘pollution of the Temple’ in the first place. As the Damascus Document so graphically expresses it in Columns Five and Eight, enlarging on the issues of ‘fornication’ and ‘pollution of the Temple Treasury’, ‘
whoever approaches them cannot be cleansed … unless he was forced
’ – in our view, in this case implying approaching Herodians and other foreigners.
31
But Matthew identifies his ‘
Field of Blood
’/‘
Potter’s Field
’ in some manner with Gentiles or foreigners too.

The common element in Matthew’s and Luke’s accounts, this ‘Field of Blood’ has interesting parallels in the literature of Qumran as well – that is, the ‘City of Blood’ or ‘Assembly built upon Blood’ allusions encountered in two separate contexts in the Nahum
Pesher
and the Habakkuk
Pesher
. In the former it involves the sending of emissaries or ‘
Apostles to the Peoples
’; while in the latter, the ‘
City of Blood
’ is accompanied by ‘building’ metaphors and is interpreted, in turn, in terms of
‘leading Many astray’ and ‘performing a Worthless Service’ and ‘raising a Congregation upon Lying’ – identified with ‘the Lying Spouter’’s doctrine
.
32

In perhaps our boldest attempt at achieving a synthesis between the Community of James and the Community at Qumran, we have identified these kinds of allusions in the Habakkuk
Pesher
with Paul’s ‘
building a Church’ upon ‘Communion’ or the ‘consumption of the Blood of Christ
’. As Luke puts it in his version of the Last Supper, ‘
This Cup is the New Covenant in my Blood, even that which is poured out for you
’ (22:20).

Not only is the idea of ‘
pouring out
’ integrally connected with the Pauline idea of ‘
the Holy Spirit
’ in the Book of Acts, but where connections involving plays on language and doctrines at Qumran are concerned, ‘
the New Covenant
’ is an important aspect of what is going on in the wilderness at ‘
Damascus
’ in the Document by that name and ‘
pouring out’ is the root of the way Qumran is referring to ‘the Spouter of Lying
’ – which quite literally means, ‘
the
Pourer-out of Lying
’. We shall take one final step more in this regard when we show that even the word ‘Damascus’ in Greek (of ‘
the New Covenant in the Land of Damascus’
at Qumran) is being utilized by Paul or these Gospel artificers in some esoteric manner to produce the new formulation, ‘
the Cup of the New Covenant in my Blood
’ – ‘
Blood
’ and ‘
Cup
’ being in Hebrew, as we shall see, ‘
Dam
’ and ‘
Chos
’.

It is in this same Letter to the Corinthians that Paul not only ranges himself against James’ ‘Jerusalem Council’ directives prohibiting the consumption of ‘blood’ and ‘things sacrificed to idols’, but first develops this idea of ‘Communion with the Blood of Christ’, however repugnant such a notion might have seemed to such ‘Zealot’-minded groups as those at Qumran, not to mention James
who specifically
forbids it
. It is this doctrine that is retrospectively attributed to Jesus in these highly prized scriptural accounts of the ‘Last Supper’. If anything proves the dictum, referred to in the Introduction, ‘
Poetry is truer than History
’, then this does.

Paul also develops this idea of ‘
Communion with the Blood of Christ
’ by using ‘
building
’ imagery – at one point, as we have seen, even calling himself ‘
the architect
’ (1 Cor. 3:10). In the Nahum
Pesher
, a variation of this ‘
City of Blood
’ notation is developed in terms of a ‘
City of Ephraim
’ and ‘those Seeking Smooth Things at the End of Days, who walk in Lying and Unrighteousness’.
33
The imagery is complex, but none the less not undecipherable. Once again, we have come full circle – ‘
the City built upon Blood’ relating to Paul’s understanding of the death of Christ and the ‘Fellowship’ or ‘Communion’ (he stresses) engendered by the Blood of Christ
.

Here too, then, this ‘Field of Blood’ allusion has its overtones, not all completely straightforward and some esoteric, but none-the-less part and parcel of the overlaps, plays on words, and doctrinal reversals in the interests of the ongoing Gentile Christian and anti-Semitic (in the national, not necessarily the ethnic sense) polemic.

The Trials of Jesus and James for Blasphemy or Political Conspiracy

In these kinds of parallels to the ‘
headlong fall
’ Judas
Iscariot
takes, one should remark the parody his suicide embodies of
that carried out by the ‘Sicarii’ followers of Judas the Galilean on Masada three years after the fall of Jerusalem
– not to mention,
the implied condemnation of this earlier ‘Judas’
. Contrariwise, in the Letter of James,
Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac
– not unlike what these extreme ‘
Sicarii
’ did on Masada and ‘Zealot’ practice generally – might have been seen as
the ideological license for such a ‘suicide’ or ‘Sanctification of the Name’
(
Kiddush ha-Shem
)/
martyrdom
.

In James, it is taken as the supreme testing of the ‘
Faith
’ of this archetypal ‘
Friend of God
’ and the epitome of the most elevated sort of ‘
works Righteousness
’ (2:21).
Par contra
, in the more Pauline-like Hebrews, it is taken as the most elevated example of Abraham’s ‘
Faith
’ (11:17).

The conspiratorial note, also part and parcel of this account of Judas’ ‘
Treachery
’ and that of ‘
blasphemy
’, repeatedly reiterated in the Gospels’ scenario for Jesus’ trial, are also present in the James scenario. In the case of James, the cast of characters is slightly different – the ‘conspiracy’ being between Ananus and the King Herod Agrippa II. This same sense of ‘the Wicked Priest conspiring to destroy the Poor’ is also present in the Habakkuk
Pesher
, that is, between the Herodian King and the High Priest appointed by him, not between ‘the Chief Priests’ and the largely mythological ‘Judas
Iscariot
’ – whose name has now become proverbial for ‘Treachery’ – of Gospel narration.

John 18:1 even brings the Kedron Valley, in which the tomb beneath the Pinnacle of the Temple assigned by ‘Christian’ tradition to James is located, into this arrest scene. Where Acts 1:12 is concerned, the Mount of Olives is ‘a Sabbath’s distance’ from Jerusalem which was probably meant to show that ‘Jesus’ did not go beyond ‘the Sabbath limit’. Since the Mount of Olives is about a fifteen-minute walk from the East-facing Gate of the Temple or ‘the Steps’ leading up to the Gate on the South side of the compound; this vividly illustrates the derivative nature of the narrative, showing familiarity with the dictum, known in both Rabbinic literature and at Qumran, that ‘the Sabbath limit’ was about half a mile.

One should note that in the material prefacing Matthew’s picture of Judas’ suicide, now it is the High Priest who tries to
identify ‘the Christ’ with ‘the Son of God’
(26:63 and pars.). It is at this point that Jesus, like James in Hegesippus, announces to him and the rest of the Sanhedrin that ‘
You shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of Heaven
’ (26:64). For Luke, the question is, ‘
are you then the Son of God
’ and Jesus’ reply is: ‘
the Son of Man’
(regardless of the difficulties, we have already signaled regarding this expression)
is simply ‘seated at the right hand of the Power of God
’ (22:69–70).

It is at this point that the High Priest ‘rends his clothes’ and accuses Jesus of ‘
blasphemy
’. Consulting the Chief Priests and the members of the Sanhedrin
assembled at ‘his House’ in the middle of the night
, together these
pronounce him ‘worthy of death’
(Mt 26:65–66/Mk 14:64). But this is the same sequence of the scenario of James’ proclamation in the Temple of ‘
the Son of Man standing on the right hand of the Great Power
’ and his condemnation for ‘
blasphemy
’ by the Sanhedrin convened by the High Priest. On these points there would appear to be overlaps between the two narratives and elements of the ‘Jesus’ narrative are being absorbed into that of James or
vice versa
– probably
vice versa
.

If James really did go into the Holy of Holies of the Temple to pronounce the Holy Name of God in a kind of
Yom Kippur
atonement – the basis of the charge of ‘
blasphemy
’ in the
Talmud
– such a charge more suits the circumstances of James’ stoning, the punishment for blasphemy, than it does the crucifixion of Jesus. For Roman juridical practice, crucifixion is one of the punishments for insurrection and has little, if anything, to do with blasphemy. Typically, in the Synoptics anyhow, ‘Jesus’ is pictured as remaining silent and refusing to answer – except for small, annoying responses – any questions about the basically parallel ‘Son of Man’/‘Christ’/‘Son of God’ notations.

The parallels do not end here. Matthew continues: ‘
They spat in his face, beat on him, and some struck him with the palm of the hand
’ (instead of ‘
with the laundryman’s club
’ – Matt. 26:67 and pars.). This is immediately followed by materials about Jesus being ‘
a Galilean
’ and ‘
a Nazoraean
’ (Mt 26:69–71 – in Mk 14:70/Lk 22:69 it is
Peter
, rather, who is
mistaken for
‘
a Galilean
’), Judas’ suicide and the High Priests buying ‘the Potter’s Field’, and the interview with Pilate.

Appropriately, in line with the punishment of crucifixion for ‘
sedition
’ not stoning for ‘
blasphemy
’, after the intervening episode of what to purchase with Judas
Iscariot
’s ‘
hire
’ in Matthew; the twin issues of Jesus’ Kingship and whether it is Lawful to pay the tribute money to Caesar are raised. In Luke, who adds this second part of the charge sheet, this reads: ‘We found this man perverting our nation,
forbidding
(
the nation
)
to give tribute to Caesar
and
claiming himself to be Christ, a King’
(23:2). This charge about ‘
forbidding to pay the tax to Caesar
’ – aside from the related one about ‘
claiming to be a King
’ – is completely surprising as the Gospels go to such lengths to portray ‘Jesus’ as recommending just the opposite (Luke 20:22–25 and pars.). In our view,
forbidding the people to pay the tax
in this charge sheet in Luke was the
authentic
position of ‘
the Messianic Movement in Palestine
’ and all its
bona-fide
representatives, there being
no Messianism in Palestine that
recognized the Roman Emperor
.

Pilate is now pictured asking whether Jesus was ‘King of the Jews’ (Mt 27:11 and pars.), a question appropriate to the crucifixion penalty for ‘
sedition
’ that ensues. If Jesus was or did claim to be ‘a King’, in particular without Roman authorization, the implication is that this was a treasonable offence. For Luke, Herod even asks if Jesus is ‘a Galilean’ (23:6), clearly meaning – since we have just been talking about
the tax issue
– someone of the stripe of Judas the
Galilean
. Pilate interprets this to mean Jesus
comes
from Galilee
– a point Luke now uses to move over to an intervening interview with ‘Herod’, missing from the other Gospels, because the administrative jurisdiction of this ‘Herod’ included Galilee!