James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls I (69 page)

Then ‘Peter’ flees, never to be heard from again – except as ‘
Simeon
’ to make a rather improbable appearance at the so-called ‘Jerusalem Council’ in chapter 15. With no explanation of why the death sentence on him has suddenly evaporated, there he is pictured as making a short speech
supporting Paul and the Gentile Mission
(15:7–11).

When Acts does finally introduce James, it is as if we had already met him. There is no introduction of him, no explanation of who he might be, no attempt to distinguish him from ‘
James the brother of John
’. In fact, if it weren’t for other early Church sources and Josephus we wouldn’t even know he was Jesus’ brother and Leader of the early Church in Palestine.

But, of course, in the manuscript available to the final redactor(s) of Acts,
James
had
already
been introduced
and, as already singaled,
the traces of this
are still present
. In the preface to his Gospel, Luke admits that he was compiling his data on the basis of previous accounts. The author(s) of Acts – Luke or whoever – are, however, at great pains to disguise this fact but they are unable to do so absolutely, because by Chapter 12
James must come into the text
since he must be involved in the ‘Jerusalem Council’ that follows three chapters later, because
the directives emanating from it are ascribed to his name
and
were undoubtedly well-known
.

In addition, by Paul’s own testimony in Galatians 2:12,
it is James who has sent the messengers down to Antioch
(Acts 15:1). Acts has many names for these representatives, referring to this episode often since it is so important and one of the only really certain bits of information it can rely on until the ‘
We Document
’ begins in the next chapter. Moreover, James must be present for the climactic final confrontation with Paul in Chapter 21 as well.

It is the position of this book that the authors of Acts and the authors of the Pseudoclementines are, in fact,
working off the same source
. Both are Hellenistic romances, but where points of contact can indisputedly be shown between the two narratives – as, for instance, in the First Book of the
Recognitions
– the Pseudoclementines are
more faithful
to the original source than Acts. Not only is there less fantasy, there is less obfuscation and out-and-out fabrication. This is particularly the case in the matter of the key attack on James in the
Recognitions
, where the ‘Enemy’/Paul is introduced and we can see it paralleled in Acts by the attack on Stephen which introduces Paul (‘Saulus’) as well. By the same token, it is also true of the picture of Peter’s conduct and teachings –
the direct opposite of Acts
.

This is not the normal scholarly view, which holds the Pseudoclementines to be late. But on this point, scholars – many governed as in the field of the Dead Sea Scrolls by preconceptions or orientations they, themselves, may often be unaware of – are simply mistaken. There is no other response one can make. It is patent that the Pseudoclementines are superior, at least as narrative – and, no doubt, ideology and history as well – except where the
‘We Document
’ intrudes into the second part of Acts. Perhaps this was why Jerome was so angry at his erstwhile colleague Rufinus, who published the Pseudoclementines in the West at the end of the Fourth Century – probably based on a Syriac original.

Granted, speeches in the Pseudoclementines cannot be relied on any more than those in Acts (there are exceptions), but neither can they in Josephus – to say nothing of the Gospels. But where historical sequencing and actual physical actions go, the First Book of the
Recognitions
is very reliable indeed, as is Acts from Chapter 16 onwards where the ‘We Document’ first makes its appearance – thus, giving Acts too the character of a travel narrative written by someone who actually accompanied its principal character Paul on his journeys. This is similar to the
modus operandi
of the Pseudoclementines (where Clement begins his travels with Peter), though, unlike these, Acts inexplicably shifts back and forth between first person plural and the third person even in some of these later chapters.

In Chapter 15, for instance, after the so-called ‘Jerusalem Conference’ and just prior to the irruption of the ‘We Document’, Acts asserts that ‘the Apostles and Elders with the whole Assembly decided to choose representatives to send down to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas’ to deliver a letter containing James’ directives to overseas communities. ‘Judas surnamed Barsabas and Silas’ were chosen (here our amazing ‘Barsabas’ again, previously encountered in the ‘election’ to succeed Judas
Iscariot
as ‘
Joseph Barsabas surnamed Justus’
– 15:22.

Just to confuse things further,
Recognitions
1.60 says Barnabas was also ‘
called Matthias
’, the name of the victorious candidate in this election to fill Judas’ ‘Office’ above. Complementary as ever, Acts 4:36, introducing ‘Barnabas’, calls him – like the ‘
Joseph Barsabas Justus
’ above – ‘Joses’ and identifies him as ‘
a Levite of Cypriot origins
’. But ‘Joses’ is also the name of Jesus’
fourth
brother in Scripture.

In 15:32 these representatives of James are called ‘
prophets
’ (like ‘Agabus’ and the others who came down from Jerusalem earlier and supposedly predicted the Famine in Acts 11:27 – not to mention the
original ‘prophets and teachers’ of Paul’s original ‘Antioch Church’ in Acts 13:1) and, immediately after the delivery of this letter, Paul and Barnabas part company because they have ‘a violent quarrel’ over John Mark, ‘
the man who separated from (them) in Pamphylia
’ (15:38–39)! To be sure, that these mysterious representatives
insisting on ‘circumcision’
were sent down from Jerusalem by James is covered quite emotionally by Paul in his attack on James and Peter as ‘hypocrites’ in Galatians 2:11–21, as is the real nature of the quarrel that broke out between Paul and Barnabas.

Interestingly enough, this first person plural voice makes itself felt in Acts’ narrative just at the point
Paul crosses over with his new companions
– the curious ‘Silas’ and a new individual called ‘Timothy’ (probably identical with ‘Titus’ in Galatians 2:1–3) –
into Europe or mainland Greece
, where Paul presumably encounters ‘Stephanos’, his first convert in Achaia (1 Cor. 16:15). Paul has this Timothy, ‘whose mother was a believing Jewess but whose father was a Greek’ – just the Herodian mix –
circumcised
expressly for the purpose of these travels and, again, of course, ‘
because of the Jews who were in these places
’ (16:1–4)!

This is most revealing testimony and is paralleled by Paul’s protestations in Galatians about ‘
those who come in to spy on the freedom we enjoy in Christ Jesus, so that they can reduce us to slavery
’, that is, ‘
slavery’ to the Law
, and how Titus who was with him, ‘
being a Greek, was
– according to him –
not obliged to be circumcised
’ (Gal. 2:3–4).

Here, one should take note of additional overlaps and mix-ups, not only between Titus and Timothy, but also Silas and Silvanus, who are – despite attempts to portray them otherwise – probably the same person. The point is that they are Greeks or, in Silas’ case, Hellenized Palestinians or Herodians, and join Paul after the row in Antioch as the only people now willing to travel with him ‘
after the rest of the Jews’, including Barnabas, ‘jointly dissembled following’ Peter in his ‘hypocrisy’
(Gal. 2:13). Paul is clearly talking here about Jews
within
the Movement, not outside it.

The Source of the Blunder about Abraham’s Tomb in Stephen’s Speech

In Acts’, Stephen is arrested on charges of ‘
blasphemy
’, literally ‘because he
blasphemes this Holy Place and the Law
’ (6:12–13). To be sure, the picture of such ‘
blasphemy
’ charges is very important where James’ death is concerned but, even more to the point regarding Stephen, they echo almost verbatim the charges against Paul when, a decade or so later, he is mobbed on the Temple Mount. As Acts expresses this: ‘
This is the man who teaches everyone everywhere, against the people and the Law and this place, and further he has brought Greeks into the Temple and
defiled this Holy Place
’ (21:28). This is almost word-for-word the charge against ‘Stephen’ and, just as ‘Stephen’ in the earlier episode in Acts, Paul too is presented as
giving a long speech at this point to the angry Jewish mob
.

At Stephen’s trial for ‘blasphemy’, the ‘false witnesses’ further contend that ‘
we have heard him saying that Jesus the Nazoraean would destroy this place and change the customs given to us by Moses
’ (6:14). But, of course, what we have here is nothing but the reverse and a reflection of James’ arrest and trial for blasphemy two decades later, which, unlike the episode before us,
really did happen
and
for exactly opposite reasons
. Of course, here too, only Stephen is arrested, not Peter, nor John, not even James, still the
éminence grise
unmentioned in the narrative.

As the narrative continues, Stephen, with the ‘face of an Angel’, then goes on to give his long speech – Acts’ longest – and, like Paul’s, purportedly in response to the High Priest and the
whole Jewish Sanhedrin
(6:12–15), though why a presumable
Greek
should be brought before a Jewish Sanhedrin is never explained. Rather, Stephen tells them their entire history – on the face of it, a Gentile to Jews, patently absurd – typically ending with the most crucial of Gentile Christian accusations, and, needless to say, completely untrue: ‘Which one of the Prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed the ones who announced the coming of the Just One, whose betrayers (the accusation against Judas
Iscariot
) and murderers you have now become’ (Acts 7:52).

But a glaring error in the speech Stephen makes as reproduced here by Luke actually allows one
to pinpoint the source of this speech
, as a result of which the entire episode unravels and its improvisation made plain. It is
Joshua’s farewell speech
to the assembled tribes in Joshua 24:1–24, not unremarkably, at
Shechem in Samaria
. The play on the name ‘Jesus’ (‘Yeshua’ equalling ‘Joshua’) represented by this, too, would have pleased the author of Acts. The error occurs in line 7:14, when Stephen comes to telling how Joseph brought back the bodies of ‘
our ancestors … to Shechem and buried them in the tomb that Abraham had bought and paid for from the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem
’.

Unfortunately, as anyone versed in the Hebrew Bible would know, the ancestors were buried in a tomb called
Machpelah in Hebron which Abraham bought from Ephron the Hittite
(Gen. 23)! It is Joseph, who is buried in the tomb mentioned by Stephen and it is
Jacob who buys it from Hamor the father of Schechem
(Gen. 34). This mistake, made in a speech supposedly delivered by a Gentile or archetypical Gentile convert to the whole Jewish Sanhedrin, would have given rise to the most incredible derision, as anyone familiar with the mindset of such an audience might attest.

Even if one granted that Stephen (whoever he was) never made such a foolish error, but only the authors of the Book of Acts did because of careless transcription, this will not do, because, first of all, the speech is lifted almost bodily from Joshua’s speech. But, second of all, at the end of Joshua’s speech, after he cautions against foreign gods, ‘making a Covenant with the People … and wrote these things in the Book of the Law of God’, the text concludes:
‘The bones of Joseph
, which the sons of Israel had brought from Egypt,
were buried at Shechem
in the portion of ground that
Jacob had bought for a hundred pieces of silver from the sons of Hamor the father of Shechem’
(Josh. 24:32), and we have almost word-for-word the source of Stephen’s startling blunder, showing that this was where the author went to retrieve it, not to mention, its being practically the source of his whole speech in Acts! It becomes abundantly clear that someone was transcribing this information from Joshua either too quickly or too superficially – even perhaps from memory, though this is doubtful.

Since we can now just about dismiss the whole ‘Stephen’ episode, which one would have done on ideological and historical grounds anyhow – starting with the anachronism introducing it regarding ‘Theudas’ and ‘Judas the Galilean’ drawn from a too-superficial reproduction of Josephus’ works – one can more or less present the background to this episode and, to a certain extent, material that will throw further light on the true circumstances surrounding the death of James. Once again, we are in the world of Josephus’
Antiquities
where Theudas and his kind – people like James and Simon, the two sons of Judas the Galilean, ‘
who drew away the people to revolt when Cyrenius came to take a census in Judea
’ – are mentioned.
3