James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls I (77 page)

In Josephus the sequence is rather different. It goes from his lengthy description of the conversion of Queen Helen of Adiabene and her sons, Izates and Monobazus – the key issue again here being ‘
circumcision
’ – by one ‘
Ananias
’ (the name of the individual who met Paul in Damascus in Acts after his Damascus-Road vision) and an
unnamed other
. This ‘
unnamed other
’ – who, in our view, is Paul – teaches that ‘
circumcision’ is unnecessary for ‘Salvation’ (yesha‘/yeshu‘a
in Hebrew).

This is immediately followed by Queen Helen’s dispatch of her representatives
to buy grain in
Egypt and Cyprus
– in our view this is, in part, the root of all these ‘Cypriot’ and ‘Cyrenian’ denotations in Acts –
to relieve the Famine
, followed by
the beheading of Theudas
and
the crucifixion of James and Simon, the two sons of Judas the Galilean
. In fact, in another variation of these denotations – all part and parcel of Acts’ basic dissembling – even Josephus’ note at this point in his narrative about ‘the Census of Cyrenius’ here is precisely recapitulated in Luke’s spelling of ‘Cyrenians’ in these various notices.

For Paul, too, the key issue in Galatians, to some extent paralleling these things, is ‘circumcision’ – along with that of ‘table fellowship’ connected to it. In turn, ‘circumcision’ is very much tied to the matter of Apostleship, for directly after averring the Jamesian ‘God does not accept the person of men’ (Gal. 2:6), Paul sets forth his understanding of Peter’s ‘
Apostleship of the circumcision
’ in contrast to his own ‘
of the uncircumcision
’ or ‘
to the Gentiles’
. Curiously, in the several references at this point in Galatians, Paul uses only the appellative ‘Peter’ not ‘Cephas’ (2:7–8); but immediately following these, he makes the reference to ‘
the Central Three’
or ‘
those reputed to be Pillars
’ as ‘
James and Cephas and John
’ in that order and by that nomenclature – for the first and only time in this letter, introducing the name ‘
Cephas
’ (Gal. 2:9).

Whatever one might wish to make of this, Paul now goes on to aver that he shook hands with ‘
these Pillars
’ in agreement that he and Barnabas were to go ‘to the Gentiles’ while ‘they to the circumcision’ (2:9). It is for this reason that all these references to ‘circumcision’ in Acts, and their contrapositive in the matter of so-called ‘Hellenists’ – like ‘Cananaeans’ or ‘Canaanites’ elsewhere (probably a substitute for ‘
Zealots
’ and/or ‘
Sicarii
’) – are so important; for they camouflage or confuse the situation surrounding Apostleship generally – in particular the Apostleship of these ‘Three’ and Paul’s own – and the central issue seemingly impinging on these things, ‘
circumcision
’.

For Paul, the only qualification he thinks he must observe with regard to his ‘Mission’ or ‘Apostleship’ is ‘to be sure to remember
the Poor
’, which, as he observes, was the very thing he ‘was most intent on
doing
’ (2:10). However, it is not clear here whether this was the point of view of the Central Three as well – it probably wasn’t. The meaning of ‘the Poor’ here has been variously debated, but there can be little doubt that in some sense it refers to the pseudonym for James’ Community in Jerusalem, from which the term ‘Ebionites’ has been derived. However, as we have seen, this term also comprises one of the principal terms of self-designation in the literature at Qumran, particularly in the Habakkuk and Psalm 37
Pesher
s, where it is specifically applied to the followers of ‘the Righteous Teacher’
in Jerusalem
.

The allusion to ‘
the Poor
’ aside, in his testimony to James the Just being one of the Central Three – for this is obviously what he is saying – Paul again shows no embarrassment or reticence about James’ exalted stature in the early Church, other than he is not impressed by it except when he finds it useful to be. Nor can there be any doubt that this is James the Leader of the early Church, ‘
the Bishop of Bishops
’ or, as Qumran would put it, ‘
the
Mebakker
’ or ‘
Overseer
’. Nor does Paul mention any other James. There is only James ‘the brother of the Lord’ or, if one prefers, ‘the brother of Jesus’; despite the fact that Gospels, downplaying him, refer to him rather derogatorily as ‘
James the Less
’ (Mark 15:40) or ‘
James the son of Alphaeus
’ (Mark 3:18 and pars.).

Paul does not mention any ‘
James
the
brother of John
’ in other letters either – nor do the other New Testament letters; so apart from these testimonies in the Gospels and Acts we can have no idea who this other James was, if indeed he existed, which is questionable. In the letters in the New Testament the only James ever mentioned is
James ‘the Just’
. In Gospel lists and in the description of the witnesses to the crucifixion, there is a ‘James the Less’ or ‘the Littler James’ – a designation clearly aimed at belittling him and contrasting him with ‘the Great James’ – variously called ‘James the brother of John’, ‘the son of Zebedee’ (also known as ‘
Boanerges
’ in the Gospel of Mark, ‘the sons of Thunder’ – 3:17). This ‘James the Less’ is, also, to be identified with another James in Apostle lists called ‘James the son of Alphaeus’ (Mt 10:3 and pars.), whom we shall show is identical to the James before us here. As should be clear, the
real Great James
is the one before us, the one Mark calls in an obvious attempt to reduce his status,
James the Less
.

But is ‘
Cephas
’, too, to be reckoned among the Apostles and is he the same as the individual usually called ‘
Peter
’? All other references in Galatians, as we have seen, are to ‘Peter’ not ‘Cephas’, but here Paul lists ‘James,
Cephas
, and John’ as the Central Triad of Pillar Apostles. The question cannot be answered on the basis of the data available to us, any more than the question of who Peter was, Gospel fantasizing about ‘fishermen’ on the Sea of Galilee notwithstanding. As we have seen, some early Church accounts definitely assume the two are separate or that there are two Cephas’, listing ‘Cephas’ also among ‘the Seventy’. But given what we have before us here in Galatians and the reference in the Gospel of John indicating that Simon was to be called ‘
Cephas
’ – even interpreted there to mean ‘Stone’ in Greek, thus, ‘
Peter
’ (1:42) – one can assume that for the purposes of discussion he is.

It is perhaps also proper to point out that, except for what we shall see to be the interpolation of ‘the Twelve’ in 1 Corinthians 15:5 (there were only ‘Eleven’ at the time), Paul
never
does number the Apostles. In fact, neither he nor anyone else at this juncture seems to have any idea of
a limitation in the number of Apostles to a fixed number ‘Twelve
’. Acts, though, is very interested in this scenario in attempting, as we have seen, to explain the problem of the election of a successor in early Church history.

So are the Gospels except for John. Though mentioning ‘the Twelve’, again in the context of negative allusion to Judas
Iscariot
– now called (‘
the son
’ or ‘
brother
’) ‘
of Simon Iscariot … one of the Twelve
’ (6:67–71) – and ‘
Didymus
Thomas one of the Twelve’ (that is, ‘
Judas Thomas
’ – 20:24), John never actually enumerates them – probably because of problems over ‘Jesus’’ brothers and family as well; nor does he ever call these individuals ‘
Apostles
’ – only ‘
Disciples
’. For their part, the Synoptic Gospels both describe and enumerate ‘the Twelve’, enumerations we shall presently consider in attempting to develop more information about the person of James and the other ‘brothers’.

James,
Cephas
, and John and Jesus’ Transfiguration before the Central Three in the Gospels

Nor does Galatians speak about a core of ‘Twelve’ Central Apostles; rather only ‘Apostles’ in general. But it does, as we have seen, enumerate ‘a Central Three of James and
Cephas
and John’, all persons Paul seems to know in some way or with whom he has had dealings. These are real people, not inventions or, as elsewhere, fantastic overlays.

For Acts, it will be recalled, someone called ‘Apollos’ (18:24 – also mentioned by Paul in 1 Cor. 1:12–4:6) is identified as
preaching ‘John’s baptism’ in Asia Minor
. This, it implies, was
a ‘water baptism’ only
(cf. Paul in 1 Corinthians 3:6: ‘
I planted, Apollos watered, but God caused to grow
’), the Ephesians never even having heard ‘
that there was such a thing as the Holy Spirit’
(Acts 19:2).

The ‘John’ being referred to here is normally taken as ‘John of Ephesus’( not ‘John the Baptist’) and the ‘John’ in these various enumerations of ‘the Central Three’ – whether ‘the brother of James’, ‘the son of Zebedee’, or some other. But, as we have argued, ‘the baptism of repentance’ attributed to Apollos here (Acts 19:4), as opposed to Paul’s new ‘Holy Spirit Baptism’, would make more sense as a ‘water baptism’ if it had to do with the original John
the Baptist
, not another ‘John’.

For his part, ‘Cephas’ – though not ‘Peter’ – is also mentioned twice more at the end of 1 Corinthians, both in connection in some way with James or ‘the brothers of the Lord’ (9:5 and 15:5). He is mentioned two additional times in the context of these references to Paul and Apollos at the beginning of 1 Corinthians as well, where baptism, ‘the Holy Spirit’, and ‘building up’ the ‘building’ are being discussed (1:12 and 3:22).

Further to the background of choosing the Central Three in the Synoptic Gospels, their ‘appointment’ is introduced by the presentation of ‘Simon Peter’ as answering ‘Jesus’’ question: ‘Who do men say the Son of Man is?’ with the conveniently familiar riposte, ‘
the Christ
’ or ‘
the Christ of God’
. Matthew adds the tell-tale ‘
Son of the living God
’ we encountered in Jesus’ trial scenarios above (16:13–16 and pars.).

But when ‘Peter’ then objects to Jesus’ prediction of his own coming death and resurrection, Jesus rebukes him. This rebuke Jesus frames in terms of worrying about ‘the
things of men
, not the
things of God
’, uttering the now famous ‘Get thee behind me Satan’ (Mt 16:21–23 and pars.) – after he has just finished, in Matthew anyhow, designating Peter as ‘the Rock’ of his Church and giving him ‘the keys to the Kingdom’ (16:17–20)!

Jesus’ rebuke of Peter calls to mind the one in the Letter to James to its interlocutor Paul about the ‘
Friend of men
turning himself into
the Enemy of God
’ and Paul’s apparent response at the beginning of Galatians, that
anyone preaching a Gospel different from his own should ‘be cursed
’ (Gal 1:8–9). Paul repeats this twice and, seemingly satisfied with his own intolerant rhetoric, then asks: ‘So now,
whom am I trying to please, man or God
? Would you say it is
men’s approval
I am looking for? If I still wanted that I should not be what I am,
a
Servant of Christ
’ (Gal. 1:10).

Then bearing on his Apostleship and lack of either direct appointment or letters of recommendation from James, he concludes: ‘The fact is, brothers, and I want you to realize this, the Good News I preached is not a human message that I was
given by men
’ (Gal. 1:11). We had already suspected this, but here Paul makes it incontestably clear: ‘It is something I learned only through
a revelation
of Jesus Christ
’ (1:12).

So, for Paul,
the Gospel he teaches is a direct revelation from the figure he calls ‘Christ’ or ‘Christ Jesus
’, his Supernatural Redeemer figure or Guardian Angel, with whom, as it were, he is
in direct communication in Heaven
. This is a perfectly valid visionary experience for Paul, which should not be discounted; but it has nothing whatever to do with ‘Jesus’ or his brother James, or any doctrines that can be attributed to either of them – and this, we submit, was also the attitude of Paul’s detractors then.

In Matthew, Jesus’ rebuke of Peter also includes calling him ‘a stumbling block’ (16:23), language we have already seen to be charged with significance in the mutual polemics of the Letters of Paul and James. At this point too, leading directly into the introduction of ‘the Central Three’, the Synoptics hark back to Matthew’s earlier allusion to ‘the Son of Man’, all then specifically evoking the vision attributed to James in all early Church sources of: ‘The Son of Man coming in the Glory of his Father with his Angels, and he shall then render unto every man according to his works’ (Mt 16:27 and pars.), but now rather attributing it to Jesus.