James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls I (78 page)

Over and over again we have encountered this vision, the essence of James’ proclamation in the Temple when he was asked what was ‘the Door to Jesus’ or, in effect, who ‘Jesus’ was. We have also seen how this proclamation corresponds with the exegesis of the War Scroll at Qumran of the Messianic ‘Star Prophecy’ and its evocation of
the Messiah coming with the Heavenly Host on the clouds ‘to rain Judgement on all that grows’ on earth
– but here the correspondence is even closer, as ‘the Holy Angels’ of the War Scroll are being specifically evoked.

In 2 Corinthians 12:1–7, Paul describes knowing a man ‘fourteen years before’ who had also been ‘caught away to Paradise’ – and known ‘the magnificence of (Heavenly) revelations’ and ‘visions’, ‘hearing unutterable words’. Curiously the time frame here agrees with that in Galatians between his
two
visits to see James. In some sense, then, if this individual was James, it is possible to conceive that his visionary experience, which probably really did occur, made it more possible for Paul’s more extended concept to find an even wider acceptance.

Of course, the ‘
Righteousness of works
’, Jesus is now pictured as speaking about in the Synoptics, runs directly counter to Pauline ‘
Faith
’ and ‘
Grace
’ doctrines; however it does
precisely reflect
the position of the Dead Sea Scrolls on these matters, as it does the ‘Jamesian’ one generally (as it will Islam’s in succession to these in the future).

The next statement Jesus is pictured as making in the Synoptics: ‘Verily, I say unto you, there are some of those
standing
here, who shall in no wise
taste of death
until they have
seen the Son of Man coming in his Kingdom’
(Mt 16:28; for Mk 9:1, which adds the words ‘
with Power
’, this usage is ‘
standing by
’) is, once again, clearly emphasizing the ‘
Standing One
’ ideology of the early Christian Ebionites and Elchasaites – Mark even encompassing the idea of ‘
Power
’, that is, ‘
the Hidden
’ or ‘
Great Power
’ (also the meaning of ‘
Elchasai
’). It precisely parallels, too, the key definition of ‘
the Sons of Zadok’
in the Damascus Document. It will be recalled that ‘
the Sons of Zadok’
were defined as those ‘who would
stand at the End of Time
’ and ‘
justify the Righteous and condemn the Wicked
’.

Both ‘the Son of Man coming with Power’ above and ‘the Sons of Zadok’ here (not to mention the ‘Standing One’ ideology) are, of course, eschatological definitions involving ‘the Last Times’/‘Days’/‘Things’. The idea, too, of ‘
seeing
the Son of Man’, namely ‘
Jesus
’, also parallels that of ‘
seeing
His Salvation’ (
Yeshu‘ato
) at the end of the expository section of the Damascus Document we have noted above. Here in the Synoptics the allusion to such ‘
seeing
’ serves to introduce the appointment of ‘Peter and James and John,
his brother
’. It will also include the imagery of miraculous ‘
whitening
’ encountered in the
Recognitions
, in the account of how James’ Community
visited the tombs of two brothers outside Jericho which miraculously ‘whitened of themselves every year
’. As this miraculous ‘
whitening
’ imagery develops now in the Synoptics, it encompasses a usage that will tie it to both this same
Recognitions
and early Church accounts of the death of James in the most forceful manner conceivable.

In this episode about the appointment of ‘The Central Three’ in the Synoptics, Jesus takes ‘Peter (not
Cephas
) and James and John his brother’ (Jesus’ or James’?) and, like Moses before him, ‘
went up on a high mountain to pray’
. There, he ‘
was transfigured’
before the Three ‘
and his face shone as the sun and his garments became effulgent white
’ (Mt 17:1–3 and pars.). The Central Three see him conversing with Moses and Elijah. For Luke, Jesus is ‘
in Glory
’ as are Moses and Elijah (9:31–32). But aside from this emphasis on the ‘
splendid effulgence
’ or ‘
miraculous whitening of the tombs
’ (not to mention the ‘
clothes
’ theme once again); the main thrust of this episode is the revelation by another of these ‘
Heavenly voices
’ as in Acts – this time, not insignificantly, ‘
out of a cloud’
– that
Jesus was God’s Son
(
thus
).

The familiar words of this revelation, as quoted here in Matthew, ‘
This is my beloved son. In him I am well pleased
’ (17:5 – Mark and Luke vary this to ‘
listen to him
’), are the same as those used at the beginning of the Synoptic Gospels to describe Jesus’ baptism by John, when ‘
the Heavens were rent asunder and he saw the Spirit descending on him in the form of a dove
’ (Mk 1:10 and pars.).
8
In this picture of John baptizing Jesus, ‘
the voice out of Heaven
’ again is said to cry out, ‘
This is my beloved Son. In him I am well pleased
’ (Mt 3:17 and pars.).

Whatever the significance of the repetition of these words, John the Baptist plays a role, however indirect, in the ‘Transfiguration’ scene too; since, in
all the Synoptics
, he
is identified with Elijah
– a point ‘Jesus’ himself is pictured as making to the Three immediately thereafter on their way down the mountain (Mt 17:13 and Mk 9:13).
9
In this conversation with them too, ‘Jesus’ picks up the motif of ‘
the Son of Man
’ again and, by means of it,
identifies himself as the Divine ‘Son’
– ‘
Man
’, it will be appreciated, being identified with ‘
the First Man
’ or ‘
Primal Adam
’, not to mention in Aramaic sources that ‘
Enosh
’ or ‘
Man
’ was ‘
John
’ – Jesus, even in Paul, being ‘
the Last Adam
’ or ‘
the Second Man, the Lord out of Heaven
’ (1 Cor. 15:45–47).

It should be clear that all these themes are being recapitulated here. If we now slightly transpose the way the Central Three are being described in this episode to, not ‘
Peter and James and John his brother
’, but ‘
Peter and James his brother and John
’, recorded by Paul in Galatians, we would achieve an even more perfect fit with James ‘
the brother of Jesus
’, not John being ‘
the brother of James
’. Transpositions of this type, as already described, occur elsewhere in Acts or the Gospels, particularly in the presentation of James and John ‘
the two sons of Zebedee
’ as here – whoever such a ‘
Zebedee
’ might have been.

Discrepancies of this kind with how Paul enumerates ‘The Central Three’ in Galatians, if taken at face value, become irreconcilable. But in cases such as this, as already emphasized, Paul is to be taken as primary and the Gospels secondary. This would be the proper way out of the present conundrum as well, i.e., to take the Central Three as ‘
James the brother of Jesus, Cephas, and John
’ and either to ignore or to discard Gospel representations as the refurbishments they are.

The Brightness of Jesus’ Clothes at the Transfiguration and Hegesippus’ Reference to the ‘Fuller’s Club’

Crucial to connecting the presentation of Jesus’ Transfiguration to the attack on James in the Temple, his proclamation there of ‘the Son of Man coming on the clouds of Heaven’, and his flight to Jericho, is the ‘resplendence’ with which he is portrayed. By using ‘
his face shone as the sun
’, Matthew 17:2 is drawing the correspondence with
Moses talking to God on Mount Sinai
, where there and later in the Tent of Meeting,
his face also
glowed after his encounter with God
. In 2 Corinthians 3:7–18, Paul scoffingly dismisses this imagery,
in
asserting that
Moses veiled himself because he didn’t wish the Children of Israel to know the light
– which he also repeatedly refers to as ‘
the Glory
’ –
of the Law had expired
.

Though this note about Jesus’ ‘
shining face
’ is missing from Mark and Luke, all three insist that ‘
his clothing’ became ‘white as the light
’ (Mt 17:2), ‘
white and effulgent
’ (Lk 9:29), or, as Mark, which is most complete, characterizes it, ‘
His
clothes
became
glistening
, exceedingly
white as snow
, whiter than
any fuller on earth could have whitened them
’ (9:3). In this last, once again, we have the all-important theme of the ‘
fuller
’ or ‘
laundryman
’ that goes back at least as far as Clement’s and Hegesippus’ accounts of the death of James – now in an entirely new form where we would never have expected to find it.

The occurrence of this allusion here is, to say the least, hardly less than asotnishing. This is the only instance of ‘
laundryman
’ in the whole New Testament. Indirectly, it ties all these threads together – namely, the ‘
laundryman
’ or ‘
fuller
’ motif in all early Church accounts of the death of James, along with the effulgence of Jesus’ ‘
garments
’ or ‘
clothes
’, and the Pseudoclementines’ miraculous ‘
whitening
’ of the tomb of the two brothers.

This motif of the ‘
clothes
’ or ‘
garments
’ will become even more insistent as we proceed. We have already seen it in the aftermath of
Stephen’s stoning
, when
those stoning him, for some unfathomable reason, ‘deposit their clothes at the feet of a young man called ‘Saul’
(as already remarked, these should have been
Stephen’s clothes
), or, in Jerome’s ‘Hebrew Gospel’, when Jesus ‘
hands his clothes to the Servant of the High Priest
’. This is not to mention the ‘
linen clothes
’ James wore, as did all Essene or ‘Masbuthaean’ Daily Bathers in these accounts of the special linen ‘
girdles
’ or bathing clothes they wore, which made such a big impression on all observers. Now we come upon it here in the matter of Jesus’ ‘
white and effulgent
’ clothing upon his Transfiguration. Presently, we shall see it anew in the ‘
empty tomb
’ scenarios on the matter of his ‘
grave-clothes
’. ‘White clothing’ would also have had a specific meaning to the audience of these accounts, i.e., that of being a member of
the Community of all ‘the Righteous’ washed ‘white’ of their sins
.

But these passages about Jesus’ ‘clothing’ becoming ‘white as light’ and ‘effulgent’ are seemingly also incorporating the vocabulary of the ‘miraculous whitening’ of the tomb of the two brothers (to say nothing of the matter of the ‘tomb’ in the related stories of the faces ‘like lightning’ and ‘the clothing as white as snow’ of the ‘Angel’ or ‘Angels’ in Jesus’ empty tomb), found in
Recognitions’
account of the flight by the injured James to the Jericho area.

In the Scrolls, not only is this ‘whitening’ imagery, playing off the word ‘
Lebanon
’ in underlying Biblical texts (‘Lebanon’ meaning ‘white’ in Hebrew) tied to the ‘
white clothes
’ worn by the Community Council and/or the Priests in the Temple; but this word ‘
fury
’ is the very one the Habakkuk
Pesher
used to describe the ‘
hot anger
’, with which, ‘
the Wicked Priest pursued the Righteous Teacher
’. This language of ‘
Wrath
’ and ‘
Fury
’ is then played upon to produce various combinations and metaphorical reversals having to do with ‘the Cup’, ‘the Anger of God’, Divine ‘Vengeance’, and even the ‘venom’ of the Establishment and ‘the wine’ of its ways.

That the blessed dead should be ‘
remembered before God
’, as alluded to in connection with this ‘
miraculous whitening
’ of the brothers’ tombs in the
Recognitions
, is, in addition, also a fixture of Jewish
Yom Kippur
observances to this day. So too is the colour white – and, for instance, not wearing leather shoes – symbolizing such atoning purity. Problems surrounding such observances are alluded to in the passages surrounding the death of the Righteous Teacher in the Habakkuk
Pesher
and are intrinsic in traditions about James’ death as well, as they are in the accounts of his High Priestly atonement activities in the Holy of Holies on the Temple Mount – also probably on
Yom Kippur
.