James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls I (98 page)

This trip up the mountain is basically the way Luke presents things too, only adding the additional point that Jesus also ‘named’ the Inner Twelve Disciples, ‘Apostles’, and ‘went out into the mountain to pray’ there (Lk 6:13). In Matthew, aside from a host of trips ‘up into’ and ‘down the mountain’ – for instance ‘the very high mountain’ where he was tempted by ‘the Devil’ (4:8) – Jesus does not ‘go up’ or ‘out into’
any
mountain to appoint the ‘Twelve’ (as opposed seemingly to the implication of the notice about his post-resurrection instruction to ‘the Eleven Disciples to go into Galilee to the mountain he had commanded’ or ‘appointed them’ – meaning ambiguous here – Mt 28:16) – the ‘mountain’ scene having already taken place earlier in the famous ‘Sermon on the Mount’ (Mt 5:1–8:1).

For Mark these ‘Twelve’ are to be sent forth:

to preach and to heal diseases and to have Authority to
cast out
demons (
ekballein
again). And he added to Simon the name ‘Peter’, and James (the son) of Zebedee and John the brother of James (the same expression used in the Letter of Jude). And he added to them (the) names
Boanerges
, which is ‘Sons of Thunder’ (the meaning of which is unclear, but there is a certain militancy to this description, and perhaps dissimulation), and Andrew and Philip and Bartholomew and Matthew and Thomas and
James
(
the son
)
of Alphaeus and Thaddaeus and Simon the Cananite, and Judas Iscariot, who also delivered him up
. (3:14–19)

Despite the reversal of Acts’ ‘James
the brother of John
’ into ‘John
the brother of James
’ and the militant ‘rain’ and ‘cloud’ imagery involved in the ‘Sons of Thunder’ definition for the mysterious ‘
Boanerges
’, the most striking thing about this enumeration of the Twelve Apostles in Mark is how few of them have any real substance. Except for Simon Peter, Thomas, Judas
Iscariot
, and, of course, James and John ‘the sons’ either of ‘Zebedee’ or ‘Thunder’ themselves – problems associated with the actuality of
their
existence aside – they are for the most part insubstantial. Even core Apostles are insubstantial. True, there are a few traditions about Philip and Matthew – identified for some reason as ‘Levi the son of Alphaeus’ in Mark 2:14 – and a second ‘Matthew’ or ‘Matthias’ will be chosen, as per the picture in Acts 1:26 of the ‘election’ of the successor to replace Judas
Iscariot
which will confuse the situation still more.

But Bartholomew, Andrew, ‘Simon the Cananite’, and ‘James
the son of Alphaeus
’ have little or no substance. As we shall presently see, ‘Thaddaeus’, a key figure, and Judas
Iscariot
(not to mention ‘Simon the
Iscariot
’) will overlap each other or other names on this list.

In Matthew, Jesus is rather portrayed as going back and forth across the Sea of Galilee or wandering around Galilee curing, raising dead persons, and ‘casting out demons’ generally (Mt 9:1–13). The actual scene of his appointment of ‘the Twelve’ occurs in good dramatic style after his debarking from a boat. He then dines with ‘tax collectors and Sinners’, repeating the proverbial ‘think not I have come to call the Righteous (this is precisely what the Dead Sea Scrolls would have thought) but the Sinners’ and that he will replace ‘old clothes … with new cloth’ and ‘put new wine in new wineskins’ (Mt 9:16–17).

In Matthew 10:1, Jesus ‘calls his Twelve Disciples, and giving them
Authority over unclean spirits
, so as to
cast them out
(
ekballein
)’ – not as ‘the tares sown by the Enemy’ and gathering the polluted fishes into baskets, ‘to separate the Wicked from the midst of the Righteous and cast them (
balousin
) into the furnace of Fire’ – but rather, the ‘Authority’ is now ‘to
heal every disease and bodily weakness
’, a distinctly more peaceful and less aggressive undertaking. Matthew now lists ‘his Twelve Disciples’ as follows:

First Simon who is
called Peter
and Andrew
his brother
, James (the son) of Zebedee and John
his brother
(different from Mark above), Philip and Bartholomew, Thomas, and Matthew
the tax collector
,
James
(
the son
)
of Alphaeus
, and
Lebbaeus who was surnamed Thaddaeus
,
Simon the Cananite
(or ‘Cananaean’), and
Judas Iscariot
, who also delivered him up. (Mt 10:2–4)

The changes here are obvious. Now the ‘brother’ theme, attached to ‘John the brother of James’ in Mark or
vice versa
in Acts, is attached to ‘Andrew
his brother
’ too. It will be recalled that in Greek, ‘Andrew’, besides being the name of a later Jewish Messianic leader (who led the Uprising in Egypt and Cyrene in 115–17 CE),
36
also means ‘Man’ – in Hebrew or Aramaic, ‘
Adam
’ or ‘
Enosh
’. This makes Peter – whether by coincidence or design – the
brother of ‘Man’
as well. For his part, Andrew’s place in Matthew moves up accordingly, though we never hear
a single additional word about him
in Matthew again – and hardly anywhere else either, except in John.

As with Andrew, Mark’s ‘John the brother of James’ is also reduced to ‘his brother’ – whose, unspecified, though we are obviously to presume James’, that is, ‘James the son of Zebedee’. Now, however, a ‘Lebbaeus’ is included – never mentioned anywhere before and never to be mentioned again, except, for instance, in the
Recognitions
, where he takes the place not only of ‘Thaddaeus’ generally, but also the Apostle to be called ‘Judas (the brother) of James’ in Luke and Acts.

In Matthew’s list, though missing from some recensions, ‘Lebbaeus’ is identified also with this mysterious Thaddaeus – now characterized, as we saw, as
Lebbaeus
’ ‘surname’! Matthew himself, as in 9:9 earlier and Mark 2:14 – where for some reason he was called ‘Levi (the son) of Alphaeus’ – is also, now, again called ‘the tax collector’ (Mt 10:3). This is obviously totally tendentious and, in view of the history we have been delineating above, not a little slanderous as well.

Not only will ‘Lebbaeus surnamed Thaddaeus’ be replaced in Luke’s listings by ‘Judas (the brother) of James’, another individual about whom we shall never hear another word in the Gospels again, but, with whom the reader will become very familiar. Since ‘Alphaeus’ in these lists, for some reason mixed up in Mark with both ‘Matthew’ and ‘tax collecting’, always has to do in some manner with
James
– probably a variation or deformation of ‘Cleophas’ – we again are verging in these things on matters related to individuals connected to Jesus’ family.

It is true that in John’s version of ‘the Last Supper’, this other ‘Judas,
not the Iscariot
’ (thus) does appear again – since the ‘Judas (the son) of Simon
Iscariot
’ has already departed to ‘
deliver him up
’ and his place, as we have seen, is rather taken by ‘
Didymus Thomas
’/‘
Twin Twin
’ (in apocryphal Gospels and early Church texts, ‘
Judas Thomas
’ – much more accurate and likely) – and, for some reason, it is he who John represents as asking ‘Jesus’ the question concerning why he is revealing himself (14:21–22). But these may simply be Johannine substitutions for Matthew 26:25’s portrait of Judas asking Jesus, when all the Apostles ‘dip with’ him, ‘is it I?’, or Synoptic portrayals generally of Judas ‘kissing’ Jesus at his arrest – more shades of ‘kissing’ portraits, like those at Nag Hammadi of
Jesus kissing James
, or
vice versa
, or of ‘the Disciple Jesus loved’ generally.

Luke’s Apostle list – which he presents in both his Gospel and Acts – is probably the most edifying of all. As one would expect, these two lists agree in almost every respect, differing only in the place accorded the one named ‘
Andrew
’ (as we have seen, ‘
Man
’) – regarding which, Luke’s Gospel follows Matthew and Acts follows Mark.

The latter enumeration takes place in ‘the upper room’ and follows the picture of Jesus himself ‘
commanding them
’ (as in the Gospel of Thomas’s appointment
logion
relating to James) ‘
not to leave Jerusalem
’. Then he ascends ‘
hidden by a cloud
’ (1:4–9). Curiously enough in the picture of the Apostles looking up at him here,
as he ‘ascends’
, the two men again – ‘who
stood beside
them in
white clothing
’ – address them all as ‘
Galileans
’ and ask querulously, ‘
Why stand you looking into the Heaven?
’

Of course, ‘
Judas Iscariot
’
is missing from the listing in ‘
the upper room
’ as he is in the ‘
Didymus Thomas
’ episodes in John 20-21. This is because we are, doubtlessly, supposed to assume
he has already
committed suicide
. Let us quote the list in the Gospel. Again Moses-like, as in Mark, Jesus ‘
went out into the Mountain
’ – this time ostensibly ‘
to pray
’. It reads:

Simon, whom he also named Peter, and Andrew
his brother
(so far so good), James and John (the appellatives ‘
sons of Zebedee
’, ‘
sons of Thunder’
or ‘
his brother
’ are  missing here in Luke as they are in Acts), Philip and Bartholomew, Matthew and Thomas,
James
(
the son
)
of Alphaeus, Simon who was called Zealot, Judas
(
the brother
)
of James
, and
Judas Iscariot who also became
(his/
the
)
Betrayer
(Lk 6:12–16; cf. Acts 1:13)

The only difference between the list in Luke’s Gospel and the one in Acts, as we have said, is that Andrew’s place is changed and Judas
Iscariot
literally
‘falls away’.

But, there are two astonishing things about the list, as Luke presents it in both places. In the first place, there is no ‘
Thaddaeus
’ at all. Rather, he is called, both here and in Acts, ‘Judas (the brother) of James’. But additionally, in actual order, his place is simply that accorded in Matthew and Mark to
Judas Iscariot
. This is particularly clear in Acts, when the second Judas – ‘the
Iscariot
’ or the ‘
son of Simon Iscariot
’ in John – simply ‘falls’ away.

In addition, the ‘Simon’ who now follows
James the son of Alphaeus
in the listings is now quite straightforwardly and without embarrassment ‘
called Zealot
’, not ‘
Cananite
’/‘
Canaanite
’/‘
Cananaean
’ or some other obfuscation or mistaken transliteration. In Acts, now minus the curious additional ‘Judas’ called ‘the
Iscariot
’, this is even more clearly rendered, because the
Simon the Zealot
is now really characterized as ‘
the Zealot
’ and not the ‘
called Zelotes
’ of Luke 6:15 (Acts 1:13).

But in the Gospel of John, Judas
Iscariot
is on four separate occasions designated ‘(the son) of Simon
Iscariot
’ (Jn 12:4, 13:26, etc.). John also specifically refers to the ‘Judas
not the lscariot
’ (14:22). This reference to ‘the
Iscariot
’ side by side with ‘the other Judas’ – ‘the brother of James’ (elsewhere, as will become plain, ‘Judas
Zelotes
’) – preceded by the definite article, is just what we have been attempting to point up. Whether accidental or otherwise, it does parallel the allusion to ‘Simon
the Zealot
’ or ‘called
Zelotes
’ in Acts and Luke, with whose name we began this discussion. It will now be an open question whether the terminology ‘
Iscariot
’ is a direct offshoot of the singular term in Greek ‘
Sicarios
’ (plural,
Sicarioi
), as we have been signaling all along – the Greek
iota
and
sigma
simply being inverted – and its closest linguistic anagram.