James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls II (106 page)

This is all parodied in the description in Acts 11:27 of how Agabus ‘
came down from Jerusalem to Antioch
’ and ‘
having risen up
’, ‘
signified by the Spirit
’ his ‘
Prophecy
’ about
the Great Famine
which, in fact, ‘
also came to pass
’. Not only does the reason for this obfuscation or dissimulation have to do with Helen’s more militant brand of Judaism and the
‘
Zealotry
’
of her two sons, but it also has to do with the insistent motif of
circumcision
and/or
conversion
in all these traditions relating to e
i
ther
‘
King Agbarus
’
or his subjects
the Edessenes
,
as well as that of
‘
Zelotes
’
or
the
‘
zeal
’
being attached to the name of one or another of the teachers involved in these conversions,
e.g.
,
‘
Simon
Zelotes
’,
‘
Judas
Zelotes
’,
or even, if one prefers, ‘
Judas Iscar
i
ot
’
and/or ‘
Simon Iscariot
’/‘
Simon the
Iscariot
’.
39

In turn, these are usually linked to the names of one or another of Jesus’ brothers, as we have been underscoring, and the motif of
their having been sent down from Jerusalem
either by one of these, usually ‘
Judas Thomas
’ or even James himself. In Acts 15:22 it will be recalled, ‘
Judas Barsabas
’ is the one who is
‘
sent down
’
among others by James with his directives to ove
r
seas communities – themselves not unrelated, as we have been demonstrating, to the
Letter
(s) known as
MMT.

In the second of these two prophecies attributed to
‘
Agabus
’
in Acts, we have another of these inversions – this time of the
‘
Pella flight
’
oracle warning the followers of James to flee Jerusalem and, by extension, of this oracle of Jesus ben Ananias about the coming destruction of Jerusalem. This
oracle
also finds its way into Gospel presentations – according to the Syno
p
tics anyhow – of another Jesus who, as we saw as well, is pictured as uttering a more extensive version of it or its equivalent
when coming in sight of Jerusalem
– this time thirty or so years earlier.

As we have shown too, there can be little doubt that
Jesus ben Ananias
starts prophesying the coming destruction of Jer
u
salem at exactly the time James is killed or a little thereafter. Nor does he cease until he is killed shortly before
his Prophecy
too is fulfilled. Nor can there be much doubt that the mysterious conjunction of these two events must be associated in some manner with James’ death. This now explains the widespread belief on the part of ‘
the People
’, attested to in copies of Jos
e
phus known to Origen, Eusebius, and Jerome, ‘
that
Jerusalem fell because of the death of James
’.

JAMES AND QUMRAN

The Scrolls and New Testament Criticism

The points we have made regarding James’ position in early Christianity stand on their own regardless of whether there is a relationship to the Qumran materials or not. There are, however, so many allusions and expressions in the New Testament and related documents which, as we have been showing, overlap with the Scroll materials that it is possible to go further. In previous work we avoided systematic conclusions about the Scrolls because of disagreements over chronological problems which have still not been resolved and probably never will. What follows, therefore, will have to be evaluated on its own terms.

We could not have arrived at the insights we did regarding ‘
Palestinian Messianism
’, our understanding of what the true nature of early ‘
Christianity
’ in Palestine was, or problematic portions of the Gospels, without the Dead Sea Scrolls. These provided us with the contemporary control to see what an authentic Palestinian document might look like. This is what is so revolutionary about the Scrolls and the insight they provide into the life and mind of Palestine at that time, as if we had been presented with an untampered-with ‘
time capsule
’ that had not gone through the editorial and redaction processes of the R
o
man Empire but were, rather, put in caves after only the initial redaction process.

Previously, in doing criticism of the New Testament, scholars did not have such contemporary and primary documents to use either for chronological control and by which to measure whether a given passage might be inappropriate or not to its time or place – or
even fictional
for that matter. Now we do, which is what is so revolutionary about having the Dead Sea Scrolls as a research tool. It is for this reason, too, that we can and will go further. Much will depend on one’s attitude towards ‘
external
’ parameters such as palaeographic analysis, archaeological interpreations, or A.M.S. carbon dating procedures.

Actually it would be simpler and easier to take the facile and more well-traveled path, the safe approach most specialists prefer to take, thereby avoiding having to make the specific identifications we shall attempt and insulating themselves from criticism, which is the general rule in this field, because it is almost impossible to be criticized if you do not or cannot say an
y
thing definite about a specific issue or hazard a particular identification. But there is enough information from this period that
we should be able to make specific identifications
, and to refrain from doing so is neither the responsible nor courageous thing to do.

Regarding these documents from Qumran, first let us state, unequivocally, that we are confronted with
a
major Movement in Judaism
. The scope of the literature guarantees that. Plus, we know enough about the period and have enough data from a var
i
ety of sources, not least of which being Josephus himself – to demand that scholars ‘
toe the line
’ on these issues and not sim
p
ly retreat to the safer ground of not committing themselves. Over and over again we have shown the relationship of the
vocab
u
lary
of the Community in Palestine which was led by James to the Community represented by the literature found at Qumran and this is, in my view, the inescapable thrust of the documents we have before us.

Nor could we have had such insights before without such documents. For instance, we could not have known the i
m
portance of the
B
-
L
-
‘
/
Bela
‘
/
Belial
/
Balaam
language-circle to Palestinian documents and how this became transformed in the Greek presentation of James’ death in terms of being ‘
cast down
’ (in Greek, ‘
ballo
’, based on the same homophonous root –
B-L-L
– as in the Hebrew) and how, in turn, all of this language and imagery of ‘
being cast down
’ went into the more sanitized and, one might add,
pacified
presentation in the Gospels of Jesus and
his Apostles
as either
peaceful fishermen
on the Sea of Galilee
‘
casting down nets
’
or ‘
casting out Evil spirits
’ and similar activities often involving this very usage ‘
casting
’.

Then, too, we could never have understood the importance of Eusebius’ ‘
Letter to Agbarus
’ in determining the
possible provenance of the Letter or Letters known as
MMT
, nor, even their extremely ‘
Jamesian
’ cast.
Vice versa
, we could never have understood that James’ instructions to overseas communities, summarized in Acts and reflected by Paul in 1 Corinthians 6–12, the Pseudoclementines, and in
MMT
is really a letter to a ‘
zealous
’ new convert needing such tuition, in particular, someone like the King of Adiabene whom Josephus calls ‘
Izates
’, and not to a
Jewish
King at all, whether Maccabean or Herodian.

Finally, we could not have understood the tremendous
lacunae
left in the Gospel narratives after pursuing studies of this kind without comparing them with usages, emphases, and imagery found in the Scrolls. Nor could we have understood how these same Gospels – to say nothing of Acts – were depending on and either parodying or using (often even reversing) ident
i
fiable stories, ideas, and episodes taken not only from Josephus, the Old Testament, and the Scrolls, but also from Rabbinic literature – recondite and unassimilable as it may have been too – and selected
Christian
Apocrypha to reconstruct their po
r
trait of the being, ideology, and teaching of the person they were representing as ‘Jesus’.

The First Confrontations on the Temple Mount: Stephen, ‘
the Hellenists
’, and James

The First Book of the
Recognitions
of Clement pictures debates on the Temple steps, mentions
Gamaliel
, and ends with a riot led by Paul on the Temple Mount which triggers the flight of the Jerusalem Community
to Jericho
(and not ‘
Pella
’ or even ‘
Damascus
’). Acts, in its early chapters (3:1–5:25), also pictures
debates and confrontations on the Temple Mount
,
mentions Gamaliel
(5:33), and ends with a riot in Jerusalem in which Paul plays a central role (8:1–3). Paul then receives letters from the High Priests to pursue the Jerusalem Community to
Damascus
(9:1–2), a flight and pursuit depicted in the Pseudoclementine
Recognitions
as well. These are the clear points of contact which probably indicate a common source.

In the Pseudoclementine
Recognitions
, the whole presentation is one of debates and arguments on the Temple Mount over the burning issues of the day between the Herodian
High Priests
and the Messianic Community, with James functioning either in the role of ‘
Overseer
’/‘
Bishop
’/or ‘
Archbishop
’ (the seeming ‘
High Priest of the Opposition Alliance
’). These debates fina
l
ly end in the long speech James delivers, which was, no doubt, originally part of the
Anabathmoi Jacobou
, on the ‘
two natures of Christ
’ and ‘
the Primal Adam
’ ideology.
1
There can be little doubt, too, that the attack on James on the Temple Mount (which Acts
overwrites
as the stoning of ‘
Stephen
’) is what
really
happens at this point in early Church history.

One can also probably assert with some confidence that it is probably James who sends ‘
Simon
’, whom Josephus pictures as wishing to
bar Herodians from the Temple as foreigners
at approximately this time, down to Caesarea – just as the Pseudoclementine
Recognitions
describes in its portrait of James sending out ‘
Simon Peter
’ from a location somewhere outside of Jericho (where the whole Community has fled) to confront ‘
Simon Magus
’ in Caesarea where, of course, the Herodian, King Agrippa I (37–44
CE
) also
had his palace
.

However this may be, the ‘
Simon
’ in Josephus rather visits Agrippa I to see what was being done there ‘
contrary to Law
’, not the household of ‘
Cornelius the Roman Centurion
’, as Acts 10:1–11:18 portrays parallel materials, deftly subverting them. For its part, the exclusionary doctrine ascribed to ‘
Simon’
by Josephus is the very reverse of the
Heavenly
vision the ‘
Simon Peter
’ in Acts is vouchsafed, which rather ends up in his
thoroughgoing acceptance of Gentiles not their rejection
or, as it were, his absolute ‘
Paulinization
’.

The confrontations that Peter is pictured as having with Simon
Magus
that follow in Acts 8:9–25 in Simon’s birthplace ‘
Samaria
’ – more accurately in
Caesarea
, as in the Pseudoclementines – are most likely historical too. These, however, probably relate – as Josephus pictures a parallel episode in the
Antiquities
– to Simon
Magus
’ or
Atomus
’ subsequent advice to Agrippa II’s sister Drusilla to divorce her husband the King of Emesa, who
had specifically circumcised himself
at the insistence of her father Agrippa I in order to marry her.
2

As in the case of John the Baptist’s complaints against Herodias and Herod Antipas a decade before these objections ‘
S
i
mon Peter
’ might have had to Drusilla’s divorce and subsequent remarriage to Felix, these confrontations with Herodian women involve ‘
fornication
’, most notably defined in the Scrolls, as we have seen, as
niece marriage
,
polygamy
, and
divorce
– but in the Temple Scroll including, at least where
the King
or
Ruler
was concerned,
marrying non-Jews
and ‘
taking more than one wife during the lifetime of the first
’ as well.
3

It should also be appreciated that these confrontations with Herodian women also involve another favorite theme in the Scrolls and the Letter of James – the second of these ‘
Three Nets of
Belial
’ in the Damascus Document – the ‘
Riches
’ of these Herodian women. Of these, Herodias and Bernice would appear to have been the
Richest
of all, a point Josephus never fails to note in these descriptions of them.
4
On the other hand, these confrontations had
almost nothing to do with
‘
levirate marriage
’ – the point seized upon in the Synoptics. These things notwithstanding, complaints of this kind occur at this time – at least in the case of Drusilla and Felix (who both appear conversing amiably with Paul in Acts 24:24–27) – amid the general disaffe
c
tion between ‘
Syrophoenician
’ Legionnaires and the Jewish inhabitants of Caesarea, so graphically depicted in Josephus.
5

Another curious point bearing on this interesting tangle of events is that Josephus places the riot led by ‘
Saulos
’ and two others in Jerusalem directly after
the death of James
.
6
The author of Acts places a similar riot led by its ‘
Saulos
’ following ‘
the stoning of Stephen
’, a stand-in, as we have sufficiently elucidated, for the attack by Saul/Paul on James as detailed in the
Reco
g
nitions
.