James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls II (117 page)

Not only does the original Herod end up executing this Costobarus but, having also executed his own wife, Mariamme, her grandfather Hyrcanus II, and her mother Alexandra – all of whom, as Josephus himself makes plain, abetted his rise to power – he takes the opportunity too to dispose of all other pro-Maccabeans, whom this first ‘
Costobarus
’ seems to have been sheltering in Idumaea. The connection of this ‘
Costobarus
’ with pro-Maccabeans is certainly an interesting one. So effective was Herod in extirpating Maccabeans that Josephus was forced to remark: ‘
There were none left of the kindred of Hyrcanus
(
i.e.
, Mariamme’s grandfather, the most pliant and accommodating of all Maccabeans)
and no one left with sufficient dignity to put a stop to what he did against the Jewish Laws
.’
Josephus continues, using the
exact
phrase, ‘
rebelled against the Laws
’ that the Habakkuk
Pesher
used regarding those it described as ‘
the Men of Violence
’: ‘
Herod rebelled against the Laws
…
polluting the ancient constitution by introducing foreign practices
…
by which means we became guilty of great Wickedness thereafter
,
while those religious observances that used to lead the multitude to Piety were now neglected
.’
88
This is a very strong indic
t
ment and here, again, are the two points about ‘
Piety
’ and antagonism to foreign practices we have been following.

Later, in discussing how Herod thought higher of the two Pharisees, Pollio and Sameas ‘
than their mortal nature deserved
’ and describing his vindictiveness, Josephus tells how Herod brought endless numbers of malcontents to fortresses like Hyrcania and Machaeros on either side of the Dead Sea – this last being the ‘
Fortress
’ a half century later in Perea where his son Herod Antipas put John the Baptist to death.
89
In doing so, Josephus baldly tells us that it was Herod who was the first to introduce ‘
Innovations into the religious practices of the Jews
to the detriment of their Ancestral Customs
’ – meaning that it was he, Herod, who was the first ‘
Innovator
’ not ‘
the Revolutionaries
’, as Josephus later claims when discussing the latter's decision to reject gifts and sacrifices in the Temple on behalf of foreigners, which triggered the War against Rome. These later ‘
Innov
a
tors
’ were only attempting to restore the
status quo ante
. This, of course, is exactly the sense of the manner in which CD IV.15–17 describes the ‘
nets
’
Belial
set up as ‘
three kinds of Righteousness to ensnare Israel
’. It is on the basis of allusions and notices of this kind that we can link up the ‘
Belial
’ usage with
Herodians
.

There is more however. Since, as we saw, ‘
Bela
‘
’, a name based on the same Hebrew root as
Belial
, was the first Edomite King according to Biblical genealogies (Genesis 36:32 and
pars
.), this relationship has an even more concrete foundation and relates not only to the perception of the
Herodian
dynasty as
Idumaean
, but also to the language circle centering about the name ‘
Balaam
’, another linguistic variant of both
Belial
and
Bela
‘
in Hebrew. In fact, the only really pure ‘
Idumaean
’ in Herodian genealogies is
Costobarus
himself. For its part, ‘
Balaam
’ pops up in the New Testament as a linguistic variant of
Bel
i
al
in the Damascus Document. For Revelation 2:14, as we saw, ‘
Balaam taught Balak to cast down
(
balein
)
a net before the Sons of Israel to eat
things sacrificed to idols and commit fornication’
.

Here, of course, we have the telltale ‘
casting down
’ language in Greek, linking up with the ‘
swallowing
’ language in H
e
brew which reappears in the Habakkuk
Pesher
’s description of the destruction or deaths of the Righteous Teacher and ‘
the Poor
’ of his Council – and what God, in turn, did to the Wicked Priest, that is, ‘
swallowed him
’. The relationship of this ‘
cas
t
ing down
’ language in Greek and this ‘
swallowing
’ language in Hebrew to Herodian behavior and both, in turn, to each other, should not be too difficult to recognize.

This section of Revelation is also steeped in the language of ‘
works Righteousness
’ (‘
I will give to each of you according to your works
’ – 2:23) and antagonism to ‘
fornication
’ and ‘
Riches
’. It combines both the language of ‘
Satan
’ (2:9–13, mentioned three times) with that of how ‘
the Devil
(
Diabolos
)
is about to cast
’ (
balein
) some of those being addressed ‘
into prison
’ (2:10). Not only does it transform the language of the Damascus Document’s third of
Belial
’s ‘
nets
’ into the language of James’ i
n
structions to overseas communities in Acts, it takes on a distinctly ‘
Jamesian
’ cast. Now that this very allusion to ‘
things sacr
i
ficed to idols
’ has appeared in
MMT
in the context of
opposing Gentile gifts of grain in the Temple
, ‘
skins sacrificed to idols
’ (a concern of the Temple Scroll too), and
Gentile sacrifices generally
, we can see how all these things are connected.
90

2 Peter 2:15, another letter which is drenched in the imagery of Qumran, also speaks of those ‘
led astray from the Straight Way
,
following the Way of Balaam the son of Be
‘
or
’, and replicates almost precisely the description of ‘
the Liar
’
s
’ activities in CD I.14–18 as well. It also speaks of the ‘
soul of the Righteous
’ (2:8), duplicating the language the Damascus Document uses at the end of the First Column to describe the attack on ‘
the Righteous One
’ by those ‘
rejoicing in strife among the People
’ as well as like-minded phraseology used throughout the Qumran Hymns.
91
The same is true of the Letter of Jude, James’ ‘
brot
h
er
’, referring to ‘
the error of Balaam
’ (1:11).

Both Bela
‘
and Balaam, as previously remarked as well, however improbably, were also in some sense considered ‘
Sons of Be
‘
or
’, thus completing this whole circle and tying these esotericisms even closer together. It is not incurious that in the Te
m
ple Scroll where ‘
balla
‘
’/‘
Bela
‘
’ – either reading is possible – is evoked amid reference to the classes of persons to be debarred from the Temple and where ‘
skins sacrificed to idols
’ are alluded to as an aspect of ‘
polluting the Temple
’ and banned from the Temple for the same reason as ‘
things sacrificed to idols
’ were in James’ directives to overseas communities, the language again appears to incorporate an esoteric play of some kind on the name ‘
Be
‘
or
’, that is, ‘
be-
‘
orot
’/‘
with skins
’, just as it does the term ‘
balla
‘
’/‘
swallowed
’ or ‘
Bela
‘
’.

Where the
Idumaeans
, in particular, are concerned, these are the same ‘
Idumaeans
’, according to Josephus, that a century later take the side of ‘
the Zealots
’ and come into Jerusalem at their request and annihilate all the collaborating classes among the Jews including the High Priests, most notably James’ judicial executioner Ananus and a few others, whose deaths Josephus describes in gory detail.
92
It is these
Idumaeans
, no doubt including an assortment of pro-Revolutionary Herodian ‘
Men-of-War
’ and other ‘
Violent
’ persons that we identify with these ‘
Violent Ones of the Gentiles
’ – mentioned in these critical pa
s
sages from the Psalm 37
Pesher
as taking vengeance for what was done to ‘
the Righteous Teacher
’ (whatever this was) – which dovetail so impressively with similar notices in the Habakkuk
Pesher
we have already described and will describe further below.

They are probably to be identified as well with ‘
the Violent Ones
’ who, at the beginning of the Habakkuk
Pesher
, take part in the scriptural exegesis sessions of
the Righteous Teacher
and at this point would appear to be allied with ‘
the Liar
’ and other ‘
Traitors to the New Covenant
’ against him. It is interesting that in CD XX.13–17 where ‘
the Men-of-War
’ are said to ‘
walk with the Liar
’ after the ‘
gathering in
’ or
death of
‘
the Unique
’ or ‘
Righteous Teacher
’, such ‘
Men of Scoffing
’ are said to have ‘
spoken mistakenly about the Laws of Righteousness and rejected the Covenant and the Compact
,
the New Covenant
,
which they erected in the Land of Damascus
’ – the Hebrew word ‘
reject
’ (
ma
’
as
) always being tied to ‘
the Spouter of Lying
’’s activities in the Scrolls.

Josephus specifically designates the Leader of these Idumaeans as ‘
Niger of Perea
’ – Perea being where John the Baptist was active and met his death at the hands of Herod Antipas around 34–36
CE
.
93
This would be around the same time that Aretas,
the
King of Petra
took control of Damascus, coeval with the mission of some kind, ‘
Saul
’ or ‘
Paul
’ undertakes to ‘
D
a
mascus
’, from which he has to escape from Aretas’ soldiers by having himself ‘
let down in a basket
’ from its walls – the same episode that Acts 9:3–25 exploits to describe Paul’s conversion on the way to Damascus and his subsequent attacks on the Jews there. All this is very murky, but clearly the situation is somewhat different from Acts’ description of it.

‘
The Spoils of the Peoples
’, ‘
the Last Priests of Jerusalem
’, and the ‘
Pollution
’ of the Temple Treasury

We can now pass over to the Habakkuk
Pesher
. In the First Column, there is the idea of ‘
the Wicked encompassing the Righteous
’ (Hab. 1:4) where, paralleling the Psalm 37
Pesher
above, ‘
the Wicked
’ is specifically identified as ‘
the Wicked Priest
’; ‘
the Righteous
’, as ‘
the Righteous Teacher
’.
94
Immediately, too, one sees the idea that ‘
they executed upon him
(the Wicked Priest)
the Judgements on Evil
’, which we just encountered in 4QpPs37 I.11–12 and with which it draws to a close. This is sometimes not appreciated because of faulty translations of the sense. The allusion occurs at the beginning of Column
IX
(1–2) of the Habakkuk
Pesher
, directly after the material in VIII.11–12 about how
the Wicked Priest
‘
stole and collected the Riches of the Men of Violence
(
Anshei-Hamas
),
who rebelled against God and took the Riches of the Peoples
’.