James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls II (129 page)

In both of these versions we have the usual references to ‘
eating
’ carrying the implied meaning of ‘
destroyed
’ or ‘
being paid a reward
’. The same sense is reiterated in the Hebrew version of Isaiah 3:9: ‘
for they have paid
/rewarded (
gamlu
)
the
m
selves Evil
(
Ra
‘
ah
)’. The Isaiah 3:11 part of this all-important passage is more or less the same in all versions. This having been said, the words being used in this proof-text will immediately be recognized as the basis of the
Pesher
we have just reviewed above from Column XII.2–3 of the Habakkuk
Pesher
which actually uses the same Hebrew words ‘
gemul
’ and ‘
gamal
’ (‘
reward
and ‘
rewarded
’/‘
paid
’) twice, ‘
gemul asher gamal
’ (‘
the reward which he rewarded
’ or ‘
the reward which he paid
’), just as one finds them here in the Hebrew of Isaiah 3:9–11. In both the Hebrew and the Greek of Isaiah 3:11, this is expressed as ‘
the reward of his hands will be done to him
’ or ‘
he shall be paid according to the works of his hands
’.

1QpHab XII.2–3 uses parallel words to express the same idea, ‘
he
(
the Wicked Priest
)
will be paid the reward which he paid
(‘
rewarded
’)
the Poor
’ (
Ebionim
), even though none of this exists in the underlying text of Habakkuk 2:17 being expoun
d
ed. As in the case of the ‘
swallowing
’ or ‘
casting down
’ in the interpretation of Habakkuk 2:15 in XI.2–15 just preceding this, the allusion to ‘
the Poor
’, which will not have a parallel until the eschatological reference to ‘
the Meek
’ (
‘
A
ni
) in Habakkuk 3:14 to follow, has been deliberately introduced. But so has the language of dual allusion to ‘
reward
’ (
gemul
) and ‘
rewarding
’ (
gamal
) which does not exist as such in the underlying Hebrew of Habakkuk 2:17 and which only refers to ‘
the Violence done to Le
b
anon
’, ‘
the Violence to the Land
’, ‘
the dumb beasts
’, and ‘
the Blood of Man
(‘
Adam
’, repeated twice). We have already signaled the possibilities presented by this reference to ‘
Man
’/‘
Adam
’. This, too, has been deliberately introduced. Nor is this to say anything about the incredibly ‘
Messianic
’ language of Habakkuk 3:3–19 which the
Pesher
has not yet even bothered to e
x
pound.

In our view, what the exegete has done here (either because the Community has another
Pesher
relating to the language in Isaiah 3:9–11, or remembers it) is taken this language – in particular that of Isaiah 3:11 which did involve the phraseology of ‘
Woe to the Wicked
’ (in the vocabulary of Qumran exegesis, always ‘
the Wicked Priest
’) – namely, ‘
the reward of his hands shall be done to him
’, and introduced it here into his
Pesher
about ‘
the reward which would be paid to
’ the Wicked Priest for what he did to ‘
the Poor
’ –
i.e.
, in our view, the followers of James.

But, of course, where Isaiah 3:10–11 is concerned, this is the exact passage, as we now know, that was applied to the death of James in early Church literature. But the parallels do not end there. Not only does the Habakkuk
Pesher
, at this point, refer to the ‘
conspiracy
’ by the Wicked Priest ‘
to destroy the Poor
’, it ends with the reference that he ‘
robbed the Riches/sustenance of the Poor
’ (
gazal Hon-Ebionim
). Once again, the phrase does not appear at this point in the underlying text Habakkuk 2:17, only ‘
Violence
’, ‘
Lebanon
’, ‘
beasts
’, and ‘
Blood
’, as we have seen, but nothing about ‘
robbing the Poor
’ (
gazal
). Rather this all
u
sion is to be found two lines further along in Isaiah 3:14, directly following the materials from Isaiah 3:10–11 being applied to James’ death by Hegesippus and his dependents. Here ‘
robbing the Poor
’ (
gezelat he-
‘A
ni
) is specifically referred to, as is
‘
bur
n
ing the vineyard
’ and ‘
grinding the face of the Poor
’ (3:15). The only difference between the sense of the two texts is that ‘
‘
Ani
’/‘
Meek
’ is used instead of ‘
Ebion
’/‘
Poor
’.

We just saw how this usage of ‘
Ebionim
’, the name for James’ Community in Early Christianity, was deliberately introduced into the reference to the ‘
robbing
’ and ‘
destroying
’, the Wicked Priest does in this Column to ‘
the Poor
’, even though – just as in Isaiah 3:15 above – an allusion to ‘
‘
Ani
’/‘
Meek
’ did not appear until Habakkuk 3:14’s ‘
eating
’ or ‘
devouring
’
the Meek in secret
’. The same is true of the Psalm 37
Pesher
, which also refers to
God paying the Wicked Pries
t ‘
his reward
’ (
gemulo
) in ex
e
gesis of ‘
the Wicked watching out for the Righteous and seeking to kill him
’, the underlying text for which generally refers to ‘
the Meek
’ (Psalm 37:11 and 14). There, it will be recalled, these allusions were tied both to evocation of ‘
the Doers of the
T
o
rah
’ and ‘
the Assembly of the Poor
’ – phrases, as should by now be appreciated, of absolute significance to the identification our two Communities.

But this ‘
eating
’ or ‘
devouring
’ is exactly the sense of ‘
eating the fruit of their actions
’ (‘
works
’ in the
Septuagint
transl
a
tion) of Isaiah 3:10. In addition, this allusion to the ‘
robbing the Poor
’ in the Isaiah passage, applied to James in early Church exegesis, also directly follows an allusion in 3:12 to ‘
leading the People astray
’ and ‘
swallowing
(
bille
‘
u
)
the Way of Your Paths
’, not to mention ‘
the Lord standing up to judge the Peoples
’ in 3:13. Once again, we have the clearest kind of proof – if such were needed – that the sectaries are mixing the imagery found in Isaiah 3 with those of Habakkuk 1–2 to produce the exegesis they are seeking. Having said this,
the passage from Isaiah 3:10–11 is the one being applied to James’ death
and what Ananus did to him in the earliest Church testimony
. Nor can we find a clearer illustration of the connections between the two passages than to see that the language from the one is deliberately being introduced into the interpretation of the other.

One should also note both the allusions to ‘
standing up
’ (the ‘
standing
’/‘
Standing One
’ ideology again) and the parallels represented by the language of ‘
eating
’/‘
devouring
’ and ‘
swallowing
’/‘
consuming
’, which are particularly strong in the
Pesharim
at Qumran. One cannot ask for clearer textual proof of the identity of ‘
the Righteous Teacher
’ from Qumran with the James (‘
Jacob
’) of early Church sources than the convergence of these Scriptural materials being used to apply to the deaths of them both.

Daniel’s Chronology and James’ Stoning

We shall now be able to elucidate these allusions to ‘
making one
’
s neighbor drink
,
pouring out His Fury unto satiety
’ or ‘
drunkenness
’ – possibly, also, ‘
make them drink
’ or ‘
drunk
’ – in the underlying passage from Habakkuk 2:15 being expounded here in 1QpHab XI.2–10. Before doing so, it should be noted that this passage from the end of Daniel which alludes to ‘
a time, two times and a half
’ and the odd numerology of ‘
a thousand three hundred and thirty-five days
’ also closes with an all
u
sion to ‘
standing up to your Fate
(also ‘
Lot
’)
at the End of Days
’ (12:13). Not only is this language of ‘
the Last Days
’ or ‘
the End of Days
’ a part of the ethos of most of these
Pesharim
on Biblical texts at Qumran, we have already encountered it in terms of the ‘
standing up
’ or ‘
return of the Messiah
’ in the Damascus Document – alluded to there in at least three different places.

That is to say that, according to the ideology of the Damascus Document, it is possible to consider allusions such as this as meaning that ‘
the Messiah
’ had already come and that, not only is his return anxiously awaited but the events we have been describing are taking place in the aftermath of this. While these things are obscure and not, strictly speaking, admissible of proof, this is the problem of depending on the chronology of ‘Consensus’ Qumran Scholarship as it has (until recently) been purveyed. As we have said, this scholarship does not attempt to make ambiguous readings of this kind intelligible to the ge
n
eral public or come to grips in any significant way with the internal data of the texts themselves.

Where the ‘
three and a half years
’ from Daniel 12:7 are concerned, reiterated in Josephus’ description of the interruption of sacrifices at the time of Antiochus Epiphanes’ incursions in the
War,
1
this is also the numerology of the eschatological en
d
ing of the Letter of James. Not only are the coming of apocalyptic ‘
Judgement
’, ‘
standing
’, ‘
the Last Days
’, ‘
the coming of the Lord of Hosts
’, and ‘
the End
’ – most of which found in Daniel – alluded to in the last Chapter of James (5:4–5:11), but the reference there to ‘
t
hree and a half years
’ comes amid evocation of ‘
the Prayer of Faith
’ for forgiveness of Sins, that is to say,
an atonement
.

Here the assurance is given that ‘
the Lord will raise him up
’ and the efficacy of ‘
the fervent working prayer of the Righ
t
eous One
’ evoked (5:15–16). This then is followed by ‘
the prayer for rain
’ delivered by a previous ‘
Righteous One
’, Elijah, which we have already shown to be not unconnected with the evocation of final apocalyptic ‘
Judgement
’ and ‘
the coming of the Messiah
’ (also deriving from Daniel) together with ‘
the Heavenly Host on the clouds of Heaven
’. In the War Scroll, the coming of this eschatological Judgement is twice compared to the coming of rain – apocalyptic rain – which, as Matthew 5:45 would phrase it, is ‘
sent on the Just and Unjust
’ alike.
2
In Rabbinic literature, as we saw, the coming of rain in its season is a
s
sociated with proper
Temple service
, the very thing delineated in James’ reported critique of the Temple Establishment in the
Anabathmoi Jacobou
.
3

Here in James 5:7–8, ‘
the coming of the Lord
’ is also expressed in terms of ‘
early and late rain
’. In
Talmud
Ta
‘
anith
, this ‘
early rain
’ (
yoreh
) is also referred to with regard to final eschatological Judgement,
4
and, in the Damascus Document, it is a name for the stand-in for ‘
the Righteous Teacher
’, ‘
the
Yoreh ha-Zedek
’/‘
Guide of Righteousness
’, not ‘
the
Moreh ha-Zedek
’.
5
In the Letter of James, too, ‘
three and a half years
’ is the period in between which Elijah – John the Baptist’s prototype and the forerunner of the Messiah in the Gospels – both ‘
prayed for it not to rain and then to rain
’,
i.e.
, the period
during which
‘
rain
’
was withheld
.

It is possible to view this period, as just signaled, as a complicated numerology of some sort relating to the period in b
e
tween the stoning of ‘
the
Zaddik
’ James for ‘
blasphemy
’ and the final rejection of gifts and stopping of sacrifice ‘
on behalf of foreigners
’ in the Temple by the ‘
Zealot
’ Lower Priesthood some
three and a half years later
. Though admittedly speculative, in such a scenario James – as ‘
the
High Priest’
and the individual whose ‘
fervent prayer
’ and ‘
atonement
’
on behalf of the whole People on his knees in the Holy of Holies before the Judgement Seat at Yom Kippur
– provoked the events the Habakkuk
Pesher
seems to be referring to, that from its vantage point resulted in
the swallowing of the Righteous Teacher
or, from Jos
e
phus’ point-of-view,
the Trial for
‘
blasphemy
’
of James
.

We have already discussed this Trial of James and several of his associates – in the Habakkuk
Pesher
referred to as ‘
the Poor
’ and ‘
the Simple of Judah doing
Torah
’ – on a charge of ‘
blasphemy
’ by Ananus to which, as Josephus avers, those in J
e
rusalem ‘
most concerned with Equity and scrupulous observation of the Law objected
’. This is followed in all early Church sources by the immediate coming of the Roman Armies and the destruction of Jerusalem – which is also the overall sense here of the Habakkuk
Pesher
though, for it, all of these events may not yet have been accomplished but in the process, perhaps, of only being accomplished. Such a scenario would allow us to place what is being described in these incredible materials in the Habakkuk
Pesher
in the very midst of these events having both to do with the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple, so fraught with significance for the history of Western Civilization thereafter, just as a greater part of Daniel appears to have been written in the midst of the Maccabean Uprising.

This complex of events and allusions is a very important dating tool for the Habakkuk
Pesher
because otherwise we would have to put the events it is describing back into the days of the storming of the Temple with Roman help by Herod in 37 BCE or Pompey in 63 BCE when there was absolutely no indication of any subsequent seizure of spoil. This would be patently a
b
surd, not only because there is nothing remotely resembling the events we have been describing here, but because, on the co
n
trary, Josephus is very specific in asserting that, aside from going in and viewing the forbidden Holy of Holies with some of his officers, Pompey
touched nothing
–
no spoil
. Nor did Herod thereafter, for the reasons we have already delineated above, that is, wishing to avoid the animosity of his subjects-to-be, he promised to pay his soldiers out of his own pocket.
6

We have already seen how these ‘
blasphemy
’ charges – which more properly appertain to the Sanhedrin Trial of James – are absorbed into all accounts of the trial and death of Jesus,
unless Jesus did what James did, that is,
render atonement on behalf of the whole people in the Holy of Holies on at least one Yom Kippur
. He may have, as he is pictured in Mark 11:16 as stopping commerce in the Temple, but we have no way of knowing whether he did. In any event this is the way Paul, in his spiritualization of these affairs, interprets his death though now Jesus becomes the sacrifice itself. However this may be, the most important basis for the charge of ‘
blasphemy
’, according to Talmudic tradition is pronouncing the forbidden Name of God or encouraging others to do so
7
– except, that is, by the functioning High Priest who on
Yom Kippur
was permitted to pronounce this Name as part of his general supplication in the Holy of Holies.

But, as already explained, this is exactly what James is pictured as doing in the very
Yom Kippur
atonement scenario, po
r
trayed in early Church tradition regarding him, that is, we have an actual basis for the ‘
blasphemy
’ charge against James in the reported events of his very life itself whereas for Jesus, ostensibly anyhow, we do not – claims to the contrary in the Gospels notwithstanding. Furthermore, even in the picture of the Gospels, Jesus does not undergo the prescribed punishment for ‘
blasphemy
’ – stoning – but one for subversive activities or Revolutionary actions according to Roman parameters – therefore his appearance before Pilate, according to Gospel portraiture, who would probably not normally review a punishment for ‘
blasphemy
’ according to Jewish ones.
A Jewish Sanhedrin would not and could not impose a crucifixion penalty since, as we have been showing, it was forbidden under Jewish Law, even in Paul’s convoluted transformation of it in Galatians 3:13. Only a Roman Governor could do this, a fact the Gospels and the Book of Acts are anxious to obscure in their many accusations about ‘
Jewish plots
’ and their picture of the rushed Sanhedrin proceedings for ‘
blasphemy
’ at the Jewish ‘
High Priest
’
s House
’ – itself probably based on the biography of James.

Here the usage ‘
Court
’, ‘
House
’, or ‘
Palace
’ in the portrait in the Gospels is very important, and probably the true explan
a
tion for the allusion to ‘
His House of Exile
’ in the Habakkuk
Pesher
, not to mention the plethora of Talmudic notices about just such an ‘
exile of the Sanhedrin
’ from its normal place of sitting during this period. However these things may be, James
was stoned for blasphemy
and we have the probable basis for such a charge – warranted or otherwise. A ‘
Rechabite Priest
’, to wit, a ‘
Priest
’ obeying the purity strictures of extreme Naziritism or what some might call an ‘
Essene Priest
’, James as a ‘
Cov
e
nant
-
Keeper
’ was certainly a ‘
Priest
’ according to the definition at Qumran – a ‘
Son of Zadok
’ or one of ‘
the
Elect of Israel
,
who would stand at the Last Days and justify the Righteous and condemn the Wicked
’.

It was most likely in this period, symbolized by the erection of the wall in the Temple to bar a
Herodian
King from even seeing it or activities in it that James and his partisans developed the power to effect such an atonement by a ‘
Perfectly Righ
t
eous
’ or People’s ‘
Priest
’ in the Temple on ‘
their
Yom ha-Kippurim
’ if not the Establishment one. After James’ death in 62 CE on the heels of Agrippa II’s discomfiture in this same
Temple Wall Affair
, some might have seen the stopping of sacrifices and accepting gifts on behalf of Romans and other foreigners – including Herodians and their associates – in 66 CE by persons of a ‘
Jamesian
’ mindset and revering his memory as fulfilling some kind of Scriptural warrant.