James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls II (146 page)

What it does is preclude the Pauline interpretation of this passage out of which much of the theology about the
Redee
m
ing
nature of Jesus’ death in Galatians 3:13 and the extension of ‘
the Power of God unto Salvation to everyone that believes
,
both to Jew first and to Greek
’ in Romans 1:16, emerges. It is also an extremely telling dating tool for the
Pesher
as a whole, since it shows that the text could not have been written before this theological position was enunciated.

The text now moves on to the rest of its interpretation of Habakkuk 2:4: ‘
The Righteous shall live by his Faith’
, which, given the presentation we have already encountered in James, must be seen as
Jamesian
. It reads: ‘
Its interpretation concerns all the
Torah
-Doers in the House of Judah whom God will save from the House of Judgement
,
because of their works
(or ‘
suffe
r
ing works
’
as in Isaiah 53:11
)
and their Faith in the Righteous Teacher
.’
19
This is nothing less than ‘
Faith working with works
’ in James 2:20–24.

It is also expressed in James 2:14 in the following manner: ‘
If someone says he has Faith
,
but does not have works
,
can Faith save him
?’ The individual making such claims, also interpreting Habakkuk 2:4 and presumably identified with ‘
the Tongue
’ in James 3:5–8, must be seen as the same person who – as opposed to this believing Abraham, ‘
the Friend of God
’ – by making himself ‘
a Friend to the world transformed himself into the Enemy of God’
. In fact, the allusion to ‘
save
’ here (H
e
brew:
yizzil
) is very important. Its import has usually been missed by most scholars, who see what we have before us here as simply a mundane ‘
courtroom
’ confrontation of some kind.
But we
have already encountered this usage ‘
save
’ in James, not only as regarding ‘
the Doers of the Word
’
and
‘
the Doer of the work
’ above, but also in the prelude to its discussion of ‘
Faith
vs
. works
’ where, after quoting ‘
the Royal Law according to the Scripture
’ and ‘
keeping the whole Law
,
while stumbling on one small point’
, it alludes to how Abraham was ‘
saved’
.

Paul also uses the term following his discussion of how Abraham was saved in Romans 4:1–5:5. This occurs in conjun
c
tion with allusion to ‘
being justified by his blood
’ and how, ‘
having previously been Enemies
,
we are reconciled to God by the death of His son
’ and ‘
saved by his life
’ in 5:9–10. He also alludes to it in 1 Corinthians 15:1–2, evoking the Gospel ‘
in which you stand
,
by which you are also being
saved
’ in conjunction with the clear Qumran language of ‘
holding fast
’
to his preaching
and ‘
not believing in vain’
. In 1 Corinthians 15:14, this becomes: ‘
If Christ has not been resurrected
,
then our preaching is worthless and your Faith too is worthless
.’ These kinds of allusions to ‘
believing
in vain
’ and ‘
being
worthless
’ will now recur in the later
Pesher
in X.10–12 on Habakkuk 2:12–13, evaluating
the Spouter of Lying
’s ‘
vain
Service
’ and ‘
worthless works
’
.

Where this passage from Habakkuk 2:4 is concerned, that we are dealing with
Judgement
or
the Last Judgement
is clear from just about every text quoting it from Paul to James and to these documents from Qumran. This term ‘
House of Judg
e
ment’
, used here in conjunction with the allusion to ‘
being saved
’ in 1QpHab VIII.2, is again used two columns further along in X.3–5 to describe the ‘
decision of Judgement that God would decree in making His Judgement in the midst of many Pe
o
ples’
, in particular, upon ‘
the Wicked Priest’
. ‘
There
(
God
)
would arraign him and condemn him in their midst and judge him with fire and brimstone’
, an obvious picture of Hell-Fire or what, in ordinary parlance, usually goes by the title of ‘
the Last Judgement’
.

There can be no doubt of the
eschatological
nature of the usage ‘
House of Judgement
’ (not ‘
condemned house
’ as in some translations) from which ‘
God would save them
’, and that it means something like the actual ‘
Decree of Judgement
God would make in the midst of Many Peoples’
pictured in Columns IV.14–V.5 leading up to the first confrontation between ‘
the Man of Lying
’ and ‘
the Righteous Teacher’
.

The eschatological nature of the
Pesher
is absolutely confirmed further along in Columns XII.10–XIII.4, at the end with two clear references to ‘
the Day of Judgement’
, at the time of which ‘
God would destroy all the Servants of Idols
and Evil Ones from off the Earth’
.
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This is introduced by allusion to ‘
all the idols of the Nations
,
which they create in order to
serve
and worship them. These will not
save them on the Day of Judgement
.’
Here, not only do we again have the usages ‘
serve
’ and ‘
the Day of Judgement
’, but the use of the word ‘
saved
’ to express the ideological thought of ‘
being saved from the Last Judg
e
ment
’ is definitive.

Where the exegesis of Habakkuk 2:4 in VII.17–VIII.3 specifically is concerned, both the allusion to ‘
saved
’ and the one to ‘
works
’ – ‘
suffering works
’ or ‘
spiritual toil
’ (
‘
amal
) – are important. The whole eschatological nature of the
Salvation
-situation before us here in the
Pesher
is for the most part either completely ignored or missed. The ‘
saving
’ that is occurring is simply taken as relating to some real ‘
trial
’ or ‘
courtroom
’ scenario, from which either ‘
the Righteous
’ or ‘
all the
Torah
-Doers in the House of Judah
’ (
i.e.
, ‘
all
Torah
-doing Jews
’) ‘
were to be saved from the House of Judgement’
. (This is as silly as thinking that being made to ‘
drink the Cup of the Wrath of God’
, in the exegesis about ‘
the Wicked Priest
’ that follows in XI.2–XII.6, has to do with the Wicked Priest
getting drunk
! Unfortunately, this is the analytical level on which a good deal of studies in the field of Qumran has taken place – even at some of our greatest universities.)

As if with the competing Pauline exegesis in the New Testament in mind, the ‘
saving
’ being referred to in this
Pesher
is a
c
tually ‘
saving
’ in the sense of ‘
Salvation
’ and – as it is at the end of the
Pesher
– the sense of the ‘
saving
’ in this sequence about being ‘
saved from the House of Judgement
’ is very definitely eschatological. This is how the verb ‘
saved
’ is being used here, as it is in Paul.
21

The word ‘
amal
/‘
works
’
or
‘
suffering works
,’ is interesting. As we have to some extent already observed, it differs slightly from the ‘
works
’ language we have been following at Qumran and in the Letter of James – based on the Hebrew root ‘
to do
’ (therefore, the interesting ‘
Doers of the
Torah
’ and the general stress on ‘
doing
’ throughout the Letter of James and the Dead Sea Scrolls in general – in the Psalm 37
Pesher
‘
the Assembly
or ‘
Church of His Elect
,
the
Doers
of His will
’
22
).

‘
Amal
seems to have been slightly more eschatological and it occurs in several interesting places, most notably in the la
n
guage of the famous ‘
Suffering Servant
’ proof-text from Isaiah 53:11f., so much a part of Scriptural expectation in Christianity and – because of the use of this term ‘
amal
and other usages, such as ‘
making Righteous
’ and ‘
the Many’
here and elsewhere in the corpus – probably at Qumran as well. In Isaiah 53, this read: ‘
by his Knowledge
,
the Righteous One
,
My Servant,
will just
i
fy
’ or ‘
make Many Righteous and their Sins will he bear
’ and was attached to an allusion to: ‘
and he will see by the
‘
amal
of his soul’
, seemingly meaning, ‘
the spiritual travail
’
or
‘
suffering of his soul’
.

Again, this ‘
amal
is probably best translated by the term ‘
works
’ in the sense of ‘s
uffering works’
, but perhaps even more accurately,
works with soteriological
or
eschatological effect
. It would appear to be purposefully introduced both at this point in VIII.2 and earlier in the
Pesher
as descriptive of how – along with ‘
their Faith
’ – the Righteous were to ‘
be saved’
.

A similar idea of making atonement ‘
by doing Judgement and suffering travail
’ occurs in the Community Rule’s descri
p
tion of the Community Council.
23
In undergoing this, its members are not only said to ‘
keep Faith in the Land with steadfas
t
ness and a humble Spirit
’ but ‘
to atone for the Land and pay the Wicked their reward
’ – the language of Isaiah 3:10–11 we saw introduced into the Habakkuk
Pesher
’s description of how ‘
the Cup of the Wrath of God would swallow
’ the Wicked Priest, ‘
paying him the reward
with which he rewarded the Poor
’.
24
Thus they become ‘
a Precious Cornerstone
’ and ‘
sweet fragrance of Righteousness’
, ‘
well-pleasing to God
’, ‘
establishing
’ both ‘
the Council of the Community upon Truth as an Eternal Plantation
’ and ‘
the Holy Spirit according to Everlasting Truth
’ – more interesting language circles and concepts that should by now be familiar.
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