James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls II (147 page)

The allusion to this ‘
amal
also recurs – in our view purposefully – two columns later in 1QpHab X.12 where the ‘
worthless Service
’ and ‘
Empty
’ teaching of ‘
the Spouter of Lying
’ are subjected to
fulsome
rebuke (this time our play
is
purposeful). That this ‘
amal
is also part and parcel of the language of Isaiah 53:11–12 (‘
for he shall bear their Sins
...
because he poured out his soul unto death
...
and the sins of the Many he bore and made intercession for their iniquities’)
could not have failed to make its impression on the sectaries at Qumran, given their ideological outlook.

This is certainly the case, too, where the language of ‘
My Servant the
Zaddik
justifying Many
’ is concerned introducing this. In fact, ‘
the Many
’ was the designation for the rank and file of the Community, the presumable recipients, as per ‘Christian’ re-presentation, of the
justifying
activity of ‘
the Righteous Teacher
’ or
the
Zaddik
. That this same ‘
amal
will now reappear as an extremely important element in the
Pesher
’s final scathing evaluation of the Spouter of Lying’s ‘
building
’ activities clinches the case for the centrality of this concept as well as the parameters of Isaiah 53:11–12 – so important to early Christian exegesis – at Qumran.

Therefore, what we have here in this exegesis of Habakkuk 2:4 at Qumran is nothing less than astonishing. What it a
p
pears to be is the ‘Jamesian’ position on this passage, ‘
the Righteous shall live by his Faith’
, before it was reversed in the ‘
Gentilizing
’ Pauline exegesis, with which we are all now so familiar. With this new understanding we can now see that, as o
p
posed to Pauline exegesis, not only does the
Pesher
in VIII.1–3 restrict the efficacy of Habakkuk 2:4 solely to ‘
Torah
-doing members of the House of Judah
’ – that is, ‘
Torah
-Doing Jews
’ – or, at the very least, those who have made formal
conversion via circumcision to this
‘
House’,
‘
joining such
Torah
-Doers
’ (contrary to the demands of a Paul); but, perhaps even more i
m
portantly, a man ‘
will be saved
’ from ‘
the decree of Judgement
’
God would pronounce
‘
in the midst of many Nations
’ (or ‘
the Last Judgement
’) ‘
by his Faith in the Righteous Teacher and by his works
’ – the curious allusion to ‘
being saved from the House of Judgement
’ in the
Pesher
meaning just this.

Not only is this Jamesian, that is, ‘
Faith and works working together
’ or ‘
Faith being completed by works
’, but, once again, elements from the presentation of
the Righteous Teacher
– or, as the case may be, of James – are being absorbed into the presentation of Jesus in Scripture in the sense that it is ‘
Faith in Jesus Christ that saves’
. It is this term ‘
amal
, which the
Pesher
will now employ in describing the ‘
Worthless Community which the Liar builds on Blood
’ as well as ‘
the Assembly
’ or ‘
Church which he erects upon Lying
(the same ‘
erect
’ of CD VII.16 and 4Q
Florilegium
, I.10–12)
for the sake of his
(
own
)
Glory
’.
26

Here the ‘
amal
which
the Liar
teaches are said to be
Empty
,
i
.
e
.,
empty
of
soteriological
or
saving effect
. But bringing us full circle and showing we are in the same ideological and spiritual ambiance of James, this last will be the very word James 2:20 uses to characterize its ideological opponent, when the
worthlessness
of
his spiritual program concerning how ‘
Abraham was justified
’ is being analyzed: ‘
O Empty Man
,
don
’
t you know that Faith apart from works is dead
?’

‘
He built a Worthless City upon Blood and Erected a Congregation on Lying
’

The last discussion of ‘
the Man of Lies
’ in the Habakkuk
Pesher
– now called ‘
the Spouter of Lies
’ – occurs two columns later (though we have been calling him ‘
the Spouter’
, the pseudonym is not actually used in any document until X.9–13), d
i
rectly following the first description of the ‘
Judgement
’ inflicted on the
corpse
of the Wicked Priest and the
profiteering
and
booty-gathering
activities of ‘
the Last Priests of Jerusalem
’ in IX.1–7 and the vivid portrayal of the eschatological ‘
House of Judgement
’ God delivers ‘
in
the midst of many Peoples’
, where ‘
He would arraign him for Judgement
’ (seemingly ‘
the Wicked Priest
’ but, because the commentary at the bottom of IX.16 is so fragmentary, this cannot be verified with complete certainty) and ‘
condemn him with fire and brimstone’
.

This final discussion of the Liar’s activities and
Justification
doctrine is presented in terms of an underlying allusion from Habakkuk 2:12, decrying the person who ‘
builds a City on Blood and establishes a township on Unrighteousness’
. Importantly, this is followed by a quotation from the underlying text Habakkuk 2:13 about ‘
the Peoples laboring for the sake of Fire and the Peoples tiring themselves out for the sake of vanity’
. This could not be more convenient, because we have the very word ‘
Peoples
’ (
‘
A
mim
) – repeated twice in the underlying text – upon which the word
Gentiles
(
Ethne
in Greek) is based. We have already seen how Paul uses this phrase ‘
vanity
’ or ‘
in vain
’ in Galatians 2:21 –
e.g.
, that ‘
if Righteousness is through the Law
,
then Christ died in vain
’ or Galatians 3:3–4 actually applying the word ‘
foolish
’ to those abandoning the Spirit for ‘
works of the Law
’ or ‘
Perfection in the flesh
’ (meaning ‘
circumcision
’), whose ‘
suffering
’ was, therefore, ‘
in vain’
. In Galatians 4:11, fo
l
lowing his attack on ‘
keeping the weak and beggarly elements
’ of ‘
days and months and times and years’
, this becomes how
he
‘
labored in vain’
, meaning,
with his communities
.

In the crucial 1 Corinthians 15:2–58 passages about the Gospel Paul ‘
received
’ and ‘
in which you
(his recipients)
also stand
’ and the order of the post-resurrection appearances of Christ, Paul also repeatedly alludes to this ‘
Worthlessness
’ and ‘
being in vain
’ beginning in 15:3. There he speaks about his communities – ‘
being saved and holding fast to the word
(
he
)
preached
’ – ‘
not believing in vain
’; and three times insists that, if Christ did not rise from the dead, both their ‘
Faith
’ and his ‘
preaching
’ were ‘
Worthless
’ (15:12–14). Here, too, he ends by encouraging, again as in CD, 1QS, and James, ‘
steadfastness
’ in ‘
the work of the Lord’
, ‘
knowing that your toil
– the ‘
amal
in Isaiah 53:11 and the Habakkuk
Pesher
–
is not in vain
’ (15:58).

In the underlying passage from Habakkuk 2:13, the actual word used is not exactly ‘
vain
’ – though effectively it is the same – but ‘
Emptiness
’ or ‘
Nothingness’
. This text is exploited to swing back from the subject of the
profiteering
activities of ‘
the Last Priests of Jerusalem
’ to develop, once again, a
Pesher
about
the Liar
– now referred to as ‘
the Spouter of Lying’
. This
Pesher
ends by calling down in X.12–13 the same ‘
Judgements of Fire
’ on him that it called down at the beginning of Column X.3–5, seemingly, on ‘
the Wicked Priest
’ when he was being ‘
arraigned in the midst of many Peoples
’ and ‘
judged with fire and bri
m
stone’
.
For this
Pesher
, these are a response to the same kind of insults and curses with which the Man of Lying ‘
insulted and vilified the Elect of God’
.
27
It should be noted that, contrary to
the Wicked Priest
, his offence against
the Righteous Teacher
and ‘
the Elect of God
’ – ‘
the Sons of Zadok
’ or ‘
the Assembly of the Poor
’ or ‘
of Holiness
’– is intellectual, not physical. This is in keeping with the ‘
Lying
’ epithet applied to him, the analogue of ‘
the Tongue
,’ figuratively-speaking, in the Letter of James.

In describing the teaching or doctrine of
the Lying Spouter
, it is the imagery of
Blood
which is all-important, the same i
m
agery so integral to Paul’s conception of ‘
the Cup of the New Covenant in
(
his
)
Blood’
, not to mention its variation in the ot
h
er Gospel ‘
Blood
’ scenarios including even one attributed to Pilate when he is portrayed in Matthew 27:24 as characterizing himself as ‘
being guiltless in the Blood of this Righteous One’
. In the first place, the
Pesher
applies the ‘
building a City on Blood
’ in the underlying text from Habakkuk 2:12 to ‘
the Spouter of Lying who leads Many astray in order to build a Wort
h
less City on Blood’
.
28

‘
Leading astray
’ is always the contrary language to the proper
Justifying
activity of the Righteous Teacher of ‘
making Many Righteous’
. It is the language used in the Damascus Document’s introductory description of the activities of
the Lying Scof
f
er
/
Comedian
, who poured out ‘
the waters of Lying and caused them to wander astray in a trackless waste without a Way’
. That it is the contrary to the Righteous Teacher’s
Justifying
activity is made clear by the inclusion of the terminology ‘
Many
’ and, seemingly thereby, employing Isaiah 53:11’s language of ‘
the Righteous One justifying Many
’ in this
Pesher
on ‘
the Peoples laboring for the sake of fire
’ and ‘
tiring themselves out for the sake of Emptiness
’/‘
Nothingness’
.