James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls II (167 page)

Directly, Acts 15:19 has James proceed with his ‘
judgements
’ or ‘
rulings
’: ‘
Therefore I judge those from the Peoples who turn to God
’, a speech which then gives way to the overt use of the ‘
Nazirite
’ language ‘
abstain from’
/‘
keep away from’
we have also seen as permeating these Columns of the Damascus Document. In this regard, we just highlighted the key i
m
portance of the ‘
keep away from
’ language (
lehazzir
/
lehinnazer
/ and
linzor
) specifically as regards ‘
fornication
’ in VII.1 and its parallel ‘
to separate from all pollutions
’ in VII.3, which certainly would have included ‘
the pollutions of the idols
’ in Acts 15:20; but also, in the Column preceding the First Column of CD from 4Q266, where ‘
the Sons of Light
’ were instructed to ‘
keep away
(
lehinnazer
)
from the ways
’ – probably ‘
of Evil
’ or ‘
Evil pollutions
’, the last-mentioned being expressed in CD VI.15 (in a seeming attack on the Herodian Establishment) as ‘
polluted Evil Riches’
.

Aside from the almost hysterical attack on ‘
Blood
’ just highlighted in CD II.8 above, there are at least two other specific references to
Blood
in the Damascus Document
–
both negative: one that immediately follows this in Column in
III
.2-7, after explaining why Abraham ‘
was made a Friend of God
(also of interest to James 2:23–24)
because he
kept the Commandments of God
and did not choose the will of his own Spirit
….
But the Sons of Jacob
turned aside
in them and
…
walked in stubbornness of their heart
…,
complaining against the Commandments of God
(which, of course, Paul does interminably),
each man doing what was right in his own eyes
.
So they ate blood and their males were cut off in the wilderness
.’
The second in Column Five: ‘
They also pollute the Temple
,
because they do not
separate
according to the
Torah
,
but rather they lie with a woman during the blood of her period and each man takes
(
to wife
)
the daughter of his brother and the daughter of his sister
.’
While not relating to the ingestion of food or drink
per se
(as CD II.8 and III.7 do) and, as a consequence, ‘
Communion with the Body and Blood of Christ Jesus
’, this last passage, nonetheless, vividly illustrates the attitude of the authors towards contact with
Blood
of any kind.

To sum up the approach of the Damascus Document, we should look at its closing section containing, as we have seen, its most vivid exhortative passages (Columns
VIII
and
XIX–XX
). Here while ‘
the Spouter of Lying
’ and ‘
his whole Congregation
’ or ‘
Church
’ are condemned, the implication is that ‘
the Penitents of Israel
,
who turned aside from the Way of the People
(
s
)’ (that is, ‘
the Way
’ preached by ‘
the Spouter of Lying
’ and those like him) are not, ‘
because God so loved the First
….
He also loved those coming after them
’ (VIII.13–17/XIX.26–30) – a form, as already remarked, of Pauline
Grace
should one choose to regard it but within specifically Qumranic parameters. It was at this point, it will be recalled too, that ‘
Elisha
’
s rebuke of Gehazi his servant
’
–
a favorite Rabbinic allusion for rebuking Pauline-type teachers
–
is invoked to emphasize God’s: ‘
Judg
e
ment on all those who reject the Commandments of God and forsake them
,
turning away in stubbornness of their heart’
(
VIII
.
20/XIX.33
).
It is in conjunction with this that ‘
the New Covenant in the Land of Damascus
’ is for the second time d
i
rectly invoked – this in order to condemn: ‘
All those who entered the New Covenant in the Land of Damascus
,
but turned back and betrayed and turned aside from the Well of Living Waters
’ (
VIII
.21–22 and
XIX
.33–35 – here the most complete presentation of the
turning aside
/
turning back
/
betraying
circle-of-language).

Similar expressions are reiterated in the third evocation of ‘
the New Covenant
’ in CD XX.10–13, where it is also designa
t
ed as ‘
the Compact which they raised in the Land of Damascus
’ and equated with ‘
the House of the
Torah’
. Sentiments of this kind continue to be expressed in the surrounding materials having to do with the fate of all such
Traitors
,
Backsliders
, and
Scoffers
from CD Columns XIX.34–XX.17 of Ms. B. At this point, it will be recalled, the text turns both positive and pa
s
sionately inspirational, again returning to ‘
the Penitents from Sin in Jacob who kept the Covenant of God
’, in particular ‘
God-Fearers
’ and ‘
those reckoning His Name
’, to whom ‘
God would reveal Salvation
(
Yesha
‘
)
and Justification
’ (
Zedakah
– XX.19–20), the exact vocabulary found in Isaiah 56:1 introducing its position on foreign
Nilvim
/
Joiners
in 56:3–6 above, for whom ‘
a Book of Remembrance would be written out
’!

To understand these passages one should again refer back to Acts 15:14–17 and James’ alleged connection of God ‘
taking out of the Gentiles a People for his Name
’ in 15:14 with ‘
rebuilding the fallen Tabernacle of David
’ and ‘
setting it up
’ again, reiterating its applicability to ‘
those left of Men
’ or ‘
the Remnant
’ (designated as ‘
Seekers
’) and ‘
all the Gentiles upon whom My name has been called
’ in 15:16–17. In CD XX.27–32, these were particularly to include: ‘
all those who hold fast to the Statutes
,
coming and going in accordance with the
Torah
... (
who have
)
not lifted up their hand against the Holiness of His Laws and the Righteousness of His Judgements and the Testimonies of His Truth
.
Rather
(
we
)
have been instructed in the First Ordinances
(or ‘
the Statutes of the First
’)
in which the Men of the Community were judged
.’
Once again, as in James’ speech, the word ‘
First
’ appears (‘
the First Ordinances
’ or ‘
Statutes
’ in XX.31), but here rather relating to ‘
the First
’ or ‘
the Forefathers
’ of the First Covenant, as earlier in CD I.4’s description of how God ‘
remembered the Covenant of the First
’ or ‘
the Forefathers
’ – ‘
the First Covenant
’
–
and, therefore, ‘
left a
(telltale)
Remnant
’ and ‘
did not deliver them up
’ (‘
to the sword
’) but rather ‘
visited them and caused a
(
Messianic
)
Root of Planting to grow’
.

Furthermore, when they ‘
listen to the voice of the Righteous Teacher
’, they ‘
hear
’ ‘
the Laws of Righteousness and do not desert them
…. T
heir hearts will be strengthened and they shall prevail against all the Sons of Earth
.
And God will make atonement for
(or
through
)
them and they will see his Salvation
because they took refuge in His Holy Name
(XX.33–34).’
This ‘
Covenant
’ is, of course, exactly the opposite of the Pauline one as it has come down to us. How can two such chronologically almost contemporaneous versions of ‘
the New Covenant
’ be so completely and diametrically opposed? As we have been int
i
mating, it is almost as if one is framed in direct reference to or with direct knowledge of the other.

We have already examined a similar kind of diametrically-opposed ideological reversal in the the Habakkuk
Pesher
’s expos
i
tion of Habakkuk 2:4, which must be seen – along with Genesis 15:5 on Abraham’s ‘
Faith being reckoned to him as Righ
t
eousness
’ (
i
.
e
.,
Justification
) – as fundamental ‘
building blocks
’ of Pauline theology. In 1QpHab VII.17–VIII.3 the applicability of this key Biblical proof-text was circumscribed to ‘
the Doers of the
Torah
in the House of Judah
’ – in other words,
Torah
-Doers who were Jewish
. It, therefore, followed that it did not apply to ‘
Non-
Torah
-doing Gentiles
’ – nor even, for that matter, ‘
Non-
Torah
-Doing Jews
’!

It is the position of this book, the partial aim of which has been to collate and highlight these contrasts and reversals, that this kind of stark contrast where ‘
the New Covenant in the Land of Damascus
’ is concerned is invaluable in helping to further highlight the Qumran perspective which, in so far as it was addressed to Gentile converts –
and it was
– was addressed to those ‘
keeping the whole of the
Torah
’, including the Sabbath and the other observances like
circumcision
as
per
the param
e
ters of Isaiah 54–56, as expounded in CD VI–VII – this as opposed to the more allegorized and spiritualized
New Covenant
being delineated at such length and with such self-evident rhetorical flourish in his Letters by Paul (and, by extension, a good many passages in the Gospels as they finally crystallized out in the West), who is finally (if carefully) emphasizing to his fo
l
lowers that
it was not necessary to do so
– in particular and
inter alia
, that not only was
it unnecessary to circumcise oneself but
one should not do so
.
116

Building the ‘
House of Faith in Israel
’

For these last (that is, Paul’s positions on these issues), the rhetorical and polemical constructions of the concluding Five Chapters of Hebrews are fundamental as well: ‘
If the First Covenant had not been found wanting
,
then there would be no need to seek for the Second
’ (Hebrews 8:7), quoting in its entirety the passage from Jeremiah 31:33–34 on ‘
making a New Covenant with the House of Israel and the House of Judah
’. In these passages in Jeremiah, this included a stress on ‘
keeping the Covenant
’ – so conspicuous in the concluding exhortation in the Damascus Document (but so conspicuously missing from Paul’s more allegorical exposition of similar proof-texts) – and the reference to ‘
teaching each one his neighbor and each one his brother
’ also found word-for-word in CD XX.17–18: ‘
Then each man shall speak to his neigh
[
bor and each on
]
e his brother to support their steps in the Way of God
.’
At this point, Hebrews calls the First Covenant ‘
Old
’, again in stark contrast to that of the ‘
New’
, as embodied in ‘
the New Covenant’
, opining ‘
that which decays and grows old is ready to disappear
’ (8:13).