James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls II (25 page)

The Hebrew version of
Ben Sira
was found for the first time in 1897 in the repository of Medieval Hebrew manuscripts known as the Cairo
Genizah
, where the most complete exemplar of the Damascus Document, which we still use today, was also originally found.
In 1964 it was discovered again in, of all places, the ruins of the
Sicarii
stronghold of Masada, where the ‘
Zealot
’ hold-outs from the Jewish War committed suicide in 73 CE.
Previously it had only been known through Greek and other languages. Not only does it give the original of the notation in English, ‘
Famous
’ or ‘
Illustrious Men
’, as
Anshei-Hesed
/‘
Men of Piety
’ (
Hesed
being in Hebrew a word which in some contexts is also translated as ‘
Grace
’); it associates this ‘
perpetual Covenant
’ – ‘
the Covenant of Peace
’ which was sealed with Phineas and his descendants in Numbers and with those for whom God’s ‘
Servant David
’ was to be ‘
a Prince forever
’ in Ezekiel – with those it refers to, as well, as ‘
the Sons of Zadok
’.

As already explained, this term was first coined by Ezekiel in his vision of the new or reconstructed Temple.
62
In his v
i
sion, such ‘
Sons of Zadok
’ were described as ‘
keeping charge of My Sanctuary
’ and
preserving it from pollution
, material fu
n
damental to the Damascus Document.
63
Not only were they to
clothe themselves
like James and
the Essenes
only
‘
in linen garments
’, but like James ‘
no wool was to come upon their flesh
’ and ‘
no razor was to come upon their heads
’ (Ezekiel 44:17). Rather, as already underscored, ‘
they were to poll their hair’
– missing from descriptions of James, but probably to be inferred.

In emulation of Phineas’
zeal
presumably too, they were instructed in 44:7 to
bar uncircumcised persons and foreigners generally from the Temple
,
64
no doubt, the epitome of what was meant by
proper Temple service
. No doubt, too, this was the way James was seen by his supporters, the majority of whom even Acts acknowledges were ‘
Zealots for the Law
’. Here, then, all our key terminologies converge: ‘
the Zealot
’, ‘
the Zadokite
’ (or, if one prefers, ‘
the
Zaddik
ite
’), and what one might call ‘
the Jewish Christian
’.

In the light of these materials in Ezekiel and, no doubt, those in the Scrolls, it is a not incurious bit of disingenuousness that Josephus in the
Jewish War
rather characterizes the ‘
Zealot
’ decision in 66 CE on the part of the probably ‘Jamesian’ Lower Priesthood to stop sacrifice on behalf of Romans and other foreigners and reject their gifts in the Temple that triggered the Uprising against Rome, as ‘
an Innovation with which our Forefathers were unacquainted
’.
65

Honi the Circle-Drawer or Onias the Just, ‘
the Friend
’ or ‘
Beloved of God
’

For the
Talmud
, several other individuals are associated with
rainmaking
. The first, Honi the Circle-Drawer – ‘
Onias the Just
’ in Josephus
1
– is a
Rainmaker
in both Jerusalem and Babylonian
Talmud
s (that is, the traditions as they were transmitted in both Palestine and Mesopotamia). ‘
Circle
-
drawing
’ itself perhaps relates to the
Essene
Sabbath observance practice – also reflected at Qumran – of drawing a perimeter, outside of which a given individual would not move even to defecate.
2
In Honi’s case, the circles are the ones to which he confines himself in order to
cause rain to fall
.

He is a
Rainmaker
in Josephus as well, where he also bears the telltale cognomen, as we just saw, ‘
the Just
’ or ‘
Righteous One
’.
3
This manifestly prefigures the epithet early Church texts always ascribe to James, who – if John the Baptist’s family and Jesus’ family were indeed related as the Gospel of Luke depicts – may also have been
Honi
’
s putative descendant as well
.

As Josephus describes it – with a good deal more precision, as usual, than Talmudic texts –
Onias put an
‘
end to a certain famine … praying to God’
, thereby echoing the Letter of James and prefiguring ‘
the Famine
’ all sources refer to in the 46–48 CE period.
4
As in James’ final triumphant evocation of Elijah praying for it
both to rain and not to rain
and the efficacious ‘
prayer of the Just
’ or ‘
Righteous One much prevailing
’, Honi also prays for it
both to rain and not to rain
.
5
This is the focus of Talmudic accounts as well. The Jerusalem
Talmud
will actually compare his situation to Elijah’s in the manner in which
he importuned God like
‘
a Son to a Father
’. Therefore, Honi too, again like one of his putative descendants John the Baptist (possibly ‘
Hanin
’ or ‘
Hanan the Hidden
’, as we shall see, in Talmudic sources below), is an ‘
Elijah
redivivus
’.
6
But for the
Ta
l
mud
, this ‘
sonship
’ relation of Honi to God will also present something of a problem.

In his description of what has to be seen as a parallel situation, Josephus will describe this Honi (‘
Onias the Righteous
’) – as the ‘
Beloved
’ or ‘
Friend of God whose prayers God heard
’. In this context it is important to remark that ‘
Friend of God
’ and ‘
Son of God
’ are, for all intents and purposes, synonyms. As explained above, since ‘
Friend of God
’ – applied in James 2:21–24 to Abraham in the context of describing how he was ‘
made Righteous
’ or ‘
justified by works
’,
not just
‘
by Faith
’ b
e
cause of the willingness he displayed to sacrifice his son Isaac – is equivalent to how Muhammad designates Abraham attac
h
ing the new term ‘
Muslim
’ to him; ‘
Muslim
’, too, can be considered yet another synonym of these other two.

Just as James applies the ‘
Friend of God
’ terminology to Abraham because, when he was ‘
tested
’
he
‘
put his Faith in God
’ and ‘
offered his son Isaac on the altar
’, James also reflects the kind of prayer Honi is pictured as making in Rabbinic literature – namely, ‘
of talking to God
like a Son
’ (here, the ‘
sonship
’ motif really is being brought into the equation). It does so three chapters later in 5:13–18 when it climactically evokes ‘
the fervent working prayer of the Just One much prevails
’, citing Elijah as its paradigm (who in its language,
both
‘
prayed for it not to rain
’
and
‘
three years and six months
’
later for it to rain
). But the ‘
Friend
’ – or ‘
Son
’ – notation would obviously apply to other like-minded and fervently praying suppliants as well.

To close another of these fundamental language circles, the Damascus Document, now specifically developing its sacred history in terms of those ‘
who kept the Commandments
’ or
were
‘
Keepers
’, uses the same kind of terminology to describe the first person it denotes as ‘
a Friend of God
’ – Abraham. ‘
He
(
Abraham
)
was made a Friend of God because he
kept the Co
m
mandments
and did not choose the will of his own spirit
’.
7

To be precise, in place of ‘
Friend
’ the Damascus Document (CD) is using another basic synonym to refer to Abraham and his descendants, Isaac and Jacob, ‘
Beloved of God
’. CD also applies yet another fundamental terminology to them: ‘
Heirs of the Covenant forever
’. This is a usage Paul appears to know as well, only he changes it into ‘
Heirs according to
the Promise
’ (Galatians 3:29, Hebrews 6:17, etc. – in James 2:5, ‘
Heirs to the Kingdom
’).

This ‘
Beloved of God
’ language is also possibly reflected in that of ‘
the Disciple Jesus loved
’ or ‘
the Beloved Apostle
’ in the Gospel of John.
8
It is this language of ‘
making oneself a friend of men and thereby turning oneself into an Enemy of God
’ of James 4:4 too, which Paul is so anxious to counter, particularly in the introduction to Galatians regarding the accusation that was obviously circulating at the time concerning him of ‘
seeking to please men
’ (1:10). It is also in 4:16: ‘
so by speaking Truth to you
,
your Enemy have I become
’, itself obviously both responding to and incorporating the parallel
Jamesian
aspe
r
sion.

Paul also uses these kinds of allusions as a springboard to parody another description applied to James in early Church li
t
erature, again dependent upon Hegesippus, of ‘
not deferring to persons
’.
9
Oblivious of its original meaning here and in the Letter of James and, showing his usual mastery of repartee and rhetorical inversion, Paul reverses this in Galatians 2:6, attac
k
ing the very ‘
importance
’ of the Jerusalem ‘
Pillars
’ whose ‘
repute conferred nothing
’ nor ‘
made any difference
’ to him – for ‘
God does not accept the person of men
’. So in this sort of nimble verbal exchange, Paul actually uses the phraseologies of his interlocutors to attack the very Leadership of ‘
those of repute
’ or ‘
reckoned to be something
’ of
the Jerusalem Assembly
itself, presumably including James.

Elsewhere he varies this phraseology with ‘
God has no favorites
’, but by implication he is using these allusions to attack those he refers to in 2 Corinthians 11:5 and 12:11 as the ‘
Highest
’ or ‘
Super Apostles
’, who certainly comprise this Leadership and whom he also contemptuously dismisses as ‘
Hebrews
’ (11:22). Another thing these ‘
Super Apostles
’ or those he calls ‘
di
s
honest workmen
’ in 2 Corinthians 11:13 do, playing off their attachment to ‘
written letters
’ and/or ‘
letters written in stone
’ (his double entendres are always cruelly dismissive as well), is ‘
recommend themselves
’ or ‘
write their own letters of reco
m
mendations
’ (3:1–7 and 10:12–18).
10

Not only are these
Apostles
(Paul calls them ‘
Pseudo-Apostles
’ in 2 Corinthians 11:13) manifestly indistinguishable from the Leadership of the Jerusalem Assembly who, throughout Galatians,
appear to be insisting on circumcision
, but the attack would also be on Jewish claims to ‘
chosenness
’ generally, as it is on the ‘
written words
’ incorporating it. Correlatively the a
t
tack supports ‘
the Gospel as
(
he
–
Paul
)
taught it among the Peoples
’ (
Ethnesin
– Galatians 2:2) opposed, or so it would appear, to James’ ‘
circumcision
’ one. Such are his rhetorical and polemical skills.

For James 2:5, of course, it is ‘
the Poor of this world whom God chose as Heirs to the Kingdom He promised to those that love Him
’. This last, it will be recalled, is the second part of the ‘
Righteousness
’/‘
Piety
’ dichotomy or the first of the two ‘
love
’ Commandments. For Muhammad in the Koran 2:130–36, the Damascus Document’s ‘
Beloved of God
’ – Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Muhammad adds ‘
Ishmael
’ to these) –
are now rather
‘
Muslims
’, that is,
those who have
‘
surrendered to God
’, an alternative, as explained, to the use of ‘
Friend
’ in James – ‘
Beloved
’ at Qumran.

For Muhammad, therefore, ‘
Abraham
’
s Religion
’ is simply
Islam
, just as for Paul, prefiguring him, it was ‘
Christianity
’. Muhammad even refers to Abraham and, for instance, those
Sabaean
-like ‘
People of the Book
’, who follow him, as being ‘
of the
Salihin
’ – or ‘
of the Righteous
’ (Koran 3:113). These last ‘
believe in
Allah
and the
Last Day,
enjoin Righteousness
,
forbid fornication’
and ‘
vie with each other in good works
’. For James, too, and Josephus, ‘
the
Zaddik
’, the true ‘
Friend
’ or ‘
Beloved of God
’, can actually intercede with God through ‘
his prayer
’ to bring rain in times of extreme drought or famine. Therefore these ascriptions, such as ‘
the Beloved of God
’ and ‘
Righteous One
’ attached to Honi’s name and echoed in Talmudic a
c
counts as well, have more than routine significance.

The Stoning of Honi the Circle-Drawer as Prefiguring James

Josephus’ description of the death of Honi is, not surprisingly, missing from Talmudic accounts which – while continuing the theme of his
praying for rain
– also have
Honi waking from a long sleep in his grandson
’
s time
and
praying rather for his own death
! One will have to acknowledge, as we proceed, the odd sense of humor of some of these Talmudic hagiographers though, unlike that of Acts, at least it is not overtly malevolent.