James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls II (4 page)

The ‘
Simeon
’ aspect of the appellation is curious as well since it is a name most often associated with ‘
Simeon bar Cleophas
’, the successor to James and second successor to Jesus in the Leadership of ‘
the Jerusalem Church
’, considered by most to be the cousin germane of both.
43
But if ‘
Cleophas
’, who is normally represented in early Church tradition as the
brother
of Jesus’ father
Joseph
and the husband of ‘
Mary the mother of James, Joses, Simon, and Judas
’,
44
is the same as ‘
Clopas
’ in John 19:25, ‘
Cleopas
’ in Luke 24:18, and most likely ‘
Alphaeus
’ in Synoptic Apostle lists; then ‘
Simeon bar Cleophas
’ is probably hardly distinguishable from Jesus’
second brother
‘
Simon
’ and not his ‘
cousin germane
’ as early Church sources would have it, in which case, he is also probably to be identified with ‘
Simon the Cananaean
’/‘
Simon the Zealot
’ in Gospel Apostle lists and possibly even another
Simon
, ‘
Simon
(
the father
or
brother
)
of Judas Iscariot
’ in John 6:71.
45

It should be noted, too, that Peter or ‘
Cephas
’ (
n.b.
, the homophonic relation of ‘
Cephas
’ to ‘
Cleophas
’ and, for that ma
t
ter, ‘
Caiaphas
’) – another of these ‘
Twin Twin
’ repetitions, Peter in Greek and ‘
Cephas
’ in Aramaic both meaning ‘
Rock
’ – normally considered to be ‘
Simon Peter
’ the successor to Jesus in orthodox Christian tradition, is at one point anyhow referred to as ‘
Simeon’
. This comes, yet again, during the crucial succession of speeches in Acts 15’s portrayal of the fabulous ‘
Jerus
a
lem Council
’ (15:14), speeches which have much in common with earlier ones at the beginning of Acts (2:14–3:26) and a para
l
lel set of speeches in the Pseudoclementine
Recognitions
just prior to the portrayal there of
Paul
’
s physical assault on James
.

We say ‘
fabulous
’ and ‘
portrayal
’ because Acts’ narrative is just this, an artistic and retrospective recreation. The points it makes have almost nothing in common with the picture Paul provides in Galatians 1–2 and, as well, very little in common with what we know of what Leaders like James or Simeon bar Cleophas actually would have said from other sources. On the other hand, they will have important terminological connections with well-known allusions in, for instance, the Damascus Document.
46
This would make the ‘
Simeon
’ in question in Acts 15’s portrait of the ‘
Jerusalem Council
’ (not to mention the
Simon
who suddenly appears in Luke 24:34’s presentation of the aftermath of Jesus’ first post-resurrection appearance on ‘
the road to Emmaus
’ to ‘
Cleopas
’ and an unnamed other
47
) to have more in common with
James
’
successor in
‘
Ebionite
’ or ‘
Je
w
ish Christian
’
tradition
, ‘
Simeon bar Cleophas
’, than with Jesus’ successor in more Western orthodox sources and tradition, ‘
Simon Cephas
’ or ‘
Peter
’.

Mix-ups of this kind surround the pivotal character known variously as ‘
Simon’
, ‘Peter’, ‘
Cephas
’, and/or ‘
Simeon
’, whom we have much cause in Palestine anyhow at this time to identify with ‘
Simeon bar Cleophas
’, James’ successor in the Leade
r
ship of ‘
the Jerusalem Church
’ and the so-called ‘
cousin germane of our Lord
’ – Jerome’s ploy of identifying the brothers of Jesus as ‘
cousins
’ already having taken hold in the literature by this point.
48
This is to say nothing about the fact that, according to the historiography of Acts, at the time of the date of the supposed ‘
Jerusalem Council
’, the character it is calling Peter had already fled with a death sentence on his head for having escaped from prison after having been arrested (12:4–19).
49
This a
n
yhow is Acts’ testimony if it can be trusted. But it is difficult to imagine that the orthodox Peter could, somehow, suddenly have returned to peacefully participate in this
Council
in Acts 15:6–30 whatever its proceedings.

‘
Manaen the Foster Brother of Herod the Tetrarch
’

This brings us to the fourth person mentioned in Acts 13:1 – just before
Saulos
is renamed
Paulos
in Acts 13:9 – the fifth among these ‘
Prophets and teachers
’ of ‘
the Antioch Assembly
’, ‘
Manaen the foster brother of Herod the Tetrarch’
. This is one of the most revealing testimonies in New Testament Scripture because it unequivocally – and, one might say, even un
a
shamedly – reveals that
there were
Herodians
involved in the foundation of the Church at Antioch
where
‘
Disciples were first called Christians
’
around
55
CE
. This is no insignificant datum.

In
James the Brother of Jesus
, I expressed the opinion that what one has in such instances is a species of shell-game.
50
We identified this sort of
shell-game
with regard to the
Central Triad
of
the ‘Jerusalem Church’
depending on which source and which and whose
brother
one is talking about –
Peter
,
James
,
and
‘
John his brother
’ in the Gospels and ‘
James
,
Cephas
,
and John
’ in Galatians. In the manner in which these ‘
Central Three
’ are presented in the Gospels, the most famous
James
appears to be ‘
the brother of John
’ and, therefore, one ends up with the well-known ‘
John and James the two sons of Zebedee
’ or ‘
the Sons of Thunder
’ however one wishes to express it, none of which formulations appears historically very realistic.

It only takes a little reconstruction to arrive at the ‘
Cephas
,
John
,
and James his brother
’ – meaning ‘
James the brother of the Lord
’ – as ‘
the Central Three
’ according to Paul’s testimony in Galatians 1:19 and 2:9. The epithet ‘
his brother
’ would then no longer apply to ‘
James the brother of John
’, a character nowhere mentioned by Paul; but rather – and this probably more accurately – ‘
James the brother of Jesus
’. This was obviously how Paul saw it and, because of this, made no mention of any
James
other than ‘
the brother of the Lord
’ and seems to know no other. This would appear to be the thrust of most traditional extra-Biblical literature too, where more is known about ‘
James the Just
’ or ‘
James the brother of Jesus
’ (to be fair, in Galatians 1:19 he is only referred to as ‘
James the brother of the Lord
’) than someone called ‘
James the brother of John
’ as in Mark 3:17 and 5:37, unless ‘
John
’ and ‘
the Lord
’ can be considered to mean the same thing – a dubious proposition.

In any event, this other ‘
James the brother of John
’, historical or otherwise, conveniently disappears from Scripture in Acts 12:2 just prior to Acts’ introduction of this other
James
in 12:17. This disappearance of
James the brother of John
cons
o
nant with the sudden appearance of the really significant James just a few lines later, off-hand or otherwise is, from the stan
d
point of early Church history in Palestine, the really significant information as well.
This
James
appears, as it were, unheralded and unintroduced though the text appears to think we already know or should know who he is.
51

The same is true of the reference to one ‘
Manaen the foster brother of Herod the Tetrarch
’ as one of the principal me
m
bers of the founding Community at Antioch in Acts 13:1. We shall have more to say about which
Antioch
is intended here in due course, but ‘
Manaen
’ is probably defective as there is no other known personality with such a name in any source one can point to. Rather the appellation, as it stands in Acts, probably represents a corruption of the
Ananias
we have already met above, who forms a setpiece of the presentation of Paul’s conversion in Damascus in Acts 9:12–17. In this sense ‘
Damascus
’ in Acts can simply be seen as a parallel to or write-in for
Edessa
and what is going on there at about this time or, even poss
i
bly,
Adiabene
in Josephus – all fairly contiguous areas.
52

Properly speaking, the character being referred to in multiple contexts as ‘
Ananias
’ probably should have been mentioned among ‘
the Prophets and teachers of the Antioch Assembly
’ anyhow.
53
Though Acts places him in
Damascus
, he or a nam
e
sake of his is clearly functioning, according to Eusebius’ source, in Edessa where he is associated with the conversion of the King there, Abgarus or Agbarus, ‘
the Great King of the Peoples beyond the Euphrates’
.

Also in Josephus’ account of the conversion of Queen Helen (possibly one of ‘
Agbarus
’’ wives as we shall see below – and perhaps even his principal one) and her favorite son Izates at the beginning of the all-important Book Twenty of
The
Antiqu
i
ties
ending with the death of James, yet another character called
Ananias
is to be met in two locales, once in the South at the mouth of the Tigris at Charax Spasini (modern-day
Basrah
– also
Antiochia Charax
) and, following this, on the Upper Euphr
a
tes closer to Edessa or ‘
the Land of the Edessenes
’ – possibly including
Adiabene
adjoining it. Nor do we consider all of these to be separate renderings or episodes.

The women, such as
Helen of Adiabene
in this
Great King
’s harem – also possibly his sister or half-sister – whom
Anan
i
as
and another companion Josephus mysteriously declines to mention (Paul?) get in among and convert, ‘
have a horror of ci
r
cumcision’
. This last, in turn, is perhaps the principal issue behind Paul’s polemics in Galatians, a letter being addressed see
m
ingly to those in either a Northern Syrian or an ‘
Asian
’ context. This is perhaps why Abraham plays such an important role in its polemics, not those only directed against erstwhile companions but also those in the Letter of James, in some respects its ostensible answer – Abraham himself being celebrated as having originated in this area.