James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls II (48 page)

Regarding Nakdimon’s ‘
charity
’, Rabbinic tradition picks up this theme as well, concluding that his
allowing
‘
the Poor
’
to gather up
‘
the woollen clothes that had been laid
’,
so that
‘
his feet
’
would not have to touch the dirt of the ground, was
not real charity
.
Their conclusion was rather, that it was for ‘
self-glorification
’ only. It was at that point, it will be recalled, that they went on to cite the aphorism, ‘
in accordance with the camel is the burden
’ which, in the context, obviously meant,
the richer he was the more he owed
.
48

Though we showed this to have an equally obvious corollary in the matter of the wealth acquired by Josephus’ friend ‘
Joshua ben Gamala
’ –
whose patronym meant
‘
camel
’ – when he married Boethus’ daughter
Martha
, this too, with just the barest amount of reshuffling, had an easily-recognizable parallel in the favorite Synoptic aphorism about ‘
a Rich Man
’, ‘
a ca
m
el
’, and ‘
the eye of a needle
’ – whatever one might ultimately take this to mean –
actually
comparing the
‘
Rich Man
’
to the
‘
camel
’
: ‘
Easier would it be for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a Rich Man to enter the Kingdom of God’
(Matthew 19:24 and
pars
.)
.
49
The relationship of this curious saying – the meaning of which is, admittedly, obscure and has been debated – to these ‘
Rich Man
’ and ‘
camel
’ aphorisms in the
Talmud
should be patent.

In all three Synoptics, the series of commandments preceding this ‘
camel
’/‘
eye of a needle
’ pronouncement finally ends with the emphatic directive to ‘
sell all that you have and give to the Poor
’. Not only is the demand delivered this time
with positive, not negative effect
– meaning, now ‘
the Poor
’ are of
primary
importance and not of secondary significance behind the ‘
God-Man Jesus
’ – but in Matthew 19:19 anyhow, it is delivered in the context of yet another enunciation of the ‘
all-Righteousness
’ Commandment ‘
you shall love your neighbor as yourself
’ – the first part of the
Righteousness
/
Piety
dichotomy, a fixture of the salvationary scheme set forth in the Damascus Document of ‘
the New Covenant in the Land of Damascus
’.

It will be recalled that in Paul’s dialectic in Romans 13, ‘
loving your neighbor as yourself
, was to some degree being used to countenance
the payment of
‘
taxes
’
to
‘
the Servants of God
’ – implying that it was the
Roman Authorities
, not the
Jerus
a
lem Assembly
leaders who were ‘
the Servants of God
’ and to whom such ‘
love
’ in the form of ‘
tribute was due
’, the very o
p
posite of what the Revolutionary Movement begun by ‘
Judas the Galilean
’ had demanded.
50
The reason for this, according to Paul’s initial, somewhat self-serving polemic in 13:1, was that
since
‘
there was no Authority except from God’, those consi
d
ered
‘
the Authorities had been appointed by God
’!

It was this commandment too – ‘
the Royal Law according to the Scripture
’ in James 2:8, which Josephus pictures as the fundamental principle by which
Essenes
conducted themselves towards their fellow man, as opposed to
their duties towards God
– ‘
loving God
’, which was the first.
51
It was this that
dictated the
‘
poverty
’
regime
of groups such as these
Essenes
and their counterparts, ‘
the Ebionites
’ or ‘
the Poor
’. The implied rationale was that you could not demonstrate ‘
love for your neighbor
’ or ‘
Righteousness towards your fellow man
’ if you made economic distinctions between such a one and yourself
52
– therefore, Jesus’ directive here in the Synoptics: ‘
If you would be perfect, sell what you have and give to the Poor
’.

‘
Even the Dogs Eat the Crumbs under the Table
’

Let us try to summarize a few of these things. As we have seen, Luke’s variation on these ‘
Rich’
, ‘
dogs’
, ‘
crumbs’
, and ‘
fil
l
ing
’ motifs combine Talmudic ‘
sated as a dog
’, ‘
Rich
’, ‘
coming
’, and ‘
Poor
’ allusions with Mark and Matthew’s
Canaa
n
ite
/
Greek Syrophoenician woman
’s retort to Jesus: ‘
even the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from the table of their ma
s
ters
’. This is Matthew 15:27. Mark 7:28 has: ‘
even the dogs under the table eat of the children
’
s crumbs
’. Not only are all these textual variations noteworthy, one should not forget Jesus’ apparent prior rejoinder in Matthew 7:6’s Sermon on the Mount:
‘Do not give what is holy to dogs
,
nor cast (
balete
) your pearls before swine
(here, it is important to note, the ‘
casting
’ is assoc
i
ated with the ‘
swine
’ not the ‘
dogs
’)’.

Notwithstanding, it is difficult to miss the connection of this with Jesus’ pronouncement in Matthew 15:25 seemingly o
b
viating it:
‘It is not good to
take the children
’
s bread and to cast it
(
balein
)
to the dogs
,
lest they should
trample them with their feet
.’
Here the ‘
feet
’ motif in what has to be considered an odd milieu indeed, but it will have overtones with Talmudic mater
i
als about the fate of these same ‘
Rich Men
’
s daughters
’ and various references to their own ‘
feet
’ and those of animals.

This curious depiction of what transpired at this
Rich Man
’
s house
– all ‘
clothed in purple and fine linen
’ – in Luke is also a bridge to John’s picture of what went on at ‘Lazarus’
house’
and the issues debated there, again against the background of multiple evocation of Jesus’ ‘
feet
’, ‘
the Poor
’, and Lazarus’ two sisters’ ‘
precious spikenard ointment
’ or ‘
perfume
’ ministr
a
tions.

Just as Matthew and Mark’s encounter on the
parts
/
borders
of Tyre and Sidon
with the
Greek Syrophoenician
/
Canaanite woman
is absent from Luke and John, the Lazarus episodes in John and Luke, incongruous as they may be, are missing from Matthew and Mark. There is however a caveat here – the particulars of John’s Lazarus encounter partly turn up in Matthew and Mark’s ‘
Simon the Leper
’ episode and partly in Luke’s picture of the goings-on at ‘
Martha
’
s house
’ – the connecting links being the
Bethany
locale, the repetitive use of the verb ‘
to come
’, the ever-present evocation of ‘
the Poor
’, the recurrent use of the telltale ‘
some
’/‘
certain ones
’, and the whole activity of ‘
anointing
’ Jesus’ ‘
head
’ or ‘
feet
’. Nor does John have any ‘
dogs u
n
der the table
’ episode. Rather it evolves into something entirely different – an albeit recognizable scenario.

Still like Luke’s ‘
a certain Poor man named Lazarus
’ and the complaints of
the Disciples
or
the ‘some
’ in Matthew and Mark about ‘
giving to the Poor
’, the adumbration of these themes in John both alludes to ‘
the Poor
’ and moves into a number of other usages of the utmost importance for this tradition-cluster centering around this set of
Rich
Men and women
in Pale
s
tine. In particular, it moves from the way John transforms Luke’s resurrection scenario (‘
carried away by the Angels
’ after his death ‘
to the bosom of Abraham
’) to allusions to Jesus’ coming burial scenario (in our view, ultimately having to do with members of the Royal Family of Adiabene) to these constant evocations of ‘
costly perfumes
’, ‘
precious ointments
’, and ‘
his
’ or someone’s/something else’s ‘
feet
’. In turn, these bring us full circle back to the original Talmudic allusions regarding these fabulously
Rich
Men
,
their daughters
, and, of course, ‘
the Poor
’ coupled with evocations of these
Rich Men
or
women
’s ‘
feet
’. Admittedly, all these overlaps and variations are hard to follow without following the actual texts directly, but the reader should do his or her best.

Not only does this idea of being ostentatiously ‘
Rich
’ find expression in Luke’s version of the Lazarus material – to wit, ‘
a certain Poor man Lazarus
(‘
laid at his doorstep
’)
longing to be filled from the crumbs falling from the Rich Man
’
s table
’, but it also constitutes a part of the picture in the Synoptics of ‘
Joseph of Arimathaea
’
s coming
’ to claim and prepare Jesus’ body for burial in ‘
his
’ (Joseph’s) tomb in Matthew 27:57 and
pars
. Despite the widespread familiarity with the name ‘
Nicodemus’
, this picture in the Synoptics involves no
Nicodemus
and it is, rather, only in John that ‘
Joseph of Arimathaea
’ is associated with this other character called
Nicodemus
(‘
Nakdimon
’) who also ‘
came
’ – ‘
the one who first
came
to Jesus by night bearing a mi
x
ture of myrrh and aloes about a hundred weight
’ (19:39 – ‘litra
s
’, the same ‘litra’ we encountered in John 12:3’s picture earlier of the amount of ‘
ointment of pure spikenard of great worth
’ with which Mary anointed Jesus’ ‘
feet
’ – in the Synoptics, it will be recalled, the measure was only expressed in terms of ‘
an alabaster flask
’/‘
cask
’ and not ‘litra
s
’).

As we also saw above, in his original introduction of this ‘
Nicodemus
’ or ‘
Nakdimon
’, John called him ‘
a man of the Pha
r
isees
,
a Ruler of the Jews
’ – a bit of an exaggeration obviously – ‘
Pharisees
’ often being substituted in New Testament parlance (as, for instance, in Acts 15:5 provoking
the Jerusalem Council
)
for
‘
the Party
’ or
the
‘
some insisting on circumcision
’
of James
.

Not only do all the various tomb and burial scenarios include motifs of ‘
linen
’, ‘
cloth
’, or ‘
clothes
’, there is often the me
n
tion, as just underscored, of the verb ‘
to come
’ as, for example, in John 12:1’s Jesus ‘
coming to Bethany where was Lazarus who had died and whom he raised from the dead
’. In Luke’s further variation on these themes,
the dogs
‘
come
’ as well – as they do in Matthew 15:27’s ‘
Canaanite woman
’’s rejoinder to Jesus, that ‘
even the dogs eat of the crumbs that fall from their master
’
s table
’ – though only ‘
to lick
’
Poor Lazarus
’
sores
. Here, however, it is rather ‘
Poor Lazarus
’ who is going to
eat
‘
the crumbs
’. No doubt, Luke should have included the ‘
dogs under the table
’ portion of the ‘
Canaanite
’/‘
Greek Syrophoenician woman
’’s retort to Jesus which, of course, is implied, since that is where ‘
the crumbs
’ (in Mark 7:28, ‘
the children
’
s crumbs
’) would have ‘
fallen
’ if there had been any!

John’s ‘
Cana in Galilee
’ and God’s ‘
Glory
’

Aside from these ‘
Rich
’, ‘
Poor
’, ‘
fall
’, ‘
filled
’, ‘
doorstep
’, ‘
dog
’, and ‘
came
’ motifs, one should also not ignore, in Matthew 15:22’s version of ‘
a woman
,
a Cananaean came out
’
to him
, the possible play on the
Cananaean
/‘
Zealots
’- theme generally. This must of necessity be seen as including the phrase ‘
Cana of Galilee
’ in John 2:1–11, 4:46 and 21:2. One must also see in the second part of this expression, ‘
Galilee
’, another possible play on Eusebius’ version (seemingly based on Hegesippus), in delineating the number of Jewish ‘
sects
’ at the time of Jesus, of ‘
Galileans
’ as an alternate nomenclature for ‘
Zealots
’.
1
In this passage, it was ‘
in Cana of Galilee
’ that
Jesus
‘
fills
’ – in the manner of
Nakdimon
’
s
‘
twelve cisterns
’ above (for
Ben Kalba Sabu
‘
a
, Luke, and further along in John, it will be recalled, it was ‘
Poor Lazarus
’ and ‘
the room
’ that were ‘
filled
’) – ‘
six stone water vessels to the brim
’, then
turning them into
‘
wine
’ (John 2:9). It is this ‘
filling to the brim
’ aspect of the tradition which sharpens the relationship with
Nakdimon
’
s
‘
filling
’
the Rich Lord
’
s water cisterns
‘
to overflowing
’ above. In 2:6 it was ‘
the master of the feast
’s ‘
six stone water vessels standing
(note the ‘
standing
’ usage)
according to the
‘
purification
’/‘
cleansing (practices) of the Jews
’ (this last phrase in itself confirms this as having been written
by Gentiles for Gentiles
).

This is one of the notorious ‘
signs
’ or ‘
miracles
’ Josephus refers to so scathingly in his several descriptions about how th
e
se ‘
wonder-workers
’ or ‘
Impostors
’ led the people out into the wilderness, there ‘
to show them the signs of their impending freedom
’ or ‘
Redemption
’. It was such ‘
Impostors
’ and ‘
religious frauds
’, it will be recalled, that he (Josephus) considered more dangerous even than ‘
the Revolutionaries
’ or ‘
Innovators
’ (the actual term he uses for these last
2
). For John 2:11, the theme recurs with the words: ‘
These were the beginning of the
signs Jesus did in Cana of Galilee
’.