James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls II (84 page)

Where ‘
the
Kittim
’ are concerned, their armies are also specifically denoted as being in Egypt as well. They too ‘
shall be crushed
’ and ‘
their Rule shall be ended
’.
27
As per the indication in Daniel 11:30 (though not 1 Maccabees 1:1), ‘
the
Kittim
’ in such references probably are the Romans, which is also the implication of both the Habakkuk and Nahum
Pesher
s, where it is impossible to apply the allusion
to any group other than the Romans
.
Though these may be ‘
Greeks
’ or at least ‘
Macedonians
’, as per 1 Maccabees 1:1, it is difficult to imagine that such a term might refer to any Grecian Period other than that of Alexa
n
der the Great
when there may have been separate contingents of Macedonian troops in these areas
. One certainly cannot refer to the Seleucids in this incredibly-inflated manner, power-wise, by any stretch of the imagination.

Be this as it may, all these groups together with their allies are referred to here in the War Scroll as ‘
the Sons of Darkness in the Army of
Belial
’.
28
On the other hand, those living ‘
in the camps
’, who must carry out this
struggle,
abetted by the Army of Heavenly Holy Ones
, are referred to by expressions like ‘
the Sons of Light
’ or ‘
the People of God’
.
29
The time is that ‘
of Salvation
(Hebrew: ‘
of
Yeshu
‘
a
’)
for the People of God
’.
30
These last are also referred to as ‘
the Sons of Levi and the Sons of Judah and the Sons of Benjamin
’. Taken together, as we just saw, they or ‘
the Sons of Benjamin
’ alone (probably the latter) are referred to as ‘
the
Golat ha-Midbar
’/‘
the Exile of the Desert
’ or ‘
the Diaspora of the Desert
’ or ‘
Wilderness
’.
31
One should also note the parallel in this last reference to the addressee of the Letter of James 1:1, referred to as ‘
the Twelve Tribes which
(
are
)
in the Diaspora
’. It would be hard to imagine a closer fit.

Benjamin, the
Golah
of the Desert

The first two of these categories, ‘
the Sons of Levi and the Sons of Judah
’, are clearly the Priest Class and the People of Judah, the so-called ‘
Judeans
’ or, as in contexts such as at Qumran, in the Gospels, and Josephus,
simply
‘
Jews
’. But the third, ‘
Benjamin the
Golah
of the Desert
’ – the only reference of this type in the whole Qumran corpus, is more puzzling and may provide a clue to what Paul was trying to say when referring to himself in Romans 11:1 and Philippians 3:5 as being of ‘
the Tribe of Benjamin
’.

It is sometimes suggested that ‘
Benjamin
’ in this period is a reference to
all Diaspora Jews
. It may be, but this is not proved. As Paul uses the term, echoed in Acts 13:21 as well, aside from playing on the name of his namesake ‘
Saul
’, who act
u
ally was ‘
a Benjaminite
’ – doubtlessly an important aspect of his use of it, there may also be a play on the
Bela
‘
/
Belial
/
Edomite
origins of Herodians, not to mention the way ‘
Sons of Belial
’ and its parallel ‘
Balaam
’ are sometimes used at Qumran and in the New Testament generally.
This rests on the proposition that Paul is an
Herodian
himself which, based on his reference in Romans 16:10–11 to his ‘
kinsman the Littlest Herod
’ and ‘
the House of Aristobulus
’ in Rome – as we shall explore further below, presumably Aristobulus V, Herod of Chalcis’ son and the second husband of that
Salome
allegedly involved in the death of John the Baptist
– and other indicators, the present writer considers to be accurate.
32

Not only does it turn out, through either confusion or acculturation, that ‘
Bela
‘
’ is reckoned (like its other curious, gene
a
logical overlap ‘
Balaam
’, just noted above as a variation of ‘
Belial
’) as the ‘
Son of Be
‘
or
’ and
the first of the Edomite Kings
, but
Bela
‘
also turns out to be, according to delineations such as those in Genesis and Chronicles,
the name of the principal
‘
Benjaminite
’
clan
.
33
Herodians, who were certainly seen as
‘
Edomites
’ (‘
Idumaeans
’ in this period being a Greco-Latin form
u
lation for ‘
Edomite
’), may have been using this curious genealogical overlap to make – as Paul does – just such a ‘
Benjaminite
’ claim.

Such a claim of descent from
Benjamin
– and, therefore,
descent from Jacob
,
though not Judah
– could easily translate i
t
self into that of being ‘
of the Race of Israel
’ (though not ‘
Jews
’) and, ‘
a Hebrew of the Hebrews
’, as Paul puts it so tantalizingly in Philippians 3:5.
The term ‘
Benjamin
’ therefore, in time, may also have come to apply to all such
converts
, such as these
Herodians
– if ‘
converts
’ is the appropriate word. It may also have been expanded to include
Gentiles
generally, which could then possibly be seen as another aspect of this puzzling allusion. The allusion, ‘
the Sons of Benjamin
’, ‘
the
Golah
of the D
e
sert
’, as it occurs in this opening passage in the War Scroll, does appear to carry something of this meaning while, at the same time, applying to a specific
Golah
/
Galut
or ‘
Diaspora in the Desert
’, that of, the ‘
Wilderness
’ or ‘
Desert Camps
’.

Muhammad, while never mentioning Paul in the Koran, as a latter-day ‘
Apostle to the Gentiles
’, can be viewed (like Mani before him) as a Seventh-Century successor to Paul, particularly in the importance he attached to
Abraham
. This is especially true where Northern Syrian locales – Abraham’s original
homeland
– were at issue. He and all Arabs after him pick up this ‘
Abrahamic
’ – if not the ‘Israelite’ – aspect of the Hebrew genealogy by raising the claim of descent from
Ishmael
. In doing so, they are also making a quasi-‘
Hebrew
’ claim but, even more importantly, they are also like Paul – and here the transmission is direct – claiming to be ‘
Heirs
’
to
‘
the Religion of Abraham
’ (for Paul, ‘
the Children of
’ or ‘
the Belief of Abraham
’
34
). In the case of Muslims, or at least Arabs, the sense is both genealogical
and
spiritual too. Paul may have been implying the same.

Another aspect of the puzzling allusion to ‘
Benjamin
’, as it is circulating in the First Century, may be its application to
Gentiles
generally, in particular,
Gentile
associates (‘
God-Fearers
’ in both the New Testament and, in the writer’s view, even to some degree at Qumran
35
) or even ‘
Converts
’. The author considers this last the more-likely meaning of the term given the way it is used in the War Scroll. This is certainly some of the sense being reflected in the Damascus Document’s crucial exeg
e
sis of ‘
the Zadokite Covenant
’ from Ezekiel 44:15 too, which, as already explained, in addition to breaking open Ezekiel’s ori
g
inal ‘
the Priests who are Sons-of-Zadok Levites
’ by the deliberate insertion of
waw
-constructs (it then becomes ‘
the Priests
,
the Levites
,
and the Sons of Zadok
’), now interprets ‘
the Levites
’ – playing on the original root-meaning of the word – as ‘
the
Nilvim
’ or ‘
Joiners with them
’, meaning,
those
‘
joining
’
the Priests
(defined as ‘
Penitents in the wilderness
’ – an abnormal and certainly ungenealogical description of
Priests
, if there ever was one)
and
‘
the Sons of Zadok
’. All of these, it now implies – bringing us back to the various ‘
Damascus
’ or ‘
Pella Flight
’ traditions we shall analyze further below – ‘
went out from the Land of Judah to dwell in the Land of Damascus
’.
36

This is also the way the Nahum
Pesher
would appear to be using the root,
L
-
V
-
Y
/
I
, the root of both ‘
Levites
’ and
Nilvim
/‘
Joiners
’. It ties it to the phrase ‘
ger-nilveh
’, that is, ‘
resident alien
’ or ‘
the foreigner resident among them
’ (to whom
ci
r
cumcision
was seen to apply in the passage Izates was reading from Genesis 17 when he was queried by Eleazar as to whether he understood ‘
the true meaning of what he was reading
’). The Nahum
Pesher
also ties it to another of its odd esotericisms, ‘
the Simple of Ephraim
’ which may simply stand for
Samaritans
– ‘
Ephraim
’ being in this period the Land in which the Samaritans now dwelled.
37
This is to say nothing of the whole
Amraphel
/
Ephraim
circle of problems we have pointed out relative to the Psalm 37
Pesher
too. That there was an originally non-Jewish cadre of ‘
Joiners
’, meaning
Resident Aliens
or
God-Fearers
, ass
o
ciated with the Community of Qumran, the author considers a self-evident truism.
That this is something of what is implied at this point by the
Ephraim
usage (if not that of
Amraphel
), the author also considers to be self-evident. To bring us full circle, the War Scroll is now applying these conceptualities to a specific
Golah
or
Diaspora
– ‘
the
Golah
of the Wilderness
’ or ‘
Desert Camps
’.

The whole ‘
Benjamin
’ or ‘
Golah
of the Desert
’ usage may also carry with it something of the way non-Jewish converts – those like the
Nilvim
/‘
Joiners
’ in the Damascus Document’s exegesis of Ezekiel 44:15 above,
who
‘
join
’
the
‘
Penitents in the wilderness
’ (that is, ‘
the Priests and the Sons of Zadok
’ – in the War Scroll, ‘
the Sons of Levi and the Sons of Judah
’, but all subsumed under the general heading of ‘
the Exiled Sons of Light
’)
in
‘
going
’
out from ‘the Land of Judah to dwell in the Land of Damascus
’ – were looked upon in this period.