James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls II (127 page)

The phraseology ‘
in his Hot Anger
’ is redundant and also introduces a new usage, ‘
Cha
‘
as
’/‘
Anger
’. This is not mentioned in the underlying Biblical text from Habakkuk 2:15, but it will be played upon momentarily to produce the homophonic ‘
Chos
’/‘
Cup
’, which will then produce ‘
the Cup of the Wrath of God
’ in the
Pesher
. Nor is this to say anything about ‘
the Cup of the right hand of the Lord
’ in the underlying text from Habakkuk 2:16. This, in turn, plays off the allusion to ‘
make tremble
’ (
hera
‘
el
) in the underlying text from 2:15 as redacted in the
Pesher
, not to mention ‘
the Cup of Trembling
’ (
Tar
‘
elah
) from Isaiah 51:21, which then moves in the
Pesher
into the Wicked Priest ‘
not circumcising the foreskin
(
‘
orlah
or
‘
arlah
) of
his heart
’. This is how complex these texts really are.

It is our view that, like the transmutation of ‘
privy parts
’ into ‘
Festivals
’ at the beginning of the
Pesher
, all this word-play is purposeful. The same can be said for the illegality concerning the proceedings ‘
pursued
’ against ‘
the Righteous Teacher
’ or James by the Wicked Priest ‘
in his Exiled House at
Hanut
’. The fortuitous conjunction of ‘
Hanut
’ and ‘
hamat
’ would have been just the kind of word-play or transmutation of words that appealed to the sectaries in their exegetical exposition of these ma
t
ters. The term ‘
Hanut
’ for the actual location of the Sanhedrin during the Period of its ‘
Exile
’ (coinciding almost precisely with the time of the Sanhedrin proceedings ‘
pursued
’ against James) would have been seen by them as significant as it is in the
Ta
l
mud
. If this is true, then we have a direct reference, however veiled, to events in James’ life even in the
Pesher
as it stands.

Once again, nothing could be more powerful proof of the relationship of these passages to James’ death than this – not to mention the evocation of a
Sanhedrin Trial
at ‘
the House
’ or ‘
Court of the High Priest
’ in the Gospel. We shall now be able to follow some of this word-play to its inevitable conclusion, in the process elucidating some of the grossest errors and intellect
u
al miscues that have plagued Qumran Studies from their inception.

More ‘
Swallowing
’ Related to the Day of Atonement and ‘
the Reward he Paid the Poor
’

Proceeding with this kind of word-play, the text now moves on to the
second part of its exposition of Habakkuk 2:15 – the ‘
he looked on their Festivals
/
privy parts
’ phraseology – and again uses the vocabulary of ‘
swallowing
’ (in the sense of ‘
he destroyed them
’) to represent what the Wicked Priest did to the Righteous Teacher and his confederates. This time the pr
o
nominal suffix attached to the action is the plural ‘
them
’, ‘
he swallowed them
’ not ‘
him
’, and the action is connected to a refe
r
ence to ‘
Yom Kippur
’ – this being the
Pesher
’s clear elucidation of the revamped usage, ‘
their Festivals
’, in the underlying text.
48

This language of ‘
swallowing
’ will now be applied a third time, in the context of some of the most overpowering imagery in the Qumran corpus,  to describe how ‘
the Cup of the Wrath of God would swallow
’
the Wicked Priest
. We have seen how in the next
Pesher
in the Column
XII
on Habakkuk 2:17 about ‘
the Violence of Lebanon
’ and ‘
the destruction of the dumb beasts
’, these ideas are reiterated, namely, that the Wicked Priest ‘
would be paid the reward he paid the Poor
’, and ‘
as he plo
t
ted to destroy the Poor’
(
Ebionim
),
so too
‘
God would condemn him to destruction
’.
49
‘
The Poor
’ here are clearly meant to be identified with either ‘
the Ebionites
’ or ‘
the Essenes
’ (if the two groups can, in fact, really be separated) and incorporate both ‘
Lebanon
’ – this presumably because like Priests in the Temple, as already remarked, they too only
wore white linen
– and ‘
the dumb beasts
’ in the underlying Hebrew of Habakkuk 2:17. Not only does the
Pesher
, as the Psalm 37
Pesher
, really identify ‘
the Poor
’ (‘
Lebanon
’) with ‘
the Council of the Community
’ but ‘
the dumb beasts
’ too, are identified with ‘
the Simple of Judah d
o
ing
Torah
’ which harks back to the archaic ‘
Torah
-Doers in the House of Judah
’ (
i.e.
, all ‘
Torah
-Doing Jews
’) to circumscribe the exegesis of both Habakkuk 2:3 on ‘
the Delay of the
Parousia
’ in Column VII.5–14 and Habakkuk 2:4 in Column VIII.1–3. Again, to repeat, the Hebrew here really does mean ‘
destroy
’ (
lechalah
/
lechalot
) and not something else like ‘
confuse
’.

One should note the telltale emphasis on ‘
doing
’ again, the same emphasis one finds throughout the Letter of James and the Damascus Document – also the basis of the Qumran usage ‘
works
’/‘
ma
‘
asim
’. This allusion to ‘
Torah
-
Doers
’ will reappear in the restriction in Columns
VII
and
VIII
of the scope of the application of both Habakkuk 2:3 and 4 on ‘
the Righteous shall live by his Faith
’. Earlier still, in Column V.3, we saw the verb ‘
destroy
’ (
yechaleh
) used to express how God ‘
would not destroy His People by the hand of the Nations
,
but rather by the hand of His Elect
(‘
the Poor
’)
execute Judgement on all the Nations
’ and ‘
the Evil Ones of His People who kept His Commandments only when convenient
’, presumably meant to include ‘
the Wicked Priest
’ and all Backsliding or Renegade Jews.

The reason for this ‘
Judgement
’ and ‘
destruction
’ where
Gentiles
were concerned was simple – they are all perceived of as ‘
Idolaters
’. In the words of the very last lines of the
Pesher
: “
Its interpretation
(Habakkuk 2:19–20 warning ‘
Idolaters
’)
concerns all the Nations who serve stone and wood
.
But on the Day of Judgement
,
God will destroy all the Servants of Idols and Evil Ones from off the Earth
.’
50
As the Habakkuk
Pesher
now details this confrontation relating to
Yom Kippur
in Column XI.6–8, as already underscored: ‘
And at the completion of the Festival of Repose of the Day of Atonements
,
he
(
the Wicked Priest
)
appeared to them to swallow them
,
causing them to stumble on the Fast Day
,
the Sabbath of their Repose
.’

Much speculation has arisen concerning how the Qumran sectaries were using a different calendar than the Jerusalem E
s
tablishment.
51
This was no doubt true but, once again, all of this has assumed that the defective and clearly esoteric ‘
a-Beit-Galuto
’ meant that the Righteous Teacher’s ‘
House of Exile
’ – and,
ergo
, that the Community was celebrating a different
Yom Kippur
‘
Fast Day
’
in the wilderness
or at Qumran itself, when the Wicked Priest appeared to them to, supposedly, ‘
confuse them
’.
52
But this is to miss the intense sense of
destruction
surrounding the passage. This is not some innocent ‘
confrontation
’ simply involving ‘
confusing
’ people or ‘
causing them to stumble
’ in their
observations, though this may have been part of it as even an Establishment Trial for ‘
blasphemy
’ would imply. To be sure, there is ‘
confrontation
’ going on here but, once again, the sense would appear to be mortal, not simply verbal.

This is the sense of the underlying allusions to ‘
the Violence done to Lebanon
’ and ‘
the Land
’ and ‘
the predation on the dumb beasts
’, upon which these
Pesher
s are based. If so, then the allusion to ‘
causing them to fall
’ or ‘
casting them down
’ would have import, in particular,
vis-a-vis
all Greek versions of the death of James where, as we have seen, the
Ba-La
-
‘
a
/‘
swallowing
’ language moves into the ‘
ballo
’/‘
casting down
’ language. Though the allusion here may mean something as i
n
nocuous as ‘
causing them to stumble
’ over differences about legal observance concerning ‘
the Day of Atonements
’, the totality of the phraseology seems more portentous than that. This is especially true in view of what immediately follows XI.9–15, as the
Pesher
proceeds, evoking the imagery of ‘
drinking the Cup
’ and
Divine Retribution
and ‘
destruction
’ one encounters in the fanatically apocalyptic and emotionally-charged atmosphere of Revelation too. Before moving on to consider this, it is i
m
portant to look quickly at the usage ‘
Day of Atonements
,
the Fast Day the Sabbath of their Repose
’ and its significance, not only for Jews but also in the life of James.

For Jews today, of course, ‘
Yom Kippur
’/‘
the Day of Atonement
’ (singular) is still the Holiest and most solemn day of the year associated, as it is, with forgiveness of Sin – inadvertent or collective. Classically, it was the one day of the year when the High Priest, dressed in his full regalia including mitre and breastplate, went into the Holy of Holies alone – there, kneeling b
e
fore the Judgement Seat, to ask for forgiveness on behalf of the whole People before God. This is precisely the picture, for example, one gets in the presentation of ‘
Simeon the Righteous
’ in
Ben Sira
50:5–23.
It was also the day on which the High Priest was permitted to pronounce the forbidden Name of God, ‘
YHWH
’.