James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls II (133 page)

‘
The Cup of Trembling
’ and ‘
not Circumcising the Foreskin of his Heart
’

Not only, therefore, is this ‘
Bowl
’ or ‘
Cup
’ imagery, as applied to Vengeance and martyrdom, to be found in Revelation and the Habakkuk
Pesher
, but it is also in the Gospels relating to John and James ‘
the sons of Zebedee
’. The ‘
pouring
’ imagery one finds in these chapters of Revelation also plays on the general imagery at Qumran with regard to ‘
the Man of Lying
’ who ‘
pours out the waters of Lying over Israel
’, and is just as often referred to as ‘
the Spouter
’ – specifically, one who ‘
pours out
’, seemingly, in addition to ‘
Lying
’, ‘
water
’, and/or ‘
wind
’, even ‘
the Spirit
’.
20

Not only is this ‘
Cup
’ imagery systematically transformed by Paul in his treatment of ‘
the Lord
’
s Cup
’ or ‘
the Cup of the New Covenant in my blood
’ in 1 Corinthians 10:16–21 and 11:25–29, but it also culminates in the drinking of ‘
the Cup of the New Covenant in my blood which was poured out for you
’ in Gospel ‘
Last Supper
’ scenarios. Here, too, the ‘
pouring
’ imagery is now attached to Paul’s new and more ‘
spiritualized
’ (or ‘
allegorical
’) theology of ‘
the Cup of the Lord
’.

At this point, the text of the Habakkuk
Pesher
even picks up the imagery of Isaiah 51:17–22, adding its additional ‘
the Cup of Trembling
’ to its quotation of the underlying text from Habakkuk 2:16: ‘
You drink also and tremble
’ (
hera
‘
el
). The
Pesher
to this reads as follows – the reader should again note the shift from ‘
hera
‘
el
’ to ‘
he
-
‘
arel
’/‘
foreskin
’: ‘
Its interpretation concerns the Wicked Priest
,
whose shame was greater than his honour because he did not circumcise the foreskin of his heart
(
kalono
/
kikalon
– this, as suggested, possibly transmuted into the Greek ‘
scarlet
’ or ‘
kokkinon
’ of ‘
the whore of Babylon
’ riding a ‘
scarlet beast
’ in Revelation 17:3).’
Here the
Pesher
has simply reversed the letters in its version of the underlying reading, ‘
to tremble
’, to produce the allusion to ‘
foreskin
’ instead. This is typical of Qumran word-play and the freedom with which unde
r
lying texts were utilized. As should be plain, this same word-play is present in the Greek of Revelation, but with a more obsc
u
rantist and transparently anti-Semitic point-of-view.Though received versions of Habakkuk 2:16 seem to have conserved this switch from ‘
hera
‘
el
’/‘
tremble
’ to ‘
he-
‘
arel
’/‘
foreskin
’, the Septuagint version still retains the Qumran ‘
tremble
’/‘
shake
’/or ‘
sta
g
ger
’ here. But the Qumran
Pesher
seems to understand this kind of word-play and, though conserving ‘
tremble
’ in the underl
y
ing Habakkuk 2:16, interprets it
–
utilizing Isaiah 51:17–22’s ‘
Cup of Wrath
’/‘
Cup of Trembling
’ duality to produce its ‘
for
e
skin
’ metaphor
–
in terms of the Wicked Priest’s ‘
uncircumcised heart
’. It is these things our exegetes in modern Qumran Studies prefer to translate in terms of the Wicked Priest ‘
staggering
’ from ‘
drunkenness
’, though there is no ‘
drunkenness
’ here, only
–
as Revelation would have it
–
‘
the
wine of the Wrath of God
,
which is poured full strength into the Cup of His Anger
’. In fact, this ‘
Cup of Wrath
’/‘
the Lord
’
s Cup
’/‘
Cup of the Lord
’ metaphor is picked up again in the next passage of the
Pesher
(XI.15) which sets forth how ‘
the Cup of the Wrath of God would swallow him
’.

This allusion to ‘
not circumcising the foreskin of his heart
’, whether in the original Habakkuk or transmuted from an all
u
sion to ‘
hera
‘
el
’ there, should also be seen as not unconnected with Ezekiel 44:9’s
barring
‘
foreigners
uncircumcised in heart
and uncircumcised in flesh
’
from the Temple
– itself part and parcel to the run-up to the enunciation of ‘
the Zadokite Covenant
’ in 44:15 so dear to Qumran exegetes in the Damascus Document. Not only does it form there, as will be recalled, the basis of the eschatological definition of ‘
the Sons of Zadok
’ and ‘
Priests
’ as ‘
Penitents in the Wilderness
’,
21
but in Ezekiel 44:17–31 it also leads up to the admonitions ‘
not to drink wine
’, ‘
not to shave their heads but to poll them
’, ‘
not to wear wool but only linen
’, and ‘
not to eat carrion
’, all matters central to the descriptions of James as they have come down to us. All of these reinforce the idea of his connection to a ‘
Nazirite
’-style, ‘
Consecrated
’
Priesthood
.

The issue of ‘
linen garments
’ or ‘
clothes
’ has particular relevance to James ‘
being cast down
’ from the Pinnacle of the Temple and his brains being bashed in by a ‘
laundryman
’
wielding a club
in early Church texts – itself connected to ‘
stoning
’ scenarios in Rabbinic ones.
22
Interestingly enough, the Hebrew word we saw possibly connected to such allusions in the ex
e
gesis of Habakkuk 2:15 about the Wicked Priest ‘
appearing to them to swallow them
,
causing them to fall
’ or ‘
be cast down
’
on Yom Kippur
, also appears in Ezekiel 44:13 about the Priests in the Temple ‘
ministering to them before idols and causing the House of Israel to fall
’ or ‘
be cast down
’.

In this context, one should also remark the allusions to the new ‘
Priests
’, ‘
the Sons of Zadok
’, ‘
standing up to judge a
c
cording to My Judgements and keeping My
Torah
and My Laws in all My Assemblies
’ in Ezekiel 44:24 and ‘
teaching My People the difference between Holy and profane
,
polluted and clean
’ in Ezekiel 44:23, both also dear to the Qumran mindset. The first is actually evoked in the description of ‘
the
Mebakker
’ in the ‘
Camps
’ in the Damascus Document.
23
The second is also cited there in the ‘
Nazirite
’-like description of ‘
the New Covenant in the Land of Damascus
’, which actually mentions ‘
keeping the Day of Fasting according to the precise letter of the Commandment
’.
24

Not only do we have in these passages from Ezekiel 44:6–31, as reflected in the Damascus Document, the very
reverse
of what Peter is pictured as learning in Acts 10:15 and 10:28,
in anticipation of his visit to the Roman Centurion’s household in Caesarea
– an episode ending with ‘
the Holy Spirit being
poured out
on the Peoples
’ (10:44–45), but the main lines of what could have been exploited to produce a very interesting Qumran-style
Pesher
on aspects of James’ life and practices. The point, preceding these in Ezekiel 44:7–9 about ‘
foreigners
uncircumcised in heart and flesh
not entering My Temple
’, of course, certainly could have been and probably was interpreted to relate to
Herodians being barred from entering the Temple
and in the wake of the death of James it would seem,
all Jerusalem as well
. It also relates to
the rejection of gifts and sacrifices from foreigners in the Temple
, the issue which sparked the outbreak of the War against Rome. We have identified this issue as the basis for the Third ‘
Net of
Belial
’ reflected in James’ directives to overseas communities, as reported in Acts 15 and 21, 1 Corinthians 8:10, and
MMT
– namely, abstention from ‘
the pollutions of the idols
’ or ‘
things sacrificed to idols
’. In fact, the ban in the last line of this chapter from Ezekiel on things ‘
dying of themselves or torn
,
whether fowl or beast
’ (44:31) is clearly the basis of the last category of James’ directives, the ban on ‘
carrion
’, garbled in Greek translation into ‘
strangled things
’.

Here too, whether by coincidence or design, one has the omnipresent allusion to ‘
Beast
’ again. Therefore, not only do we have in all three of these documents, Ezekiel, Habakkuk, and Revelation, the constant reiteration of this theme of ‘
Beast
(
s
)’, but in the first, the makings of what could have been developed into a more complete Qumran-style
Pesher
relating to James’ person and experiences as well. In the second two of these, this allusion to ‘
Beast
’ is accompanied by the common imagery of ‘
Blood
’, ‘
pouring out the Blood of the Saints
’ and ‘
giving them Blood to drink
’ – reversed, of course, in the ban on ‘
Blood
’ in James’ prohibitions to overseas communities (in the Habakkuk
Pesher
‘
the Blood
’, it will be recalled, has to do with the ‘
d
e
struction of the Poor
’/‘
the
Ebionim
’) – and the retribution for this, either ‘
drinking the wine of the Wrath of God
’ or ‘
the Cup of the Wrath of God
’.

Where 1QpHab XI.13 specifically is concerned, it now applies this allusion to ‘
being uncircumcised in heart
’ from Ezekiel to a Jewish High Priest, one of those Jewish backsliders or ‘
Wicked Ones of His People
’ it condemned – along with Gentile idolaters ‘
serving stone and wood
’ – in its description of the ‘
Judgement God would execute by the hand of His Elect
’ earlier and the final ‘
Day of Judgement
’ with which the
Pesher
closes.
25
By introducing this peculiar charge against ‘
the Wicked Priest
’ at this point and under these circumstances, the
Pesher
leaves little doubt that the issue it had in mind was
accepting Gentile gifts and sacrifices in the Temple
or, as the Damascus Document,
MMT
, or even Ezekiel 44:23 would put it,
not observing proper separation
‘
between clean and unclean
,
Holy and profane
’
in the Temple
or
bringing
‘
polluted things into the Temple
’ and, as a consequence, ‘
incurring their pollution
’ – the same issues exercising
‘
Zealots for the Law
’ and extreme Purists gene
r
ally in the run-up to the War against Rome.