James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls II (141 page)

The same is true in Romans 10:1–14, where, playing on the issue of the ‘
uncircumcised heart
’ again, Paul now rather e
x
presses ‘
the desire of
(
his
)
own heart
’
for the
‘
Salvation
’
of Israel
(10:1 –
sic
). In doing so, he acknowledges that the fundame
n
tal issue was ‘
being saved
’, at the same time deliberately invoking the counter-position of those in Israel whom he acknowled
g
es ‘
have zeal for God but
’, as he expresses this – taking back what he has just accorded them – ‘
not according to Knowledge
’ (10:2). Continuing this critique, he then goes on to criticize these as ‘
being ignorant of God
’
s Righteousness
’ – the very words with which the Cairo version of the Damascus Document begins (‘
Now listen, all
Knowers of Righteousness,
and comprehend the works of God
’
6
) – and in ‘
trying
to
set up their own Righteousness
,
did not submit to the Righteousness of God
’ (10:3)!

It is now a quick step to: ‘
Christ is the end of the Law for Righteousness to anyone that believes
’ in Romans 10:4. Here he again alludes to Leviticus 18:5 about ‘
doing these things and living
’ and Moses writing ‘
a Righteousness of the Law
’ (10:5). This he now counters by again using the language of the ‘
heart
’: if ‘
you believe in your heart
…,
you shall be saved, for with the heart is belief
(
leading
)
to Righteousness … and Salvation
’ (10:9–10), concluding with the completely cosmopolitan proclam
a
tion: ‘
For there is no difference between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord of all is Rich towards all who call on Him
.
For ev
e
ryone, whoever calls on the Name of God, shall be saved
(Romans 10:11–12).’
Not only does this mix both Hellenistic and Hebraic allusion, but here we again see the play on the ‘
Riches
’ and ‘
being called by Name
’ imagery in both Qumran doc
u
ments and in James. Furthermore, this language of ‘
being saved
’ reappears in both James and the
Pesher
on Habakkuk 2:4 at Qumran as well.

Colossians 3:9–11, a letter considered to be in the ‘
Pauline school
’, also reverses the language of James 3:5–10’s attack on ‘
the Tongue
’. Instructing its respondents ‘
not to Lie to one another
’ as well, it concludes: ‘
there is neither Greek nor Jew, ci
r
cumcision or uncircumcision, Barbarian, Scythian, bondman or free
’, ‘
only Christ
’. For Paul in 1 Corinthians 1:24, this is: ‘
To those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is God
’
s Power and God
’
s Wisdom
’.
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He also puts the same proposition in Galatians 3:28: ‘
There is not Jew or Greek, bondman or free, male or female
.
All are one in Christ Jesus
.’ As usual, this leads directly into his attack on those ‘
who wish again to be in bondage
’, scrupulously ‘
keeping days and months and times and years’,
the very elements that in the Damascus Document are so much a part of ‘
separating
’
in the wilderness
, ‘
setting up the Holy Things according to their precise letter
’, ‘
to love each man his brother as himself
’, and ‘
not defiling one
’
s Holy Spirit
’, but ‘
walking in these things in Perfect Holiness
’.
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In 4Q
Berachot
, which punctuates its ‘
excommunications
’ and ‘
cursing’ with
‘
amen
,
amen
’s, these are ‘
the weeks of Hol
i
ness
’, ‘
the Festivals of Glory
’, and ‘
the embroidered Splendor
of the Spirits of the Holy of Holies
’. For Paul, they are the ‘
weak and beggarly elements
’ that reduce his constituents to ‘
the bondage
(
they so
)
desire
’ (Galatians 4:9). Is it possible to conceive of anyone being more insulting than this? Also the allusion to ‘
weak
’ here not only meshes with the allusions to ‘
weakness
’ we have seen him use throughout the totality of his polemical assaults, but now it includes the point about how he ‘
labored in vain
’ regarding these matters for his Communities (4:11). This will, again, be absolutely reproduced in the language the Haba
k
kuk
Pesher
uses to condemn the ‘
vain labor
’ of ‘
the Spouter of Lying
’ which he has expended to ‘
build
(
his
)
Worthless City u
p
on Blood
and erect
(
his
)
Assembly upon Lying
’ – this paralleled too in its antithesis in CD V
II
and its analogues: ‘
erecting the fallen Tabernacle of David
’!

James and the Liar

Before proceeding to the interpretation of ‘
the Righteous shall live by his Faith
’ in Columns
VII
–
VIII
of the Habakkuk
Pesher
, we should look at the figurative evocation of ‘
the Tongue
’ in James 3:5–8, a chapter replete with the imagery of Qu
m
ran. Not only does it contain an allusion to the ‘
blessing and cursing
’ from Deuteronomy, which Paul also makes use of in G
a
latians 3:10, upon which most of the language of ‘
cursing
’ in these documents is based, but it even alludes to the problem of ‘
mixed liquids
’, a subject which also occupies not a little attention in
MMT
.
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As James 3:11–12 puts this, ‘
out of the same fou
n
tain orifice pours forth sweet and bitter
’ (note here the metaphor of ‘
pouring
’
again
), which it compares to ‘
the death-bringing poison
’ of the Tongue, out of whose ‘
mouth goes forth the blessing and cursing
’ at the same time. It also uses the ‘
heart
’ i
m
agery we have just seen Paul use and used at Qumran with inverted effect. In James 3:13–14 this is tied, not insignificantly, to ‘
showing one
’
s
works
in the Meekness of Wisdom
’, followed by the words: ‘
If you have bitter jealousy and contentiousness in your heart
,
do not boast or Lie against the Truth
’.

We have just seen how important this language of ‘
Truth
’ is at Qumran, not to mention how Paul uses it in Galatians 3:1 and 4:16 to assert he ‘
does not Lie
’. Moreover it was, according to him, that by telling his communities ‘
the Truth
’, namely, that the Righteousness of the Law has been superseded by the death of Christ, he has become their ‘
Enemy
’. In James 4:8–10, this kind of language is always followed by further requests to ‘
purify your hearts
’, ‘
humble yourselves
’, and ‘
do not slander one another
’ which, just as the above, all have their direct counterparts in the literature of Qumran. As 4:11 puts this: ‘
He who speaks against
(
his
)
brother and judges his brother
,
speaks against the Law and judges the Law
.
But if you judge the Law
,
you are not a Doer of the Law
,
but a Judge
.’

These kinds of allusions are also tied in James to references to ‘
the
Diabolos
’ again (4:7) or ‘
animal
’ or ‘
beastliness
’ (3:15). But this is exactly the kind of phraseology we have already encountered in Rabbinic literature regarding the name ‘
Be
‘
or
’ (or
be
‘
ir
/animal, ‘
o
’ and ‘
i
’ being largely interchangeable in Qumran epigraphy) – in the Bible reckoned as the father at once of both ‘
Bela
‘
’ and ‘
Balaam
’. We have also seen this imagery of ‘
biting
’ and ‘
swallowing
’ reflected in Paul in Galatians 5:15 and one can find it reflected in 2 Peter 2:15–16 and Jude 1:10 and 1:19, also evoking ‘
the error of Balaam
’ – referred to in 2 Peter as ‘
the Son of Be
‘
or who loved the Reward of Unrighteousness
’ (here, of course, the ‘
Gemul
’/‘
Gemulo
’ language again). But it is the attack on ‘
Lying against the Truth
’ in James 3:14 which is most pregnant in this regard and related, not only to Paul’s claims of ‘
speaking Truth
’ in Galatians 4:16 but the imagery of ‘
the Tongue
’, by which it is introduced in James 3:5–12. Nor can there be any doubt that this genre of imagery is generically related to or parallels that of the ‘
pouring out
’ or ‘
spouting
’ i
m
agery applied to the depiction of ‘
the Lying Spouter
’ at Qumran. In turn, it is related to ‘
mouth
’ and ‘
lips
’ imagery both here and throughout the literature at Qumran.

For instance, in James 3:15–16, the language that follows this allusion to ‘
the Tongue
’ and ‘
Lying against the Truth
’ is: ‘
This is not the wisdom which comes down from above
,
but rather it is fleshly
,
animal-like
,
Demonic
,
for where jealousy and contentiousness are
,
there is confusion and every Evil Thing
.’
We have already seen the same kind of imagery in Jude and 2 Peter. In the Colossians passage recommending ‘
not Lying to one another
’, one has the same imagery of ‘
disobedience
’, ‘
a
n
ger
’, ‘
malice
’, and ‘
filthy language out of the mouth
’.

We can also see the same kind of recitations in the Community Rule in its enumeration of ‘
the Ways of the Spirit of Fals
e
hood
’, as opposed to ‘
the Crown of Glory with the Garment of Majesty in Unending Light
’ which ‘
the Sons of Truth and the Sons of Righteousness
’ will enjoy. These are the two Spirits of Light and Darkness, Truth and Lying, exactly equivalent to the ‘
Two Ways
’ in the early Church teaching document known as
The Didache
.
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As this is put in the Nahum
Pesher
, ‘
those who lead Ephraim astray
’ – whatever this esotericism ‘
Ephraim
’ might mean (‘
Nilvim
’, a cadre of new ‘
Gentile
’ believers in the sense of being ‘
God-Fearers
’?
11
) – are specifically said ‘
to teach Lying and
,
with a Tongue full of Lies and deceitful lips
,
lead Many astray
’. This, of course, is the very opposite of the proper ‘
justifying
’ activity of both the Damascus Document and Isa
i
ah 53:11 of ‘
making Many Righteous
’, applied in the former to ‘
the Sons of Zadok
’ and, in Pauline theology, to Jesus.
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