Read James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls II Online
Authors: Robert Eisenman
James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls II (148 page)
But the parallels do not end here because the ‘
amal
, too, from this same Isaiah 53:11 will also momentarily be invoked. For the Habakkuk
Pesher
X.9–10, the way the Spouter of Lies ‘
leads Many astray’
was by ‘
building a Worthless City upon Blood and erecting an Assembly
’ or ‘
Church upon Lying’
. The ‘
building a City upon Blood and establishing a township on Unrigh
t
eousness
’ in the underlying text from Habakkuk 2:12 are being transformed in the
Pesher
by the addition of the allusion ‘
Worthless
’ to qualify the ‘
City
’ and the phrase, ‘
erecting an Assembly on Lying
’, instead of the ‘
Unrighteous township’
. We have already encountered this usage ‘
established
’ in the several descriptions of the Community Council and Holy Spirit being ‘
established on Truth
’ in 1QS VIII.5, etc. Here
in the
Pesher
it is seemingly being deliberately replaced by the slightly different terminology ‘
erecting
’ or ‘
setting up’
, which is the same usage as the ‘
raising up of the fallen Tabernacle of David
’ in the D
a
mascus Document or of both it and David’s ‘
seed
’ in the
Florilegium
above.
This
Congregation
,
Assembly
or
Church
, which has also been deliberately substituted for the word ‘
township
’ in the u
n
derlying text of Habakkuk, is, of course, the same one we earlier heard about in V.12 regarding the Liar’s ‘
rejection of the
T
o
rah
’
. The replacement of ‘
Unrighteousness
’ in underlying Habakkuk 2:12 with ‘
Lying
’ is significant as is the addition of ‘
setting up
’ or ‘
erecting of an Assembly
’ to the extant language of ‘
building
’. In fact, it is this allusion to ‘
building a Worthless City u
p
on Blood
’ that is pivotal for the
Pesher
.
We have already noted Paul’s repeated use of the word ‘
Worthless
’ in 1 Corinthians 15:14–17 to characterize the value of his communities’ ‘
Faith
’ when not ‘
holding fast to
’ his teaching things such as ‘
the Crucified Christ – to the Jews
,
indeed
,
a stumbling block
’ (1 Corinthians 1:23). We have also seen Paul’s criticisms of James’ prohibitions to overseas communities from 1 Corinthians 5:1–9:27 (note, too, the inversion of the language of ‘
rejection’
, ‘
laboring over Holy Things’
, and ‘
freedom
’ from 9:13–27). These lead directly into his presentation of ‘
the Cup of the Lord
’ not being ‘
the Cup of Demons
’ (by which he seems to mean
both
‘
idols
’ and ‘
the Temple
’) and ‘
Communion with the Blood of Christ
’ in 10:16–22 and 11:25–29.
Not only does he appear to be discussing the former in some ongoing exposition of James’ prohibition on ‘
eating things sacrificed to idols’
, but the latter has been retrospectively assimilated into ‘
Last Supper
’ scenarios in the Synoptic Gospels as ‘
the Cup of the New Covenant in
(
his
)
Blood which is poured for you
’ or ‘
poured out for the Many for remission of Sins
’ (Luke 22:20 and Matthew 26:28). In providing his version of this in ‘
this is the Cup of the New Covenant in my Blood’
, Paul adds his own proviso to it: ‘
For as often as you eat this bread and drink this Cup
,
you are announcing the death of the Lord until he comes
’ (1 Corinthians 11:26). In enunciating this, Paul is using the ‘
Cup
’ language which follows the material we have before us in the Habakkuk
Pesher
XI.10 but with entirely different signification. It should not be forgotten, too, that ‘
the Cup of the Lord
’ is also integral to the first post-resurrection appearance to James in the Gospel according to the Hebrews. There it is the
Cup
Jesus gives his
brother
James to
drink
.
Where the Habakkuk
Pesher
is concerned (reiterated in Revelation), this language of
the ‘Cup of the Lord’
symbolizes
the
Anger of God
and
His Divine Retribution on His Enemies
. This is the meaning in Columns XI–XII of how ‘
the Cup of the Wrath of God would swallow
’ or be ‘
repaid to the Wicked Priest
’ because of how ‘
he swallowed
’ the Righteous Teacher and of ‘
the r
e
ward he paid the Poor
’; but also how it is being played on in the signification ‘
Anger
’ or ‘
Wrath
’ –
Cha
‘
as
a homophone for
Cup
/
Chos
in Hebrew.
Preceding this at the end of the 1QpHab X.10–11, this
Divine Vengeance
that will be exacted will be the outcome of what is going to happen to
the Spouter of Lies
and those who are the recipients of his
Worthless Service
and
Empty
‘
amal
as a result of their ‘
blaspheming and vilifying the Elect of God’
.
29
But as Paul closes his discussion of this ‘
Cup of the New Covenant’
, again archly hinting at
Blood
-libel accusations, he too moves over into this kind of language of implied threat, this time d
i
rected against those seemingly within the Church with the opposite point-of-view to his own,
to wit
, persons like James: ‘
Therefore, whoever shall eat this bread or drink this Cup of the Lord in an unworthy way shall be guilty of the body and the Blood of the Lord’
(1 Corinthians 11:27).
Not only is the underlying thrust of this quite aggressive, but just so that there should be no mistaking it, Paul repeats it: ‘
For whoever eats and drinks unworthily – not seeing through to the Blood of the Lord – eats and drinks Judgement to himself
.’
Again, not only is its accusatory and menacing aura obvious; but this, of course, is exactly the gist of the language cente
r
ing around these various ‘
drinking the Cup of the Wrath of God
’ allusions we have been highlighting in the Habakkuk
Pesher
and Revelation, including even the
eating
and
drinking
metaphors as meaning Divine
Judgement
or ‘
being consumed
’ or ‘
d
e
stroyed
’. Therefore, it should be quite clear that in all such contexts this language of ‘
the Cup of the Lord
’ is present, albeit with widely varying, if not simply completely unrelated, significations.
‘
The City of Blood
’ in the Nahum
Pesher
, James’ ‘
Abstain from Blood’
, ‘
Crucifixion
’ again, and ‘
Communion with the Blood of Christ
’
Directly following the use of this language of ‘
the Cup of the Lord
’
s right hand
’ (Habakkuk 2:16) and ‘
the Cup of the Wrath of God
’ to apply to how
the Wicked Priest would himself ‘
be swallowed
’ or ‘
consumed
’ in 1QpHab XI.10–15, another allusion to
Blood
occurs in the underlying text of Habakkuk 2:17 in Column XII.1, ‘
the Blood of Man
’ (
Adam
). Some might have taken this anomalous reference to
Adam
more figuratively as an esotericism bearing on the ideology of
the Primal
Adam
they were espousing and, further to this, as involving
his Blood
and/or even his death.
However this may be, in the
Pesher
this language is being applied to how the Wicked Priest ‘
plotted to destroy the Poor’
, ‘
the Violence
’ he did to the Righteous Teacher and his followers (called ‘
the Simple Jews doing the
Torah
’), and his ‘
works of Abominations polluting the Temple of God’
. It should be appreciated, however, that this is not the same kind of ‘
Blood
’ one finds, two columns earlier in Column X.6 and 10). There it was more ideological and/or allegorical, dealing with the underpi
n
ning or outlook of a given Community (namely, that of
the Liar
or one like Paul’s). In this climactic end of the Habakkuk
Pesher
it is, rather, more like the
Blood
-accusations one gets in the Gospels – here related clearly to the spilling of ‘
the Blood of the Poor
’ and ‘
the works of Abominations’
, seemingly of the
Herodian
Establishment connected to it.
As opposed to this, however, Column Ten is rather describing the ideas and activities of the Liar in an unusually prescient manner. In our view this allusion to ‘
building a Worthless City upon Blood and erecting an Assembly
’ or ‘
Church upon Lying
’ is not something
Violent
but rather relates to the perception of what Paul is doing in his
Missionary
activities generally, parti
c
ularly abroad; more specifically, it relates to his controversial doctrines of both ‘
the Cup of the Lord
’ or ‘
the Cup of the New Covenant in
(
his
)
Blood’
, and ‘
Communion with the Blood of Christ
’ in 1 Corinthians 10:16–11:29.
This occurs as a continuation, seemingly, of his responses to James’ directives to overseas communities ‘
to abstain from fornication
,
blood
,
things sacrificed to idols
’ and dietary matters generally from 1 Corinthians 5:1–10:33. In our view, this is made clear by the purposeful shift in emphasis in the
Pesher
, signaled by the addition to the underlying text from Habakkuk 2:12–13 of the new words, ‘
Worthless
’ and ‘
erecting a Congregation upon Lying
’.
We have already encountered a variation of this ‘
City of Blood
’ allusion in the Nahum
Pesher
where it was related to
the ‘City of Ephraim
’ and
Gentile
-style converts referred to as
resident aliens
or
Ger-Nilveh
/
Nilvim
, that is, evoking the ‘
Joiners
’ language we encountered in the Damascus Document’s exegesis of Ezekiel’s
Zadokite Covenant
.
‘
The City of Blood
’ (
Blood
for some reason being expressed here in the Nahum
Pesher
in the plural) was not even a real
City
in the
Pesher
but actually d
i
rectly connected to ‘
the Congregation of the Seekers after Smooth Things
.’
30
This
Pesher
, as previously underscored (aside from its
real
historical references) was primarily directed against those it called ‘
Seekers after Smooth Things’
seemingly holding sway at the time of writing in Jerusalem, whose ‘
counsel
’ – specifically described in terms of ‘
inviting
’
foreign Kings and fo
r
eign Armies into Jerusalem
(at an earlier time before ‘
the coming of the Rulers of the
Kittim
’ or ‘
the Romans’
,
i.e.
, the time of ‘
Demetrius
,
King of the Greeks
’
31
– from Josephus, we know these to have been
the Pharisees
) – is identified as being directly responsible for the disasters overtaking the People, both in the past and at present.
32