James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls II (149 page)

Not only does its scheme more or less parallel that of the Habakkuk
Pesher
of ‘
the Riches collected by the Last Priests of Jerusalem
’ ultimately ‘
being given over
’ to this same ‘
Army of the
Kittim
’
,
33
but in its Second Column it refers to ‘
Messengers
(Hebrew for ‘
Apostles
’)
among the Gentiles’
.
34
Moreover, it also actually evokes the very passage that Paul uses to develop his
Salvationary
theology of how ‘
Jesus Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law
’ and, in the process, ‘
justified
’ in Galatians 3:6–14 all Mankind along ‘
with the believing Abraham
’ by himself being ‘
hung upon a tree’
.

However, interestingly enough, 4QpNah 2.6–8 on Nahum 2:12–13, citing ‘
victims’
, adds the important qualification ‘
han
g
ing up living men
’ to the passage Paul is evoking from Deuteronomy 21:23, which originally seems only to have banned
the hanging up of corpses overnight
. In the process, the
Pesher
turns this into a passage rather condemning what has since come to be understood as
crucifixion
(obviously, this has to be understood in terms of
Roman crucifixion
!) as ‘
a thing not done fo
r
merly in Israel
’ and, just as obviously, not ‘
glorifying
’ it as the pivotal ‘
building
’ block of a future theology – on the contrary. To explain this more unequivocally: while Paul, following the letter of Deuteronomy 21:23, but also applying it specifically to
crucifixion
per se
, sees ‘
the hanged man
’ as the ‘
thing accursed
’, the
Pesher
, by applying a later passage from Nahum 2:12 – ‘
B
e
hold I am against you says the Lord of Hosts
’ – rather turns this into a condemnation of
crucifixion
itself – a matter obviously of intense emotional interest, as just observed,
probably
only in the Roman Period
!

From here the whole
Pesher
turns completely eschatological,
defining
the City of Blood,
curiously, as ‘
the City of Ephraim
,
the Seekers after Smooth Things at the End of Days
,
who walk in Deceit and Lying’
.
35
These last make it pretty clear we are in the same milieu as ‘
the Spouter of Lying
’ of the Habakkuk
Pesher
again – and that ‘
Ephraim
’ must (or should) in some way r
e
late to him. This is further clarified in terms of ‘
those who lead Ephraim astray
’. This also includes, once more, the use of the term ‘
Many
,’ to wit: ‘
those who
,
through teaching Lying
,
their Lying Tongue and Deceitful lips
,
lead Many astray
’.
36

Column Three is also about
the Last Days
, a time that clearly has to be seen in terms of the ‘
coming of the Rulers of the
Kittim
’ (the plural here would imply
Republican
Rome), but after the departure of the Greeks, when ‘
the sword of the Gentiles
’ was never far from their midst.
37
It expresses the hope that ‘
the Simple of Ephraim
’ – paralleling ‘
the Simple of Judah
’ in the Habakkuk
Pesher
, but without the qualification of ‘
doing the
Torah
’ – ‘
shall flee their Congregation
,
abandoning those who lead them astray and joining Israel’
. In my view, that this is an attack on Paul, which at the same time begins to clarify the nature of this pseudonym (as with the term ‘
Samaritan
’ in the New Testament to which it is related) ‘
Ephraim
’ as having something to do with new
Gentile
converts, is indisputable.

We have already identified this language of ‘
joining
’ – expressed in the Pauline corpus as ‘
joining the body of Christ’
, r
a
ther than ‘
being joined to the body of a prostitute
’ (1 Corinthians 6:16–17) – as being expressive of Gentiles ‘
joining the
m
selves
’ to the Community in an associated status of some kind much as ‘
God-Fearers
’ were associated in this Period with syn
a
gogues around the Eastern Mediterranean, meaning, people who had not yet entered the Community as full-status converts, but were
Joiners
/
Nilvim
. In fact, this kind of language relative to ‘
God-Fearers
’ – ‘
for whom a Book of Remembrance would be written out
’
38
– comes through very strongly in the last Columns of the Cairo Damascus Document.

As already underscored, one finds
Nilvim
, which is used in Esther 10:27 to denote precisely such a status, in the interpret
a
tion of ‘
the Zadokite Covenant
’ in the Damascus Document at Qumran and this is, in fact, the kind of imagery being used throughout the Nahum
Pesher
with regard to ‘
resident aliens
’ (
Ger-Nilvim
), meaning, those ‘
joining themselves to the Commun
i
ty’
. In this sense ‘
the Simple Ones of Ephraim
’ is the counterpart to ‘
the Simple Ones of Judah doing the
Torah
’ in the Haba
k
kuk
Pesher
, the former being Gentiles associated with the Community in some adjunct status but without the qualifier ‘
doing the
Torah
’ yet added.

It is, of course, to just such persons that Acts presents James as addressing his directives, including the prohibition on
Blood
– which in the context before us is
primary
– as well as the
things sacrificed to idols
or
the pollutions of the idols
,
stra
n
gled things
,
and fornication
. But it is in discussing in 1 Corinthians 8:10 and 10:7–28 exactly these injunctions that Paul first raises the issue of ‘
Communion with the Blood of Christ
’ including, most astonishingly of all, these several evocations of the imagery of ‘
the Cup
’– present with widely differing signification in these passages of the Habakkuk
Pesher
as well.

In fact, Paul is playing on this imagery of
the Cup
in 1 Corinthians 10:16, even evoking ‘
the Cup of the Lord
’ language of Habakkuk 2:16 in 1 Corinthians 11:27. We have treated these matters to some extent above, but now it is important to see them in relation to Paul’s reversal and spiritualization of the Qumran language of ‘
the New Covenant in the Land of Dama
s
cus
’ generally. In fact, it is at this point in 1 Corinthians 10:18 that Paul heaps abuse on the Temple cult – including ‘
the other Israel’
, the one he terms ‘
according to the flesh
’ – ending up with his final directives to ‘
eat anything sold in the marketplace
’ (1 Corinthians 10:25) and ‘
all things for me are lawful
’ (10:23). This is his final riposte to the prohibitions from James – and pr
e
sumably those in
MMT
– on ‘
things sacrificed to idol
s,
blood
,
and carrion’
.

Paul even goes so far as to compare the things which the
other Israel
eats in the Temple to
eating at
‘
the Table of Demons
’, and his
Cup
is ‘
the Cup of the Lord
’ or ‘
the Cup of Communion with the Blood of Christ
’ as opposed to
their
Cup
– ‘
the Cup of Demons
’ as it were in 1 Corinthians 10:18–21. Once again, he has ‘
turned the tables’
, as it were, on his interlocutors with his dizzying dialectical acrobatics and allegorization.

But the
Blood
he is talking about here – symbolic or real – has already been
specifically forbidden in James
’
prohibitions to overseas communities
, even according to Acts 15:19–29. It is also forbidden in the Damascus Document. There, it will be recalled, it is asserted that the Sons of Israel ‘
were cut off in the wilderness
’ because ‘
they ate blood
’.

Moreover the Children of Israel are described here in CD III.5–6 as ‘
walking in the stubbornness of their heart’
,
‘co
m
plaining against the Commandments of God
,
and each man doing what seemed right in his own eyes’
, language particularly appropriate to the genus of the Pauline-style ‘
Liar’
. Not only does Paul show in 1 Corinthians 10 that he knows the terms of James’ instructions to overseas communities, he actually uses the same example one finds here in CD III.7 and words paralle
l
ing the Hebrew meaning of ‘
being cut off
’ to describe how the Children of Israel ‘
were overturned
’ or ‘
cut off in the wilde
r
ness
’ (1 Corinthians 10:5).

But the proof that he is following the text of the Damascus Document, albeit inverting its sense, doesn’t end here. In the latter, ‘
cutting off
’ is immediately followed by the phrase: ‘
and they
(
the Children of Israel
)
murmured
in their tents’
.
39
But this same occurs in 1 Corinthians, following this evocation of how they ‘
were overturned in the wilderness’
. As Paul puts this in 1 Corinthians 10:10, ‘
nor should you murmur as some of them murmured’
. But this is almost word-for-word the language of these important passages about Abraham as ‘
Friend of God
’ in CD III.2–4 proving, as almost nothing else can, that Paul not only knows the Damascus Document but is even following its sequencing. This – even though he now proceeds to reverse the position of the Damascus Document on the issue of
Blood
– and with it, that of his presumed Leader, James the Just – using it, rather,
to
‘
build
’ or ‘
erect
’
his whole Congregation based upon
,
not banning Blood
,
but consuming it
– in this case, ‘
the body and Blood of Christ Jesus
’
. In doing so, he claims to be advocating to his ‘
Beloved Ones
– his ‘
Friends
’ –
to flee from Idolatry
’ (1 Corinthians 10:14) – again the
very reverse
of the language about such ‘
Beloved Ones
’ or ‘
Friends
’ we have been following here in Column Three of the Damascus Document.

‘
The Cup of the New Covenant in
(
His
)
Blood
’ and ‘
the New Covenant in the Land of Damascus
’