James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls II (20 page)

This is exactly the kind of reverse exodus ‘
out from the Land of Judah to dwell in the Land of Damascus
’ that forms the central setpiece of the Damascus Document, providing it with its name. Not only was the aim of this ‘
to dig the Well of Living Waters
’, there ‘
to re-erect the Tent of David which is fallen
’,
88
but this is the context of the evocation of ‘
the New Covenant in the Land of Damascus
’, the principal legal requirements of which were, as we shall see, ‘
to love
,
each man
,
his neighbor as himself
’ (‘
the Royal Law according to the Scripture
’ of the Letter of James) and ‘
to set the Holy Things up according to their precise specifications
’ – that is, ‘
to separate Holy from profane
’ and not to mingle them or abolish such distinctions.
89

It is also, of course, exactly the kind of activity that Josephus rails against in both the
War
and the
Antiquitie
s
, in particular as he puts it, ‘
leading the People out into the wilderness
,
there to show them the signs of their impending freedom
’ or ‘
r
e
demption
’ – the word changes from the
War
to the
Antiquities
.
90
Josephus calls such leaders ‘
Impostors
’, ‘
Magicians
’, ‘
Decei
v
ers
’, ‘
religious frauds
’, or ‘
pseudo-Prophets
’ – ‘
in intent more dangerous even than the bandits
’ or ‘
Innovators
’ (meaning, ‘
Re
v
olutionaries
’, but with the secondary meaning too, of course, of religious ‘
innovation
’), with whom they made common cause.
91

This is exactly the kind of activity ‘
in the wilderness
’ on the other side of the Jordan or Lake Gennesaret that the Gospels portray Jesus as engaging in when they picture him as ‘
multiplying the loaves
’, ‘
the fishes
’, and ‘
the baskets
’ of grain to feed ‘
the multitudes
’ (at Qumran, ‘
the
Rabbim
’), who
went out
with him to these locations, and there
performing other such magical
‘
signs and wonders
’.
92
It is also the kind of activity Josephus depicts the unknown Deceiver as engaging in at ‘
Tirathaba
’ and on ‘
Mount Gerizim
’ – in his case, to show ‘
the multitudes
’ the sacred vessels that Moses had supposedly caused to be buried there – and, in addition, explains why the Gospels are so insistent on repeatedly delineating all these so much more
Hellenized
‘
mighty works and wonders
’, like raisings, curings, and exorcisms, on the part of their
Messianic
leader
Jesus
.

First of all, ‘
Theudas
’ is another of those characters like James, John the Baptist, ‘
James and Simon the two sons of Judas the Galilean
’, ‘
Sadduk
a Pharisee
’, ‘
Onias the Righteous
’ (‘
Honi the Circle-Drawer
’), the Samaritan ‘
Restorer
’, and others whom, for one reason or another, Josephus left out of the
Jewish War
but included in the
Antiquities
twenty years later – at that point, evidently feeling secure enough to mention them.
93
Secondly and perhaps more important, the note about
Theudas
he does provide comes right after his long excursus on the Queen Helen story at the beginning of Book Twenty, the book bas
i
cally
reaching a climax with the death of James
. Strikingly too, it both introduces his description of ‘
the Great Famine that was then over Judea
’ and Queen Helen’s famine-relief activities relating to it and is itself immediately followed by his notice about the crucifixion of ‘
the two sons of Judas the Galilean
’ in 48 CE, which will produce the well-known anachronism in Acts 5:36–37 concerning both Theudas and this
Judas
.
94

Nor is Acts unaware of Theudas’ importance and it is certainly not incurious that the beheading of
Theudas
in the mid-Forties CE parallels the execution ‘
with a sword
’ in Acts 12:1–29 by ‘
Herod the King
’ of ‘
James the brother of John
’.
95
This chapter, which is sandwiched between both the notice about ‘
a Prophet called Agabus
’ predicting
the Famine
and Paul and Barnabas’
famine relief
mission to
Judea
on behalf of the Antioch Community and their ‘
return
’ (Acts 11:29–30 and 12:25), while studiously avoiding providing any details concerning this mission, actually goes on to introduce James and another cha
r
acter called ‘Mary
the mother of John Mark
’ – whoever she might have been – to whom Peter goes to leave a message for ‘
James and the brothers
’ (12:12–17).
96

Since Josephus loves detailing the executions of troublesome agitators of any kind, that the beheading of ‘
James the brother of John
’ – a character never alluded to in any of Paul’s works either – is missing from the
Antiquities
is astonishing. In our view, however,
it is not missing
. Rather the concomitant beheading of ‘
Theudas
’ at this juncture in the
Antiquities
has simply been replaced in Acts by the execution of this James ‘
with the sword
’ and it is the ‘
brother
’ aspect of the whole tangle of notices that
provides the clue to the overwrite
.
97

Notwithstanding these things, Acts 5:36–37’s anachronism regarding ‘
Theudas
’, ‘
Judas the Galilean
’, and ‘
the Census of Cyrenius
’ comes in a speech attributed to ‘
a certain Pharisee named Gamaliel
’ we shall also have cause to discuss further b
e
low. This anachronism has to do with a too hasty reading of the notice about ‘
Theudas
’ in the
Antiquities
as well. The problem is that Acts via Gamaliel pictures ‘
Judas the Galilean
’ as both ‘
arising in the days of the Census
’ (that is, 7 CE), but coming
after
‘
Theudas
’, whom it depicts as ‘
rising up
’ before him and ‘
claiming to be somebody
’ (in Josephus, of course, what he claimed to be was ‘
a Prophet
’ – the ‘
True Prophet
’?).

In fact, it is the unraveling of this anachronism that definitively dates Acts as having been written
sometime after the public
a
tion of the Antiquities in
93
CE
. The reason is quite simple: the notice about Theudas’ beheading in the
Antiquities
is immediately followed by both the panegyric to Queen Helen’s own famine relief activities and the notice about the crucifixion of Judas the Galilean’s ‘
two sons
’ c. 47 CE, as in Acts 5:37, the destruction of Judas and his followers. It is at this point that Josephus adds the statement describing Judas which Acts then carelessly reproduces, oblivious of the anachronism. In the
Antiquities
, this reads: ‘
that same Judas who caused the people to revolt from the Romans at the time Cyrenius came to take a Census of their belongings
’. This represents the source both of the presentation of the birth of Jesus in Luke and the anachronism represented by the faulty chronological sequencing in Acts at this point.
98

Early Christian tradition too – as also reproduced by Clement (full name Titus Flavius Clemens) – in some manner assoc
i
ates Theudas’ teaching with another individual descended from ‘
Essene
’/‘
Ebionite
’ tradition. This is Valentinus, also an Ale
x
andrian flourishing in the early to mid-100s, one of the first definitively-identifiable ‘
Gnostics
’.
99
Not only is this forebear of Clement – possibly even his grandfather – all but indistinguishable, in our view, from the first ‘
Clement
’, who was the second or third ‘
Bishop
’ or ‘
Pope
’ in Rome (in succession to Peter) depending on who is doing the reckoning; he is also, in our view, the eponymous hero of the Pseudoclementines, a proposition that in view of his importance makes a good deal of sense.
100

The Domitian (81–96 CE) who executed Flavius Clemens was also responsible for the execution of Josephus’ patron Epaphroditus – possibly Paul’s ‘
brother
,
co-worker
,
and comrade-in-arms
’ in Philippians 2:25 and 4:18 – and also possibly
Josephus
’
own mysterious disappearance from the scene at around this time
as well.
101
Domitian’s execution of Flavius Cle
m
ens was apparently accompanied by the execution or exile of his niece (or wife), Flavia Domitilla, after whom one of the bi
g
gest Christian catacombs in Rome, the ‘
Domitilla Catacomb
’ is named.
102
Both, as their prénoms probably imply, were me
m
bers of Vespasian’s family circle originally intended at some point to succeed him. It is also worth noting that this execution(s) triggered Domitian’s own assassination – this time by Domitilla’s own ‘
servant
’, another of these curious ‘
Stephen
’s.
103

Origen (185–254 CE), who succeeded Clement in Alexandria, also shows some awareness of
Theudas
as a Messianic ind
i
vidual of sorts or part of the Messianic tradition.
1
04
These are peculiar notices, indeed, and hint at something very important lying behind the name ‘
Theudas
’. This is particularly the case when they are ranged alongside Paul’s own testimony both about ‘
traveling
’
around with women
and
knowing
‘
the brothers of the Lord
’. His self-justifying protestations these details comprise come in response to accusations in 1 Corinthians 9:1–4, obviously complaining about his ‘
eating and drinking
’ – a theme we have already explicated to some extent above.

The whole theme is particularly instructive when ranged beside those quasi-‘
Nazirites
’ in Acts 23:12–14 who take precisely the opposite kind of oath, namely, ‘
not to eat or drink
’ and this, in particular, ‘
not until they have killed Paul
’. As we saw as well, the theme also provides insight when ranged against those ‘
Mourners for Zion
’ who, in Talmudic literature, take an oath ‘
not to eat or drink until they see the Temple restored
’.
105

Of equal importance, in the lines leading up to this testimony to his acquaintance with ‘
the brothers of the Lord
’, are the questions Paul himself confirms were being raised both as to the legitimacy of his ‘
Apostleship in the Lord
’ and his claim of ‘
having seen Jesus Christ our Lord
’ (1 Corinthians 9:1–3), not to mention what he refers to in Galatians 2:4 as ‘
the freedom
’ he enjoys – by which he clearly means ‘
freedom from the Law
’ and ‘
freedom from circumcision
’ – ‘
in Christ Jesus
’.
It is because of his pique over being asked such questions that he then asserts his ‘authority’, as he puts it, not only ‘
to eat and drink
’ (by which he again means,
inter alia
, not to have to keep in any scrupulous manner Mosaic purity and/or dietary laws), but also
to travel with women
, another accusation which by induction one can tell was clearly being lodged against him.