James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls II (37 page)

More to the point, the
Talmud
tells us one of Rabbi Akiba’s students is one ‘
Monobaz’
, as we have seen, who must have been a descendant of this family. ‘
Monobazus’
is the name of Queen Helen’s second son and probably the name of her hu
s
band ‘
Bazeus
’. It is the name as well of one of Helen’s two descendants who
both distinguish and martyr themselves in the opening engagement of the Jewish War against Rome in
66
CE
at the Pass at Beit Horon
.
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Thus for the
Talmud
, Rabbi Akiba was
involved with the family of Queen Helen of Adiabene
in two ways. Firstly, one of them was clearly his
disciple
. Secondly, he probably married into this Royal family; this daughter (‘Rachel’ in ARN) of
Ben Kalba Sabu‘a
paid for the twenty-four years of study he pursued
that seem to have matured into extreme revolutionary sympathies as well as
the materialization eventually of twenty-four thousand Disciples
. Obviously,
Ben Kalba Sabu‘a
is a
nom à clef
for the scion of that family.

Ben Kalba Sabu
‘
a
’s Doorstep and ‘
Casting Holy Things to Dogs
’

One possible reading of
Ben Kalba Sabu‘a
’s name is as a derogatory reference to one of the descendants of the convert to Judaism Queen Helen,
Kalba
signifying ‘
dog
’ or ‘
bitch
’ in Hebrew. Even if this doubly derogatory sense of ‘
the Son of the Sabaean Bitch
’, which we are imputing to it on ideological grounds, turns out not to be present, there can be no doubt of the significance of a veiled reference to someone (‘
Nakdimon
’) having a connection to someone else (‘
Ben Kalba Sabu‘a
’) whose name in the Syriac or Aramaic carries the sense of
bathing
or
bathers
. These last in Arabic are referred to as ‘
Sabaeans
’ and, in all three, the use of the letter
‘
ayin
as opposed to
alef
is determinant.

Aside from the repetitious evocations of ‘
dog
’ or ‘
dogs
’ to expound
Ben Kalba Sabu‘a
’s name is a theme prominent in New Testament as well: that of being
sated
,
satiated
,
full
, or
filled
. We encountered this theme in the matter of ‘
filling
’ Nakdimon’s or his
Rich
patron’s cisterns, but it will feature in Gospel narratives as it will, to some extent, in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Tractate
Gittin
, supported by
ARN
, grapples in a most humourous way with Ben Kalba Sabu‘a’s name. He was called this because
one
‘
came to his door hungry as a dog and went away filled
’
.
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Not only is this last usage, ‘
Sabu‘a
’ or ‘
filled’
, related in both Syr
i
ac and Aramaic to
immersion
, it carries with it in Hebrew the additional sense of ‘
sated
’ or ‘
satiation’
, which is the whole point of the Talmudic exposition. Here one should also pay especial attention to the verb ‘
come
’ or ‘
came
,’ which will reappear in a dizzying number of New Testament contexts as well – more than would normally be expected. The same will be true to a somewhat lesser degree of the expression
his door
,
doorway
,
stoop
, or
porch
, instances of the use of which we have already started to encounter in the case of
Abba Hilkiah
’s wife.

This is particularly true of Luke 16:22’s further variant on the motif of these ‘
dogs
’ having to do with ‘
a certain Poor man named Lazarus
’ with a ‘
body
full
of sores who was laid at the
doorstep
’ of ‘
a certain Rich man clothed in purple and fine linen
’ – this ‘
Poor man Lazarus
’ himself being characterized, in turn, as ‘
wanting to be
satisfied
from the crumbs that fell from the Rich man
’
s table’
,
while
‘
the dogs
came
and licked his sores
’! The
laid at
/
laid down
motif will reappear in the additional Nakdimon story we shall highlight below in ‘
the woollen clothes laid down for him by the Poor
,
so his feet would not touch the ground
’; note here, too, ‘
the Poor
’ allusion we just saw with regard to ‘
Ben Kalba Sabu‘a’s doorstep’
, Abba Hilkiah’s house, and Luke’s characterization of ‘
Lazarus
’.

Here we already have many of the motifs we have been calling attention to, including ‘
the Poor
’ and ‘
the Rich man’
, ‘
the doorstep’
, the pivotal allusion to ‘
being satisfied’
, to say nothing of his body being ‘
full of sores’
, and of course ‘
the dogs’
, which we shall be analyzing more thoroughly as we proceed. Furthermore, this whole thematic complex will move into other material in John about this ‘
Lazarus
’ (‘
Liezer
’ above?) – the body of whom was resurrected after it ‘
had already begun to stink
’ (11:39–44) – who
will have two sisters
,
Mary
and Martha
, names we shall also encounter in those of
the daughters in these Talmudic
‘
Rich Men
’
stories,
who will
themselves be involved in what we shall in turn see to be tell-tale
‘
perfume
’
and
‘
expe
n
sive spikenard ointment
’
ministrations
(John 11:1–3 and 12:1–6).

In Matthew 15:21–28 and Mark 7:24–30 the references to ‘
dogs
’ will also occur, but there they will relate to
what Jesus did with a Canaanite
/
Cananaean
/
Greek Syrophoenician woman
out of whose daughter
he
‘
casts a demon
’ or ‘
an unclean spirit
’. In this context, Mark 7:26 will actually use the term ‘
ekballe
’ so important in other milieux, as we have already seen and shall see further to express how ‘
the children should first be satiated
’ or ‘
filled
’. In Mark 16:9
a propos
of Mary Magdalene, a variation of the same term ‘
ekbeblekai
’ will be used; whereas Matthew 15:17, which does not conserve any description of this kind co
n
cerning ‘
Mary Magdalene
’, rather reserves this usage for the food Jesus says ‘
goes into the belly and is
cast
–
ekballetai
–
into the toilet bowl
’ preceding his ‘
withdrawal into the parts of Tyre and Sidon
’. Of course,
both Matthew 15:26/Mark 7:27 conclude with the famous saying of Jesus: ‘
it is not good to take the children
’
s bread and cast it (
balein
) to the
dogs
’. An earlier version of this same ‘
casting Holy Things to dogs
’ phrase (here ‘
balete
’) is to be found in Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount. As that iter
a
tion has it,
don
’
t give anything to
‘
dogs
’ – intending no doubt
Gentiles
and/or
backsliding Jews
(the ‘
casting down
’ will rea
p
pear in the second part of the injunction, to ‘
cast no pearls before swine
’). It combines this same language of ‘
casting down
’ with ‘
dogs’
, but this time Jesus is speaking to
his Disciples
who
‘
came
to him’
,
not to the Canaanite
/
Greek Syrophoenician woman
and reads in the more native Palestinian or normative Hebrew manner,
‘Do not give Holy Things to dogs
,
nor cast down your pearls before the swine
,
lest they should trample upon them with their feet
and,
turning around
,
rend you’
(Ma
t
thew 7:6).

Once again one should note here the expression we have been calling attention to as endlessly repetitive, the
casting out
/
casting down
language derived from Greek
ballein
, not only relating to what happens to Stephen in Acts 7:58 (they ‘
cast him out of the city
’) and early Church literature to James (‘
cast down
’ either from the steps of the Temple by ‘
the Enemy
’ Paul in the Pseudoclementine
Recognitions
or, in early Church literature,
from
‘
the Pinnacle of the Temple
’ by the allegedly angry Jewish mob before, like Stephen, he too is stoned), but in Josephus to what his prototypical ‘
Essenes
’ do to backsliders – namely, ‘
cast them out
’.
36

It is also related – at least homophonically – to the
Ba-La-
‘
a
or ‘
swallowing
’ language (the root is a homophone) one e
n
counters in Hebrew in the Dead Sea Scrolls relative to what
the Wicked Priest
does to
the Righteous Teacher
and his followers – called there ‘
the Poor
’/
the
Ebionim
– that is, ‘
swallows them’
.
37
This, in turn, points to the characteristic activity of the R
o
mans and/or their Herodian agents (the ‘
Amim
and the
Yeter ha-
‘
Amim
of the Habakkuk
Pesher
38
), ‘
swallowing’
, itself related to another seeming variation, ‘
Balaam
’ – whose name in the
Talmud
, anyhow, is phonetically interpreted to mean ‘
swallowing the People’
, which the Herodians did
so conspicuously
.
39

To complete this circle, a term like ‘
Balaam
’ cannot really be distinguished in any way from ‘
Belial
’ in the Scrolls, a name based on the same root. In the New Testament, this moves into allusions like
Beliar
and
Diabolos
, also based on parallel roots. Not insignificantly, in Revelation it goes back to the original ‘
Balaam
’ (and ‘
Balak
,’ too, a further variation – to say nothing of ‘
Beelzebub
’ or, for that matter even, ‘
Babylon
’) and his ‘
net
’ or ‘
nets’
, terminology that will be so pivotal to the Damascus Document’s delineation of the conduct of the then-reigning Establishment,
the Herodians
.
40