James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls II (40 page)

Both Mark and Matthew repeat John 12:3’s allusion to ‘
pure spikenard ointment of great price
’ – Mark verbatim, though Matthew discards the ‘
pure spikenard
’ and ‘
great price
’ in favor of ‘
precious ointment’
– again demonstrating the two sets of material to be integrally related. Luke even discards Matthew’s ‘
precious
’ keeping only the ‘
alabaster flask of ointment’
. John rather discards the ‘
alabaster flask
’ part of the phrase – though conserving all the rest – substituting an entirely new expression: ‘
a hundred weight
’ or ‘litra’ to be encountered again in his later picture of ‘
Nicodemus having come’
, ‘
bearing about a hundred weight of mixture of myrrh and aloes
’ (19:39). This in itself, even if only indirectly, again demonstrates the basic interconnec
t
edness of the
Nicodemus
and the
Mary
/
Miriam
scenarios at least as far as the Gospel of John is concerned.

Once more, the ‘
precious ointment’
, ‘
perfume’
, and/or ‘
spikenard
’ is the point of the various presentations, as it will be in the Talmudic ones involving ‘
Nakdimon
’
s daughter Miriam’
, ‘
Boethus
’
daughter Martha’
, and others. Of particular note is its value, whether the ‘
four hundred dinars
’ of the ‘
Nakdimon
’
s daughter Miriam
’ episode and its variations or the ‘
hundred weight of ointment of pure spikenard of great value
’ and its variations, to which Matthew, Mark, and ultimately Luke add the additional note of the ‘
alabaster flask’
.

Though the unnamed woman – who becomes
Mary
(
Miriam
) in John – is pictured as ‘
anointing his head
’ rather than ‘
his feet’
, nevertheless both the locale ‘
at Bethany
’ in Matthew and Mark is the same as in John, and the note of ‘
precious oin
t
ments
’ or ‘
pure spikenard
’ is absolutely the same. In Lamentations
Rabbah
, ‘
Miriam
’ is misidentified as
Boethus
’
daughter
not
Nakdimon
’
s
or
Nicodemus
’ and the amount is augmented to ‘
five hundred dinars’.
Elsewhere in Talmudic tradition, ‘
Boethus
’
daughter
’ (returning to her correct identification as ‘
Martha
’), to show her arrogant extravagance, requires ‘
a Tyrian gold dinar every Sabbath eve just for her sweetmeats
’ (‘
spice puddings
’ according to some translations).
Here, the ‘
weekly
’ motif takes the place of the ‘
daily
’ one, but the effect is the same. Of course, there is the usual ever-recurring allusion in all these
episodes – in the Gospels as well as in the notice about
the Poor
‘
coming
’
to Ben Kalba Sabu‘a
’
s door
‘
hungry as a dog and going away filled
’ – of ‘
coming
’/‘
came’
.

One might remark, too, the somewhat less common one of ‘
pouring out
’ – as in the case of the woman with the ‘
alabaster flask
’ in Matthew and Mark, who ‘
pours out
’
the precious ointment on Jesus
’
head
. The use of this expression will become ever more pivotal as we proceed, especially when one considers both ‘
the Man of Lying
’ at Qumran (in some descriptions, ‘
the Pourer out of
’ or ‘
Spouter of Lying’
,
54
characterized in the Damascus Document as ‘
pouring out over Israel the waters of L
y
ing
’
55
) and Jesus’ ‘
blood
’ in New Testament/New Covenant
Communion
scenarios in the Synoptics (Matt. 26:28 and
pars
.) – generally characterized as ‘
poured out for (the) Many
’ too.
In Luke 10:38–42, to bring us back full circle, the same encounter takes place
at
‘
Martha
’
s house
’
–
no relation to Lazarus indicated and no suggestion of ‘
in Bethany
’ whatsoever but, rather, the far vaguer ‘
a certain village
’. Still Martha is ‘
complaining
’ (
cf
. both the complaints of Nakdimon’s daughter above and Boethus’ daughter below about the paltriness of the allowance the Rabbis were willing to provide them). About what? Not about the parsimony of the Rabbis, but rather, as we just saw,
her sister Mary anointing Jesus
’ ‘
feet
’
while she had to do all the
‘
service
’!

Judas Iscariot
not
Martha
Complains about not
Giving to the Poor

As John will now present this scenario, these ‘
complaints
’ will rather migrate into the mouth of
Judas Iscariot
over Mary’s waste of such
expensive ointment
or
perfume
(the Rabbis, it will be recalled, were trying to stop this sort of wastefulness in the matter of Nakdimon’s daughter
Miriam
’s profligate use of her
widow
’s allowance) and, in a further charged addition,
her lack of concern for
‘
the Poor
’ (12:4–8). Not only is the playfulness of these Gospel craftsmen really quite humorous but it is not completely unconnected with the Talmudic theme of the Rabbis’ stinginess, on the one hand and
Ben Kalba
’
s Sabu
‘
a
’
s
contrasting concern for ‘
the Poor
’ on the other.

Of course, the same ‘
diakonian
’ used here in Luke 10:40 to express Martha’s concern at having to do ‘
so much
serving
’ will go on to occur three times in four lines in the picture Luke draws as well in Acts 6:1–4 and there it is not only coupled with the word ‘
daily
’ but also the theme of ‘
widows’
. In this presentation, the ‘
complaints
’ (‘
murmuring’
, it is called
1
) were those of supposed ‘
Hellenists
’ against ‘
the Hebrews
’ in the matter of ‘
their widows being overlooked in the
daily serving
’ (whatever was meant by this and however far-fetched it may seem).

But even here, the various notes about the ‘
widows’
, ‘
the daily service’
, and the issue of ‘
waiting on tables
’ reverberate with our other sources in the manufacture of these traditions, the one about Nakdimon’s and/or Boethus’ daughters being ‘
wi
d
ows
’ and either their ‘
daily
’ or ‘
weekly
’ allotment of ‘
perfumes’
, ‘
sweetmeats’
, or ‘
pension
’, and the other,
Martha
’
s problem with Mary
as Luke 10:40 portrays it. Whereas in Acts 6:2 the complaints these ‘
Hellenists
’ make are detailed in terms of having to ‘
serve tables
’ (
diakonein
), not just while ‘
the widows were overlooked
’ (meaning obscure), but while ‘
the Twelve were drawn away from service
(
diakonia
)
of the word
’ (6:4 – in 6:2 ‘
the word of God
’); ‘
at Martha
’
s house
’ here in Luke, it is rather
Martha having to do
‘
so much service
’ – much like the alleged ‘
Hebrews
’ in Acts 6:2 (clearly meant to be ‘
the Jerusalem Apostles
’) – while her sister Mary does nothing but ‘
sit at Jesus
’
feet and listen to his words
’.

In Mark 14:10–11 and Matthew 26:14–16, the corresponding encounter at ‘
Simon the Leper
’
s house
’ at ‘
Bethany
’ is i
m
mediately followed by evocation of
Judas Iscariot
’
s departure to betray Jesus
‘
to the Chief Priests
’
for thirty pieces of silver
, though now the ‘
complaints
’ will be by
Jesus
’
Disciples
in Matthew 26:8 or the ever-ubiquitous ‘
some
’ in Mark 14:4. With r
e
gard to the ‘
silver
’ motif in these last, it will be important to have regard to the same motif in the exposition of ‘
Ben Zizzit Ha-Kesset
’’
s
name, to say nothing of the ‘
twelve talents of silver
’ in the surety required in the story of Nakdimon’s miraculous
rainmaking
– but more about both of these things later.

The parallel episode ‘
at Bethany
’ to that in Mark and Matthew in John’s account rather takes place, as has now become clear,
at Lazarus
’
house
– the same ‘
Lazarus
’ who is described in Luke 16:19–22
as
‘
a certain
Poor Man
laid at the
doorway
of a certain Rich Man
’, ‘
whose sores the
dogs came
and licked
’. In the parallel Rabbinic material about Nakdimon it was ‘
the Poor
’
who came to Nakdimon
’
s
‘
door
’, though both are manifestly the same. Nor should one forget the parallel to the predicate ‘
laid at
’ in the description of
Nakdimon
’
s daughter Miriam
’
s bed
as ‘
being overlaid with a spread worth twelve thousand silver d
i
nars
’. There will be more. Notwithstanding in Luke 10:38, this is not
the house of
‘
a certain Poor one named Lazarus
’ but, rather, of ‘
a
certain
woman named Martha
’ – location unspecified and expressed
only as
‘
a certain village’
, but never mind. To go back to the dispute between Judas
Iscariot
and Jesus in John 12:5-8 and the ‘
three hundred dinars
’ that ‘
Judas
’ felt ‘
should have been given to the Poor
’: as with the motif of ‘
serving tables
’ in Acts 6:2-4 above, the allusion to ‘
the Poor
’ is also repeated
three times in four lines
, just in case we missed the point. Hopefully, we didn’t – we got it. Still, if the reader’s head begins to reel by this time, it would not be surprising since the multiplicity of these repeating references does become dizzying.

Nevertheless one would be well-advised to keep going, preferably with a Greek-English Interlinear translation of the Gospels at one’s side in order to catch these linguistic nuances and overlaps. Instead of being used to characterize the ‘
Laz
a
rus
’ in Luke ‘
whose body was full of sores
’ (the ‘
filled
’ allusion)
and
‘
licked by dogs
’, John 12:5 now puts this same allusion to ‘
the Poor
’ into the mouth of the archvillain in Christian tradition, ‘
Judas the son
’ or ‘
brother of Simon Iscariot
’– this last, as also already underscored, replaced in Mark and Matthew by the encounter with ‘
Simon
the Leper
’, another bit of not-so-subtle disinformation perhaps
even more malevolent than the original
‘
Judas Iscariot
’
libels.
It should be recalled that following the anointment of Jesus’ head ‘
with precious ointment of pure spikenard
’ by the unnamed woman at ‘
Simon the Leper
’
s house at Bethany
’, we had already encountered ‘
Judas
’– tantalizingly referred to in Mark 14:10 as ‘
Judas the Iscariot
’ as opposed to the more normative ‘
Judas Iscariot
’ in Matthew 26:14 (in John 12:4 and 13:26 at this juncture, ‘
the son
’ or ‘
brother of Simon Isca
r
iot
’) – ‘
going out to betray him to the Chief Priests
’.

In Matthew and Mark, the whole sequence then leads directly into Jesus announcing – to use the 1 Corinthians 11:25 phraseology of Paul – ‘
This is the Cup of the New Covenant in my blood
’ and, as Matthew 26:28 and Mark 14:24 now add, ‘
which is poured out for the Many
’. Here Paul’s ‘
drink it in remembrance of me
’, has been transformed in Mark 14:9 and Ma
t
thew 26:13 into Jesus’ rebuke to
his Disciples
(in Mark 14:4 above, the ‘
some
’) over their parallel ‘
complaints
’ about the u
n
named woman’s wastefulness
at Simon the Leper
’
s house
and the Gospel being preached throughout the world ‘
in reme
m
brance of
’ or ‘
as a memorial to her
’, namely, the unnamed woman (with her obvious ‘
Gentile Christian
’ overtones), who had just ‘
anointed him
’, ‘
pouring out
’
the expensive ointment of pure spikenard upon his head
.

Of course, the whole phraseology is reprised in the last section of the exhortation of the Damascus Document where it is stated (to repeat): ‘A Book of Remembrance will be written before Him for God-Fearers (that is, Gentiles) and for those rec
k
oning His Name until God shall
reveal Salvation
(‘
Yesha
‘’ – in Greek, ‘Jesus’) and Justification (
Zedakah
) to those fearing His Name.’
2
It should be appreciated that in Matthew 26:8–16/Mark 14:3–9’s version of this cluster of complaints about the cos
t
liness of the perfume that the unnamed woman (Martha’s sister ‘Mary’ in John) had wasted, the above allusion to ‘the Poor’ is put into the mouth of ‘his Disciples’ taken as a whole (26:8 – in Mark 14:4, the ‘some’ as we saw), not Judas alone as in John 12:4. The addition, however, in John 12:7 – following Mary’s anointing Jesus’ feet, then ‘washing them with her hair’ – ‘she has kept it for the day of my burial’, is common to all three!

In Matthew 26:12 this reads: ‘
in pouring this ointment upon my body this woman did it for my burial
’ while, in Mark 14:8, it changes slightly to: ‘
she came beforehand to anoint my body for burial
’ (again, note here the addition – pertinent or othe
r
wise – of the verb ‘
come
’/‘
came
’). Of course, not only does Mark 14:3 add ‘
of pure spikenard
’ from John 12:3 to Matthew’s less precise ‘
alabaster flask of very precious ointment
’, but even more to the point in Mark 14:4, the very next line, those ma
k
ing the complaints now become the even more general, yet ubiquitous, ‘
some
’.

It should perhaps be reiterated at this point that the use of the basically interchangeable ‘
some
’/‘
a certain
’ and/or ‘
certain ones
’ generally in Gospel and Acts portraiture (all really the same word in Greek) is particularly important where individuals having a connection with James’ Jerusalem Assembly are concerned – called, not irrelevantly, in early Church accounts,
the
Ebionim
or ‘
the Poor
’, as, for instance, Paul’s Galatians 2:12’s ‘
some
came from James
’ following James’ admonition ‘
to reme
m
ber the Poor
’ in 2:10; or, provoking the so-called ‘
Jerusalem Council
’ above, Acts 15:1’s ‘
some
came down from Judea
,
teaching the brothers
,
according to the Law of Moses
,
that unless you were circumcised you cannot be saved
’.