James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls II (72 page)

In the parallel and more detailed version of this encounter in Lamentations
Rabbah
, it is after R. Yohanan applies the pa
s
sage from Proverbs 15:30 about ‘
the Good News fattening the bones
’ in it as well to Vespasian’s elevation to Emperor that Vespasian asks him whether he has any other ‘
friend or relative
’ in Jerusalem he wished to save. Yohanan is then pictured as sending his ‘
two Disciples
’, R. Eliezer b. Hyrcanus and R. Joshua, back to Jerusalem to bring out Rabbi Zadok. Not only is this a parallel, should one choose to regard it, to John the Baptist sending his ‘
two Disciples
’ to Jesus in Luke 7:20/Matthew 11:2 to ask the Messianically-charged question, ‘
Are you
the one who is to come
or must we look for another
?’, but also the episode in all three Synoptics of Jesus sending his ‘
two Disciples
’ to find the ‘
ass tied and a colt along with her
’ in Matthew 21:1–11 and
pars
. Though paralleled in John 12:14, the note about the ‘
two Disciples
’ is missing and Jesus rather finds ‘
an ass
’
colt
’ himself. Nevertheless both it and Matthew 21:4 specify this episode as ‘
fulfilling that which was spoken by the Prophet
’. Again, the language of ‘
the Prophet
’ should be familiar here, though this time he goes unnamed. However, the meaning clearly is Zech
a
riah 9:9, actually quoted in Matthew 21:5, but also obviously the ‘
Shiloh
’ Prophecy of Genesis 49:11 as well.

Of course with regard to these ideas,
viz
., ‘
a colt being tethered to the vine
’ of both Genesis 49:11 and the Gospels, the ‘
coming of the Messiah
’ alluded to in the query attributed to John and the ever-recurrent motif of
the Messiah
’
s
‘
feet
’, one should note the tradition in both Lamentations
Rabbah
and Song of Songs
Rabbah
interpreting the passage, ‘
He has spread a net for my feet
’, from Lamentations 1:13, in terms of ‘
seeing a colt tethered to a tree
’ and ‘
looking for the
feet of the Messiah
’.
39
Curiously, though these allusions have no apparent connection except an esoteric one, still in all these traditions – that is, J
e
sus’ entry into Jerusalem, both the
Nakdimon
and ‘
Martha the daughter of Boethus
’ ones about ‘
woollen garments
’ or ‘
cus
h
ions
’ being spread beneath their ‘
feet
’, and now this one relating to ‘
looking for the Messiah
’
s feet
’ from Lamentations and Song of Songs
Rabbah
– the motif of having ‘
garments spread beneath the feet
’ is conspicuous.

To go back to Rabbi Zadok: when Vespasian saw him, he was supposed to have wondered why Rabbi Yohanan would bother to bring out such an ‘
emaciated old man
’. Whereupon Yohanan is pictured as responding, a little less obsequiously this time and in a variation of Vespasian’s words in
ARN
on
examining the dung
of those besieged in Jerusalem
and
finding only straw in it
, ‘
Two like him and you would have never taken Jerusalem even with double your Army
.’ It should be appreciated that here in Lamentations
Rabbah
, too, R. Yohanan himself sees the people in the market in Jerusalem ‘
seething straw and drinking its product
’, and it is this he takes as a sign to leave, asking ‘
can such men withstand the Armies of Vespasian
’.

In parallel materials about Rabbi Yohanan in
Kethuboth
, he is once again pictured as we saw, like Jesus in reverse, ‘
leaving Jerusalem riding upon a donkey while his Disciples follow him
’.
40
It is at this point that he was supposed to have encountered Nakdimon ben Gurion’s daughter Miriam and now she is the one, as we saw, ‘
picking barley grains out of the dung of Arab cattle
’, not as in the tradition Lamentations
Rabbah
quotes in the name of R. Eleazar ben Zadok about Boethus’ daughter Mir
i
am ‘
picking barley grains among the horses hoofs at Acco
’.

In Miriam’s conversation now with R. Yohanan in
Kethuboth
(and not Rabbi Eleazar ben Zadok as later in
Kethuboth
and in Lamentations
Rabbah
) – whom she also addresses, as we saw, as ‘
Master
’ – the only thing she really requests of him (R. Yohanan), after ‘
standing up
’ and ‘
wrapping herself in her hair
’ (this, of course, the parallel to Lazarus’ sister ‘
Mary
’ wiping Jesus’ ‘
feet with her hair
’ in John 11:2 and 12:3, to say nothing of Luke 7:38’s ‘
woman of the city, a Sinner, with the alabaster flask
’ wiping Jesus’ ‘
feet with her hair
’), is ‘
feed me
’ (our ‘
dogs
’ or
Ben Kalba Sabu
‘
a
’s ‘
Poor
’/‘
Lazarus under the table
’ language and that of other ‘
feeding
’ episodes we have already outlined so extensively above again?); however we are clearly dealing with the same episode.
41
It is here, too, that Rabbi Yohanan enters into his discourse on ‘
the Riches
’ of both Miriam’s father’s and father-in-law’s houses, noting in an aside to
his Disciples
how the marriage contract he signed reckoned her surety at ‘
one mi
l
lion dinars
’ and comparing it, by implication, to the abject poverty of her present fallen status.

In fact,
Kethuboth
again does not specifically name ‘
the daughter of Nakdimon ben Gurion
’ in this episode, ‘
Miriam
’ or ‘
Mary
’, though we know this was her name, and, interestingly enough, it does not immediately follow this up with the variant tradition about Rabbi Eleazar ben Zadok that we just noted was found in Lamentations
Rabbah
as well, in which he too a
p
plied the verse from Song of Songs 1:8 to her pathetic condition after he sees her ‘
picking barley grains among the horses
’
feet at Acco
’; but now we definitely are apprised that this is supposed to be ‘
Nakdimon
’
s daughter
’. Nor, in either of ‘
barefoot
’, as
Gittin
relates rather these traditions in
Kethuboth
or Lamentations
Rabbah
, is she explicitly going out of ‘
Boethus
’
daughter Ma
r
tha
’ who died when ‘
some dung stuck to her foot
’. There, it will be recalled, Rabbi Yohanan rather applied the verse from Deuteronomy 28:56 about ‘
the tender and delicate woman who would not set the sole of her foot upon the ground
’ to Boethus’ daughter Martha’s equally pathetic demise, a passage we have seen
R. Eleazar ben Zadok
apply in Lamentations
Rabbah
to ‘
Boethus
’
daughter Miriam
’!) – she whom, after ‘
binding her hair to the tails of Arab horses
’, the Romans made ‘
run from Jerusalem to Lydda
’.
42

In a final passage relating to all these themes from Genesis
Rabbah
, already highlighted above and paralleled with only slight modifications in
ARN
, the ‘
dung
’ is now rather what R. Eliezer ben Hyrcanus puts into his mouth when still a ploug
h
man with his brothers in his father’s field, thus either purposefully or because her was hungry giving himself bad breath (more hyperbole).
43
He goes to study with R. Yohanan ben Zacchai, again probably in Lydda, and when this ‘
stench
’ is brought to the attention of ‘
the Master
’, R. Yohanan allegorizes it, characterizing his ‘
breath
’ as ‘
a
sweet fragrance
’. Not only are these the words applied to the ‘
Righteousness
’ of the Community Council in the Community Rule or by Paul to his colleague, Epaphroditus, in Philippians 4:18,
44
but R. Yohanan also provides the following exposition (already paraphrased above in the
ARN
version) of them: ‘
As the smell of
(Rabbi Eliezer’s)
mouth became putrid for the sake of the
Torah
,
so will the sweet fragrance of (his) learning become diffused from one end of the World to the other
(
ARN
adds: ‘
because of his mastery of
Torah
’).

First and foremost, it should be immediately plain that this is but a variation (or
vice versa
) of the famous
Parable
we have been analyzing in such detail above attributed to
Jesus
in which he rebukes either
Peter
or
the Disciples
as being ‘
so
’ or ‘
even yet without understanding
’ (Mark 7:17–18/Matthew 15:15–16). To paraphrase: ‘
A man is not known by what goes into the mouth
.
That cannot defile the man
.
But the things which go forth out of the mouth
,
they defile the man
.’
The language of both these expositions is almost completely parallel only, as usual, the Gospel version is ‘
cleaned up
’ as it were and made more elegant and less mundane.

Having said this, however, both Matthew and Mark still retain the rather coarse ‘
toilet bowl
’ metaphor, itself patently r
e
lated to the motif of the ‘
dung
’ in
ARN
and Lamentations
Rabbah
. On the other hand, whereas in Mark 7:19 the aim of
the Parable
was to ‘
declare all foods clean
’, in Matthew it was to assert that ‘
eating with unwashed hands does not defile the man
’ (15:20). Nevertheless, it should be clear that both versions are totally antithetical to what the authors of the R. Yohanan ane
c
dote had in mind, the thrust of which was to see the learning of
Torah
‘
diffused from one end of the World to the other
’, which would have horrified both Matthew and Mark – and the other Gospels too for that matter.

First of all, not only is this another excellent example of ideological inversion or reversal, but it should be quite clear that there is borrowing going on here. The only problem is to determine in which direction the
borrowing
is taking place. The sol
u
tion should be plain –
borrowing
, for the most part, goes from the more primitive to the more sophisticated or, if one wishes, from the more vulgar to the more polished or more elegant and rarely, if ever, the other way round – from the more sophist
i
cated to the more primitive.

In this instance the Rabbinic is clearly the more primitive or more vulgar – the Gospel the more ‘
elegant
’ or, if one pr
e
fers, the more ‘
Hellenized
’. In this case, anyhow, the Talmud’s physicality rescues it from the charge of ‘
borrowing
’ and unfo
r
tunately, one can clearly envision the core of the ideological thrust of assertions of this kind emanating out of sophisticated circles on the highest
cosmopolitan
cultural level in either Alexandria or Rome – more likely the latter – but working off what ‘they’ would have seen as the more ‘
base
’ (that is, the more ‘
realistic
’ or ‘
crude
’) Judaic – meaning ‘
not idealized
’ – material.