James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls II (76 page)

Banning the Dogs from the Holy Camps

In fact, the first formulation of the prohibition on ‘
things sacrificed to idols
’ in Acts 15:20 follows the characterization of James (in the manner of
the
Mebakker
or ‘
Overseer
’ in the Damascus Document, where the ban on ‘
blood
’ is also a major o
b
session
8
) as ‘
judging
’ and his charge ‘
to write them
’ – meaning the Antioch Community. In this first version of James’ ‘
rulings
’ in Acts, the twin conceptualities of ‘
pollution of the Temple
’ and ‘
things sacrificed to idols
’ are combined in the following manner: ‘
abstain from
t
he pollution of the idols
’. However it is formulated, the issue is labored over by Paul, as just indicated, in 1 Corinthians 8:1–13 and 10:14–33, but here rather leading into his own – and perhaps the original – presentation of
the New Covenant
of
‘
Communion with the body
’
and
‘
the blood of Christ
’ in 11:20–34, a formulation by implication, of course, just banned as a consequence of James’ prohibition of ‘
blood
’.

In the intervening material in 1 Corinthians 11:1–19, Paul also raised some issues having to do with marriage and woman’s relationship to man, curiously mostly having to do with ‘
hair
’ – in fact, peculiarly,
her
‘
long hair
’ which Paul considers to be ‘
to her Glory
’ (11:15 –
n.b
.
, in another obvious attack on
Nazirites
such as James preceding this in 11:14, Paul insists that ‘
Nature itself does teach
’ that if ‘
a man has long hair
,
it is a dishonor to him
’ –
sic
; note the ‘
Teacher
’ here is ‘
Nature
’ not ‘
God
’).

Marital issues are to some degree taken up as well in
MMT
in 1.39–49 and 78–92 – there however, once again, integrally connected to the third of James’ proscriptions ‘
to the Gentiles
’, ‘
fornication
’. In fact,
fornication
had already been evoked for comparative purposes in
MMT
1.12 in the context of the ‘
things sacrificed to idols
’ characterization earlier, that is, that sacr
i
fices of this kind were either a ‘
seduction
’ or a species of ‘
fornication
’. But the issue of ‘
fornication
’ had already been dealt with at great length by Paul in 1 Corinthians 6:11–7:40 where he began his discussion of these pivotal directives by James to ove
r
seas communities while, at the same time, giving voice for the first time to his ‘
all things are lawful for me
’ and ‘
food is for the belly and the belly for food
’ admonitions, the first just cited above and the last the basis seemingly of Mark and Matthew’s pi
c
ture of Jesus’ long excursus about food ‘
being thrown out through the toilet drain
’.

The linkage of ‘
things sacrificed to idols
’ to ‘
fornication
’ was also fundamental to the Damascus Document’s ‘
Three Nets of
Belial
’ accusations against the ruling Establishment (clearly
the Herodians
and their hangers-on).
Two of these charges were, in fact, ‘
fornication
’ and ‘
pollution of the Temple
’, defined in terms of ‘
niece marriage
’, ‘
polygamy
’, and ‘
divorce
’.
9
At the same time, these were tied to a third, ‘
blood
’, just underscored above but this time expressed in terms of ‘
lying with a woman during the blood of her period
’ – the linkage between all three growing out of not ‘
separating holy from profane
’, this time expressed in terms of the charge of
not observing proper
‘
separation
’
procedures in the Temple
. The sense of this was that ‘
fornicating
’ persons of this type (most specifically, including
Herodians
) were not being
properly banned from the Temple
and
their gifts and
/
or sacrifices not rejected
in the manner that they should have been.
10

The ban on ‘
fornication
’ of James’ directives to overseas communities in whatever rendition – not to mention the one on ‘
blood
’ – is widespread at Qumran in multiple documents.
In the strictures concerning it and marital relations generally here in
MMT
I.78–79, the purity-minded if somewhat ethnocentric reason why public ‘
fornication
’ of any kind was to be abjured – this time,
by the whole People
– was that they were considered ‘
a Holy People
’ and the biblical injunction, ‘
Israel is Holy
’, a
p
plied.
11

The same reason is applied in
MMT
to forbidding ‘
intermarriage
’, which is systematically considered part of the strictures concerning ‘
mixing
’ in a wider sense – including, for instance, ‘
mixing different cloths
’ or ‘
threads
’ in the same garment or, even earlier,
mixing pure and impure liquids in the same vessel or conduit
, a parallel allusion to which we just saw in one of the
Parables
attributed to Jesus.
12
Not surprisingly, the issue of ‘
being a Holy People
’ is considered particularly relevant to the st
a
tus of ‘
the Sons of Aaron
’ who, in their role as
Priests
/
High Priests
, wore the mitre upon which the words ‘
Holy to God
’, were engraved.
13
In this section of
MMT
, these
Priests
are termed – just as the ‘
three Priests
’ part of (or added to) the twelve-member Community Council in the Community Rule
14
or, in an allegorization similar to Paul’s ‘
members of the Community
’ as ‘
the body of Christ
’ or ‘
Jesus as Temple
’ in 1 Corinthians 12:14–27 and Ephesians 2:20–22 – ‘
the Holy of Holies
’ (I.82). The conclusion was, bearing again on James’ ban on ‘
fornication
’ – though there is some question about the reconstruction here – that they were not even ‘
to intermarry with the People
’ nor ‘
defile their Holy seed with fornication
’.
15

In conclusion, there is also the slightest echo of the fourth component of James’ directives to overseas communities
even as conserved in Acts, that of the ban on ‘
carrion
’, so obviously garbled, as we shall explain further below, in Acts’ Hellenizing paraphrase of the subject, ‘
abstain from strangled things
’, but correctly delineated in full in the Pseudoclementine
Homilies
and, thereafter, in the
Koran
descending from both.
16
In
MMT
the ban on ‘
carrion
’, already clearly enunciated in Ezekiel 44:31 where ‘
Bnei-Zadok
’ Priests who were to ‘
serve at the altar
’ and were ‘
not to eat anything dying of itself or torn
’, comes in the context of
the curious barring of the same omnipresent
‘
dogs
’ we have been following above, only now ‘
from the Holy Camps
’ (I.69–73).

In
MMT
this ban directly follows the one on ‘
mixing
’ of various kinds, including multiple streams of poured liquids into a single vessel or down a single spout, just highlighted above, as well even as the general ban on ‘
the blind
’ and ‘
the deaf
’ (as a
l
ways, counter-indicated across the Gospels) because – just as the banning of them from the Temple in the Temple Scroll – they would ‘
not be able to see to stay away from (such) unclean mixing and
,
to whom
,
such polluted mixing would be invis
i
ble
’. Moreover, where the latter were concerned, they would not even ‘
be able to hear the regulations
’! Since neither would, therefore, be able ‘
to perform them
’ (literally ‘
to
do
them
’ – the vocabulary of ‘
doing
’ again), that is, ‘
do these regulations
’, they were not to be allowed ‘
to approach the purity of the Temple
’ (I.52–57 – again concerns over
cleanness
vs.
uncleanness
,
purity
vs.
impurity
and, as usual, counter-indicated in the Gospels
17
).

The same would have to be said of ‘
dogs
’, but for a slightly different if related reason. As
MMT
I.61–67 puts this: ‘
Regar
d
ing dogs
,
one is not to bring dogs into the Holy Camps because they might eat some of the bones in the Temple while the flesh is still on them’,
which, however primitive and seemingly intemperate this might appear to the modern ear, is perhaps the clearest statement yet of the reason for the whole concern over ‘
dogs
’ we have been witnessing in these various contexts, that is to say, we are totally in the realm, once again, of
carrion
. Not only does this injunction incorporate the reason for the ‘
u
n
cleanness
’ of these ‘
dogs
’ – which is now, simply, ‘
they eat the bones with the flesh still on them
’ – but it specifically connects this ‘
uncleanness
’ to the ban on ‘
carrion
’ itself,
the fourth component of James’ directives to overseas communities
.

This is now further explained and specifically connected to Jerusalem with the supplementary rationalization: ‘
because J
e
rusalem is the Holy Camp
,
the place that He chose from all the Tribes of Israel
,
because Jerusalem is the Head of the Camps of Israel’
.
18
Once again one has here the motif of the wilderness ‘
camps
’, we shall further delineate below and, in particular,
Jerusalem as
‘
the Head
’ or ‘
Chief of the Camps of Israel
’.

We had already been prepared for something of this kind earlier because the principal status of Jerusalem had already been confirmed using this same archaizing ‘
Camp
’ vocabulary. There, again alluding to the biblical wilderness ‘
Camp
’ and ‘
Tent of Meeting
’, particularly concerning where impure waste from the Temple was to be disposed, Jerusalem had already been desi
g
nated as ‘
the Camp
’, and, for these purposes, ‘
outside the Camp
’, defined as ‘
outside Jerusalem
’; and the same reason given, though a little more eloquently: ‘
for Jerusalem was the place H
e chose from all the Tribes of Israel as a dwelling place for His Name’
(I.32–35
– again the reason for such reiteration, where the tuition of a foreign ‘
King
’ might be concerned, should be self-evident. A native one would not probably have required it).