James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls II (82 page)

It should be remarked that the brothers ‘
Saulos and Costobarus
’ Josephus calls ‘
kinsmen of Agrippa
’ and another ‘
kin
s
man of Agrippa
’ Josephus calls ‘
Antipas
’, as well as Philip the son of Jacimus, the Commander of Agrippa II’s Army, are also involved in, not only seemingly Mitelius’ surrender, but a parallel event contemporaneous with it, the surrender of Agrippa II’s palace in which they had all taken refuge and which then seems to have been burned by these same ‘
Zealot
’
Revolutionaries
.
60

Not only does Josephus identify this ‘
Antipas
’ – like his putative kinsmen ‘
Helcias
’ (an Herodian and a companion of Agrippa I in an earlier generation) and Helcias’ son, ‘
Julius Archelaus
’ (possibly Antipas’ brother or nephew) – as Temple Treasurer, but, as the Revolt moved into its more extremist or ‘
Jacobin
’ phase (68–69
CE
), this
Antipas
was eventually arrested and put to death by those whom Josephus, by this time, had actually begun calling ‘
Zealots
’.
61
As in the case of the butchering of James’ executioner, the High Priest Ananus, and Jesus ben Gamala, directly following this Antipas’ execution, and the assa
s
sination of Ananus’ brother Jonathan by those he had started to designate as ‘
Sicarii
’ a decade or so earlier,
62
Josephus rails against the ‘
breach of the conditions of surrender
’ constituted by the slaughtering of the Roman garrison and ‘
the pollutions of such Abominations
’ this involved, partially because it seems to have occurred
on the Sabbath
. He calls it: ‘
the prelude to the Jews
’
own destruction
…
for it could not but arouse some vengeance whether by Rome or some Divine Visitation’
.
63

As Josephus presents these events,
Philip
anyhow seems to have then fallen under a cloud regarding these events (that is, the Romans suspected him of treason) and he and ‘
Costobarus
’ seemingly,
64
but not this ‘
Antipas
’, were sent to Nero – either at their own request (as Paul in Acts 26:32) or otherwise – for a hearing or to appeal their case. At this point, Nero seems to have been at Corinth in Greece (another important provenance of Paul’s missionary and epistolary activities) and none of th
e
se are ever heard from again, at least not in Josephus.

It should be appreciated that the ‘
Saulos
’ in Josephus undergoes a similar fate and, following these events and his escape like
Philip
from Agrippa II’s palace, he re-emerges as the intermediary between what should be seen as ‘
the Peace Party
’ in Jerusalem (identified in Josephus as ‘
the Sadducees
,
principal Pharisees
,
and the Men of Power
’ – this last obviously meant as a euphemism for
Herodians
) and the Roman Army outside it, an assignment that ends in almost total disaster.
65
After this ill-fated attempt on the part of the previously reigning Roman/Herodian Establishment in Jerusalem to invite the Roman Army into the city to attempt to suppress the Revolt, ‘
Saulos’
too seems to have been sent to Nero in Corinth – again, either at his own request or otherwise – to report about the circumstances of this and the situation in Palestine generally, in particular in Jerusalem, a report that seems to have led directly to
the dispatch of the General Vespasian from Britain with a large army to Palestine
.
66

The
Ananias
who accompanied
Gurion the son of Nicodemus
in the initial attempt to avoid war and save the Roman ga
r
rison hopelessly surrounded in the Citadel, in turn, seems to have had a connection with
Ananus
(the High Priest responsible for the death of James). Josephus contemptuously describes the stratagems both Ananus and
Ananias the son of Sadduk
used (which he claims to have ingeniously thwarted) to relieve him (Josephus) of his command in Galilee where he had been sent together with them as a representative of the Jerusalem Priestly Establishment.
67

Once again, here in Josephus, the association of this ‘
Ananias ben Sadduk
’, in these crucial days having to do with the fate of Jerusalem, with a ‘
Nakdimon
’ of some kind (‘
Nicodemus
’ in John as well as here in Josephus) who, in turn, in Rabbinic li
t
erature is portrayed as having a relationship with ‘
Ben Kalba Sabu
‘
a
’, raises interesting questions about
Ananias
’ and
Nakdimon
’
s relationship to the conversion of the Royal House of Adiabene
. ‘
Nicodemus
’ – ‘
Nakdimon
’’s
alter
ego – is also portrayed as an influential ‘
Pharisee
’ in John 3:1–9 and 7:50 (where he too is asked the question, ‘
are you also from Galilee
’,
i
.
e
., ‘
a Galilean
’?), though nevertheless a secret supporter of Jesus. Curiously enough, this is also the role accorded the famous Pharisee Patriarch Gamaliel – Paul’s purported teacher and the descendant of the Rabbinic hero Hillel – in the Pseudoclementine
Recognitions
and to some extent too in Acts.
68
In the Gospel of John, too, Nicodemus joins the legendary
Joseph of Arimathaea
in preparing the body of Jesus for burial, ‘
binding it in linen cloth with the aromatics as is the custom among the Jews
’ (19:40).

In the Synoptics it is now
Joseph of Arimathaea
who is the ‘
Rich Councilor
’ and owner of an impressive tomb in Jerus
a
lem and it is he who is now the secret
Christian
, not
Nicodemus
– more dissimulation? Some have considered this name ‘
Arimathaea
’ – certainly supposed to be a place name but not otherwise identifiable in Palestine – to be a pun on Josephus’ name itself, that is,
Joseph Bar Matthew
.
In Luke 23:50, like so many other curious characters in early Christianity (the Roman Centurion, for example, in Acts 10:2 and 10:22 above), he, too, is called ‘
Good and a Just Man
’, that is, basically he is a ‘
Zaddik
’ – the same words Herod applies to John the Baptist in Mark 6:20, namely, ‘
a Man Just and Holy
’ or which Pilate’s wife applies to Jesus in Matthew 27:19. In addition to this, we have the re-emergence of the
Zaddik
theme again, so strong in all traditions about James – to say nothing of those relating to ‘
the Righteous Teacher
’ at Qumran.

It is hardly to be credited that either this
Nicodemus
/
Nakdimon
or the person the Gospels are calling ‘
Joseph of Arimathaea
’ – if the two can really be separated – is a
Zaddik
or ‘
Friend of God
’ and, in the former instance anyhow, a popular
Rainmaker
in the Temple. But in the
Talmud
, as we have been suggesting, aside from this
rainmaking
and
praying
in the Te
m
ple
– clear
leit-motif
s and/or residual vestiges of the James story – there is just the slightest suggestion of a connection b
e
tween
Nakdimon
or his colleagues, ‘
Ben Kalba Sabu
‘
a
’ and ‘
Ben Zizzit
’, with the family of Queen Helen of Adiabene, whose fabulous tomb on the outskirts of Jerusalem is so familiar to all our sources. In fact, in the
Talmud
, the contracts this curious
Nicodemus
/
Nakdimon
undertakes with a foreign ‘
Lord
’ or ‘
Ruler
’ play a paramount role in his
rainmaking
, as does the fab
u
lous nature of the stores he supposedly purchases or amasses with these same colleagues to save Jerusalem during its
Famine
– enough, as we have repeatedly reiterated, to last for ‘
twenty-one years
’, the precise time of Queen Helen’s three successive Nazirite-oath periods allegedly imposed on her for utterly obscure reasons by the Rabbis.

Can there be any doubt that the true provenance of much of this material – whether in the
Talmud
or New Testament – really appertains to the spectacular tomb these
Royals
from Northern Syria had originally erected for their ‘
favorite son
’ Izates, who had initiated the family’s conversion to Judaism in the first place (now transformed into pro-Establishment and anti-‘
Zealot
’ storytelling, much as elsewhere in the Gospels and in Acts)? Moreover, that the notes about
rainmaking
,
Famine
, and
Naziritism
, usually connected in some way with stories about these Royal personages from Adiabene, probably imply some relationship, however vague, between James and their conversions?

Likewise and
vice versa
, that these last may have been involved with someone the
Talmud
thinks ‘
made rain
’, who was an incarnation of
Elijah
in the
Hidden
Zaddik
tradition, but confuses with one or another of the descendants of Honi – to say nothing about the interest of all of these in ‘
extreme Naziritism
’, probably relates to the form of ‘
Judeo-Christianity
’ – and I use the term loosely – these various Royal figures were being taught. That some of these figures, too, were later ultimately even willing to martyr themselves in this cause and that of Jewish independence in Palestine probably ties them not only to the most extreme wing of
the Zealot Party
or
Sicarii
– ‘
Christian
’ (to say nothing of
Iscariot
), as we shall see towards the end of this book, being a quasi-acronym of ‘
Sicarii
’ – but to James as well.

THE PELLA FLIGHT AND THE WILDERNESS CAMPS

Rainmaking, T
heudas
, and other Revolutionaries

Having attempted to decipher this curious relationship between ‘
Nakdimon
’ in Rabbinic literature and ‘
Nicodemus’
in the Gospels, it should now be possible to return to the eschatological nature of
rainmaking
and its relation to the proclamation that James is pictured as making in the Temple at Passover in all early Church accounts of ‘
the Son of Man sitting at the Right Hand of the Great Power and about to come on the clouds of Heaven
’ – the same proclamation ascribed in Gospel portra
i
ture to both Jesus and John the Baptist
but, where James is concerned, with perhaps more authenticity. It is impossible to know whether James was ever really called upon to make rain around this time or whether this was just an esoteric reckoning or a euphemism of some kind for the proclamation of the final initiation of the eschatological ‘
End Time
’ since, as already alluded to, the War Scroll from Qumran speaks of just such an eschatological Judgement ‘
from
’ or ‘
on the clouds with the Heavenly Host
’ as James is pictured as making in all these early Church accounts.
1

Perhaps the character Josephus denotes as ‘
Theudas
’ performed ‘
signs and wonders
’ of this kind too, since Josephus sp
e
cifically applies the ‘
Impostor
’/‘
pseudo-prophet
’/‘
magician
’ vocabulary to him meant to discredit just such individuals.
2
Not only does Theudas’ name carry with it the distinct overtones of the character known as ‘
Thaddaeus
’/‘
Judas Thomas
’/‘
Judas the Zealot
’/‘
Judas the
Iscariot
’ or even ‘
Judas the brother of James
’ in Gospel portraiture or early Church literature, but, as a
l
ready observed, he is clearly portrayed in Josephus as a Jesus or
Joshua
redivivu
s
type with
Messianic
pretensions.

Certainly there was a ‘
Great Famine
’ in the period 45–48
CE
and various enterprises, like Paul’s and/or Helen of Adiabene’s
famine-relief
missions and
Theudas
’ attempt to lead large numbers of followers out into the wilderness and repart the Jordan River in a reverse kind of exodus are not separable from it.
The number of followers
Theudas
led out into the wi
l
derness to display these ‘
signs
’ is unclear, but right before discussing ‘
the Great Famine
’ and how ‘
Queen Helen bought grain from Egypt for large sums of money and distributed it among the Poor
’, Josephus calls it a ‘
majority of the masses
’,
3
whereas Acts 5:36, a little more depracatingly – and
anachronistically
– terms the number of followers who ‘
joined
’ the ‘
somebody
’ it calls
Theudas
as only ‘
about four hundred
’.

Theudas
, as just noted, wished to leave Palestine and, Joshua-style,
part the waters of the River Jordan
but, now, rather in order
to
depart
and
not to come in
. This, anyhow, was seen by the Romans as a subversive act, deserving of beheading. For Acts 4:4, to some extent anticipating
Gamaliel
’s anachronistic reference to this same Theudas in Acts 5:36 above, ‘
five tho
u
sand’
is the number of ‘
believers
’ who are added at this point to the early Church. Paralleling this and contemporaneous with these other events, for the Pseudoclementine
Recognitions
the number of James’ followers, who flee with him down to the Jer
i
cho area after the riot in the Temple and physical assault on him led by ‘
the Enemy
’ (Paul) is, not surprisingly, again ‘
five tho
u
sand
’. As in Acts 5:34, this too is followed by another parallel reference to
Gamaliel
.
4

But the most important parallel to both ‘
Theudas
’’ activities and those of Queen Helen of Adiabene and her surrogates, and inseparable as well from them, is Jesus in the Gospels feeding the ‘
five thousand
’ (Matthew 14:13–22 and
pars
. – in Ma
t
thew 15:38 and Mark 8:9 the number swings back to ‘
four thousand
’ and then ‘
five
’ again). Regardless of discrepancies or re
p
etitions of this kind and overlaps with other ‘
feeding
’ episodes, all the Synoptics describe the locale of this one to ‘
the five thousand
’ as being ‘
in the wilderness
’ – meant to be either, as in
Theudas
’ case, ‘
across Jordan
’ or on ‘
the other side
’
of the Sea of Galilee
.

For its part John 6:4–71 reports another of these magical ‘
feeding
’ episodes of the kind in 2:1–11
previously when Jesus was pictured as
turning
‘
water into wine
’
at
‘
Cana of Galilee
’. This one, which again has to do with ‘f
ive barley loaves and two small fish
’ and ‘
a little boy
’ and occurs ‘
near the Passover
,
the Feast of the Jews’
(obviously a non-Jew writing this), is co
m
pared, therefore (paralleling ‘
Last Supper
’ scenarios in the Synoptics and Paul), to ‘
eating the Living Bread
’
and
‘
drinking his blood
’. Moreover, it even likens the ‘
feeding of the five thousand
’ that ensues to the ‘
Forefathers eating the manna’
– called ‘
the bread of Heaven
’ – ‘
in the wilderness’
(John 6:31–58).

At the same time, using the language of the ‘
works of God
’ and plainly designating Jesus, as in Pseudoclementine/
Ebionite
ideology, ‘
the Prophet who is coming into the world
’ (6:14), it goes on to develop in the purest of Philonic allegorical terms its version of Jesus’ promulgation of the Eucharist (6:50–58
5
). It does so by comparing Jesus’ ‘
flesh
’ to ‘
the manna in the desert
’ or, as it terms it, ‘
the Living Bread which came down out of Heaven
’ (6:49–51),
his
‘
flesh truly b
e
ing food
’ and
his
‘
blood truly being drink
’. Moreover, he who ‘
eats
’ and ‘
drinks
’ it will ‘
have everlasting life
’ and
be
‘
raised on the Last Day
’ (6:54–55 – again, more Qumran eschatological vocabulary
6
). The conclusion from all this, which has remained effective up to the present day – despite its basically being pure Hellenized Mystery Religion – is finally, therefore, ‘
he who eats my flesh
and
drinks my blood is living in me and I in him
’ (6:56) – and this supposedly in Palestine and on the Passover no less!

These are precisely the kinds of ‘
signs and wonders
’ that Josephus so rails against and is so anxious to condemn – to say nothing of James’ outright ban on ‘
blood
’ (one assumes this includes symbolically) in the picture of his directives to overseas communities in Acts. In the case of Josephus, as we saw, such ‘
Impostors and religious frauds
,
who teamed up with the bandit chiefs
,
were more dangerous even than the Revolutionaries
’ and he clearly views the kind of ‘
leading people out into the wi
l
derness
,
there to show them the signs of their impending freedom
’ that is being depicted here, both in John and the Synoptics, as the worst sort of Revolutionary subversion or imposture (here the contrast between the ‘
freedom from Rome
’ as opposed to Paul’s more allegorized ‘
freedom from the Law
’ polemics again).
7

If James ever really had made rain, Josephus would have had to see it, too, in the same terms though, to be sure, this is not how he presents him
in the
Antiquities
. There Josephus seems, otherwise, quite sympathetic to James and, as we have shown in other work, may even have spent time with him under the alias of the ‘
Banus
’ he refers to in the
Vita
, with whom he passed a two-year initiate in his late teens (as he seems to have done, to judge by his long description of them in the
War
, ‘
the E
s
senes
’).
8

Early Church sources picture James’ proclamation in the Temple of the imminent coming of the Son of Man in response to the question put to him by the Temple Authorities about
‘the Gate of Jesus
’.
9
This same designation, ‘
Son of Man
’, would also appear to be equivalent to the individual Paul refers to in 1 Corinthians 15:45–47 as ‘
the Second Man
’/‘
the Last Adam
’/or ‘
the Lord out of Heaven
’ – in the War Scroll, as we shall see below, quoting Isaiah 31:8: ‘
no mere Man
’ or ‘
Adam
’.
10
Of course, according to other reckonings, such as those found in the Pseudoclementines and parallel incarnationist presentations, this same concept would be embodied in the doctrine known as ‘
the Primal Adam
’.

James’ Proclamation and the Coming of the Angelic Host in the War Scroll

In these early Church sources there are also the notices about James praying in the Temple ‘
till his knees became as hard as a camel
’
s
’ and about ‘
all the importuning he did before God’
– presumably
in the Holy of Holies
– ‘
on behalf of the People
’. But this proclamation (in response to the question put to James in Hegesippus’ version of these accounts about ‘
What is the Gate of Jesus?
’) of ‘
the Son of Man coming on the clouds of Heaven
’ – the individual we have just seen Paul refer to in 1 C
o
rinthians 15–16 as ‘
the Second Man
’ or ‘
Last Adam
,
the Lord out of Heaven
’ – and the
Ebionite
/
Elchasaite
note contained in it about ‘
sitting on the Right Hand of the Great Power
’, is precisely the exposition of ‘
the Star Prophecy
’ from Numbers 24:17 in climactic passages from the War Scroll, another of those ‘
eschatological
’ documents describing, among other things, the final apocalyptic war against all Evil on the Earth.
11

The Star Prophecy,
12
as we have seen, is also cited in at least two other pivotal contexts in known Scroll documents: the Damascus Document and
the Messianic
Florilegium
, which we shall consider in more detail below.
In the War Scroll, it is defi
n
itively tied to the
Messiah
and combined with the note from Daniel 7:13 about ‘
one like a Son of Man amid the clouds of Heaven
’ and the imagery of final apocalyptic ‘
Judgement falling like rain on all that grows on Earth
’.
13