James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls II (93 page)

One can’t get much more ‘
Messianic
’ or ‘
nationalist
’ than this. It is followed by six more columns, recapitulating much of this imagery and adding allusions such as: ‘
Eternal Light
’, ‘
Belial
’, ‘
the appointed times of Salvation
’, ‘
the Perfect of the Way
’, ‘
the Day of Vengeance
’, ‘
the Power of God
’, ‘t
he burning
’ (very popular imagery in the Koran as well
83
), ‘
the Rule of Michael among the gods and Israel in the midst all flesh
’, and ‘
the Gates of Salvation
’.

This last, as we have seen, has particularly strong relevance to the question asked of James in the early Church tradition reported by Hegesippus, ‘
What is the Gate to Jesus?
’ and James’ response: ‘
Why do you ask me concerning the Son of Man? He is sitting in Heaven on the Right Hand of the Great Power and he is coming on the clouds of Heaven
,’
which provokes the riot in the Temple on Passover and his stoning. Once again, the intrinsic relationship of James’ response in these sources, not
only to the materials in Daniel but also to these passages in the War Scroll, should be obvious to all but the most biased o
b
servers. Basically a compressed version of these triumphant and climactic passages of the more prolix War Scroll have been put into James’ mouth and, by implication, Jesus’ and John the Baptist’s in the Gospels.

The War Scroll now culminates in a second evocation of eschatological
rain
and its
Paean
to the Messianic
Hero
with which the text ends. These are both, as already noted, word-for-word repetitions of the first. Following another curious refe
r
ence to ‘
standing
’ and ‘
to You is the
Power
and in Your hands is the battle
’, the text again then avers: ‘
Our sovereign is Holy and the King of Glory is with us and the Host of His Spirits is with our foot soldiers and our cavalry
. (
They are
)
as
clouds
,
and moisture-laden clouds covering the Earth
,
and as a
torrent of rain
shedding Judgement on all that grows therein
.’
84
This could not be more clear or a more clearly poetic metaphor for ‘
the Last Judgement
’. After this commences the praise of the Messia
n
ic
Hero
who will ‘
devour all flesh with his sword
’ again.
85
Here is the final crystallization of all the eschatological ‘
rain
’, ‘
flood
’, and ‘
final Judgement
’ imagery encountered above. Tied to the exegesis of
the Star Prophecy
,
so intrinsic to events in 66–70
CE
Palestine and the cataclysm there
– to say nothing of the Gospel portrait of the birth of its
Messiah
in Matthew 2:2–2:9, and Da
n
iel’s imagery of ‘
one like a Son of Man coming on the clouds
’, it also links up with the parallel evocation in the Letter of James of ‘
the coming of the Lord
’
– which, it will be recalled, was
connected with ‘
spring and autumn rain
’,
86
‘
the prayer of the Just
’ or ‘
Righteous One having much Power
’ (parodied in Josephus’ disparaging portraiture of this genre of individual; nor is this to say anything about the more positive one in the Gospels), and Elijah’s role as paradigmatic
rain
and
Judgement
-
making for
e
runner
, s
etting this final eschatological process into motion
.

Spiritualized Sacrifice and Atonement Imagery in Paul and at Qumran

Epiphanius claims he saw in ‘
the Gospel in use among the Ebionites’
that ‘
Jesus came and announced the abolition of the sacrifices
’ – meaning,
Temple sacrifice
.
This passage reads: ‘
And that he
(
Christ
)
came and declared, as their so-called Gospel
reports
,
“
I have come to do away with the sacrifices and
,
if you do not cease from sacrificing
,
the Wrath of God will not cease upon you”
’.
1
Of course, this issue of the inefficacy or cessation of Temple sacrifice is widespread in Paul’s letters, though a
d
mittedly from a somewhat more ‘
allegorized
’ perspective. For Paul and the Gospels – with, as they have come down to us, their generally pro-Pauline cast – Jesus
is the very sacrifice itself
.

Paul says as much in 1 Corinthians 5:7 in a discussion supposed to be about one aspect of James’ directives to overseas communities, ‘
fornication
’. Not only does this discussion use the vocabulary both of James’ proscriptions and Gospel allusions to Jesus, but it actually has more in common with the ethos of both ‘
the Essenes
’ and Qumran, in terms of not keeping ‘
table fellowship
’ with ‘
fornicators
’, ‘
idol-worshippers
’, ‘
Scoffers
’, ‘
wine-bibbers
’, and such like, and even goes so far as to reco
m
mend both ‘
shunning them
’ and/or ‘
expelling them
’ (1 Corinthians 5:9–11).

Nevertheless, in this context and continuing its allegorical evocation of such key allusions as ‘
the Name
’, ‘
the Power of our Lord Jesus Christ
’, and ‘
someone being delivered unto Satan
’ for ‘
the destruction of the flesh
,
so the spirit might be saved on the Day of the Lord Jesus
’, it avers that, ‘
for also Christ
,
our Passover
,
was sacrificed for us
’ (1 Corinthians 5:4–7). Here we have the familiar ‘
Christ
’ as ‘
the Paschal Lamb
’ image, now actually couched in yet another allegorizing discussion of the ‘
leaven
’ the Jews reject on their Festival of Passover. This is presented in the usual disparaging and one-sided manner, recommending – seemingly in all innocence, but actually playing off all the inherent imageries – ‘
celebrating the Feast
’ (meaning ‘
the Passover
’) not with the old ‘
leaven of malice and Wickedness
’ (one is quite staggered here by the derisive and polemical way Paul alludes to the previous tradition to which he, too, supposedly claims to be an heir), but with the new ‘
unleaven
of sincerity and Truth
’ (5:8). None but the most naive observer could possibly miss the acrimonious thrust of these allegories, which are, of course, to be found in the Gospels, in particular, in the several discourses in which Jesus is either portrayed as speaking about ‘
the leaven of the Pharisees
’ and alluding to them as ‘
Blind Guides
’,
i.e
., ‘
the Blind leading the Blind
’ and ‘
both falling into the Pit
’ (Ma
t
thew 15:12-14 and 16:6-12).

Paul continues this metaphor of spiritualized sacrifice in Romans 12:1, though this time his rhetorical barbs, while present, are a little more subdued. He characterizes ‘y
our bodies
’ as ‘
a Holy and living sacrifice well pleasing to God
’, only adding the incidental if condescending aside, and a more ‘
reasonable service
’. This is exactly the sort of imagery we have just discussed with regard to ‘t
he Community Council
’ in the Community Rule, a document including some of the same allusions and also considered opposed to Temple sacrifice, though if it was, this was probably only because of the perception that the then-reigning Priesthood – in our view
the Herodian
– was corrupt.
2
What would have been its position, for instance, if the Jerus
a
lem Priesthood were ‘
a Perfectly Righteous
’
One
? That would be a whole other question.

We have seen how the Community Rule, in its evocation of Isaiah 40:3’s ‘
making a straight Way in the wilderness
’ citation, characterizes the members of its ‘
Council
’ as ‘
an Eternal Plantation
’, ‘
atoning for sin
by doing Judgement and suffering the so
r
rows of affliction
’.
3
Of course, the New Testament is fairly awash with similar allusions when discussing the theological signif
i
cance of ‘Jesus’.
4

But at this point the Community Rule parts company with Paul. In addition to ‘
being Witnesses of the Truth for Judg
e
ment and the Chosen
’ or ‘
the Elect of His Will
’ (a few lines further on, the same idea is expressed in terms of ‘
being an a
c
ceptable free will offering
’
5
) ‘
to make atonement for the Land and pay the Evil Ones their Reward
’, the members of
this ‘Council
’ are admonished – just as Jesus admonishes those he is addressing in the Sermon on the Mount –
to be
‘
Perfect in all that has been revealed about the whole
Torah
’.
6

The members of this Council are also ‘
to offer up a pleasing fragrance
’ – the very words Paul uses in 2 Corinthians 2:14–15 when he describes what those followers of Jesus are supposed to offer up meaning, where he is concerned, for the most part,
monetary contributions
– but secondarily, an allusion as well to
the fruitfulness of his mission
.
7
As usual, here too Paul is at his rhetorical and deprecating best. Evoking once again both his and the Scrolls’ language of ‘
Triumph
’, he implies that ot
h
ers, who also speak both of such ‘
a sweet fragrance
’ and ‘
being saved
’,
8
are rather bringing ‘
an odour of death to death
’
not
‘
life to life
’ (
cf.
the putrid ‘
smell
’ which Lazarus’ body, dead in the grave ‘
for four days
’, emits in John 11:39 above).

Furthermore, again employing another usage, ‘
the Many
’, fundamental to the Community Rule and the same vocabulary the Habakkuk
Pesher
uses to indict ‘
the Last Priests of Jerusalem who gathered Riches and profiteered from the spoils of the Peoples
’, these others, his competitors – who like himself also speak of ‘
the
sweet odour
of the Knowledge of Him
’ – are actually ‘
profiteering by corrupting the Word of God
’ (2:14–17).

The Attack on Moses, the Temple, and the Earthly Stones

Paul continues this metaphor of bringing ‘
death
’ rather than ‘
life
’ into the next chapter of 2 Corinthians where he starts his attack on the ‘
some
’ again, now those ‘
who need letters to recommend
’ them – or, as he puts it thereafter in 2 Corinthians 10:12, referring to the same ‘
some who commend themselves
,
measuring themselves by themselves and comparing themselves to themselves
’ (again, clearly a belittling attack on James and his Leadership who required those who would be teachers or ‘
Apostles
’ to carry letters of appointment from James
9
) – by introducing a whole new cluster of polemical juxtapositions ce
n
tering on key words such as ‘
Service
’/‘
Ministry
’, ‘
veil
’/‘
being veiled
’, and, as always ‘
written words
’ – in this instance, ‘
in ink
’ but also, momentarily,
to ridicule Moses
, ‘
in stone
’ – as opposed to those (as he puts it) ‘
written of’
or ‘
by the Spirit of the Li
v
ing God
’ (2 Corinthians 3:1–3).

This he does while numbering himself and his associates as ‘
competent Servants of the New Covenant
’ not like the others, whom he describes as
serving
‘
the
Ministry
of Condemnation
’ (
Diakonia
). He means by this, of course (just as he does in Gal
a
tians 4:25 on Ha
gar
’s
Sinaitic
‘
slavery
’), Mosaic Law! He then goes on to compare this ‘
Ministry
’ which, in his view, ‘
was being annulled
’ to how ‘
Moses who put a veil over his face
’ in order to deceive ‘
the Children of Israel
’, so that they ‘
would not have to look at the end of that which was bound to be annulled
’ (2 Corinthians 3:13).

To put this in another way, according to Paul, Moses was a kind of ‘
Deceiver
’ who didn’t want the people to know that ‘
the shining Glory
’ of their tradition was coming to an end. Indeed, so enamored is Paul of the metaphors he is creating that he goes on to characterize Moses’ Commandments, ‘
cut in stone
’ as they were, as
the
Service of death
(‘
Diakonia
’ – the same ‘
Diakonia
’ we have seen above in Acts 6:1–5 on the ‘
choosing of Stephen
’ and his Hellenized companions ‘
to serve
’/‘
wait on tables
’ or in Luke and John’s
Mary
vs.
Martha
‘
table
-
serving
’ materials), triumphantly concluding this particular allegorical p
o
lemic with: ‘
for the letter kills
,
but the Spirit brings life
’ (2 Corinthians 3:5–13).

The above ‘
offering up a sweet perfume
’ or ‘
a pleasing fragrance
’ imagery is from Column Eight of the Community Rule, but in Column Nine the whole metaphor is reprieved – this time seemingly applied, as in Paul – though with a more more graceful and high-minded rhetorical elegance – to ‘
the Men of the Community
,
the Walkers in Perfection
’ (implying the whole Community and not just ‘
the Council
’) now being called ‘
the Community of Holiness
’.
10
After playing on the combination in the Damascus Document of ‘
Israel and Aaron
’ as the laity and the Priesthood – pictured in these Columns too of the Co
m
munity Rule as ‘
a Temple of the Community for Israel
’ and ‘
a House of Holiness
’ or ‘
Holy of Holies for Aaron
’ – it is set forth that either ‘
the Men of the Community
’ or ‘
the Council
’ (it is not clear which) ‘
will establish
(in
their
‘
Perfection
’)
the Holy Spirit on Truth Everlasting to atone
for guilty transgression and rebellious sinning
,
and forgiveness for the Land without the flesh of holocausts and the fat of sacrifices
;
and the offering of the lips will be for Judgement like the pleasing fragrances of Righteousness; and Perfection of the Way
,
an acceptable free-will offering’
.
11
Once again, this is about as ‘
spiritualized
’ as one can get, even as ‘s
piritualized
’ as Paul thinks he is being, the only difference, as usual, is that the one is
a hundred and eighty degrees the reverse
of the other. To rephrase this, whereas the Scrolls’ Community is
inseparably attached to the
Torah
of M
o
ses both spiritually and figuratively
,
Paul never misses an opportunity to belittle and/or undermine it
whether rhetorically or allegorically.