James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls I (33 page)

The last category of James’ directives to overseas communities, as pictured in the Book of Acts, is ‘
abstain from strangled things
’. This prohibition of James probably had to do with what in English goes by the name of ‘
carrion
’, again probably based on the Noahic Covenant. Therefore it would have been seen as applicable to all Noah’s human descendants and, as in Jewish Law generally, probably included some sense of beasts or fowl that died of themselves or as a result of disease.

Pseudoclementine
Homilies
7.8, not only presents Peter as a daily bather and vegetarian (like James), but teaching ‘
to abstain from the table of demons (cf. Paul in 1 Cor. 10:21), that is, food sacrificed to idols, dead carcasses from animals
which have been strangled or caught by beasts
, and from blood’.

From here one may go to the Koran again, the heir to many of these traditions and formulations. As Muhammad succinctly puts it: ‘
Abstain from swine-flesh, blood, things immolated to an idol, and carrion
’ (2:172, 5:3, 16:115, etc.). The ‘
swine-flesh
’ prohibition, of course, is normative in Jewish dietary law. It was, no doubt, also understood in James’ instructions to overseas communities and probably so self-evident that it was not even thought worthy of mention. But the interesting things in Muhammad’s presentation are
that which is ‘immolated to an idol’, ‘blood’, and ‘carrion’
.

The Noahic Covenant, the ‘Balaam’ Circumlocution, and the ‘Joiners’ at Qumran

All the themes of these directives are connected in some way, as we have suggested, with
the Noahic Covenant
. Preserved in Rabbinic literature, this Covenant is usually presented as comprising a variety of moral and behavioural qualities, chief among which are the three commandments against: (1) idolatry, (2) fornication, and (3) man-slaughter or murder. All of these are implied in one way or another, too, in the directives given by James to overseas communities, even in Acts’ admittedly tendentious picture.

We have been insisting all along that the one on ‘food’ or ‘things sacrificed to idols’ is just a variation of the one on idolatry generally. This is verified for us in Paul’s correspondence as well, tendentious as it may be. This is also certainly the thrust of the ‘
Three Nets of Belial
’ allusion in the Damascus Document, backed up in the presentation in Revelation of what
‘Balaam taught Balak’ by way of ‘deceiving Israel’
. That these so-called ‘prophets’ are Gentiles from areas on the other side of the Jordan in Syria, Perea (Moab), and Idumaea is also interesting when it comes to considering Paul’s claims, as reported in Acts, of being a ‘teacher or prophet’ of some kind (13:1).

In fact, Paul’s claim to be of ‘
the Tribe of Benjamin
’ is also interesting on this account, ‘Benjamin’ sometimes functioning as a variation of the ‘
Belial
’/‘
Balaam
’ terminology. ‘
Bela‘
’ in Old Testament genealogies – reliable or otherwise – is not only an Edomite King but ‘
the Son of Be‘or
’, the
same
parentage ascribed to
Balaam
. He is also presented as
Benjamin’s firstborn son
(Gen. 46:21 and 1 Chron. 7:6)! Not only have we already noted a word or name identical to it in the Temple Scroll
connected with classes of persons
debarred from the Temple
, on at least four different occasions the epithet ‘
Sons of Belial
’ is applied in the Old Testament specifically to
Benjaminites
(Judg. 19:22, 20:13, etc.).

It is for reasons such as these that we believe the Belial/Balaam/Bela‘ circle-of-language was being applied in some manner to Paul by those hostile to him –
as it was to all Herodians
. Of course, because of their Edomite or Idumaean origins or connections, the Herodians may already have been making such claims themselves to consolidate the dubious proposition of their Judaic or Hebraic origins – both Edom’s progenitor Esau and Ishmael
being
descendants of Abraham
. Paul is also making this a claim on his own behalf in the context of reference to Abraham in Romans 11:1 and Philippians 3:5 above. He never calls himself ‘
a Jew
’, simply an ‘
Israelite
’ or ‘
Hebrew
’ – in Philippians 3:5 ‘a Hebrew of the Hebrews’ – to which of course his ‘
Benjaminite
’ origins, real or symbolical, would have entitled him (even in 1 Cor. 9:19 above, when he reveals his dissimulationist approach, he only says: ‘
To the Jews, I became as a Jew
,
so Jews I might gain
’ – how’s that for cynicism?)

In Romans 11:1, he adds, not insignificantly nor unlike Muhammad thereafter, ‘
of the seed of Abraham
’. At this time there were no longer any real tribal affiliations among Jews of the kind Paul is signaling, except where Priests and Levites were concerned. Significantly, no such claims really ever occur at Qumran where the term ‘Jew’ is already in use – these having
largely disappeared some
700 years earlier
. There also is some indication in Rabbinic literature and certainly in the War Scroll at Qumran that ‘
Benjamin
’ was a terminology applied to all
overseas persons
or
Diaspora
Jews. That Paul was of ‘
the Tribe of Benjamin
’ would in these contexts appear to be more obfuscation and reverse polemics, converting what may have been his opponents’ pejoratives into their mirror opposite again and to positive effect.

In addition, where the Arab connections of Herodians are concerned, Herod’s mother
was an Arab from Petra
and his sister was
originally married to Costobarus the Idumaean, whose progeny were systematically mixed into the Herodian line
. In respect to their ‘Arabness’, Herodians too take on the appearance of precursors of Muhammad. Where Paul – originally ‘Saul’ – is concerned, there is another reason ‘
Benjamin
’ specifically is evoked in this literature directed at relatively naïve overseas ears. Conveniently, the archetypical Saul, David’s predecessor as king, was of the Tribe of Benjamin (Acts 13:21) –
ipso facto
, so too was his latter-day namesake Paul.

The applicability of James’ ban on ‘fornication’ – like that of Qumran – to this state of affairs is also self-evident. It goes far beyond the rather pro-forma and superficial references to it in Paul’s letters, though there is this more or less straightforward overt sense too. For instance, as we saw, when Jesus is presented ‘si
tting with tax collectors and Sinners
’ or speaking positively about ‘
prostitutes
’, this is meant to counter-indicate just the kinds of injunctions one gets in James’ directives and at Qumran – to show that Jesus, the loving and forgiving Messiah, did not judge persons of this genre but even
kept ‘table fellowship’
and
ate with them
, always an important theme.

This is the upshot, too, of ‘the tablecloth vision’ vouchsafed to Peter in Acts, in which he learns not to make distinctions between ‘Holy and profane’ just in time to inspect the household of the Roman Centurion Cornelius from Caesarea. Here, Cornelius is described as ‘
a
Righteous One
’
and ‘
a
God–Fearer
, one
borne witness to by the whole nation of the Jews
’
(Acts 10:22; cf. 1 Pet. 2:13), much as Felix, merciless butcher of innumerable resistance leaders, is described later in Acts as ‘having very accurate knowledge about
the things of
the Way
’ (24:22). Both assertions are, quite simply, preposterous. The visit Peter makes to Cornelius’ household in Caesarea, where he again explains, ‘
God has taught me not to call any man profane or unclean
’, while the ‘
pious
’ Roman Centurion is ‘
fasting and praying’
(Acts 10:30 – cynicism worthy of Paul above), will be equivalent to the one his namesake, the ‘Simon’ in Josephus, pays to the household of Agrippa I – again in Caesarea. In Acts’ version of these occurrences, not only does Peter assert ‘
that it is unlawful for a Jewish man to keep company with or come near one of another race
’, but he concludes that ‘
in every Nation, he who fears Him or
works Righteousness
is acceptable to Him’ (10:28 and 35).

Unlike Acts’ ‘Peter’, the ‘Simon’ in Josephus
who inspects the household
of Agrippa I in Caesarea, wants to
bar Herodians from the Temple
as unclean, not accept them. Agrippa – whose beneficence and reputation among the Jews Josephus, as we have already remarked, extols – showered this Simon with gifts and then dismissed him. For his part, the ‘Simon’ in Acts learns to make no distinctions between men nor ‘
call any man unclean
’!

But these ‘table fellowship’ scenes in the Gospels are such favourites for precisely the same reason that more obsessive, purity-minded Jews have never comprehended how much foreigners in general instinctively wished to see them discomfited. The man-on-the-street in the world at large – if not in Palestine – wishes for the most part to feel that ‘prostitutes’, ‘tax collectors’, and ‘Sinners’, like himself, are acceptable and rub the faces of the Holier-than-thou, more piously-pretentious types into the mud of everyday existence. The presumably Hellenistic authors of these Gospel scenes seem to have understood this very well and played on it – as Paul obviously did.

What fun it must have been to portray
the Messiah in Palestine
as
keeping company
with such persons, knowing full well the opposite was true and how much types like those at Qumran abhorred them. This is not to mention the latter-day satisfaction they would have derived from having people
actually believe it for nearly two thousand years
had they but been around to enjoy it.

But these scenes have a political edge as well. The Herodians in this period were the Roman tax collectors in Palestine. Their usefulness to Rome in part rested on their effective collection and transmission of revenues. If some spilled off into their own pockets, so much the better. But of course the Herodian Princesses we have thus far encountered were also ‘harlots’, none more so than Bernice, whose ‘Riches’ even Josephus admits were prodigious. There is little doubt that her sister Drusilla – Felix’s ‘Jewish’ wife in these scenes in Acts – was Rich too. Otherwise, apart from her royalty, what would Felix’s interest in her have been?

When Jesus is portrayed as ‘
eating and drinking
… a glutton and a wine-bibber,
a friend of tax collectors and Sinners’
(Mt 11:19 and Lk 7:34) – this right after John the Baptist is portrayed as ‘
neither eating bread, nor drinking wine
’; Scripture is saying that the ‘Jesus’ it is portraying
approved
of such persons. Nor does it picture ‘Jesus’ as fussing over purity regulations – particularly where food is concerned, nor making distinctions between people or nations on such a basis regarding ‘
table fellowship
’ – meaning, Jesus was a ‘
Paulinist’
or
Paul
knew Jesus better
than any of his closest associates!

In fact, as we have remarked, one can almost make a rule of thumb regarding such polemics. Where there is a statement in Paul – who according to his own testimony never met the ‘Jesus’ he is speaking about and had no first–hand knowledge of his teaching – that is echoed in the Gospels; one can assume the progression is from Paul and then into Gospel redaction and not
vice versa
. The unschooled person, innocent of such stratagems and the power of literary or retrospective recreation, normally reverses this.

We have already seen one important such speech above, where Jesus is portrayed as saying: ‘
Not that which enters the mouth makes a man polluted; but that which goes forth out of the mouth, this pollutes a man
’ (Mt 15:11; Mk 7:15). In response to questioning, ‘Jesus’ is portrayed as becoming so agitated that he lists most of the Noahic prohibitions, that is: Evil inclination, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, Lying, blasphemy, covetousness, etc. (Mt 15:19 and Mk 7:22) and, then, adding how ‘
that which goes into the mouth, goes into the belly, and is cast out the toilet bowl
’!

The Gospel redactor, however, grows so effusive on this score that he ends up having Jesus conclude: ‘
These are the things which pollute a man, but eating with unwashed hands
does not make a man unclean
’ (Mt 15:20 and pars.). Because of an ancient artificer’s antinomian bias, poor ‘Jesus’ is pictured as gainsaying what has become for modern hygiene a fundamental rule. Setting aside for the moment the issue of whether the Law is relevant or not, to consider material of this kind either ‘the Word of God’ or ‘a revelation of the Holy Spirit’ is simply absurd. Rather, it is more edifying to regard it as the mischievousness of malevolent polemical interchange.