James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls I (61 page)

In any event, the episode is really included only to counteract the one, pictured by Paul in Galatians, where Peter is portrayed as withdrawing from ‘
table fellowship
’ with Gentiles when ‘
some from James
’ and ‘
the Party of the circumcision
’ come down to Antioch. It
Paulinizes
Peter, putting the basic elements of the Pauline approach – ‘
food is for the belly and the belly for food
’ and ‘
circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision nothing
’ (1 Cor. 6:13 and 7:19) – into his mouth.

Of course, official history and orthodox doctrine, as presented in the Gospels and the Book of Acts, have a ready response to this. Peter, who denied Jesus three times on his death night (Mt. 26:75 and pars.), simply
misunderstood
the teaching of the Master. In this episode in Acts, the Heavenly Voice that accompanies the descent of the Heavenly tablecloth with its forbidden foods – similar to the Voice Paul is always hearing –
cries out to him three times
before Peter understands the gist of its teaching (Acts 10:16). In the Gospels, Peter sinks into the Sea of Galilee for
lack of Faith
– the quintessentially Pauline position – when trying to replicate Jesus’ miracle of ‘walking on the waters’ (Mt 14:31 and pars.).

In fact, the real Peter shines through, even in the tablecloth episode as it presently stands, in his insistence that ‘
I have never eaten anything profane or unclean
’ (Acts 10:15, repeated with slight rephrasing in 11:8). In effect, this visionary episode puts the overall issue very eloquently when it has Peter explaining to Cornelius and entourage, ‘
You know, it is not Lawful for a Jewish man to have conversation with or come near one of another race
’ (10:28) – thus directly relating it, whether by design or accidentally, to the impetus behind the visit of the ‘
Simon
’ in Josephus,
also to Caesarea
, who rather wants to
exclude Agrippa I from the Temple as a foreigner
.

Confrontations over Circumcision and the End in Acts

‘Circumcision’, too, was the issue complicating both Drusilla’s and Bernice’s marriages to royal personages in Syria and Asia Minor and to Felix – whose brother Pallas stood at the hub of power in Rome. It is also at the heart of Paul’s confrontations in Galatians with those ‘from James’, who came down to press the ‘table fellowship’ issue in Antioch, and Peter’s riposte to ‘
those of the circumcision
’ following his ‘tablecloth’ vision in Acts, which permits him not only to eat with Gentiles, but even to visit the household of a Roman Centurion in Caesarea.

As a result of these interventions, clearly by James, those formerly keeping company with Paul in Antioch, including Peter and Barnabas, ‘
drew back and separated’ themselves ‘for fear of those of the circumcision
’ – this within the Church not outside it. This kind of ban or excommunication by Paul’s Jewish associates – shunning might be more to the point – is a typical Qumran procedure, familiar from the literature there.
16

It should be noted that in the aftermath of this ‘tablecloth’ vision, too, Barnabas is pictured as being sent by ‘the Assembly in Jerusalem’ to Antioch, where Acts observes ‘
the Disciples were first called Christians
’ (Acts 11:26). A series of passages ensues with representatives repeatedly coming down
from Jerusalem to Antioch
, beginning with this one involving ‘Paul and Barnabas’ in 11:22, but also one immediately following having to do with ‘
prophets coming down from Jerusalem to Antioch’
, one of whom has the most peculiar name of ‘Agabus’ – about whom we shall hear more in due course.

The chapter ends with Paul and Barnabas returning again to Jerusalem supposedly on ‘Famine-relief’ operations consonant upon the ‘Prophecy’, by this so-called ‘
Agabus
’, of the Famine (46–48 CE – 11:29). This is totally gainsaid by Paul’s own testimony in Galatians, which has Paul, as we have seen, not returning to Jerusalem – after his initial flight – ‘for another fourteen years’ or approximately 51–52 CE. This is continued into chapter 12 with the totally extraneous information about the elimination of the other ‘
James the brother of John
’, Peter’s miraculous escape from prison and subsequent flight, the completely off-hand introduction of the principal James (‘the brother of Jesus’), and how ‘Herod’ – no further identification given – ‘
being eaten by worms expired
’ (Acts 12:23). But, as usual, nothing about what Barnabas and Paul did in Jerusalem is mentioned during the whole of the chapter – only the laconic observation at its end that, ‘having completed their mission’, they returned to Antioch ‘taking John Mark with them’ (12:25).

Chapter 13 returns to the enumeration of these so-called ‘
prophets and teachers of the Assembly at Antioch
’, including Niger, Paul, and the curious individual called ‘
Herod the Tetrarch’s foster brother
’. Then ensues the confrontation with ‘the Son of Devil’ (‘
Diabolos
’, that is, ‘Belial’) and ‘Enemy of all Righteousness’, Elymus
Magus
, followed by the laconic aside about how ‘John left them and returned to Jerusalem’ (13:13). Finally, in chapter 15, ‘
Certain ones, having come down from Judea, were teaching the brothers that unless you are circumcised according to the Law of Moses, you cannot be saved’
(15:1). This will be the exact point that will emerge in both Josephus’ and Talmudic descriptions of the conversion of Queen Helen of Adiabene’s son somewhere in the region of Haran in Northern Syria by a teacher who finds him reading the Law of Moses.

In Acts’ reckoning, it provokes the so-called ‘Jerusalem Council’, resulting in
the directives James sends in the letter to overseas communities
. Two individuals, identified as Judas Barsabas and Silas – ‘
themselves also prophets
’ – are sent with Paul and Barnabas to convey James’ letter
to ‘the Many’ in ‘Antioch’
(15:30). These matters would appear to be
the real reason behind the break between Paul and Barnabas
who are rather presented as
parting company here because of a rift over ‘John Mark’
– ‘
the man
’, in Paul’s view, ‘
who withdrew from them in Pamphylia and would not share in their work
’ (15:38–39).

Just about everything from Chapters 11-15 in Acts deals with the repetitious theme of
representatives coming down from Jerusalem to Antioch
– mostly spurious and retrospective –
to cover over the rift that occurred in Antioch after Paul’s return from Jerusalem
as told by Paul in Galatians. As is made clear in that Letter and intermittently in Acts,
for the most part these come directly ‘from James’
, dogging Paul’s footsteps over circumcision, table fellowship with Gentiles, and dietary regulations generally.

Paul’s easy-going view of circumcision, no doubt, would have been very convenient for Herodians wishing to marry local kings in Northern Syria and Asia Minor and also well in line with his – and what would appear to be
Herodian
– aims generally in the East:
to build a community where Greeks and Jews could live in harmony
(cf. Gal. 3:2.8, 1 Cor. 3:24, etc.). Chapters 16–21, however, are really simply about one extended journey in Asia Minor and mainland Greece, at the end of which Paul
hurries back to Jerusalem to be in time for the Festival of Pentecost
– apparently the time of reunion of the Community as it is of ‘
the wilderness camps
’ in the Damascus Document of the Dead Sea Scrolls – and runs into the well-known difficulties with James and the Jerusalem mob in the Temple we have been describing.

Where the rest of Acts is concerned, we would contest the picture of ‘the Jews’ from Jerusalem bringing ‘many and weighty charges against Paul’ and Paul’s defence, that ‘
neither against the Law of the Jews, nor against the Temple, nor against Caesar, did I commit any infraction
’ (Acts 25:8). We would also contest Festus’ desire, repeated twice, ‘
to acquire favour(s) with the Jews
’ (25:7–9). Before this, as already observed, Acts has Felix ‘
hoping Paul would give him Riches
’ (24:26). In fact, the situation was just the opposite, and a Jewish delegation went to Rome to complain about Festus as well and, because Festus was less well placed than Felix, they were more successful.
17

Nor is the picture of Paul discoursing in detail about his career and other doctrinal concerns with Agrippa and Bernice, asking the former obsequiously, ‘
King Agrippa, do you believe in the Prophets? I know you believe
’ (26:27) completely without exaggeration. As will be recalled, Agrippa II replies, ‘
A little more, and you would persuade me to become a Christian’ and, nothing loath, Paul responds, ‘I wish to God in no small measure that both of you soon … should become such as I also am
’ (26:28–29). The scene, while no doubt essentially true, is a good example of how far New Testament authors were willing to go in refashioning the fundamentals of ‘
the Messianic Movement’
in Palestine and retouching the image of the ruling élite. This is the point, at which Bernice and Agrippa stand up and say, speaking aside to one another, ‘
This man has done nothing deserving of death or chains
’ and, then to Festus, ‘
If he had not appealed to Caesar, this man could have been set free
’ (26:31–32).

The picture of Paul trying to convert Agrippa II would, no doubt, have sent ‘Messianists’ of the time into paroxysms of derision – just the attitude one finds in the
Pesharim
at Qumran concerning ‘the Lying Spouter’ or ‘Man of Lies’ there. Not only was Agrippa, along with the High Priest he appointed,
responsible for the death of James
,
but the licentious Bernice
– who also appears in this scene –
was the future mistress of Titus
. Both were connected to people like Philo’s nephew, Tiberius Alexander, the Roman Commander at the siege of Jerusalem and, to whose brother, she had previously been married. All, no doubt, were involved in the decision by the Romans
to destroy the Temple
. In fact, Agrippa II had already been involved in the decision to call Cestius’ Roman troops into the city to put down the Uprising four years before. In the end, Agrippa retires along with ‘Traitors’ like Josephus to spend his last days comfortably in Rome.

Not only did the Zealot ‘Innovators’, in the aftermath of this revealing scene in Acts, ban both Agrippa and Bernice from Jerusalem altogether; but, to show their real attitude towards them – and that of ‘Messianic Revolutionaries’ generally –
their palaces were burned in the first days of the Uprising when Josephus tell us these same ‘Innovators’ ‘turned the Poor against the Rich’
. No doubt Paul did confer with Agrippa II, Bernice, and Festus at some length, as he did Felix and Drusilla earlier; but it is doubtful that the picture in Acts is accurate as to the subjects discussed. As we have already suggested, the numerous sessions Paul had with Felix over the ‘two-year’ period detailed in Acts (24:26–27) were doubtlessly
more in the nature of intelligence debriefings than theological or religious discussions
, as Acts attempts to portray them. It was likely during the course of these exchanges that James’ pivotal role among the Jewish mass and at the centre of Messianic agitation in the Temple  and in Jerusalem was made plain by Paul to his Roman and Herodian overlords.

If this is so, then Paul also has a hand in the ‘
conspiracy
’ to destroy and bring about the death of James, which would not be surprising in view of Paul’s manifold differences with him, the manner of his frequent discomfiture by James, and his admitted previous destruction of such Messianic Leaders (1 Cor. 15:9 and Gal. 1:13). Paul would, then, have identified James as the pivotal figure behind the unrest in Jerusalem – certainly among so-called ‘Zealots’ and probably
Sicarii
as well. If James is a parallel figure to and has anything in common with the individual known as ‘the Righteous Teacher’ at Qumran, then this certainly would be the case. In our view, this is the ultimate reason behind James’ demise and why, at one point in the Qumran Habakkuk
Pesher
, the same ‘
swallowing
’ metaphor that is applied to the Wicked Priest’s ‘conspiracy’ to destroy the Righteous Teacher is also applied to ‘
the Liar
’’s activities.
18
Of course, Acts, as usual, reverses this into
a conspiracy
by the Zealots and the High Priests
to destroy Paul
!

One should also remark, when Festus is explaining to Bernice and Agrippa II Paul’s appeal ‘to be examined by Augustus’, how he ‘
found him to have done nothing deserving of death but, because he had appealed to Augustus
’, he decided to send him to Rome (Acts 25:21–25:25).