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

It is possible to argue that we have in this notice about the order of these post-Resurrection sightings the actual notice about a post-Resurrection appearance by ‘Jesus’ to James. If one deletes the first part of this notice about appearances to ‘Cephas’, ‘the Twelve’, and ‘five hundred brothers at the same time’, leaving only the second about first ‘
to James, then to all the Apostles, and last of al
l’ to Paul, then
this is a first appearance to James
. Nor does the second half of this testimony, taken by itself, contradict previous notices in the letter about ‘the brothers of the Lord’, Barnabas, and Cephas traveling around with women, nor about James being reckoned ‘
among the Apostles
’ in Galatians – nor, for that matter, the other brothers of Jesus as Apostles which, later we shall show to be the clear implication of Gospel ‘Apostle’ lists and other sources.

In fact, the evidence of a first appearance to James
does
exist in apocryphal Gospels, early Church testimony, and can be ascertained to some extent in Gospel presentations even as we have them. This is, of course, just what we would expect in light of the contention in the Gospel of Thomas about Jesus’
direct
appointment of James: ‘
Jesus said to them
(‘the Disciples’),
in the place where you are to go
(paralleling John 20:19 above),
go to James the Just, for whose sake Heaven and Earth came into existence
’ (
thus
!), or, for that matter, in the same vein as we saw in the Pseudoclementine
Recognitions
, that ‘
the Church of the Lord, which was constituted in Jerusalem, was most plentifully multiplied and grew, being governed with the most Righteous ordinances by James who was ordained Bishop in it by the Lord
’ (1.43).

In addition to these, both Apocalypses of James from Nag Hammadi contain numerous allusions that, not only make this direct appointment implicit, but even a tradition of a first appearance to James ‘
on the mountain
’ – called, for some reason Golgotha (‘
Gaugelan
’), but meaning most probably the Mount of Olives. Here Jesus is not only presented as naming James ‘
the Just One
’, but kissing him on the mouth (1 Apoc. Jas. 5.29–32), obviously a ‘
Disciple Jesus loved
’ if there ever was one. This is just what we would expect if James was, indeed, the
first successor
to his brother in Palestine, ‘the Bishop of the Jerusalem Church’, and ‘the Bishop of Bishops’ of ‘Christianity’ worldwide – whatever might have been meant by this term at this point in its pre-Pauline embodiment. Actually, the Qumran documents would be a better approximation of what this was – at least in Palestine – than anything in the Pauline corpus or the Gospels and the Book of Acts dependent on this corpus.

But in Jerome’s testimony to James in
Lives of Illustrious Men
, he is sentient as ever in understanding the implications of Paul’s testimony in Galatians 1:19, to wit, ‘
none of the other Apostles did I see, except James the brother of the Lord
’. This Jerome actually quotes and he was the first to develop, in any systematic manner, the idea that the brothers of Jesus
were
Apostles which has become more or less received doctrine in Catholicism – at least for those informed of Jerome’s works. In doing so, he quotes ‘
the Gospel according to the Hebrews
’, which he claims to have translated in its entirety both into Greek and Latin and which he says Origen also used two centuries earlier.

This Gospel, which Jerome also calls ‘
the Jewish Gospel
’, seems to have been called by others ‘the
Gospel of the Nazoraeans
’, but it is unclear if the two are really distinct. The same can be said about the Gospel Epiphanius identifies as being in use among ‘
the Ebionites
’ which he also calls ‘
the Gospel of the Hebrews
’. Scholars generally refer to these as three distinct Gospels, but their relationship is impossible to determine on the basis of the data available to us – nor is it clear that they were ever really separate at all.

Jesus’ First Appearance to James in the Gospel of the Hebrews

As Jerome reports it, this Gospel contained a slightly different picture of the baptismal scene than the one in Epiphanius. It should be observed that, despite the low opinion in which Epiphanius is usually held; in the matter of adoptionist baptism, the version he provides preserves
more original material
and, given the doctrines of these groups,
makes more sense
than that which one finds in orthodox Scriptures. Where the first appearance to James is concerned, according to Jerome’s testimony, ‘
after the account of the resurrection of the Saviour, it was recorded in the Gospel according to the Hebrews
’:

But the Lord, after he had
given his
linen clothes
to the Servant of the Priest (i.e. the High Priest – for once, this is accurate!),
went to James and appeared to him
. For James had sworn that he would not
eat bread
from that hour in which he
drank the Cup of the Lord
until he should see him rising again from
those that sleep
(of course, this is something of the situation recorded in Luke’s narrative of ‘Jesus’’ appearance ‘
on the way to Emmaus
’ to ‘
Cleopas
’ and an unnamed other – 24:13-27
)
.
13

Besides our ‘
linen clothes
’ motif again, there are several important symbolisms here. One is the ‘
Cup
’ symbolism, which we have already demonstrated to be in use at Qumran, particularly where
the description of the death of the Righteous Teacher and the retribution visited on the Wicked Priest
are concerned. This ‘Cup’ imagery is combined at Qumran with that of the ‘Anger’ or ‘Wrath of God’, so much so that playful word-play develops between the two words in Hebrew, ‘Cup’ (
Chos
) and ‘Anger’ or ‘Wrath’ (
Cha‘as
), which God will ‘
pour out
’ on those responsible for
the destruction of the Righteous Teacher and ‘the Poor’
(
Ebionim
)
with him
.
14
This, in turn, is recapitulated in Revelation in terms of ‘
the wine of the Wrath of God
which is
poured out full strength
into the Cup of His Anger’ (15:10). The ‘
pouring
’ imagery, here, again inverts that being used relative to ‘
the Lying Spouter
’ at Qumran – ‘
Spouter
’, it will be appreciated, being based on the Hebrew root for ‘
pouring
’.

In this regard, one should recall, too, its use in Acts to denote the all-important ‘
pouring out upon them
’ of the Pauline ‘
Holy Spirit
’ at Pentecost (Acts 2:43 and 10:45). For Paul, too – and the Gospels – this language will also have implications for the ‘
pouring out
’ of the blood of Christ, now to be drunk in ‘
the Cup of the New Covenant in (his) blood
’. ‘
Cup
’ imagery, as used above, to signal death is also present in Gospel accounts of ‘
the Cup
’ which
John and James
– ‘the two sons of Zebedee’ –
will drink
(Mt 20:22–23 and Mark 10:38–39).

Also note the Nazirite oath-style ‘
swearing
’ not to
eat or drink
in the Gospel of the Hebrews account of James’ behaviour after Jesus’ death which – aside from the ‘Emmaus Road’ episode, already noted above – is similar to that of the would-be assassins of Paul in Acts 23:12, who ‘
put themselves under a curse swearing not to eat or drink until they have killed Paul
’. These oaths ‘
not to eat or drink
’ are important. After the fall of the Temple, many were taking such oaths in mourning for the Temple and putting themselves under a penance of some kind
‘not to eat or drink
’, presumably,
till they should see it rebuilt
. So concerned were the Rabbis about such ‘
Nazirite
’-style penances that, as we shall see, they attempted to discourage them in Judaism thereafter by designating those taking them as ‘
Sinners
’.

In doing so, they seem to be associating such oaths with the disaster of the destruction of the Temple and the fall of Jerusalem which had befallen the People. Still, a thousand years later, the Spanish-Jewish traveler, Benjamin of Tudela, not only claims there were large numbers of
Jewish Rechabites
in Arabia in ‘
Thema
’ or ‘
Tehama
’ north of Yemen – clearly ‘Taima’ in today’s Saudi Arabia – who were in
a perennial state of fasting and wearing only black
, i.e., ‘
mourning for Jerusalem and mourning for Zion
’. As he describes it, these were taking oaths (in the
Jamesian
manner) ‘
to eat no meat and abstain from wine
’ and ‘
living in caves or makeshift houses
’. This testimony is so unexpected and original it is hard to believe he just made it up out of whole cloth – one of the usual standards one applies for authenticity.

Jerome continues:

And again a little later (‘later’ in this narrative of
a first appearance to James in the Gospel of the Hebrews
), it says, ‘“Bring a table and bread,” the Lord said.’ And immediately it is added: ‘He took the bread, blessed it, and breaking it,
gave it to James the Just
, saying to him, “
My brother
, eat your bread, for
the Son of Man is risen from among those that sleep
.”’

Again one should remark the similarity of this to ‘Last Supper’ narratives of Jesus announcing ‘
the New Covenant
’ (Mt 26:26–29 and pars.), but also the appearance to the unnamed other in Luke’s ‘Road to Emmaus’narrative to say nothing of
the kind of vows reported of James
in all early Church sources above – of lifelong
abstinence from strong drink, animal flesh, and sexual activity
. These themes, centering around
abstention from ‘food and drink
’ or ‘
partaking of these with the Risen Christ
’, will proliferate in stories relating to post-Resurrection appearances to Jesus’ family members – particularly ‘
his brothers
’.

Jerome directly follows this notice about Jesus ‘
breaking bread’ and ‘giving it to James the Just’ to eat
to commemorate his ‘
rising from among those that sleep’
(the kind of expression also found in the Pseudoclementines) with his own details about how James ‘
was buried near the Temple, from which he had been cast down, his tombstone with its inscription being well-known until the siege of Titus and the end of Hadrian’s Reign
’(which, of course, somewhat
gainsays the possibility of a
‘
James Ossuary
’ in the present generation) In this context, Jerome contends James ‘
ruled the Church in Jerusalem for thirty years until the Seventh Year of Nero
’, thereby dating James’ rule from the early 30’s and reinforcing, however circuitously, the impression that James was appointed by ‘Jesus’ himself and that
his succession was direct
.

Most commentators, embracing the picture of Peter’s intervening Leadership in Acts, would allow James only a twenty-year reign from the early 40’s. All of this, however, is dependent on an accurate date for the crucifixion of Jesus, which cannot be determined with any precision on the basis of the available evidence. Josephus even seems to imply a date of about 35–6 for Herod Antipas’ execution of John which, in the Gospels,
precedes the execution of ‘Jesus’
!

Aside from this additional motif of ‘
rising from among those that sleep
’, one should remark the tell-tale use of the ‘
Son of Man
’ terminology again – always interesting in view of its connection to James’ like-minded proclamation of this conceptuality in the Temple at Passover in all early Church accounts of the run-up to his own death.

The Picture of the Orthodox Apostles as Fishermen in the Gospels

It is also useful to compare this account in the Gospel of the Hebrews of Jesus’
first
appearance to James with all the others in the Canonical Gospels incorporating this theme of ‘
breaking bread
’ and ‘
eating with
’ Jesus after his resurrection or his appearance to the Apostles while ‘
they were reclining
’ or ‘
eating
’ – or, in fact ‘
eating
’ generally, which, as we discovered, is perhaps
the
crucial theme.

The most important of these – aside from that on ‘
the Emmaus road
’ at the end of Luke – occurs in the Gospel of John following the famous ‘
doubting Thomas
’ episode. Thomas ‘
called
Didymus
(
the Twin
),
one of the Twelve
’ (20:24) is
absent
from among ‘
the Disciples
’, just as ‘Judas
Iscariot
’
is
absent
from the conclaves of ‘the Eleven’ following Jesus’ death in the Synoptics, but for completely different reasons. ‘Judas’ is absent because he ‘betrayed’ Jesus (cf. John 13:2 and pars.) subsequently allegedly committing suicide!

These references to ‘
Judas
’ have been understood as pejorative (the last notice about whom in John seems to be Jn 18:5: ‘
And Judas who betrayed him was standing with them too
’ – here our ‘
standing
’ vocabulary again – his place seemingly taken by ‘
Thomas called Didymus, one of the Twelve
’ in 20:24 above), just as those to ‘
Thomas
’ who is popularly referred to as ‘
doubting
’. The reason for this is because he ‘
will not
believe
’ until he has actually
put his finger into the nail holes in Jesus’ hands
(John 20:25). This is accompanied by the aspersion (‘Jesus’ responding to ‘Thomas’) – again using Pauline vocabulary – ‘You have (only)
believed
because
you have seen me
, Thomas, but
blessed are they that have not seen and still have believed
’ (Jn 20:29).

Not only should one note, here, the emphasis on the Pauline ideology of how ‘
belief in Jesus saves one
’, but it should be clear that this now retrospectively even confirms Paul’s own ‘belief’ itself, not to mention that of his communities. Again, it should be appreciated that Paul
never actually
saw Jesus
or, if he did,
saw him
as
Thomas is depicted as doing here
–
after his resurrection
.

It should be kept in mind that both ‘
Didymus Thomas
’(‘Twin Twin’) and ‘Judas
Iscariot
’
– who seems to give way to ‘
Thomas
’ in John – are probably connected in some manner with the members of Jesus’ family itself and, where ‘Thomas’ anyhow is concerned, tradition conserves the name of ‘
Judas
’ for him too. Where ‘
Judas
’ is concerned, not only does John at one point even call him ‘
the
Iscariot
’, making it clear that this has to be considered
a title not a name
(14:22 – the closest cognate being ‘
Sicarios
’); but, unlike the other Gospels, John four times refers to him as ‘
of Simon Iscariot
’
(6:71, 12:4, 13:2 and 13:26).

This has always been interpreted as ‘
Simon Iscariot’s son
’, but we shall presently see the relationship of this to another ‘
Apostle
’, around whose name confusion abounds, ‘
Simon the Zealot
’ or ‘
Simon the
Cananaean
’ – with regard to whom, one should keep in mind the interchangeability of these ‘son’ or ‘brother’ allusions in the Greek, all equally implied by the genitive construction ‘of’. This individual, too, we shall ultimately identify as
one of
Jesus’ brothers
.

However this may be, following this appearance to the so-called ‘
doubting Thomas
’, Jesus next ‘
manifests himself again to the Disciples
’ (Judas
Iscariot
, of course, now missing even in John) at what John – but not the other Gospels – calls ‘
the Sea of Tiberias
’ (21:1). Here ‘
Thomas
’ is among ‘
the Disciples
’
about to go fishing in the sea
. These include Simon Peter, Nathanael (never mentioned in the Synoptic Gospels), the sons of Zebedee, and ‘
two others of his Disciples
’ (John 21:2). Just as Jesus had just ‘
stood among them
’ in the room in the preceding episode, now ‘
Jesus
stood on the shore
’ and asked the Disciples – whom he also calls ‘
little children
’ – for food, instructing them to ‘
cast
(
balete
)
the net
to the right side of the boat’ (21:4–6 – both the ‘
net
’ and ‘
casting
’ vocabulary once more). Simon Peter, who ‘
was naked
,
put on his upper garment
and
cast himself
(
ebalen
– though why he would do this is hard to understand)
into the sea
’ (21:7).

Not only do we have our ‘
casting out
’/‘
casting down
’ vocabulary repeated
three times
in as many verses, but now it is joined to that of the ‘
net
’ – repeated
four times
in six verses (21:6–12). This is not to mention the references to the two ‘sons of Zebedee’ and the ‘two’ unnamed Disciples – who will be important for sorting out additional problems related to the issue of ‘
the
brothers
’ presently – nor the curiousness of why ‘Peter’ would ‘
put on his upper garment to cast himself into the sea
’!

It will be recalled that in the Damascus Document – not to mention its expansion in the ‘
Balaam
’/‘
Balak
’ episode in Revelation – it is Belial who ‘
casts a net
’ before the Sons of Israel, catching them in the ‘
Three Nets
’ of
fornication, Riches, and pollution of the Temple
. For Revelation, ‘
Balaam teaches Balak
– all variations of this
ba–la–‘a
-language circle having to do with ‘
the Devil
’ (‘
Diabolos
’ in Greek) or ‘
Devilishness
’ –
to cast
(
balein
)
a net before the sons of Israel to eat the things sacrificed to idols and to commit fornication
’ (Rev. 2:14). Both of these are the essence of James’ instructions to overseas communities – not to mention forming, perhaps, the central focus of the Qumran Letter(s) called ‘
MMT
’. By now, this should be clear.

All this language having to do with ‘Devilishness’ and ‘casting’, whether in Hebrew or Greek, has a strong pejorative tone. We have already seen this in the ‘
swallowing
’ language in the Scrolls which is the Hebrew root of both the names, ‘
Belial
’ and ‘
Balaam
’ and the ‘
casting down
’ language applied to James’ death in our Greek sources. But when the New Testament playfully applies this language and its variations either to Jesus’ choosing his core Apostles or to his post-resurrection appearances to them, or both, the result is to trivialize this language – reducing it to farce.

Thus ‘
the Apostles
’, inverting the use of ‘
Belial
’ in the Dead Sea Scrolls (‘
Beliar
’ in Paul – 2 Cor. 6:5), become peaceful ‘
fishermen
’ on the Sea of Galilee ‘
casting down their nets
’. In other appointment episodes, as we have seen, they are given the ‘
Authority to
cast out
(
ekballo
) demons’ – like ‘the Essenes’ do backsliders or ‘the Zealots’ do to James’ destroyer Ananus’ body, when they ‘
cast it out
’ (again
ekballo
)
naked
from the walls of Jerusalem as food for jackals.

In the Synoptic Gospels, however, this episode, depicting the principal Apostles as ‘
fishermen
’, occurs
before
Jesus’ resurrection – when ‘Jesus’
calls
two pairs of brothers along the Sea of Galilee
– not
after
it. These are ‘
Simon who is called Peter
’ and ‘
his brother
’, now denoted as ‘
Andrew
’ (in Greek ‘
Andrew
’ means ‘
Man
’ – a variation of ‘
the First Man
’ or ‘
Primal Adam
’-ideology once again?), and ‘
the other two brothers, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother’
(Mt 4:18–22 and pars.).