James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls II (43 page)

Not only do we have here the matter of the poorly-explained issue of why
Judas
’ ‘
wages
’ or ‘
hire
’
would not be acceptable in the Temple,
but also the issue of
the
‘
price of blood
’, in this instance carrying the additional meaning of ‘
menstrual blood
’ which was so abhorrent to the priest class – to say nothing of the people generally – and, once again,
a key concern of the Damascus Document from Qumran
.
19
Just as important is the additional play in the amount of ‘
three hundred dinars
’ for ‘
the measure of ointment of pure spikenard of great value
’ of John 12:5 (in Mark 14:3, ‘
alabaster flask of ointment of pure spik
e
nard of great value
’) on the Talmudic tradition citing ‘
four hundred dinars
’ as the allowance provided by the Rabbis for Nakdimon’s daughter Miriam’s/Mary’s ‘
daily perfume basket
’. In Lamentations
Rabbah
, even this is augmented by another hundred dinars, as we saw, to ‘
five hundred dinars
’ which, in turn, suggests the ‘
four
’ to ‘
five thousand
’ augmentations in the number of followers Jesus is pictured as feeding – in Matthew 15–16/Mark 6–8 as well – in the several ‘
multiplication of loaves
’/‘
wilderness exodus
’ episodes which we shall presently examine in more detail below.
20

This ‘
dinar
’ theme will reappear over and over again in these Talmudic narratives about these various
Rich
daughters. So will the one related to it about ‘
levirate marriage
’, implied in the Rabbis having to provide ‘
maintenance
’ or an ‘
allowance
’ to support these ‘
widows
’. As we shall see further below, this will have to do not only with Nakdimon’s daughter ‘
Miriam
’, but Boethus’ daughter ‘
Martha
’ – the issue of ‘
the
levir
’ being of particular importance where the remarriages of both were co
n
cerned.
Nor do a ‘
hundred dinars
’ matter very much as the valuations of these
precious
‘
perfumes
’, ‘
spikenards
’, or ‘
ointments
’ move from one tradition to the other. In these overlaps and interdependencies it is always useful to remark the
Talmud
’s this-worldly earthiness – or what some would call its vulgarity or crassness; others, reality (particularly noticeable in the above story about Jesus’ opinion of ‘
the High Priest
’
s privy
’, which is actually quite funny) – as opposed to the New Testament’s more idealized and Hellenized other-worldliness which, no doubt, accounts for its enduring appeal despite the obviously secondary nature of many of its traditions.

The points concerning this cluster of usages stemming from Nakdimon’s
rainmaking
, his and his colleague Ben Kalba Sabu
‘
a’s extravagant
Riches
, and their daughters’ or daughters-in-law’s
expensive perfumes
are so important that it would also be well to look at them again with more precision. It is important to do so, not only because they are so complex, but because they bear to some extent both on how the Gospel narratives themselves were put together, but also, as it will turn out, the d
e
tails of the preparation of Jesus’ body, his tomb and, as we shall finally suggest, even perhaps the legendary ‘
Tomb of St James
’.

In these Rabbinic traditions paralleling Luke’s ‘
a certain Rich Man clothed in purple and fine linen who used to feast every day in splendor
’, the third of this trio or quartet of fabulously ‘
Rich
’ individuals in Jerusalem’s last days, ‘
Ben Zizzit
’
was su
p
posedly so characterized because he used
to lie at the head of the Great Ones of Israel on a silver couch
.
21
Not only does this incorporate a pun on his cognomen ‘
Hakkeset
’ which, depending on how it is transcribed, can either mean ‘
cushions
’/‘
couch
’ (
keset
) or ‘
seat
’ (
kise
), but it can also be seen as involving a play on the ‘
silver
’ (
kesef
) or ‘
silversmith
’ motifs. Elsewhere, it was rather Nakdimon’s daughter who supposedly ‘
needed an allowance of four
’ or ‘
five hundred dinars daily just for her perfume basket
’, whose ‘
couch was overlaid with a spread worth twelve thousand dinars
’.
22

In the
ARN
‘
Ben Zizzit
’ is rather called ‘
Sisit Hakkeset
’, but the play is still clearly on the word
keset
which can mean either ‘
cushions
’ or ‘
couch
’ as we just saw. In
Gittin
(the Talmudic Tractate on ‘
Divorce
’) however, where he is called ‘
Ben Zizzit Hakeseth
’, the interpretation is provided, as previously signaled, that this was
because
‘
his fringes (
zizzit
) used to trail on cus
h
ions
’, so the play is on both the fact of ‘
his fringes
’ and their ‘
trailing on cushions
’. But there the important addition appended: ‘
Others say he derived the name from the fact that his seat
(
kise
)
was among the Nobility
(or ‘
Great Ones
’)
of Rome’
,
23
which varies the one on ‘
lying at the head of the Great Ones of Israel on a silver couch
’ just noted with regard to him. Whoever he was, however, he was clearly
an Establishment person of some kind
.

Nevertheless in this cluster of traditions, whether evoking Nakdimon, his colleagues
Ben Zizzit
and
Ben Kalba Sabu
‘
a,
or the Rich Herodian High Priest
Boethus
, it cannot be emphasized too often that their daughters or daughters-in-law are almost always named ‘
Miriam
’ (Mary) or ‘
Marta
’ (Martha).
Boethus
, whose daughter
Martha
is actually described in these traditions as ‘
one of the Richest women in Jerusalem
’, seems to have had his grandiose family tomb in the Kedron Valley beneath the Pi
n
nacle of the Temple from which James, according to early Church tradition, ‘
was cast down
’.
24
It is perhaps not unrelated that this same tomb, as already remarked, has always been referred to, for some reason, in early Christian pilgrimage tradition as well as ‘
the Tomb of St James
’.
25
This clan (called ‘
the Boethusians
’), which Herod imported from Egypt in the previous ce
n
tury after executing his Maccabean wife, the first
Mariamme
/
Miriam
/or
Mary
, and marrying the second, the next
Mariamme
or
Mary
of that generation, was therefore always absolutely beholden to the Herodian family and the Establishment Herod had created.

Mary’s Perfume Allowance and Martha’s Spice Puddings

In further traditions about this Nakdimon’s daughter or his daughter-in-law (we will see an additional parallel to these
daughter
s in the case of the
Syrophoenician woman
’
s daughter
out of whom Jesus
casts
an evil spirit
or
demon
below),
ARN
specifies the actual reason the Rabbis were supervising her allowance, namely, ‘
she was awaiting a decision by the
levir
’ – mea
n
ing
the decision by her deceased husband’s brother to allow her as a widow to remarry
(the concomitant being, of course, that she was obviously without children at this point otherwise the procedure would have been unnecessary).

This is patently another theme that will reappear in New Testament tradition, most famously in John the Baptist’s protests over Herodias’ marriage to Herod Antipas, to which picture we would most strenuously object. It was also probably the re
a
son for all these ‘
widow
’/‘
in-law’
confusions in the first place. In the case of Herodias’ remarriage, for starters, this is presen
t
ed as having taken place
after a divorce
– which was probably true, because her various
uncle
s, as it were, were vying with each other for this connection since Herodias’ brother, Agrippa I, was on his way towards becoming the first
Herodian
King since their grandfather’s demise forty years before, and theirs was the preferred line within the family carrying Maccabean blood through their grandmother
Mariamme
(the first of these ‘
Mary
’s just mentioned above) – so it is not clear if the issue of ‘
lev
i
rate marriage
’ ever applied.

In the second place, already explained too, Herodias had not
previously been married to anyone called
‘
Philip
’
at all
. In fact, she seems to have been married to another son of Herod,
also called
‘
Herod
’ (the son of Herod’s second or ‘
Boethusian
’ wife, also named
Mariamme
)
and another of her uncles
. The
Philip
involved in the story actually did – according to Josephus who makes a special point of it, the only point he does make concerning him –
die childless
and in any event,
actually was r
a
ther married to Herodias
’
daughter Salome
!
26
In Salome’s case, her remarriage to another close
cousin
, the son of Agrippa I’s brother – also called
Herod
as we have seen, this one ‘
Herod of Chalcis
’ – and possibly that ‘
Aristobulus
’ Paul refers to so congenially in Romans 16:10 before mentioning
Herodion
(‘
the Youngest Herod
’ – probably Herod VI, their son) –
probably did involve the issue of levirate marriage!

But the parameters surrounding John’s objections to Herodias’ divorce and remarriage to another of her uncles, Herod Antipas probably should have been the proscriptions detailed in principal Dead Sea Scrolls over the more integrally-connected issues of
marriage with nieces
,
polygamy
,
and
– particularly where such
Princes
or
Princesses
were concerned –
divorce
,
ma
r
riage with non-Jews
,
close family cousins
,
and the like
.
27

In the
Talmud
, the traditions about this much-derided daughter of Nakdimon become even more absurd. Instead of the ‘
four hundred
’ or ‘
five hundred dinars
’ she needs ‘
for her perfume basket daily
’, in
Kethuboth
– in the same context of ‘
waiting for the
levir
’ – she or Boethus’ daughter Martha are now said to need ‘
a Tyrian gold dinar every Sabbath evening
(here our ‘
d
i
nar
’ theme again as well as the ‘
weekly’/‘daily
’ one, together with a new one – that of ‘
Tyre
’)
just for sweetmeats
’ or ‘
spice puddings
’ as we saw.
28
Even the reference to ‘
Tyrian
’ or ‘
Tyre
’ here will have its ramifications for allusions in Matthew and Mark to the same locale in their account of Jesus’ encounter with the
Canaanite
/
Greek Syrophoenician woman
and
her daug
h
ter
, to say nothing of ‘
Sidon and Tyre
’ elsewhere in Synoptic allusion.
It can also possibly be connected in Christian tradition to the story about Simon
Magus
and
the consort with the curious name of
‘
Helen
’
he was reported to have found
‘
in a brothel of Tyre
’, itself, in turn, possibly bearing elements of the story of ‘
Queen Helen of Adiabene
’, not to mention the issue of her ‘
suspected
’
alleged adultery
.