James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls II (85 page)

It is possible even to draw a parallel to those Josephus is mysteriously picturing as ‘
Idumaeans
’ – identity unknown though at times they seem to be led by someone he calls ‘
Niger of Perea
’.
38
Not only are they clearly ‘
Violent
’, but they are just as clearly in league with those he is designating at this point as ‘
Zealots
’ (in the Qumran documents being referred to either as ‘
the Violent Ones
’ or ‘
the Violent Ones of the Gentiles
’ – at one point even, ‘
the Men-of-War
’) who take vengeance on
the Wicked Priest
for what he did to
the Righteous Teacher
in both the Psalm 37
Pesher
and the Habakkuk
Pesher
39
and who, in the latter, actually appear to attend
the Righteous Teacher
’s or ‘
the Priest
’’s (‘
in whose heart God put the insight to interpret the words of His Servants the Prophets
’) scriptural exegesis sessions.
40

However these things may be, something like the terminology ‘
Benjaminite
’ is clearly circulating in the ‘
Diaspora
’ or ‘
Camps
’ beyond the Jordan and in the Damascus region. Since Paul – when he speaks in Galatians 1:17–18 of ‘
going away into Arabia
’ – has just as clearly spent time in these areas or, in the author’s view, in this
Diaspora
or in these
Camps
, this may pr
o
vide insight into the way Paul and Acts are using the term ‘
Benjamin
’,
41
that is, the same way the War Scroll is using it. How much time Paul actually spent in these areas or ‘
Camps
’ would depend on how one chooses to interpret his reference to the ‘
three years
’ he says elapsed between his going ‘
into Arabia
’ and returning to Damascus and Jerusalem, not to mention the ‘
fourteen
’ additional years he alludes to as the time that elapsed before next he went up to Jerusalem in Galatians 2:1. In the writer’s view, much of this time was spent ‘
in Arabia
’, which in Roman parlance included the areas as far north even as Nort
h
ern Syria and Northern Iraq or Adiabene.

It is also important to note that in the Letter (or Letters) known as
MMT
, some regulations concerning these ‘
Camps
’ are discussed and Jerusalem is specifically denoted as ‘
the Holy Camp
’ and ‘
Chief of the Camps of Israel
’. In our view, as should be by now clear, this
Letter
is in fact the very one
containing James’
directives to overseas communities,
carried down by Judas
Barsabas
and Silas to the Antioch refracted in the somewhat tendentious portrait in Acts 15:22–30.

It should also be noted that in the final triumphant evocation of ‘
the Son of Man’
at the end of the War Scroll, which r
e
peats the whole description of eschatological
rain
and final apocalyptic
Judgement
at the hands of the Heavenly Holy Ones
on the clouds
, God is referred to as ‘
the God of Righteousness
’.
42
At the same time, it is stated that ‘
His is the Power
,
the battle is in His hands
’. Then, too, the wish is expressed that ‘
He
’ or ‘
His Messiah
’ (probably the latter) should ‘
smite the Nations
’ or ‘
the Peoples
,
His Enemies
,
and devour
’ or ‘
consume flesh with His sword
’.
43

We have not only encountered this ‘
eating
’ or ‘
devouring
’ language at the end of Galatians 5:15 when Paul is criticizing those who are misleading his communities with
circumcision
, but this idea of ‘
eating
’ or ‘
consuming
’ will be a fixture of the Habakkuk
Pesher
, particularly in the manner in which the Wicked Priest ‘
consumes
’ or ‘
destroys
’ the Righteous Teacher and the way in which ‘
the
Kittim
(here clearly the Romans) ‘
consume
all Peoples
…
with the sword
’ as well.
44
On the other hand, here in the War Scroll the ‘
sword
’ is rather referred to as ‘
the sword of God
’ – pretty blood-curdling, but probably an accurate depi
c
tion of the desire of this group for Divine Retribution or, as it is often called, ‘
Vengeance
’.
45

In this context, that of blessing God’s
Name
and reference to His ‘
keeping the Covenant with us as of old
’ (‘
keeping the Covenant
’ being the definition of ‘
the Sons of Zadok
’ in the Community Rule
46
), the text now refers to ‘
the Gates of Salv
a
tion
’ (‘
Yeshu
‘
a
’ – that is, in more Hellenized parlance, ‘Jesus’). These last, it claims, have been opened many times in the past.
47
The same usage is basically referred to in the question asked of James, ‘
What is the Gate to Jesus?
’, in all accounts of his pro
c
lamation in the Temple on Passover of this ‘
coming of the Son of Man sitting on the right hand of the Great Power
...
about to come in Glory on the clouds of Heaven
’.
48
So here, then, we have the eschatological link between James’
rainmaking
, his proclamation of ‘
Glory
’, and that of the final apocalyptic War against all Evil on the Earth and the delineation of these things in the War Scroll.

‘
Galilee
’ in the Gospels and the Massacre Conducted by Vespasian there

It is this picture in the War Scroll of the movement ‘
from the camp in the Wilderness
’ or ‘
Desert of the Peoples to the camp in the wilderness of Judea
’ which, in its own way, can be thought of as being transformed in the Gospels to that of J
e
sus’ movement from his baptism and ‘
Temptation in the wilderness
’ northwards – after John, anticipating Jesus, ‘
was delivered up
’ to ‘
the Galilee of the Nations
’ in Matthew 4:15. This, once again, basically also parallels the flight in Mandaean tradition of John’s followers across the Jordan to Haran (‘
Edessa
’ or ‘
Urfa
’) in Northern Syria and after that to Messene in Southern Me
s
opotamia. As the Gospels portray this, ‘
Galilee
’ now becomes the domain of Jesus’ activities, and his Apostles, peaceful ‘
fis
h
ermen
’ (‘
casters of nets and fishers of men
’) around the Sea of Galilee (Matthew 4:18–19 and
pars
.).

In turn, this latter picture plays to a certain extent on that of another character in Josephus’ narrative, ‘
Jesus son of Sapphias
’, the Leader of the
Galilean sailors and fishermen
on the Sea of Galilee at the time of the outbreak of the War with Rome.
49
Accusing him of ‘
fomenting sedition and Revolution
’ (‘
Innovation
’) in Tiberius
– typical of the accusations Josephus makes – Josephus tells how he burned the palace of Herod the Tetrarch (John the Baptist’s murderer and, in our view, the putative ‘
kinsman
’ of Paul in Acts 13:1), because it ‘
contained pictures of animals which was contrary to Law
’. Josephus, fu
r
thermore, claims Jesus also ‘
massacred all the Greek inhabitants there
’.
Curiously Tiberius, which was one of the cities foun
d
ed by Herod Antipas, Tetrarch of Galilee and Perea, and the major city on the Sea of Galilee at this time, is conspicuously missing from Gospel portraits of events there.

Josephus portrays this Jesus and his (Josephus’) own mortal enemy, ‘
a copy of the Laws of Moses in his hands
’ (surely there is a certain amount of sarcastic parody and animosity going on at this point),
as trying to have him
(
Josephus
)
executed as a collaborator.
To add to that, he specifically identifies Jesus’ followers as both ‘
Galileans
’ and ‘
the Poor
’ (or ‘
Poor wretc
h
es
’).
50
Calling him ‘
the Leader of the Brigands
’ (as in Gospel portraits of the two crucified with Jesus and other similar denot
a
tions in his own work, ‘
Lestai
’ again
51
), Josephus can scarcely conceal his delight in describing how Vespasian and Titus came and, in the end, slaughtered many of this Jesus’ followers while they were attempting to ‘
board their boats
’ or ‘
swim out to sea
’ – these last, of course, familiar motifs in Gospel iconography.
52

Jesus and some of his other fishermen or boatmen, it seems, at the approach of the Roman army had already put out on the Lake (more Gospel portraiture?) in their little boats just out of bowshot. For his part, Josephus portrays the scene as fo
l
lows: ‘
Casting down their anchors
,
they closed up their boats one against the other like an army in battle formation and fought their enemy on the shore from the sea
.’
At this point, Titus turned his attention instead to massacring the citizens of Tiberius, guilty and innocent alike. In these engagements, Josephus also accords generous mention to the gallantry of Trajan, the father and namesake of the future Emperor, consistently remarked throughout this picture of warfare in Palestine.
53

Finally the Romans, moving east along the shore of the Lake to another city, Tarichaeae, at its confluence with the Jordan, themselves take to the Lake using bigger rafts. Here they overtake Jesus and his supporters, overturning their boats and spea
r
ing and decapitating so many in the water that ‘
the whole lake was red with blood and covered with corpses
,
for not a man escaped
...
and the beaches were strewn with wrecks and swollen corpses’
.
54
This is the end of Josephus’ picture of the
Galil
e
an
fishermen or boatmen and what happened on the
Sea of Galilee
or ‘
Lake Gennesareth
’ – and this, in contrast to some ot
h
ers,
is clearly an eyewitness
one
!

Following this total collapse, Vespasian, who felt ‘
that nothing against the Jews could be considered an Impiety
’ (
this is ve
r
batim
– there are some others who have since felt the same way),
immediately executed some twelve hundred of the old and infirm
, who had not even participated in the fighting.
Six thousand of the more able-bodied he sent to Nero at Corinth to work on the canal
which Nero was having dug there.
Thirty thousand more he sold himself
and
he gave the remainder to King Agrippa
(
Agrippa II
),
who had originally invited Titus in to deal with the situation around the Sea of Galilee
, since this was part of his domains. Whereupon Agrippa promptly sold them.
This is the man, together with his reputed consort Bernice
– later the mistress of Titus, the destroyer of both the Temple and Jerusalem –
who is presented so sympathetically in Acts and with whom Paul talks so congenially
in Acts 25:13–26:32.
55