James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls II (95 page)

As we have been signaling, the ‘
Balaam
’ and ‘
Balak
’ language of the above allusions is just an extension of the
B-L-
‘
/
ballo
circle-of-language – in Hebrew, meaning ‘
to eat
’, ‘
swallow
’, or ‘
consume
’ and used generally at Qumran in the sense of ‘
to d
e
stroy
’;
24
in Greek, ‘
to cast down
’ or ‘
cast out
’, used in the literature we have been examining to express how Jesus’ Apostles ‘
cast down
nets
’ or ‘
cast out
Evil Demons
’ and how James or his stand-in in Acts, ‘
Stephen
’, were either ‘
cast down
’ or ‘
cast out
’ (in Josephus, the latter being used to describe what ‘
the Essenes
’ did to backsliders, that is, ‘
cast them out
’).
25
The transformation of this charge in Revelation from the Damascus Document’s ‘
pollution of the Temple
’ into the more Jamesian ban on ‘
things sacrificed to idols
’ and what Hippolytus’
Sicarii
Essenes
refused
‘
to consume
’
on pain of death
– that is, not Josephus’ ‘
forbi
d
den things
’, but the more Jamesian ‘
things sacrificed to idols
’ – certainly tightens the circle of all these interrelated allusions or aspersions making the reader’s brain, perhaps, spin in dizzying astonishment.
26

For the Pseudoclementines, too, ‘
the baptismal fountain of Jesus extinguishes the fires of sacrifice’
. As the
Recognitions
puts this, not insignificantly, again Peter speaking: ‘
When the time drew near that what was lacking in the regime of Moses should be made up
…
and the Prophet should appear
… (
to
)
warn them ... to cease from sacrificing
.
However
,
lest they
,
therefore
,
suppose that because of the cessation of sacrifice
,
there was no remission of sins for them
,
he instituted water baptism among them in which they might be absolved from all their sins ... and
,
following a Perfect life
,
they might abide in immortality
,
being purified not by the blood of beasts
,
but by the purification of the Wisdom of God
.’
27
Finding ideas of this kind in documents that are supposed to be anti- Pauline, as for instance the Pseudoclementines and the Gospel of the Ebionites are considered to be, certainly is strange. Nevertheless, the documents found at Qumran along with some readings from Josephus can probably provide an answer of sorts to this kind of conundrum.

As we have observed, side-by-side with the ‘
spiritualized atonement
’ imagery of the Community Rule, there are at Qumran also a number of documents and passages convincingly demonstrating that ‘
the Community
’ had a considerable and even an unwavering attachment to
the Temple Law of sacrifice
.
MMT
is a perfect example of this as is the Temple Scroll, which lo
v
ingly dwells over details of Temple sacrifice even more comprehensively. So does the Damascus Document, the only caveat being that, in it, Temple sacrifice must either
be unpolluted
or
presided over by
‘
Righteous
’, ‘
Zadokite
’, and ‘
Perfectly-uncorrupted Priests of Higher Purity
’.
28

The same seems to be true of James personally (not to mention individuals like ‘Peter and John’ along with other Apostles even in the portrait in Acts
29
) who, if our sources are reliable, seems to have
spent most of his earthly existence in the Te
m
ple
.
30
Nor does he hesitate to
send Paul into the Temple
to carry out an obscure ‘
temporary Nazirite-oath
’ procedure of some kind and pay for ‘
four others
’, described as ‘
taking a vow upon themselves
’ (Acts 21:22–26). Compare this with those persons, two chapters later,
now archly referred to as
‘
Jews
’ (23:12), who ‘
put themselves under a curse
(also expressed in Acts 23:14, thereafter, as, ‘
with a curse we have cursed ourselves to taste nothing
’)’,
vowing not to eat or drink till they had killed Paul
’, repeated again in Acts 23:21 – these clearly being ‘
Nazirite
’
Sicarii
Essenes
!

How are we to reconcile these conflicting ideologies and motivations? The answer probably lies in the charge of ‘
unclean pollution
’, in particular, ‘
pollution of the Temple
’, so important to so many documents at Qumran. The very fact that James is sending out admonitions concerning ‘
things sacrificed to idols
’ or ‘
the pollutions of the idols
’ to overseas Communities, i
m
plies that sacrifice was, in fact, still recognized by ‘early Christians’ as well (if indeed, they should be called this) – certainly in Palestine and in Jerusalem, if not elsewhere. That Paul too discusses ‘
things
’ or ‘
food sacrificed to idols
’ and ‘
eating in an idol Temple
’ or ‘
Temple sacrifices
’ – it is the same to him – and ‘
weak
’ people who make problems over such matters, in particular, ‘
consuming the body
’ and ‘
drinking the blood of Christ
’, further reinforces this impression.
31

James’ presence in the Temple from the Forties to the Sixties
CE
– though perhaps with intermittent periods of absence as, for example, the flight to the area of Jericho recorded in the Pseudoclementine
Recognitions
– certainly implies at least a pa
s
sive approval of sacrifice procedures there, regardless of whether he felt this was the best way of proceeding or not. So does his
sending Paul into the Temple
, as just remarked,
as a penance of some sort to himself sacrifice
(a demonstration, as he is quoted in Acts 21:24, that Paul himself still ‘
walks in an orderly Way
,
keeping the Law
’ – a patent misapprehension) and
pay for the sacrifices of four others
under
a
Nazirite
oath there
– obviously a very costly procedure even as it is portrayed in Acts. We take this episode to be historical and, clearly, there is no real, absolute disapproval of sacrifices being registered. The liter
a
ture found at Qumran, despite poetic imagery that may sometimes suggest the contrary, appears to follow a similar approach.

The True
Sons of Zadok
: ‘
A High Priest of Greater Purity
’ and ‘
Higher Righteousness
’

So what then lies behind these conflicting notices? The situation appears to have been twofold. What seems to have been happening is that, when the Temple was perceived of
as ‘polluted
’ by
Unrighteous Priests doing service at the altar
as, for i
n
stance,
the Herodian
High Priesthood
(
though not the Maccabean
),
accepting gifts and
/
or sacrifices on behalf of Romans and other foreigners in the Temple
, the issue that triggered the Uprising against Rome,
32
or when that service was otherwise inte
r
rupted, then another form of intercession or repentance was preferred.

This is exactly what Paul is implying with regard to his references to the ‘
well-pleasing
’
odour of contributions
in Philipp
i
ans 4:18,
even on the part of
‘
the Holy Ones
’ or ‘
Saints
’
in Caesar
’
s household
in 4:22 above. When it was not perceived of as ‘
polluted
’ or
interrupted
, that is, when there was a ‘
Righteous
’ or, shall we say, ‘
Zadokite Priesthood
’ doing service at the altar as per the parameters of Hebrews and the Dead Sea Scrolls, then sacrifice seems to have been approved of. This, too, is exac
t
ly what is implied in the Scrolls with their charge of ‘
pollution of the Temple
’, one of ‘
the Three Nets of
Belial
’ or one of the sins of the reigning Priestly Establishment, in our view, founded and promoted by
Herodians
– even by Herod himself. As Hebrews puts this, ‘
a High Priest
,
Holy
,
innocent
,
unpolluted
,
separated
from Sinners
’, who has ‘
become Higher than the Hea
v
ens
’ (7:26).

We have been documenting the agitation that broke out after the death of Herod, and even before, by ‘
the Innovators
’ (as Josephus often calls them) or ‘
proto-Zealots
’, who from 4
BCE
–7
CE
were already demanding ‘
a High Priest of greater purity
’ or ‘
Piety
’ or, if one prefers, ‘
a High Priest of Higher Righteousness
’.
33
This is, of course, also the demand being made in H
e
brews in its understanding of the language embodied in the circumlocution ‘
a Priest forever after the order of Melchizedek
’ (in Hebrew, literally meaning, ‘
King of Righteousness
’ – Hebrews 5:6/7:17, quoting Psalm 110:4) and ‘
loving Righteousness
’ (H
e
brews 1:9, quoting Psalm 45:7).

But the demand for ‘
a High Priest of greater purity
’ or ‘
Piety
’ did not just begin in these events from 4
BCE
–7
CE
, cons
o
nant with the birth of ‘
Christ Jesus
’, as Paul would put it and as portrayed in Matthew and Luke. In fact, just as Josephus po
r
trays the ‘
Zealot
’ or ‘
Sicarii
’ Movement in the
Antiquities
as beginning with
the Census
and the arguments of ‘
Judas and Sadduk
’ with Joezer ben Boethus over the
tax issue
in 7
CE
, for Luke 2:1–3, in another curious overlap that cries out for attention, it is the birth of ‘
the Messiah
’ that takes place at this moment.
34
In other words, whereas for Josephus it is the ‘
Zealot
’/
Sicarii
Movement
(moved as it was – as he admits at the end of the
War
– by the Messianic
Star
Prophecy) that begins, in the New Testament, in particular Luke, for all intents and purposes it is ‘
Christianity
’ with the birth of its
Messiah
that begins at this moment, a peculiar congruence. But this demand for such an incorrupt High Priest was already, either implicitly or overtly, part of the events that produced the Maccabean Uprising, when there was also just such a struggle between ‘
Righteous
’
High Priests
and ‘
Ungodly
’, ‘
backsliding
’
ones
and sacrifice in the Temple was, even, for a time interrupted.