James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls I (5 page)

The Direct Appointment or Election of James

Whether James succeeded to this leadership by direct appointment of Jesus, or he was elected by the Apostles, is disputed in the sources. However he emerged, such a succession seems to have been connected with the sequence of the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus to his Disciples, as depicted in the literature, or, as Eusebius puts it, following Clement of Alexandria, the order in which ‘the tradition of Knowledge’ was accorded individual leaders.
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There are lost resurrection traditions that accorded precedence even in this to James, despite attempts to obliterate them. One of these, found in the first post-resurrection appearance episode in the Gospel of Luke, depicts Jesus as appearing to ‘
Clopas
’ – that is, Simeon bar Cleophas or his father – together with an unnamed companion, possibly James, on the Emmaus road outside Jerusalem. A second is certainly to be found in 1 Corinthians 15:7, where Paul confirms an appearance to James and ‘last of all’ himself. In the former at least, if not in the latter, we have unassailable evidence of a tradition according precedence in the matter of the first appearance to a member or members of Jesus’ family – ‘
Clopas
’, according to extant tradition, being, at the very least,
Jesus’
uncle
. Interestingly enough, this appearance takes place in the environs of Jerusalem, not in Galilee as most other such Gospel renditions.

In addition, other early traditions actually speak in terms of a
direct
appointment of James by Jesus.
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As opposed to this, early Church traditions via Clement mention an election of James. Whatever the conclusion, there can be no doubt that James was the actual successor in Palestine.

Finally, there is the Letter ascribed to James in the New Testament, which Eusebius considered spurious. Despite its Jewish apocalyptic character
and in spite of its purportedly late appearance on the scene, it was evidently
imbued with such prestige that it could not be excluded from the canon. It can be shown to be a direct riposte to points Paul makes in his Letters to the Romans, Corinthians, and Galatians. Even if this is not sufficient to consider it authentic, its doctrines are enough like those of the Historical James, reconstructable from other sources, to contend that it at the very least represents authentic Palestinian tradition.

The antiquity of its materials can also now be confirmed by reference to its many parallels to doctrines in the Dead Sea Scrolls, not available previously. It also lacks the Gnostic tendencies so prevalent in later documents featuring the person of James. In it, too, the Temple would seem to be still standing and the catastrophe that was soon to overwhelm Jewish life in Palestine has seemingly not yet occurred. At present, opinions concerning it show a greater flexibility in their willingness to come to grips with at least the possibility of its authenticity.

Given its manifest parallels with the documents from Qumran, with which it makes an almost perfect fit, and doctrines attributable to the person of James from other sources, it has to be considered a fairly good reflection at least of the ‘Jamesian’ point of view. In fact, apart from the Pauline corpus and the ‘We Document’, on which – as we shall see – the second part of Acts is based, and a few worrisome phrases such as ‘the Perfect Law of Freedom’ (Jas. 1:25 and 2:12), it is one of the most homogeneous, authentic, and possibly even earliest pieces in the New Testament corpus.

There are also two Apocalypses attributed to James in the Nag Hammadi corpus, as well as an additional riposte from James to Peter in the prelude to the version of the Pseudoclementines known as the Homilies. In this last there are also letters, reputedly from Clement to James and Peter to James. There is also a Gospel attributed to James, usually referred to as the ‘Infancy Gospel’ or the Protevangelium of James, averring, of all things, the perpetual virginity of Mary! As will be seen, its author might more appropriately have applied this doctrine to James’ lifestyle. Who else to give a better testimony to ‘facts’ relating to the infant Jesus than the person represented as being his
older
brother? But it is most certainly spurious.

Finally there is a now-lost work, known to the writer Epiphanius (367-404), called the
Anabathmoi Jacobou
or
The Ascents of James
after the lectures James is pictured as delivering to the Jerusalem masses from the Temple steps. Epiphanius even quotes from this work, further concretizing James’ role at the centre of agitation in the Temple opposed to the Herodian Priesthood and decrying its pollution.

It was around this
Perfectly Holy
and
Righteous
‘Just One’ in the Temple that in our view all parties opposing the Herodian/Roman Establishment,
from the more violent and extreme to the less so, ranged. In this role as
Bishop, James was also High Priest of the Opposition Alliance – thus, in effect, the
Opposition High Priest
. Ultimately we shall place James at the centre of the alliance of all the groups and parties opposing foreign rule in Palestine and its concomitant, foreign gifts and sacrifices on behalf of foreigners in the Temple. The opposition of this Alliance to Herodian Kings and the Herodian Priesthood led directly to the Uprising against Rome. This forms the mirror image of the way Christian tradition portrays the Messianic individuals it approves of, who are pictured as sympathetic – or at least not antipathetic – to Rome. This kind of inversion will be shown to be a consistent aspect of the portraiture and polemics of this period.

Chapter 2

The Second Temple and the Rise of the Maccabees

The Maccabean Priesthood

With the coming of Alexander the Great in 333 BCE, two successor states under Hellenistic kings – descended from his generals – arose in Asia: 1) the Seleucids in Syria and 2) the Ptolemies in Egypt. Judea or Palestine, consisting primarily of the region around Jerusalem proper, swung back and forth under the control, first of the former – then of the latter. As a rule, relations with the more tolerant Greek Ptolemies in Egypt were more cordial than those with the Seleucids at Antioch. This is important because the Independence War, which broke out in 167 BCE, was pointedly waged against Seleucid Hellenization and intolerance.

The war against the Seleucids was led by Judas Maccabee and his real or imagined father, Mattathias. Judas, like Jesus, had three brothers, John, Eleazar (Lazarus), Simon, not to mention Judas himself - all names familiar in New Testament usage as well. This war is celebrated in Jewish ritual by
Hanukkah
festivities to this day.
Hanukkah
literally means ‘Rededication’, that is, the rededication of the Temple, which was considered polluted by the Seleucids. The struggles surrounding this war went on for some thirty more years until the rise of Simon’s son John Hyrcanus (134–104 BCE) to power.

With the attainment of independence, problems associated with being
independent – if only for a hundred years – developed, and the groups and parties that came into prominence and form the substance of Gospel accounts come into focus. In this period, too, the Romans are extending their influence into the eastern Mediterranean after their victories over the Carthaginians, a Semitic people along the coast of North Africa and Spain. 1 Maccabees makes much of Judas’ friendly correspondence with the Romans. This correspondence is probably authentic, as is another with the Spartans, which proudly proclaims that the Jews and the Spartans are related and therefore ‘brothers’!
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At first, the Maccabees seem to have affected only the title of ‘High Priest’. At some point in the first or third generations, however, the title ‘King’ was adopted. Though the Maccabees were from a priestly family, the question has been raised in the debate relating to the Dead Sea Scrolls, whether they ‘usurped’ the High Priesthood. There is no indication whatsoever of such a usurpation, and the Maccabees seem to have occupied what appears to have been a very popular priesthood indeed. Josephus, for instance, at the end of the first century in Rome, evinces no embarrassment at the Maccabean blood he claims flows in his veins. On the contrary, he would appear to be most proud of it (
Vita
1.2–6).

The Book of Daniel and Apocalyptic

The appearance of the Romans in the eastern Mediterranean would appear to be referred to at an important juncture of the Book of Daniel, where their victory over the Syrian fleet in the eastern Mediterranean is mentioned (11:30–35; 190 BCE). This seems, in fact, to trigger the predatory activities upon the Temple by the Seleucid King Antiochus Epiphanes, the villain of both Daniel and the Maccabee Books. Here, too, the Book of Daniel uses the key terminology of ‘the
Kittim
,’ which the Dead Sea Scrolls use to refer to foreign armies invading the country, to refer to the
Romans
(11:30). This is important for sorting out chronological problems at Qumran.

Along with Ezekiel and Isaiah, Daniel is perhaps the most important scriptural inspiration for much of the apocalyptic ideology and symbolism of the Dead Sea Scrolls, as well as for the literature of Christianity. Daniel is also, chronologically speaking, one of the latest books in the scriptural canon, except perhaps for Esther.

Daniel’s clear association with the Maccabean Uprising in Palestine was doubtlessly one of the reasons why the Rabbis, following the uprisings against Rome, downgraded it from its position among the ‘Prophets’, placing it among the lesser ‘Writings’. No doubt, the Rabbis saw Daniel as a representative of a new, more vivid, style of prophetic expression, which we now call apocalyptic. This style, which they downplayed because of its association with the movement that produced both the Maccabean
Uprising and the Uprising against Rome, is very much admired in the
documents from Qumran, as it is by New Testament writers. In Daniel, prophetical and eschatological motifs – concerned with the End Times – are combined amid the most awe-inspiring and blood-curdling imagery.

For instance, Daniel is the first document to refer to what might be described as a ‘Kingdom of God’. God is not only described as ‘enduring forever’, ‘working signs and wonders in Heaven and on earth’, and ‘saving Daniel from the power of the lions’ (that is, death), but as having a ‘sovereignty which will never be destroyed’ and a ‘kingship that will never end’ (6:26–28). Daniel also evokes the ‘Son of Man coming on the clouds of Heaven’, one of the basic scriptural underpinnings for the Messiahship of Jesus and a title often applied to him. This passage will also loom large below in the materials relating to James’ activities in the Temple and the proclamation he makes there.

For Daniel, ‘the Holy Ones’ (
Kedoshim
) make war on a foreign invader who has violated and pillaged the Temple. This foreigner, who has ‘abolished the perpetual sacrifice’, is clearly Antiochus Epiphanes (7:13–8:12) - the villain of Jewish
Hanukkah
festivities ever since. Daniel uses additional terms that became popular, particularly at Qumran but also in the New Testament and the Koran – namely, ‘the Last Days’, ‘the Wrath’, ‘the Time of the End’ and, of course, the Resurrection of the Dead (12:2–13).

The way Daniel refers to the Resurrection of the Dead is particularly significant: ‘Of those who lie sleeping in the dust of the earth, many will awake, some to everlasting life … cleansed, made white, and purged … [they] will rise for [their] share at the End of Time’. Aside from ambiguous allusions in Psalms and a similar reference in 2 Maccabees in the context of Judas Maccabee’s military activities (12:43–44), this is the only overt reference to this doctrine of Resurrection of the Dead in the entire Old Testament.

In Daniel and 2 Maccabees, such references are normally associated with a kind of apocalyptic Holy War also outlined in Daniel. The reference in 2 Maccabees is presented in the context of the Maccabean Uprising against Hellenization and foreign rule in Palestine. Parallel descriptions in 1 Maccabees raise the banner of ‘
zeal for the Law
’ or
taking one’s ‘stand on the Covenant
’ (2:27). We shall have occasion to refer to allusions like these with regard to James, as well as to the Zealot Movement taking its inspiration from them.

It was apocalyptic literature of this kind that was seen by the Rabbis as the impetus behind the unrest that led to the disaster represented by the First Jewish Uprising against Rome (66–70 CE) and the destruction of the Temple and the State, not to mention the Second Uprising (132–6 CE). It encouraged an extreme
zeal for the Law
, that zealotry associated with Holy War, and a willingness to undergo martyrdom rather than to submit to foreign kingship, as well as an associated impetus towards Messianism.

Since these ideas were all seen as stemming from the party or parties opposed to what the Pharisee predecessors of the Rabbis had represented – that is, seeking accommodation with Rome and foreign powers generally at all costs – they were considered reprehensible. It is therefore understandable that in the version of Jewish history that the Rabbis transmitted and in the collection of documents they finally declared to be Holy Writ at the beginning of the second century CE, books like the Maccabees were set aside and Daniel given the lowest priority.