James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls II (110 page)

He then continues, beginning with his usual note of false modesty, but ending in confident dismissiveness: ‘
For we dare not rank
(
ourselves
)
among or compare ourselves with
some
who
commend themselves
,
but those measuring themselves by the
m
selves and comparing themselves to themselves do not understand’
(10:12).
This is followed by some of the most practiced and strophied discourse, carrying the ‘
boasting
’ theme forward and amply demonstrating his training in this sort of rhetorical and sophistical dialectic, pointedly concluding: ‘
For not he that commends himself is the one approved
,
but
(
rather
)
he whom the Lord commends
’
(10:18).
There can be no doubt whom he is talking about here, and what – as if somehow he has received his Apostolic Credentials (as he put it in Galatians 1:1) ‘
not from men or through man
’, that is,
not in the form of direct earthly appointment
(which, it should be clear by this point,
Paul did not have
), or
that of a written letter
, ‘
but through Jesus Christ and the Father God
,
who raised him from among the dead
’, which can only mean supernaturally or, as he would put it, ‘
through Christ Jesus in Heaven
’.

T
he ‘Spouter of Lies’ and the ‘Teacher of Righteousness’

We have been pointing out the relevant allusions in principal Dead Sea Scroll documents, not only as they connected to the position of James in early Christianity, but also to the written ideas and vocabulary of the Letters of Paul and usages and allusions – albeit radically disguised and transformed – in the Gospels and the Book of Acts. Principally, these have included the Damascus Document and the Habakkuk
Pesher
, the Community Rule, and the War Scroll. One might wish to add to these the Hymns, the Psalm 37 and Nahum
Pesher
s, the compendium of Messianic proof-texts known as
the
Florilegium
, and
MMT
.

Among such references one should, no doubt, include ‘
the Man of Lying
’ or ‘
Scoffing
’/‘
Spouting Windbag
’ together with a group variously referred to as ‘
the Violent Ones
’/‘
the Men-of-War
’/‘
the Men of Violence
’ and/or ‘
Traitors
’ as ‘
removing the boundary markers which the First had set down as their inheritance
,
bringing low the Everlasting Heights
’ – what becomes in the Habakkuk
Pesher
, ‘
denying the
Torah
in the midst of their whole Assembly
’.
1

Most such allusions are to be found in documents known as ‘
the
Pesharim
’ or ‘
Commentaries
’. These are idiosyncratic commentaries on prized Biblical texts, specifically chosen for the interesting exegetical possibilities they provide. Often, ho
w
ever, they bear little or no relationship to the meaning or interpretation being ascribed to them except a linguistic one. But the same allusions, attitudes, and
dramatis personae
move from document to document across the entire spectrum of the corpus. This allows us to date many of what can be said to be specifically ‘
sectarian
’ documents in the non-Biblical part of the corpus as largely contemporaneous and referring to the same set of events – events seen by the Community as cataclysmic often ha
v
ing to do with ‘
the Last Days
’ or ‘
the Final Era
’ and imbued with the most pregnant and portentous significance. This is also the reason why the literature at Qumran must be seen as that of a ‘
Movement
’ and not simply a random or eclectic collection of documents reflecting the general flow of the literature of the period, as some have suggested – though documents of this latter kind do exist, as they would in any library or manuscript collection.

These specifically ‘
sectarian
’ documents mainly focus on an individual called ‘
the Righteous Teacher
’ or ‘
Teacher of Righ
t
eousness
’ and not so much on the ‘
Messiah
’ or ‘
Messiah of Righteousness
’
per se
, though background references do allude to an individual of this kind as well. There are also references in the Damascus Document to other parallel individuals such as ‘
the
Maschil
’, ‘
the
Yoreh ha-Zedek
’, ‘
the
Doresh ha-Torah
’, ‘
the
Mehokkek
’, and the like, who may or may not be the same as ‘
the Righteous Teacher
’
2
– though at least the last three probably are. In the
Pesharim
, this latter individual seems to double as ‘
the Priest
’ as well, clearly meaning ‘
the High Priest
’.

There are also references to ‘
the
Mebakker
’ – ‘
the Overseer
’ or ‘
Bishop
’ – and a ‘
High Priest Commanding the Many
’, again expressed simply in terms of being ‘
the Priest
’.
3
This ‘
Mebakker
’, who very much resembles James, is described at length in the Damascus Document, though there are references to him as well in the Community Rule. What he does is to ‘
command
’ both ‘
the Many
’ and ‘
the Camp
’ or ‘
Camps
’, ‘
instructing them
’ – including even Priests – ‘
in the exact interpretation of the
Torah
’.
4
He also examines new entrants, ‘
records
’ infractions and makes ‘
Judgements
’, and
is
‘
the master of all the Secrets of Men and every Language
(‘
Tongue
’)
according to their families
’.
5

For their part, the references to ‘
the Righteous Teacher
’ focus on his two opponents as well – one a more ideological a
d
versary known variously as ‘
the Man of Lying
’/‘
Liar
’, ‘
Spouter of Lying
’/‘
Pourer out of Lying
’/‘
Comedian
’/‘
Scoffer
’ (d
e
scribed in the Damascus Document as having ‘
poured out over Israel the waters of Lying
’), and
even a ‘
Windbag
’.
6
The ‘
pou
r
ing
’ aspect of this notation is also part of ‘
the Spouter
’ terminology – literally, therefore, ‘
the Pourer
’ – which can also be seen as incorporating a play on the language of ‘
baptism
’ – particularly ‘
Holy Spirit baptism
’ – and should be contrasted with ‘
the standing up of the
Yoreh ha-Zedek
’ or ‘
He who
pours down
Righteousness at the End of Days
’.
7

In the Damascus Document there is also a plural reference to these ‘
Men of Scoffing
’ that comes in the context of ‘
putting idols on their hearts
’ (compare this allusion to ‘
idols
’ here and elsewhere in CD and 1QS with James in Acts 15:19 banning ‘
the pollutions of the idols
’),
speaking mistakenly about the Laws of Righteousness
,
and rejecting the Covenant and the Compact
(literally, ‘
the Promise
’ or ‘
the Faith
’),
that is
, ‘
the New Covenant which they raised in the Land of Damascus’
,
8
followed by the evocation of ‘
the end of all the Men of War who walked with the Man of Lying
’ (
n
.
b
. the ‘
walking
’ allusion again with an e
n
tirely new or reverse signification
9
– this coupled with an allusion to ‘
the gathering in of the
Yoreh
’, the implication being that, whoever he was, he has already in some manner died
10
).

Combinations such as ‘
the Comedians
’ or ‘
Scoffers of Lying
’, together with allusion to ‘
Belial
’ and ‘
his nets
’, also appear in documents like the Qumran Hymns.
11
These further demonstrate the proposition that all these kinds of usages are more or less circular denoting the same individual and his associates. In fact, ‘
Scoffing
’ imagery of this kind seems actually to have gone into Islamic eschatology as denoting ‘the
Dajjal
’ or ‘
Joker
’. This character is portrayed as being in conflict with ‘
the
Mahdi
’ or ‘
Expected One
’ (the
Messiah
-like individual in Islam) who is finally to be destroyed
with the coming of Jesus Christ
! How this ideology developed is impossible to say.
12

This ‘
Spouter of Lying
’ (
Mattif ha-Chazav
) who ‘
spouts
’ or ‘
pours out to them
’ (
hittif
) is even referred to in CD VIII.13 of Ms. A as ‘
spilling out wind
’ or ‘
being of confused Spirit
’ (‘
wind
’ and ‘
spirit
’ being synonymous in Hebrew). In XIX.25-26 of Ms. B, he is described as ‘
walking in the wind
’ or ‘
walking in the Spirit
’, phrasing Paul actually employs at the end of Galatians (5:11–26) where he is heaping scorn on those who ‘
teach circumcision
’ as being either ‘
in the flesh
’ or ‘
of the flesh
’ (cf. R
o
mans 8:1–9:8 and
pars
.). If authentic, the version of these things in Ms. B, describing ‘
the Spouter
’ as ‘
walking in the Spi
r
it/Wind
’ would have particular import where Paul’s design in 1 Corinthians 2:13 to ‘
teach the spiritual things taught by the Holy Spirit spiritually
’ is concerned.

In fact, many of these passages from the two versions of CD have since been confirmed in the previously unpublished Cave 4 fragments of the Damascus Document.
There is even a reference in one of these 4QD fragments – exactly as in the Pseudoclementine literature – to ‘
not revealing the secret of His People to Gentiles or cursing or
(
preaching
)
Rebellion against His Messiah of the Holy Spirit
,
turning aside from (
or ‘
disobeying
)
the word of God
’.
13
Here the allusion can also be read ‘
the Anointed Ones of the Holy Spirit
’, since there are no verbs or adjectives associated with it that can help determine whether it should be read as a singular or plural; but if it parallels reference to ‘
the Messiah of Aaron and Israel
’ elsewhere, where there are, then we can take it as singular.

However this may be, it is an extremely important allusion and the tenor of the allusion to ‘
Rebelling
’ which accompanies it is exactly the same as that in Columns
V
and
VI
to describe how ‘
Belial
raised up Jannes and his brother
’ (
Jambres
) and the other ‘
Removers of the Bound
’ to ‘
lead Israel astray
’ as a prelude to its description of how ‘
the Diggers
’ (equivalent to ‘
the Penitents of Israel
’) ‘
went out from the Land of Judah to dwell in the Land of Damascus
’, there ‘
to dig the Well
’ (of ‘
Living Waters
’) and explain why ‘
the Land was decimated
’: ‘
because they preached rebellion against the Commandments of God
(
as given
)
by the hand of Moses and also against His Holy Messiah
.
They prophesied Lying to turn Israel aside from God
.’
14
This really is a pregnant passage and it too will be picked up later in Columns
VIII
and
XIX
in ‘
the wall-daubing
’ and ‘
prophesying Lying
’ materials from Ezekiel 13:6–12 and Micah 2:6–12. In such a context, the references to either ‘
rebelling against His Holy Messiah
’ or ‘
the Messiah
(
s
)
of the Holy Spirit
’ are astonishing and, whatever else one might wish to say about them, especially the latter combines the conceptuality of ‘
the Holy Spirit
’ with either ‘
His Messiah
’ or ‘
the Messiahs
’ in an unforgettably striking manner.