James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls II (113 page)

The
Pesher
focuses on several important events. These transpire against a backdrop of
the coming of foreign armies into the country
, ‘
the
Kittim
’.
47
While these are extremely violent – ‘
swift and terrible in war causing many to perish
’ and ‘
plundering the cities of the Earth
’, ‘
parceling out their yoke and their taxes
(that is, ‘
tax-farming
’),
eating all the Peoples year-by-year
,
gi
v
ing many countries over to the sword
’ – they are not the
Pesher
’s principal concern, though the exegete is very distressed by their ferocity and pitilessness. It would seem that we have here a direct allusion to the Romans appointing ‘
Kings of the Pe
o
ples
’ such as
the Herodians
to rule in the East and ‘
profiteer
’ from their tax-collecting and it is difficult to conceive of this d
e
scription applying to any ancient people other than the Romans.

Aside from ‘
not believing in the Laws of God
’, it is specifically noted that ‘
they come from afar
’, ‘
from the islands of the sea
’, ‘
trampling the Earth with their
horses and pack animals
’, ‘
consuming all the Peoples like an eagle that is never satisfied
’.
48
The last is normally taken to be an allusion to the Roman Eagle. Furthermore, ‘
they overthrow the Fortresses of the Peoples
,
laughing at them in derision
’, an allusion that would confirm our earlier identification of ‘
the Peoples
’ as
the Herodians
and, more than likely, refers to ‘
the Fortresses
’ which they either built or enlarged such as Masada, Machaeros, Hyrcania, and Cypros.
49

As the
Pesher
continues, they ‘
encircle
’ cities, and ‘
destroy them because of the iniquity of their inhabitants
’. One should not overlook that the genre of this accusation is one familiar to the New Testament and in early Church literature. Plus, ‘
they gather their Riches together with all their booty like the fish of the sea
’ – this, not insignificantly, in exposition of an allusion to ‘
fishermen
’ and their ‘
nets
’ again in the underlying language of Habakkuk 1:14–15 and tied to the ‘
tax-collecting
’ motifs above. Nor do they pity ‘
youths
’, ‘
old men
,
women
,
children
’, not even ‘
the fruit of the womb
’.
50
It should be clear that, aside from the accompanying allusion to ‘
sacrificing to their standards and worshipping their weapons of war
’, these passages can hardly be describing a Dynasty or a war machine as ineffectual as the Seleucids and
can only relate to the Romans
– any and all exte
r
nal dating parameters to the contrary notwithstanding.

But despite the horror of this heart-wrenching picture, it only forms the backdrop and is secondary to the
Pesher
’s two other really main concerns, between which it swings its attention back and forth despite this background picture of mayhem and slaughter – maybe even because of it. The first is the ideological conflict between ‘
the Man of Lying
’ and ‘
the Righteous Teacher
’. Ultimately the focus on these two overwhelms all other concerns including the coming of the rapacious and all-powerful
Kittim
, to whom the
Pesher
also refers as ‘
the Additional ones of the Peoples
’. Since, in our opinion,
the Herodians
are ‘
the Peoples
’, the Romans are ‘
the Additional Ones of the Peoples
’.
51

The second concern is the conflict between the Righteous Teacher, clearly identified as ‘
the Opposition High Priest
’ by the literature at Qumran, and the Wicked Priest, clearly meant to signify the reigning ‘
Establishment
’ High Priest of the day. Moreover, the Wicked Priest ends up destroying the Righteous Teacher and being in turn ‘
destroyed
’ himself. These are the exact words of the
Pesher
and under what appear to be very gruesome circumstances indeed at the hands of a group called ‘
the Violent Ones
’ or, as the Psalm 37
Pesher
would put this, ‘
the Violent Ones of the Gentiles
’.
52
In the background to these two conflicts and the warp and woof, as it were, of the
Pesher
is the constant antagonism to foreigners, ‘
robbing the Poor
’ (in the Damascus Document, ‘
robbing the Meek of His People
’), and the predatory, ‘
profiteering
’, and conspiratorial activities of the Wicked Priest and his colleagues (called, as already remarked, ‘
the Last Priests of Jerusalem
’) with what appear to be
Herodians
. This last is true if ‘
Peoples
’ can be identified with
Herodians
. We think they can.

In the
Pesher
, the ‘
Wicked Priest
’ is clearly responsible for removing or ‘
destroying
’ his adversary ‘
the Righteous Teacher
’, ‘
the Priest
’,
i
.
e
.,
the Opposition High Priest
. For the
Pesher
, the Wicked Priest ‘
swallows
’ or ‘
consumes
’ the Righteous Teacher (the ‘
Ba-La
‘
a
’ language again – this in the sense of ‘
consumes
’ or ‘
destroys
’, a variation on the ‘
eating
’ theme encountered above). The latter, in turn, is always identified with a reference to ‘
Zaddik
’ or ‘
Righteous One
’ in the underlying Biblical text. In the penultimate column, it is specifically stated that, just ‘
as he plotted to destroy the Poor
’, so would ‘
he be paid the reward he paid the Poor
’ and ‘
God would condemn him to destruction
’. The verb at this point, notwithstanding the tantalizing allusion to ‘
swallow
’/‘
consume
’ preceding it, is quite literally ‘
destroying the Poor
’. Moreover, because of this, he is ‘
condemned to d
e
struction
’ himself.
53

The Wicked Priest
in the Psalm 37
Pesher

This presentation is reinforced in the
Pesher
on Psalm 37 which is also – in the jargon of the field – considered ‘
a late do
c
ument
’. Not only is the Psalm 37
Pesher
clearly from the last days of the Community, but in many of its concerns it overlaps the vocabulary and subject matter of the Habakkuk
Pesher
. A ‘
Zaddik
’ text like the Habakkuk
Pesher
, the allusion to ‘
Zaddik
’ and ‘
Zaddikim
’ permeates the underlying Biblical material. This is exploited in the exposition to produce a
Pesher
about the Wicked Priest ‘
overwhelming
’ or ‘
destroying
’ the Righteous Teacher.

The first incidence of this is the variation using ‘
the Meek
’ and ‘
the Poor
’ – interchangeable with ‘
the Righteous
’ throug
h
out the
Pesher
– which reads: ‘
The Wicked have drawn the sword … to cast down the
Meek and the Poor
’ (37:14). This was preceded by: ‘
The Wicked plots against the Righteous and gnashes upon him with his teeth
’ (37:12). The first of these and then what is more or less yet a third variation in the Psalm – ‘
the Wicked watches out for the Righteous and seeks to put him to death
’ (37:32) – are both subjected to exegesis. The
Pesher
, which is repeated twice with slight variations, basically describes how the Wicked Priest ‘
laid hands upon
’ the Righteous Teacher/‘
the Priest and the Men of his Council
…
to put him to death
’, but would himself ultimately ‘
be delivered over to the hand of the Violent of the Gentiles for Judgement
’.
54
This is the same kind of ‘
Judgement
’ we shall encounter in the Habakkuk Commentary – again emphasizing the basic circularity of these documents where
dramatis personae
and subject matter is concerned.

Not only do we have here the theme of ‘
being delivered up
’, but the
Pesher
does not particularly follow ‘
the Meek
’ part of the ‘
‘
A
ni
’/‘
Ebion
’ dichotomy. Rather it twice refers to ‘
the Assembly
’ or ‘
Church of the Poor
’ (
Ebionim
), whom it calls ‘
the Leaders and Pride of the flock
’. Here too, we have usages encountered in the Damascus Document.
55
These ‘
will possess the High Mountain of Israel and His Holy Place
’, while ‘
the Violent Ones of the Peoples and the Wicked of Israel will be cut off and blotted out forever
’. Again one should note how the ‘
cutting off’
language is used here.
56

The same thing happens at the end of the Habakkuk
Pesher
, particularly where the destruction of the Righteous Teacher and his followers, ‘
the Poor
’ and ‘
the Council of the Community
’, are being described. Though the expression ‘
‘
A
ni
’ does o
c
cur in Habakkuk 3:14 as ‘
consuming the Meek
’, it is not used in the
Pesher
which, in any event, breaks off at 2:20. Rather the terminology ‘
the Poor
’ or ‘
Ebionim
’ is purposefully introduced into the exegesis of Habakkuk 2:17 in the penultimate column (1QpHab XII.3–5) about ‘
Lebanon
’, ‘
the dumb beasts
’, and ‘
the violence done to the Land
’, though it nowhere occurs in the underlying text. In the writer’s view, this is deliberate, because the commentator knows that he is, in fact, dealing with a Co
m
munity already known as ‘
the Poor
’ or ‘
the Ebionites
’ and, as it were, the followers
par excellence
of James.
57

In the Psalm 37
Pesher
, too, the commentary on the extremely interesting allusion to ‘
the Wicked plotting against the Righteous
’ (37:12) is missing – presumably because of the fragmentary state of the text – but its main lines can be detected. In any event, this
lacuna
is made good in the Habakkuk
Pesher
, where Psalm 37’s allusion to ‘
conspiring
’ or ‘
plotting
’ (
zamam
) is now, once again, seemingly deliberately introduced into the commentary on Habakkuk 2:16–17’s ‘
the Cup of the Lord
’s
right hand coming around to you
’, ‘
the violence of Lebanon
’, and ‘
the destruction of the dumb beasts
’. Here it is worthwhile to note in passing the allusion to ‘
the Cup of the Lord
’, words already encountered in Paul’s presentation of ‘
the Lord Jesus
’’ words at ‘
the Last Supper
’ in 1 Corinthians 11:27–29 (themselves not without a tinge of vengefulness) and imbedded in the scenario of the first post-resurrection appearance of Jesus to James in Jerome’s ‘
Gospel of the Hebrews
’.
58