James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls II (131 page)

In Revelation too, we even have allusion to ‘
the Beast
’, ‘
with a mouth speaking great things and blasphemy
’, again tied to a timeframe of
three and a half years
, that is, ‘
forty-two months
’ (13:5). In the interpretation of Habakkuk 2:17 following these allusions to ‘
the Cup of the Wrath of God swallowing him
’, ‘
the dumb beasts
’ were ‘
the Simple of Judah doing
Torah
’ and there was also the pregnant allusion to ‘
Blood
’ – there, ‘
the Blood of Man
’ (
Adam
), interpreted to mean ‘
the destruction of the Poor
’ and ‘
robbing them of their substance
’. In Revelation, this is reversed, as per usual in early Church texts of a Pauline mindset and even later by theologians such as Eusebius – himself partially responsible for the Christian takeover of the Roman Empire.
Instead of ‘
the Simple of Judah doing the
Torah
’ and ‘
the Community Council
’
of
‘
the Poor
’ as in the
Pesher
, this ‘
Blood
’ now becomes
the Jews
‘
pouring out the Blood of the Holy Ones and the Prophets
’ which is, again, not to mention Paul’s whole ideology of ‘
Communion with the Blood of Christ
’ succeeding these kinds of allusions in the documents at Qu
m
ran.

This is reaffirmed with the words, ‘
You gave them Blood to drink
’ – also a play on both the ‘Jamesian’/Jewish ‘
abstinence from blood
’ and what we shall now try to show is the esoteric exposition of ‘
the New Covenant in the Land of Damascus
’ – ‘
for they deserve it
’. This is neatly summed up by Paul in 1 Corinthians 11:27–29: whoever shall ‘
drink the Cup of the Lord unworthily shall be guilty of the Body and Blood of the Lord
’, for
he
,
who drinks unworthily
,
drinks Judgement to himself
.

The ‘
blasphemy
’ accusations that accompany all this are not really separable from the Gospel presentations of the Trial of Jesus at ‘
the High Priest
’
s House
’ where he is pictured as both claiming to be either ‘
the Christ
’ or ‘
the Son of God
’ and deli
v
ering the proclamation about the latter attributed to James in early Church literature (Matthew 26:57–68 and
pars.
). At this point in Revelation, these accusations are tied to the imagery from Daniel of ‘
the beast with ten horns
’. As Revelation 13:1 puts this: ‘
On its heads was the Name of blasphemy
’ and ‘
it opened its mouth for blasphemy against God
, to
blaspheme His Name and His Temple and those in the Temple of Heaven
’ (13:6). Not only does this play on the imagery in Daniel 7:8 of the ‘
little horn
’, but also the ‘
blasphemy
’ charge against James in the episode in Hegesippus about his proclamation of ‘
the coming of the Son of Man
’; instead of ‘
pronouncing the forbidden Name of God in the Temple
’, as we have decided James did in his
Yom Kippur
atonement, ‘
the beast
’ is ‘
blaspheming the Name of God and the Temple
’. The ethos, however, is basically that of the charges made against Paul by ‘
the Jews from Asia
’ in the Temple in Acts 21:27–28 (how fortuitous this location, as it is essentially the same as in Revelation), in ‘
Jewish
’ or ‘
Ebionite Christianity
’ generally, and against ‘
the Liar
’ at Qumran – ‘
bla
s
pheming the Temple
’ or ‘
insulting the Law
’.

Notice, too, how this charge of ‘
blasphemy
’ is also used earlier in the section, in which ‘
Balaam taught Balak to cast a net before Israel
’, amidst negative allusion to ‘
works
’, ‘
Riches
’ and ‘
fornication
’ (Revelation 2:9). Even ‘
Poverty
’ and ‘
suffering
’ are mentioned. As usual, the ‘
blasphemy
’ is now on the part of ‘
those claiming themselves to be Jews
’ but who are really ‘
the Sy
n
agogue of Satan
’ paralleling material in 2 Corinthians 10:12–11:15 about the
Hebrew
‘
False Apostles
’ who ‘
recommend the
m
selves
,
comparing themselves to themselves
’, claiming to be ‘
Servants of Righteousness
’. These are really ‘
the Servants of S
a
tan
,
whose End shall be according to their works
’ (11:15). In Revelation 2:23, this is: ‘
giving you each according to your works
’.

In addition to the virtual reproduction of Paul’s words, this chapter of Revelation mixes the language of ‘
the Diabolos
’/‘
the Devil
’ with that of ‘
Satan
’, as do the Gospels and as at Qumran. In Revelation 2:10, the reference is to how ‘
the Devil casts
(
balein
)
some of you into prison
’. Not only does the reference to ‘
the
Diabolos
’ here parallel the one to ‘
Belial
’ and ‘
the nets he set up to ensnare Israel
’ in CD IV.15–18 but it, too, begins by evoking, ‘
He knew your works
’ (Revelation 2:9). Again, this is word-for-word from CD II.7–8: ‘
God
knew their works
before ever they were established
’, preceded by reference to ‘
God
’
s A
n
ger being kindled against them
’,
because
‘
their works were unclean before Him
’.
12

Furthermore, we have seen that this ‘
Belial
’/‘
Devil
’ evocation of the ‘
Three Nets of
Belial
’ section of the Damascus Do
c
ument is present in the evocations of ‘
Balaam
’ and ‘
Balak
’ which follow in Revelation 2:14. So are the parameters of James’ prohibitions to overseas communities in Acts: ‘
eating things sacrificed to idols and committing fornication
’, which so parallel the basic thrust of ‘
Three Nets
’ in the Damascus Document, in which
Belial
‘
caught Israel
’, ‘
transforming them into three kinds of Righteousness
’ (note the additional parallel here to Paul in 2 Corinthians
11:14 above, in the sense of the verb ‘
transfor
m
ing
’ as in ‘
Satan transforming himself into an Angel of Light
’ or ‘
his servants
’ into ‘
Servants of Righteousness
’). These param
e
ters are repeated again in Revelation 2:20 in slightly variant form in terms of ‘
leading My Servants astray
– here also the ‘
Ser
v
ants
’ language of 2 Corinthians 11:15, not to mention ‘
leading astray
’ in Qumran vocabulary generally –
to commit fornication and eat things sacrificed to idols
’, only now it is ‘
Jezebel
’ who is being attacked as the Deceiver. One should appreciate that even in her name one has another clear variant of the ‘
balla
‘
’/‘
ballo
’ terminology here.

This reference to ‘
Jezebel
’ is of the utmost interest, as are the references to ‘
the great whore
’ and ‘
the whore of Babylon
’ that appear later in Revelation 17:1–18 and 19:2 amid the language of another of these categories of James’ prohibitions, ‘
Blood
’. Surrounding the ‘
Jezebel
’ references, ‘
knowing your works
’ from Revelation 2:9 is repeated in 2:19 and, varying this, ‘
keeping My works
’ in 2:26 – note the Qumran ‘
keeping
’ vocabulary in this last again. In fact ‘
he that keeps My works until the End
’ – ‘
keeping the Law
’ in James; ‘
keeping the Covenant
’ at Qumran – ‘
will be given Authority over the Peoples
’. This is b
a
sically the eschatology of the Habakkuk
Pesher
(
V
.3–5) where
God
’
s
‘
Elect
(‘
the Assembly of the Poor
’ in the Psalm 37
Pesher
)
execute Judgement on all the Nations
’!

The references to Jezebel’s ‘
fornication
’ in Revelation 2:21–22, seemingly with multiple partners, makes it more likely than ever that the author has one or another of the Herodian Princesses in mind, most likely Bernice – ultimately the mistress of the destroyer of Jerusalem and the Temple Titus. Once again, the ‘
bel
’/‘
ballo
’ language – denoting in our view
Herodians
and their confrères – which is omnipresent throughout, must be considered determinant. Of course, what we have in these all
u
sions in Revelation
are Qumran materials
– and, by extension,
those of the Community of James
– being tossed around indiscriminat
e
ly and overwritten in obfuscating fashion. Sometimes these usages are trivialized or even reversed, but sometimes they are pr
e
sented as per normative Palestinian usage. Knowing this, the imagery can be at times quite amusing.

‘
Babylon the Great
’ and ‘
Jezebel
’

For good measure, in these later passages, Revelation 16:19 now goes on to apply ‘
the Cup of Wrath
’ metaphor to ‘
Bab
y
lon the Great
’, rejoicing over how God would remember to give her ‘
the Cup of the Wine of the Fury of His Wrath
’. Once again, these are precisely the words used at Qumran to describe what happened to the Wicked Priest as a result of what he did to the Righteous Teacher and yet another variation of the ‘
Jeze
bel
’/‘
ballo
’/‘
Bela
‘
’ language cluster. Once again, too, we are ge
t
ting transmutation of Hebrew usages into Greek.

Here the allusion includes even the redundancy, ‘
Cha
‘
as Hamato
’, (‘
the Fury of His Wrath
’ in Hebrew), the Habakkuk
Pesher
uses to describe the Wicked Priest’s action in ‘
swallowing
’ (again ‘
balla
‘
’) the Righteous Teacher and Revelation even employs the same reversal as the Habakkuk
Pesher
does, that she would be paid with the same ‘
drink
’ or ‘
Cup
’ – in the Habakkuk
Pesher
, ‘
Chos
’ (
Cup
), also playing on this same Hebrew ‘
Cha
‘
as
’ (
Wrath
) – she paid to others. Earlier in Revelation 14:8, repeating the multiple ‘
drinking
’ allusions of the Habakkuk
Pesher
, this was expressed as: ‘
Babylon
,
which
gave all Peoples the wine of the Fury of her fornication to drink
’, adding the ‘
fornication
’ imagery which was associated with ‘
Jezebel
’ in Chapter Two and which we just associated with the Herodian miscreant Bernice as well.