James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls II (139 page)

In fact this ‘
Liar
’ is introduced at I.12–II.3 and the exegesis of Habakkuk 1:5 referring to ‘
not believing even though it was explained
’ and specifically addressing ‘
the Gentiles
’.
Once again, this is explained in relation to ‘
the Traitors
’ (
Bogdim
), now ‘
Traitors to the New Covenant
’, the significance of which language, as it relates to parallel stories in the Gospels about the a
l
leged ‘
Traitor
’, Judas
Iscariot
, should not be difficult to appreciate. Though the term ‘
Traitors
’ is repeated three times in the exposition that follows, which is indeed exceedingly long and descriptive, it nowhere appears in the actual text of Habakkuk 1:5 being expounded but rather later in conjunction with ‘
the Traitors who kept silent when the Righteous One was swallowed by one more Wicked than he
’ of Habakkuk 1:13.

These ‘
Traitors
’ at the beginning of Column II.1 – later ‘
the Traitors to the New Covenant
’ and ‘
the Traitors to the Last Days
’ in II.3–6 (both reconstructed and not necessarily present as such, though the words ‘
New
’ and ‘
Traitors
’ are) – ‘
together with the Man of Lying
’ are described as ‘
not believing what the Righteous Teacher expounded from the mouth of God
’. Later in the
Pesher
, it will be recalled, we hear in Column VII.4–10’s exposition of Habakkuk 2:2 that ‘
God made known to the Righteous Teacher all the Mysteries of the words of His Servants the Prophets
’.

This
Pesher
in Column II.1–10 on Habakkuk 1:5, which actually has to do with ‘
wonders
’ and ‘
wonder-working
’, ‘
belie
v
ing
’, and ‘
the Last Generation
’ again, is astonishing because it is a
Pesher
within a
Pesher
, the verb ‘
liphshor
’/‘
to interpret
’ literally being used to express the exegetical powers of ‘
the Righteous Teacher
’. Because it is completely in the past tense, by implic
a
tion, it would appear to imply that ‘
the Righteous Teacher
’ is already past, gone, or dead as well. It also implies that ‘
the Righ
t
eous Teacher
’ – or, as it calls him, ‘
the Priest
’, had
direct
communication with God –
i
.
e
., just as in these early Church texts which insist that ‘
the Prophets declare concerning him
’ (James),
he declared concerning the Prophets
!

These are also the kind of ‘
revelations
’ Paul, too, claims to be having in 2 Corinthians 12:1 and 12:7, not to mention the ‘
Mysteries
’ he also claims to be expounding in 1 Corinthians 4:1 and 15:51. Nor should one miss the point about ‘
belief
’ or ‘
believing
’ here (in this case, ‘
not believing
’), the key element in the Pauline theological approach, not to mention Paul’s other claims to be in direct communication with ‘
Christ Jesus
’ in Heaven as well (Galatians 1:12, 2:2,
etc
.).

Just as Paul terms his new understanding ‘
the New Covenant in the Blood of Christ
’, so the language of ‘
the New Cov
e
nant
’ now permeates the rest of this
Pesher
about ‘
not believing what was explained
’. As in the Damascus Document, ‘
the New Covenant
’ in the Habakkuk
Pesher
is, once again, nothing more than a reaffirmation of ‘
the Old
’. But now the
Traitors
are ‘
the Traitors
(
to the Laws of God and
)
the New Covenant
,
who did not believe in the Covenant of God
(
and profaned His
)
Holy Name
’. Identified a third time as ‘
the Traitors to the Last Days
’ and now designated as coextensive with ‘
the Violent Ones and the Covenant-Breakers
’, a third time, too, these are described as: ‘
not believing all that they heard was
(
going to happen in
)
the Last Generation from the mouth of the Priest
in whose heart
God put the intelligence to interpret
(
liphshor
)
all the words of His Servants the Prophets
,
by whose hand God foretold all that was going to happen to His People’
59
– all this in exposition of the two words in the underlying text from Habakkuk 2:5 ‘
not believing even though it was explained
’.

This is, of course, a very complicated exegesis but, on top of this, it should be recognized that
there is absolutely no anti-Semitism in it
, no self-hatred – not even a jot of any – that is,
it doesn
’
t hate its own people
. On the contrary, it is very natio
n
alistic. Rather it hates ‘
Traitors
’, ‘
Covenant-Breakers
’, ‘
the Violent Ones
’, and ‘
the Man of Lies
’ but not its
own
‘
People
’ – ‘
the People of God
’, ‘
the Prophets
’, or ‘
the Covenant
’,
Old
or
New
. Nor does it
love its enemies
; it
hates them
.
These are the hal
l
marks of a native Palestinian text
. One cannot emphasize this too strongly.

There is sectarian and internecine strife to be sure and one’s enemies are hated, unlike the approach of the New Test
a
ment, which is so ‘
New
’ that it is no longer even either Palestinian or Jewish. Anything deviating from this norm
is simply not
a native Palestinian document. This does not mean it is bad, just that it is
not
‘
native Palestinian
’ and probably rather ‘
Helleni
s
tic
’. Moreover, one can lump a whole group of texts under this rubric, as we have been doing.

Whether these ‘
Violent Ones
’ are the same as ‘
the Violent Ones of the
Gentiles
’, who took Vengeance for the death of the Righteous Teacher on the Wicked Priest in the Psalm 37
Pesher
, is impossible to say, but one assumes that they are, the Haba
k
kuk
Pesher
perhaps being expounded from a slightly different perspective. That these ‘
Violent Ones
’ participate in the Scriptu
r
al exegesis sessions of ‘
the
(
High
)
Priest
’/‘
Righteous Teacher
’, who is the authorative Scriptural exegete, should also be clear. So do ‘
the Man of Lies
’ and other ‘
Traitors to the New Covenant
’ and ‘
the Last Days
’, with whom all or perhaps some seem to have been allied – at least originally. This would certainly accord with Paul’s more violent early days, which may well have been resumed in the mid-Sixties in Jerusalem, if Josephus’ ‘
Saulos
’ has anything to do with the New Testament character by that name. That there are pro- and anti-Revolutionary Herodian ‘
Men-of-War
’, we have already explained above, and that some of the latter are also allied with the ‘
Saulos
’ in Josephus should also be clear. This is also the situation in the Damascus Doc
u
ment, where ‘
the Men-of-War
’ are portrayed as ‘
walking with the Man of Lying
’.
60

But, be this as it may, all are considered ‘
Covenant-Breakers
’ and ‘
Traitors to the New Covenant and the Laws of God
’, which the final treatment meted out by ‘
Zealots
’ to Niger of Perea,
a Leader of
‘
the Violent Idumaeans
’ and, seemingly, one of these same pro-Revolutionary Herodian ‘
Men-of-War
’, helps illustrate. In Acts 13:1, it will be recalled, someone called ‘
Niger
’ was also a colleague of Paul in ‘
the Assembly of the Prophets and Teachers
’ where ‘
the Disciples were first called Christians in Antioch
’.

The language of ‘
Covenant-Breakers
’ here comes right out of that surrounding ‘
the Zadokite Statement
’ of Ezekiel 44:7 of ‘
those uncircumcised in heart and flesh
’ who also ‘
pollute the Sanctuary
’. It is also evoked in the Letter of James, where ‘
the Covenant-Breakers
’ are distinctly ranged against ‘
the Doers
’ and ‘
Keepers
’, meaning ‘
the Covenant-Keepers
’ (the ‘
Sons of Zadok
’ in the Community Rule) in the introduction to the famous material about ‘
keeping the whole of the Law
,
yet stumbling on one small point
’ in James 2:9–2:11.

Finally, that ‘
the Righteous Teacher
’ has, ‘
in his heart
’, ‘
the intelligence to expound all the words of His Servants, the Prophets
’ is, of course, what makes him a
truly
‘
Righteous
’
High Priest
, fulfilling the proper role of ‘
the
Mebakker
’ or ‘
High Priest Commanding the Camps
’ in the Damascus Document’,
in whose heart
God has put all ‘
the mastery of all the secrets of men and
(
their
)
Languages
’ (‘
Tongues
’) and Scripture as well. It is the opposite side of the coin to ‘
the Wicked Priest
’, the real Establishment High Priest, whose ‘
heart is uncircumcised
’ – as the
Pesher
goes on later to declare – and who is, therefore,
di
s
qualified on that basis from service in the Temple
.

The First Confrontations between the Righteous Teacher and the Liar

We now come to what for our purposes are the climactic sections of the Habakkuk
Pesher
. These concern the confront
a
tions of ‘
the Righteous Teacher
’ with ‘
the Liar
’ which – together with the confrontations with ‘
the Wicked Priest
’ – really pr
e
occupy the attention of the
Pesher
. All occur against the backdrop of foreign Armies invading the country.

We have just delineated an initial confrontation between ‘
the Man of Lying
’ and ‘
the Righteous Teacher
’, expressed in terms of the characteristic verb ‘
rejecting
’ or ‘
denying
’, to wit, ‘
he
rejected
the
Torah
in the midst of their whole Assembly
’. That this confrontation was
internal
and
verbal
we deduced from the fact that the individuals involved were clearly attending the Scriptural exegesis sessions of
the Righteous Teacher
and the sense of the allusion there to ‘
ma
’
as
’ or ‘
rejected
’, which is not
Violent
.

The version of this confrontation between ‘
the Righteous Teacher
’ and ‘
the Man of Lies
’ in 1QpHab V.8–12 is presented from a perspective hostile to persons like ‘
the Liar
’, ‘
the Traitors to the New Covenant
’, or a Paul. This non-violent, verbal confrontation is alluded to in exegesis of a passage about ‘
Traitors
’ in the underlying text from Habakkuk 1:12–13. These were said to have ‘
watched
’ or ‘
stared
’, ‘
remaining silent at the time of the Reproof
(or ‘
Chastisement
’)
of the Righteous Teacher
’. Furthermore, it was at this point the important usage ‘
swallowed
’ was first introduced into the text.

These ‘
Traitors
’ were not referred to in the earlier passage from Habakkuk 1:4, underlying an exegesis in which they, too, were referred to in 1QpHab II.1–5
three times in just five lines
. There, the complaint was that ‘
they
(‘
the Violent Ones
’, ‘
the Covenant Breakers
’, and ‘
the Man of Lies
’) …
did not believe what they heard was going to happen to the Last Generation from the mouth of the
Priest
’, so, once again, we have a usage referred to in the middle of the
Pesher
which seems to recapit
u
late the whole presentation. In the exegesis of Habakkuk 1:13, three columns later in V.9, these ‘
Traitors to the New Cov
e
nant
’, ‘
Violent Ones
’, and ‘
Covenant Breakers
’ are evidently being subsumed under yet another curious esotericism, ‘
the House of Absalom and the Men of their Council
’, in which the notion of ‘
betraying
’ is paramount – ‘
Absalom
’ theoretically having betrayed his father David.

These, interpreting the underlying passage about ‘
Traitors staring and remaining silent
’, are described as ‘
being silent at the time when the Righteous Teacher was reproved
’ (presumably by ‘
the Liar
’) and ‘
not coming to his aid against the Man of L
y
ing
’.
This may relate to what goes by the name of ‘
the Jerusalem Council
’ in Acts 15:6–29, where Paul must have done som
e
thing of the same or, at least, been perceived by his opponents as so doing. Later columns of the
Pesher
, most notably VII.17–VIII.3 and X.6–XI.1, will again focus either on disputes or issues between ‘
the Righteous Teacher
’ and ‘
the Man of Lying
’ as they shift back and forth from the subject of ‘
the Liar
’ to the oncoming ‘
Kittim
’ and finally the descriptions of how the Wicked Priest destroyed the Righteous Teacher
as well.

Not only was this ‘
destruction
’ ultimately expressed in terms of the language of ‘
swallowing
’ from Habakkuk 1:13, but ‘
the Judgement
’ that would overtake this ‘
Wicked Priest
’ was expressed in terms of ‘
the Cup of the Wrath of God swallowing him
’ giving way to the Final eschatological ‘
Judgement
’ that would be pronounced on those who had plundered and destroyed the Holy Land in general, expressed in XIII.2–4 in terms of the pious hope that ‘
on the Day of Judgement God would destroy
’ all Gentile ‘
Idolaters
’ and Jewish ‘
Backsliders
’ ‘
from off the Earth
’.

In the all-important teaching about Habakkuk 2:3–4 in Column VII.1–VIII.3 and the nature of ‘
the Liar
’’s approach to these and similar matters in Column X.6–12, ‘
the Man of Lying
’ turns into ‘
the Spouter
’ or ‘
Pourer out of Lying
’. Similarly, in the Damascus Document, he is also called ‘
the Windbag
’ or ‘
Scoffer
’ who ‘
poured over
(‘
spouting
’ being based on the Hebrew root, meaning ‘
to pour
’)
Israel the waters of Lying
’.

As we have seen, this imagery is present not only in the Gospels, where it relates to ‘
the Cup of the New Covenant in my Blood which was
poured out
for you
’ (slightly condensed in 1 Corinthians 11:25), but also in
Acts where it is expressed in terms of ‘
pouring out
’
the Holy Spirit upon all flesh
(2:17–18) and ‘
the gift of the Holy Spirit being
poured out
upon the Gentiles too
’ (10:45). It is also present in Revelation where it relates to ‘
the wine of the Wrath of God which is
poured out
full strength into the Cup of His Anger
’ (14:10) – but then, inverting and reversing this again, the accusations against the Jews of ‘
pouring out of the Blood of Holy Ones and the Prophets
’ (16:6).

In the allusions in the Damascus Document, the Lying Scoffer’s ‘
pouring out the waters of Lying upon Israel
’, in fact, had to do with ‘
removing the bound which the Forefathers had marked out as their inheritance
’, ‘
Justifying the Wicked and co
n
demning the Righteous
’, and ‘
exulting in dividing the People
’. All of these are formulations that have to do with both ‘
the Man of Lying
’’s characteristic activity – and Paul’s – of ‘
rejecting the
Torah
in the midst of their whole Assembly
’, which again rei
n
forces the impression of exceedingly bitter, internal ideological differences, themselves finding clear expression in the Pauline corpus.

Matters of this kind are again implicit in the description of the ‘
Jerusalem Council
’ in Acts. This is portrayed in Acts as a kind of pro-Pauline love fest where the only discordant note are the
parvenu
‘
Pharisees
’, who want to make ‘
the Peoples
’ ci
r
cumcise themselves and ‘
keep the Law of Moses
’ (15:5 – in the Habakkuk
Pesher
here, ‘
the
Torah
’). As Paul puts a similar pro
p
osition in his Galatians 2:4 version of these events, they are ‘
the false brothers who crept in furtively to spy on the freedom we enjoy in Christ Jesus that they might enslave us
’. This is exactly what Acts 15:1’s ‘
certain ones who came down from Judea
’ are insisting on in the first place, which sets in motion the series of events pictured in the next lines as ‘
the Jerusalem Council
’. In Galatians 2:12, where even ‘
the
Ethnon
’ in the allusion to Peter ‘
previously eating with the Gentiles
’ is the same as in Acts; the ‘
certain ones
’ were
from James
.

In the version here in 1QpHab V.8–12, we have both allusion to ‘
Council
’ and ‘
their Assembly
’. In the picture in Acts 15:1, as just reiterated, these ‘
some from Judea
’ are teaching the brothers – for Paul in Galatians 2:4, ‘
false brothers
’ – ‘
unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved
’. But this will be recognized as basically the key precondition of the coming eschatological exegeses of both Habakkuk 2:3 and 2:4 in Columns
VII
–
VIII
of the Habakkuk
Pesher
, where both the precondition of being a ‘
Torah
-Doer
’ and this usage, ‘
saved
’, will form the essence of the interpretation that finally emerges.

Before moving on to consider this and the description of ‘
the Spouter of Lying
’’s ‘
worthless service
’ and ‘
Lying works
’ connected to it, one should also recall how Galatians 2:13 uses the phraseology ‘
separating himself
’ to describe Peter and Ba
r
nabas’ ‘
hypocrisy
’ in drawing back and no longer being willing ‘
to eat with Gentiles
’. In the Community Rule, this was ‘
separa
t
ing from the habitation of the Unrighteous and going out in the wilderness to prepare the Way of the Lord
’; in the Damascus Document, ‘
separating from the Sons of the Pit
’.
1
It is a demand, as should be clear, that is evinced across a whole range of documents at Qumran, most interestingly perhaps in
MMT
, which end by applying the ‘Jamesian’ position on Abraham ‘
being justified by works
’ to a ‘
Kingly
’ respondent not unsimilar to Izates or his brother Monobazus in Adiabene.

Paul’s Citation of Habakkuk 2:4’s ‘
the Righteous shall Live by Faith
’

Paul quotes the key passage from Habakkuk 2:4, ‘
the Righteous shall live by his Faith
’, that the Habakkuk
Pesher
also e
x
pounds but, in his version, he drops the adjective ‘
his
’ and, in doing so, adopts exactly the opposite position to the one we have seen embraced in 1QpHab VIII.1–3 (and, in effect, embraced in the Letter of James), to argue his proposition ‘
that no one is justified with God by virtue of the Law
’. For Paul these things are obvious and again in Galatians 3:11–12, he puts it in another way – freely quoting a variation of Leviticus 18:5 and stressing the common thread of ‘
living
’ to arrive at ‘
the Law is not of Faith, but the man who has done these things shall live in them’
– the emphasis on ‘
doing
’ now being shifted over to ‘
of Faith
’.

Paul makes exactly the same point in Romans 1:17, again quoting Habakkuk 2:4, this time in the context of reference to ‘
Greeks
’, ‘
Romans
’, and ‘
Barbarians
’ amid thinly-veiled threats about ‘
God
’
s Wrath from Heaven being revealed upon all
(
the
)
Ungodliness and Unrighteousnes of
(
the
)
men who hold the Truth in Unrighteousness
’ (1:18). Also evoked are ‘
the Jews
’ and ‘
other Gentiles
’. So does Hebrews 10:38 in the beginning of its long Paulinizing discourse on ‘
Salvation by Faith
’ (11:1–26) which cited among other examples the two evoked in the Letter of James. By contrast, as James 2:25 put it, Abraham ‘
was ju
s
tified by works when he offered his son Isaac on the altar
’ and Rahab the Harlot too ‘
was justified by works when she took in the messengers and sent them out another way
’.