James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls II (151 page)

If Paul was conscious of this relationship – and it is hard to conceive that he was not, since even the Book of Acts avers he spent time in ‘
Damascus
’ – then we must conclude he was very much aware of the language of ‘
the New Covenant
’ at Qumran and the way it was being expressed there in terms of the word ‘
Damascus’
. Moreover, he was simply transforming this in the light of his own more allegorical and
even more esoteric
approach – what he himself calls in 1 Corinthians 2:13 ‘
communicating in words taught by the Holy Spirit spiritual things spiritually’
. In the process, enjoying all these plays on words, he was no doubt having a good laugh as well – which is, of course, precisely the implication at Qumran in ‘
the Scoffer
’ or ‘
Comedian
’ epithet applied to
the Man of Lying
there.

The only question which remains is whether in some sense
the New Covenant in the Land of Damascus
at Qumran act
u
ally did have a secret or esoteric meaning of the kind Paul is exploiting or whether this new, more esoteric approach was e
n
tirely his own creation. Based on the documents at our disposal, we shall probably never know definitively. Given the thrust of the surrounding allusions in these documents, it is difficult to detect what this might have been and probably it did not, except for the esoteric evocation in the Damascus Document of: ‘
with the Completion of the Era of these years’
, ‘
each man will stand on his own net
’ (or ‘
Watchtower
’) and ‘
all the Glory of Adam will be theirs’
, there being no more specific attachment to ‘
the House of Judah
’
per se
– this being something of the manner in which Paul is reconstructing it or construing these things too.

‘
Building a Worthless City upon Blood
’ and ‘
Communion with the Blood of Christ
’

We can now return to the allusion to ‘
building a Worthless City upon Blood and erecting a Congregation on Lying’
, where the Lying Spouter’s ‘
Service
’ or ‘
labor
’ is concerned, the second part of which purposefully replaces the phraseology ‘
establis
h
ing a township upon Unrighteousness
’ in the underlying text of Habakkuk 2:12.
45
‘
Building a Worthless City upon blood
’ is just what was in the underlying text, except for the
significant addition
of the deprecative term ‘
Worthless’
.

We have already seen how Paul uses this word ‘
Worthless
’ or the allusion to ‘
in vain
’ above. In the
Pesher
that follows, this word, ‘
Worthless
’ or ‘
vain
,’ will also be used to characterize the kind of ‘
Worthless Service
’ or ‘
Lying works
’ the Liar causes
the Many
to perform – expressed contemptuously as ‘
tiring out Many
’ – ‘
for the sake of
(
his
)
Glory’
. This is expressed as follows: ‘
The interpretation of the passage concerns the Spouter of Lying
who leads Many astray
,
building a Worthless City upon blood and erecting an Assembly upon Lying
,
for the sake of
(
his
)
Glory
,
tiring out Many with a Worthless Service and instructing them in works of Lying
,
so that their
‘
amal
would be for Emptiness’
.
46
These are the exact words of the
Pesher
. One can only assume that the addition of the word ‘
Worthless
’ here – repeated twice – was purposeful and it, in fact, characterized the
Sot
e
riological
value or efficacy of the
Service
taught by the Lying Spouter, by which he ‘
leads Many astray’
, or that of ‘
the City
’ he was ‘
building’
. The play on the usage ‘
the Many
’ from Isaiah 53:11 here – also repeated twice – would appear to be purposeful as well, as would, therefore, the play on the idea of
the Righteous Teacher
’s James-like ‘
works of Righteousness
’ – these as opposed to the Lying Spouter’s ‘
works of Lying
’ – the usage ‘
works
’ now being the one based on the verb ‘
to do’
, as in ‘
doing
the
Torah
,’ not ‘
avodah
.

We have already discussed the ‘
City of Blood
’, including its relevance to the Qumran usage
Dammashek
and the Greek
Damascos
. In some sense, in the Nahum
Pesher
this usage is connected to ‘
the Simple of Ephraim
’ (as we have interpreted it,
the ‘
Pauline Christian
’ contingent among ‘
the Seekers after Smooth Things
’, ‘
seeking accommodation with foreigners
’ – in this instance, meaning Rome and including ‘
the Violent Ones of the Gentiles
’ and ‘
the Traitors to the New Covenant
’). The ‘
City
’ metaphor as opposed to the ‘
township
’ – which is transformed in the
Pesher
into the allusion to ‘
erecting
’ or ‘
raising a Congr
e
gation
’/‘
Assembly
’/or ‘
Church upon Lying
’ – stays in the
Pesher
.

Paul very much enjoyed using the imagery of
citizenship
. In this regard, one should look at Ephesians 2:19, where Paul or its Pauline-minded author attacks
Jewish
exclusivity – particularly the kind directed against Herodians in the Temple. This re
f
erence in Ephesians is preceded by allusion in 2:11–13 to ‘
the Peoples
’, those it claims the Jews were calling the ‘
Uncircumcision in the flesh
’ and whom, for its part, it is referring to as ‘
Strangers from the Covenants
(
sic
)
of the Promise
’ (note here the variation on the
Ger-nilveh
language in 4QpNah III.9), originally being ‘
thought of as aliens from the Commo
n
weal Israel
’ and ‘
apart from Christ
’ (also ‘
the body of Christ
’), but now ‘
an offering and sacrifice to God
,
a sweet fragrance
’ (5:2). Of course, one recognizes this
sacrifice
,
offering
, and
sweet fragrance
language as the kind of metaphor applied to the descri
p
tion of
the Community Council
, ‘
atoning for the Land
’ by ‘
suffering works
’ and ‘
without the flesh of burnt offerings and the fat of sacrifices
’ in the Community Rule.
47

In this context, Ephesians also cautions ‘
not to be deceived by
Empty
words
,
for the
Wrath of God
comes upon the Sons of Rebellion
’ and ‘
not cooperating
’
with such persons
, ‘
for once in Darkness
,
but now in the Light of the Lord
,
you walk as
Chi
l
dren of Light
’ (5:6–5:8). This too is exactly paralleled in the Qumran Community Rule III.5–IV.8. Even the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:14 uses such ‘
Light
’ imagery – combined with an allusion to ‘
a
City
situated upon a hill that cannot be hidden
’ – to characterize ‘
the Disciples of Jesus’
.

Moreover, in bolstering Paul’s ‘
in the flesh
’ or ‘
glorying in your flesh
’ arguments elsewhere (as, for example, the allusion to this last in Galatians 6:13 above) and completing this particular circle of artful rhetorical footwork, it actually uses the language of ‘
Ethne
in the flesh
’ (once ‘
far off
,
but now become near by the Blood of Christ
’!) to appeal – even perhaps a little archly – to such
Gentiles
(2:11-13). For good measure, it calls such new converts the ‘
Uncircumcision
’ (
cf
. Galatians 2:7–12), while the Jews
–
or those it has just denoted ‘
the Commonweal Israel
’ (
sic
) and seemingly again, perhaps even, somewhat contemptuou
s
ly
–
it calls the ‘
Circumcision in the flesh
made by hand
’.

We have already seen in Hebrews 11:10 and 11:16, discussing how ‘
Abraham was saved by Faith’
, how this ‘
City
’ imagery here in the Habakkuk
Pesher
was combined with ‘
building
’ and ‘
erecting
’ imagery
–
to say nothing of the
Foundation
–
to a
l
lude to ‘
a City
,
the builder and erector of whose Foundations is God’
. The imagery of such ‘
Foundations
’ is present in these lines from Ephesians 2:19–20 about ‘
being fellow-citizens in the Household of God
’ and is extremely widespread at Qumran as well.
48
Which brings us to the second element in this ‘
City of Blood
’ construction, the ‘
building
’ imagery again
–
imagery which fairly permeates the Pauline corpus. Whether one considers Ephesians authentic or, like Hebrews, of ‘
the Pauline School’
, it is part and parcel of its ‘
citizenship
’ metaphor too. As Ephesians 2:19 puts this, ‘
you are no longer strangers
(again,
ger-nilvim
at Qumran)
and foreigners
,
but
fellow citizens
of the Holy Ones and of the Household of God’
. Not only should one note here ‘
the Holy Ones
’ usage, so widespread in the Dead Sea Scrolls and prominent in all descriptions of James, but also the language of the
ger-nilveh
/
resident alien
in the Nahum
Pesher
.
49

Ephesians 2:20
–
22 continues: ‘
For you have been built on the Foundation of the Apostles and the Prophets
,
Jesus Christ himself being the Cornerstone
,
in whom all the building is joined together
,
growing into a Holy Temple in the Lord – in whom you
,
too
,
are being built together as a dwelling place for God in the Spirit
.’
Here we have all our imageries and this is also about as close to the language of Qumran as one can get. Nor can one get very much more ‘
spiritualized
’ than this. Not only do we have here the Community Rule’s further imagery regarding ‘
the Community Council
’ above being a spiritualized ‘
Temple
’ and ‘
Holy of Holies
’ and ‘
the Cornerstone’
,
50
but also the ‘
joining
’ and ‘
building
’ vocabulary again. The imagery here is, of course, also that of Paul in 1 Corinthians 12:12–27 – following his proclamation of ‘
Communion with the Blood of Christ
’ in 10–11 – of the Community and its ‘
members
’ being ‘
the body of Christ
’. The double entendre involved in this ‘
member
’ metaphor is being played upon, too, by the counter-imagery in James 3:5 of ‘
the Tongue being one small member of the body
’ but ‘
boasting great things’
. It is also part and parcel of the ‘
Temple
’ and ‘
body
’ imagery in the Gospels
where Jesus – questioned as to what he meant by saying he would ‘
destroy the Temple of God and raise it up again in three days
’ – is pi
c
tured as saying he ‘
meant his
(
own
)
body
’,
i
.
e
., his own resurrection (John 2:19–21).