James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls II (31 page)

A Prostitute’s Hire
, the ‘
Rechabite
’ Introduction of James, and the
Construction of a Latrine for the High Priests

The description that would have been used at this point to introduce the person of James in a proper historical narrative and explain how he came to occupy the
Office
he did, namely that of ‘
Bishop
’ or ‘
Mebakker
’
126
of
the Jerusalem Church
, could easily have incorporated the proof-text about ‘
the Poor
’ from Psalm 109, which Acts applies to the ‘
election
’ of the almost unknown and never-heard-from-again
Apostle
by the name of ‘
Matthias
’ – a name already present for all intents and purposes in Apostle lists (such as they are).
84

To provide a more intimate description of who and what James, in fact, actually was and how ‘
life-long Nazirites
’ like him might have been perceived at the time, it would have been even more striking to include
the Prophet Jeremiah
’
s unique delin
e
ation of the clan of Rechabites
to whom James, as a life-long Nazirite and possibly even an ‘
Essene
’, would have been thought either to resemble or relate. Not only were such
Rechabites
important as actual prototypes of what ‘
Zealots
’ (‘
Jonadab son of Rechab
’ actually being so characterized in 2 Kings 10:16 and, as such, another of these paradigmatic ‘
Zealot
’ forerunners) and, to some extent, ‘
Essenes
’ – to say nothing of ‘
Nazoraeans
’ – were actually seen to be, but Jeremiah 35:3–19 really does provide a good description of James as he has come down to us.

Principal among ‘
the commandments which Jonadab son of Rechab
’
gave to his descendants
was the one ‘
to drink no wine
’ (35:14), which such ‘
Rechabites
’ held in common with ‘
Nazirites
’ and which we would claim basically to be at the core of this missing proof-text regarding James. Regarding this
ban on
‘
drinking wine
’, it is certainly not incurious that in the Synoptics, the picture of
Judas Iscariot
’
s
‘
treachery
’ actually occurs in the context of
the Last Supper
where Jesus is pictured as announ
c
ing, following Paul in 1 Corinthians 11:25, ‘
This Cup is the New Covenant in my Blood
’ (Luke 22:20 and pars.). But in the Synoptics, this is accompanied by the additional peculiar phraseology bearing on our subject and reflecting these singular
Rechabite
/
Nazirite
/
Jamesian
restraints, ‘
I will not drink henceforth of the fruit of the vine until the Kingdom of God shall come
’ (Luke 22:18 and pars.).
So here, of course, is the very ban on wine right in the context of
the Last Supper
and Judas’ imminent ‘
betrayal
’.

Furthermore, as Jeremiah reports, such ‘
Sons of Rechab
’ were instructed, again not unlike ‘
Essenes
’ and Josephus’ myst
e
rious teacher ‘
Banus
’, ‘
to build no houses
’, ‘
but to dwell in tents so that you may live many days upon the land which you i
n
habit
’ (35:7). The ‘
tent
’ theme is particularly important where
Essenes
were concerned and it is already to be encountered in the original of Psalm 69:25 underlying Acts 1:20 and, like
Essenes
too, they were ‘
long-lived
’.
85
Interestingly enough, 35:8 adds that, like ‘
the Sons of Zadok
’ at Qumran as well and, in our view, ‘
the Nazoraean
’, Jacob of Kfar Sechania will now refer to in the tradition he will report about ‘
Jesus
’ below, ‘
they
kept
them
’ or, as Matthew 27:10 would have it,
they did what they were
‘
commanded
’
to do
.
One could say the same about groups like ‘
the Mandaeans
’ in Southern Iraq, who still conform to teac
h
ings of this kind to this day. Nor should it go unremarked that ‘
drinking no wine
’ is a fixture of Islamic practice even today.
86

Where the ‘
command to drink no wine
’ – which the Rechabites hold in common with the Nazirites and, of course, James – is concerned, it appears over and over in Jeremiah 35, setting down Jonadab’s ‘
commandments
’ to his sons on this subject and the wilderness lifestyle generally.
87
E.
g
., ‘
we will drink no wine
’
as
‘
our father commanded us
’ (35:6), ‘
we have
dwelt in tents
and obeyed and done according that Jonadab our father commanded us
’ (35:8–10), ‘
the words that Jonadab son of Rechab commanded his sons
’ and ‘
they observed their father
’
s commandment
’ (35:14) and, finally the active as opposed to the pa
s
sive: ‘
the sons of Jonadab the son of Rechab have
set up the commandment
of their father which he commanded them
’ (35:16).

In fact, this allusion to ‘
setting up
’ (
hekimu
) here is actually the pivotal usage employed in the Damascus Document to d
e
scribe how ‘
those entering the New Covenant in the Land of Damascus were
commanded to set up
the Holy Things according to their precise specifications
’.
88
It is also the basis in that document for both the ‘
re-erecting
’ (or ‘
setting up
’)
the fallen tent of D
a
vid
’ and ‘
raising the Covenant
’
and ‘the Compact
(that is, ‘
the New Covenant
’)
in the Land of Damascus
’ itself
89
–
the cou
n
terpart to ‘
the New Covenant in the Blood of Christ
’ in Paul and the Gospels.
90
Nor can it be overlooked that this ‘
Covenant
’
is the very opposite
,
of course
,
of
‘
the New Covenant
’
that Peter is taught
and, through him, that which was taught to
the
‘
household of the Roman Centurion in Caesarea
’
with the telltale name of
‘
Cornelius
’ (the name of the Roman law in this p
e
riod aimed at ‘
Sicarii
’ and forbidding ‘
circumcision
’ as a kind of bodily mutilation on pain of death – ‘the
Lex Cornelia de Sicarius et veneficis
’
91
).

Jeremiah 35:18–19 concludes as follows: ‘
Therefore, thus saith
the Lord God of Hosts
,
the God of Israel
,
because you have obeyed the commandment of your father and kept all of his commandments
and
done all that He commanded you
,
thus says the Lord of Hosts
,
the God of Israel
,
Jonadab son of Rechab shall not lack a man to stand before Me forever
.’
This is the proof-text we consider to have actually been present in the original – probably ‘
Ebionite
’ – source being drawn upon and so egregiously and disingenuously
overwritten
at this point in Acts 1:20. Its traces, as incredible as it may seem, are probably actually to be detected as well in the curious and patently implausible, related description of Judas
Iscariot
’s
Sicarii
-like suicide in Ma
t
thew 27:3–10, itself incorporating a proof-text seemingly having, despite its parallel refurbishment, nothing whatever really to do with the events in question either.

The point is ostensibly being presented as having to do with
the rejection by
‘
the Chief Priests and the Elders
’
of
‘
the price of Blood
’
as
‘
unlawful
’
for inclusion
‘
in the Temple Treasury
’ (27:6). Then, through the tendentious citation of Zechariah 11:11–12 and the mischievous inclusion of ‘
the Sons of Israel
’ there, one so-called
‘traitor
’’s defection is
being blamed upon a whole People
, but hardly to be considered as a serious accusation, despite the fact that it has been taken up historically as such by the mindless multitude obsessed, somehow, with ‘
Blood
’ lust ever since!

Granted, this is a rather tortuous and round-about task for the novice reader to follow where this particular bit of dissim
u
lation is concerned but, unfortunately, these are the kinds of twists and turns the serious scholar of New Testament history will have to follow if he or she really wishes to unravel the almost serpentine deformations incorporated in many of these
tr
a
ditions
.

Aside from the ‘
Bloody-mindedness
’ of all these kinds of New Testament passages – itself not without consequences where the new directive of ‘
drinking the Blood of Christ
’ is concerned – the issue of ‘
sleeping
’ or ‘
not sleeping with women during their menstrual flow
’ is parodied, too, in the ‘
touching Jesus
’ episode regarding the woman with an over-abundant me
n
strual flow.
92
The issue of ‘
sleeping with women during their periods
’ will, of course, also be pivotal in the ‘
Three Nets of
Bel
i
al
’ accusations in the Damascus Document where it is
the key point bridging the
‘
fornication
’ and ‘
pollution of the Temple
’
charges
there. Not only is it related to that of ‘
a prostitute
’
s hire
’, but the whole issue of
barring Herodians
and
gifts from
or
on their behalf in the Temple
, since Herodian Princesses, in particular, were seen by their ‘
Zealot
’-style opponents as no better than
prostitutes
. Therefore, too, the more cosmopolitan scenes of Jesus
eating with prostitutes
,
tax-collectors
,
and other Si
n
ners
in the Gospels are included, in our view, expressly to counteract this.
93

As this is explained in Columns Four to Five of the Damascus Document relating to those ‘
sleeping with women during their periods
’ – itself a clear indication of how Herodians were perceived, to say nothing of their easy intercourse with their Roman overlords who were obviously also perceived in the same way – the identifying, laconic modifier is added, ‘
and
every one of them marry their nieces
’ or ‘
close family cousins
’, thereby further strengthening the identification of the group involved in such activity with
Herodians
and not
Maccabeans
. Not only could this characterization
not
have applied to any Jewish Priesthood, regardless of its orientation, but it certainly could not have applied to Maccabeans, about whom there is no evidence of such policy.
94
Furthermore, as the Damascus Document makes plain, the charge is but a special case of the ban on ‘
fornication
’ in general and, because of the historical circumstance just alluded to, the one of ‘
pollution of the Temple
’ connected to it in the ‘
Three Nets of
Belial
’ accusations, already signaled above.
95