James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls II (38 page)

In Matthew 7:6 too we see one of the first of many adumbrations of the language of ‘
feet’
. Here, also, the ‘
dogs
’
are
‘
dogs
’ (
kunes
), not ‘
little dogs
’ (
kunaria
)
as in Mark/Matthew’s
Greek Syrophoenician
/
Canaanite woman
’s retort (who
is also po
r
trayed
in Mark 7:25 as ‘
falling at Jesus
’
feet
’), but the effect is the same. In fact, if one takes these several motifs (in particular, that of ‘
casting down Holy Things to dogs
’ or ‘
swine
’ or ‘
casting down crumbs to dogs under the table
’) as a single cluster, J
e
sus’ caution here in Matthew 7:6 can actually be seen as a reply in advance to the later complaint by this Canaanite woman which finally does lead to
his curing her daughter
.

That these Gospel allusions to ‘
dogs
’ do, in fact, have to do with
Gentiles
is made clear in the version of this encounter conserved in, of all places, the Pseudoclementine
Recognitions
. There the ‘
dogs
’ are overtly identified as
a Hebrew way of refe
r
ring to Gentiles
and the woman in question actually gets a name, ‘
Justes
’ – the feminine equivalent of ‘
Justus’
.
41
Whether this is an earlier or derivative version of the encounter in Mark and Matthew above has to be decided, but in the writer’s view the version in the
Recognitions
is more complete and also probably earlier.

To show the link between all three sets of material as the Gospels preserve them, that is, Matthew and Mark’s
Syrophoenician woman
’s ‘
crumbs falling from the master
’
s table
’; ‘
the little dogs under the table eating the children
’
s crumbs
’; and the earlier ‘
not throwing Holy Things to dogs
’, it would be well to set out more fully the description of the man Luke a
l
luded to as ‘
a certain Poor One’
:
‘Now there was a certain Rich Man and he was clothed in purple and fine linen
,
enjoying himself in luxury daily
.
And there was a certain Poor Man named Lazarus
,
who was laid out on his doorstep
,
whose body
was
full of sores and he was desiring to be filled from the crumbs
which fell from the Rich Man
’
s table
,
so that even the dogs came to lick his sores’
(16:19–21).

One could not get much closer to the Talmudic notice purporting to decipher
Ben Kalba Sabu‘a
’s name just cited (‘
no Poor were ever turned away from his door
’) than this, always making allowances, of course, for the disparagement inherent in the parody. The linguistic coincidences, which cannot be accidental, include the ‘
desiring to be filled
’ or ‘
satiated
’; the ‘
came’
, or ‘
coming
’ language; ‘
being laid at
’ ‘
the Rich Man
’
s doorstep
’; the allusion to ‘
daily’
, which we shall repeatedly encounter b
e
low; and, of course, the ‘
Poor
’. These go a long way towards establishing the linguistic connection to the Talmudic depiction of its ‘
Ben Kalba Sabu‘a’
. The person or persons who created this description certainly knew what he or they were doing.

In a climactic section of the Habakkuk
Pesher
we shall see a similar allusion to ‘
being filled’
, this time applied to
the Wicked Priest
who
destroys the Righteous Teacher
and his followers among
‘
the Poor
’, i.e.
the
Ebionim
.
42
This ‘
Priest
’ (meaning
the High Priest
), as a result of his ‘
walking in the ways of
satiety
’ would ‘
drink his fill
’ of ‘
the Cup of the Wrath of God’
, meaning
the
Divine Vengeance
which would be taken on him
for what he did to the Righteous Teacher
.
43
This is reinforced in the next lines: ‘
and he (the Wicked Priest) will be paid the reward he paid the Poor
’ – namely destruction.
44

Nakdimon’s Daughter
Miriam
, Boethus’ Daughter
Martha
, and
Lazarus
’ Two Sisters

The notices about these fabulously wealthy individuals in the
Talmud
also usually involve their daughters or even daug
h
ters-in-law, just as in the case of the
Greek Syrophoenician
/
Canaanite woman
. For instance, in the case of ‘
Nakdimon’s daughter Miriam
’,
ARN
also describes ‘
her couch
’ as ‘
overlaid with a spread worth twelve thousand dinars’
. Here we have ‘
twelve thousand
’ again, encountered above in the number of
Rabbi Akiba
’
s Disciples
, to say nothing of
the amount of Nakdimon
’
s surety
or
the number of cisterns
he filled
and the variation of the language of ‘
laying out
’ which ‘
overlaid
’ co
n
tains; but the allusion ‘
couch
’ also forms part of the Talmudic exposition of the name of Nakdimon’s other
Rich
colleague
, variously called ‘
Ben Zizzit Hakeseth
’ or ‘
Siset Hakkeset’
. The
ARN
expounds this name in terms of the ‘
silver couch upon which he reclined before the Great Ones of Israel’
.
45

A similar allusion to ‘
couch
’ will comprise part of the tradition
ARN
conserves about the great wealth of its hero Rabbi Akiba, who started in poverty so extreme as to be virtually inexpressible. Rabbinic hyperbole aside, in later life after he had obviously inherited his father-in-law
Ben Kalba Sabu‘a
’s wealth, Rabbi Akiba supposedly ‘
mounted his couch with a ladder of gold’
, while ‘
his wife (Rachel) wore golden sandals
’ (allusions to ‘
footwear
’ or the lack thereof will also be a setpiece of our traditions)
and
‘
a golden tiara
’ reportedly shaped like
the City of Jerusalem
. This tradition remounts to his father-in-law Ben Kalba Sabu‘a’s
Riches
, to say nothing of Queen Helen’s family’s – Ben Kalba Sabu‘a’s putative forebears –
own expensive gifts to the Temple
(which included both the seven-branched candelabra at its entrance, taken to Rome for his ‘
Triumph
’ by Titus, and the plaque with the passage from Numbers dealing with ‘
the suspected adulteress
’,
both also of
gold
); but also a youthful promise Akiba had made to his wife in the winter after their marriage when
they had nothing but straw upon which to sleep
(a prototype of the ‘
Jesus in the manger
’ story?).
46

For her part, Nakdimon’s daughter is characterized in the Tractate
Kethuboth
needing ‘
an allowance of four hundred dinars daily just for her perfume basket’
.
Even this she is contemptuous of, saying to the Rabbis who administered it (presumably because by this time
she was apparently a widow
), ‘
May you grant such a pittance to your own daughters
!’
47
This speech see
m
ingly mixes with one attributed in Lamentations
Rabbah
to ‘
Boethus
’
daughter Miriam
’ (actually meaning ‘
Martha
’ but, as we said, these mix-ups are common and they will become quite blatant in the Gospel of John), unless we have
two widows here both awaiting the levirate decision to remarry
(another important theme in the Synoptics) – a doubtful proposition.

Motifs such as these, in particular the costliness of the ‘
perfumes
’ or ‘
ointments’
, and the allusion to ‘
daily’
, as noted in Luke’s description of his ‘
a certain Rich Man
’ (the one with the ‘
certain Poor man named Lazarus lying on his doorstep
’), will be mainstays in Gospel accounts of
events leading up to Jesus
’
death and burial
. For example, one of these ‘
expensive pe
r
fume
’ or ‘
ointment
’ episodes rather occurs
at Lazarus
’
own house
‘
in Bethany
’ in the Gospel of John 11:1–3 (repeated in 12:1–11) and relates notably to Lazarus’
two sisters
,
Mary
(‘
Miriam
’) and the other,
Martha
(
Boethus
’ daughter’s name).

A small piece of this tradition will also appear earlier in Luke 10:38–42, this time ‘
in a certain village
’ at the house of ‘
a ce
r
tain woman named Martha’
, not at Lazarus’ house –
Lazarus
(who will appear later in Luke 16:20) having been excised. Neve
r
theless, even in this episode, Mary will be ‘
sitting at (Jesus
’
) feet
’ and the argument, pregnant with significance, breaks out over ‘
serving
’ (
diakonian
– the same ‘
serving
’ we have already seen relative to the complaints of ‘
the Seven
’
against
‘
the Twelve
’ over ‘
serving
tables
’ in Acts and Paul’s allusion to the good ‘
service
the Saints received
’ at ‘
the house of Stephen
,
the first-fruit of Achaia
’ –
thus!
– in 1 Corinthians 16:15).

In the other Synoptics, Matthew and Mark, a different piece of this tradition
will take place ‘
at Simon the Leper
’
s house
’ but now
the woman who
‘
comes
’
is unnamed
(Matt. 26:6–13/Mark 14:3–10). She is also unnamed in Luke 7:37 where she is called, conspicuously, ‘a
woman of the city who was a Sinner’
.

Not only does this episode include, as in John, ‘
kissing
(
Jesus
’)
feet’
, ‘
wiping them with the hairs of her head’
, and ‘
anoin
t
ing his feet with ointment
’ but now, rather, a parable Jesus tells to
an unidentified
‘
Simon
’, comparing this ‘
woman who was a Sinner
’ and ‘
the Pharisee
’ to ‘
two debtors who owed a certain creditor’
,
one
‘
five hundred pieces of silver and the other fifty
’ (clearly another anti-
Jerusalem Church
parable because it is about ‘
great Sinning
’ rather than ‘
great Righteousness
’).
48
Compare this, too, with Acts 15:5 about ‘
certain of those of the sect of the Pharisees
’ whose insistence on
circumcision
triggers ‘
the J
e
rusalem Conference’
, to say nothing of the parallel with
the debt of
‘
twelve talents of silver
’
Nakdimon owes
his creditor
.