James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls II (54 page)

Now both quantities for the number of those fed are cited, ‘
five thousand
’ and ‘
four thousand
’ (Matthew 16:9–10 and Mark 8:19–20), but after some complicated number crunching – calisthenics might be more accurate – Mark finally comes up with ‘
the twelve handbaskets full of broken pieces
’ for the number ‘
taken up
’ or ‘
filled
’, which was the original of all four Go
s
pels in the first place – corresponding, of course, to
Nakdimon
’
s
‘
twelve cisterns
’ or ‘
water pools
’, with which we began the whole excursus. Nor is the whole complex unrelated, as we shall see, to both Helen of Adiabene’s and Paul and Barnabas’ ‘
famine-relief’
efforts.

For its part, Matthew 16:11–12 satisfies itself – since its main interest is the continuation of the attack on ‘
the
leaven
of the Pharisees and Sadducees
’ – to speak portentously only about the more general ‘
bread
’ and its ‘
leaven
’. Here Jesus speaks to his followers like some divine
Dionysus
,
Asclepius
, or
Apollo
come down to sort out their problems. After warning about ‘
the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of the Herodians
’ above (Mark 8:15 – in Matthew, just alluded to, this changes to ‘
the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees
’), both have Jesus questioning
his Disciples
, ‘
Do you yet not perceive
’ or ‘
understand
’ (Matthew 16:9/Mark 8:17 and 21 – I hope we do) – Matthew 16:10 then having Jesus manfully trying to summarize the whole convoluted issue of the numbers as follows: ‘
Do you not yet perceive
,
nor remember the five loaves and the five thousand and how many handbaskets you took and the seven loaves and the four thousand and how many handbaskets you took
?’
In the end, as just remarked, it is left to Mark 8:19 to come up with the right answer: ‘
They said to him
, “
Twelve
”’!

If we now add to this the ‘
two hundred
dinar
s
’ given by Mark 6:37, we basically have all the numbers and their multiples or variations from the Talmudic Nakdimon/Boethus/and their daughters/daughters-in-law traditions – the ‘
seven
’s, for instance, having to do with the three ‘
seven
’- year, temporary Nazirite-style penances put upon Queen Helen of Adiabene by the Ra
b
bis. It is, also, always useful to again remark that the variation of the ‘
loaves
’ (whatever the final number), as opposed to ‘
the twelve baskets full of fragments
’ simply corresponds to the addition of the element of the ‘
twelve talents of silver
’ over and above the ‘
twelve water cisterns
’ in the Nakdimon miracle stories.

Nor is any of this, finally, to say anything of Nakdimon and his colleagues’ ‘
twenty-one
’ or ‘
twenty-two years
’ of grain-storage activity
to relieve the famine in Jerusalem
– though actually it does. We have already explained that this ‘
twenty-one years
’ in Rabbinic tradition reflects, in turn, the three successive seven-year Nazirite oath-style penances – just remarked above – supposedly (and curiously) placed upon Queen Helen of Adiabene by the Rabbis for reasons which were unclear, but very likely having to do with adultery or some such similar issue (therefore her interest in having the passage on the ‘
adulterous woman
’ from Numbers 5:13–31 – itself followed by the one on ‘
Nazirite oaths
’ in Numbers 6:1-21 – placed in an expensive plaque of gold leaf on a wall of the Temple courtyard
30
).

But we have just seen in these various ‘
fainting of hunger in the wilderness
’ and ‘
longing to be filled
’/‘
needing to be fed
’ descriptions in the Gospels (poeticized allusions, obviously, to a situation requiring ‘
famine relief
’) the constant reiteration of the number ‘
seven
’ in the ‘
seven baskets full of fragments
’ and ‘
the seven loaves
’ valuations, to say nothing of the ‘
five loaves and two fishes
’ from which ‘
they all ate and were satisfied
’ in Mark 8:4-8 and
pars
. Compare this with the Rabbinic ‘
Ben Kalba Sabu
‘
a’
tradition, a name in itself having either to do with ‘
dogs
’, ‘
immersion
’, or ‘
being satiated
’ or ‘
filled
’, and how they ‘
came to his door hungry as a dog and went away filled
’.

Can anyone really doubt that those initially responsible for these traditions in the Gospels, such as they are – and I use the expression ‘
tradition
’ charitably – knew the truth about what was going on in Palestine in this period and the real issues actua
l
ly being debated there, but rather substituted these often nonsensical and sometimes even ridiculous miracle tales that so much appeal to the naive and credulous, not only at that time but, it would seem, at all times and in all places since? ‘
The Truth
’, as one might refer to it, really ‘
will
– to use the words of John 8:32 –
set you free
’ and, in a very real sense, it has to do with these
more Revolutionary
,
Messianic heroes
and
Movements
, themselves probably connected in some manner to the activities of Queen Helen of Adiabene and her descendants –
new converts to Judaism far more
‘
zealous
’ (as we have been seeing)
than any Herodian
ones
.

‘
Eating with Unwashed Hands
do
not Defile the Man
’ and ‘
Making all Foods Clean
’

One last point that should at this juncture perhaps be made. The encounter with the unnamed
Cananaean
/
Syrophoenician woman
out of whose
daughter
Jesus ‘
casts an unclean spirit
’ or ‘
demon
’ is also preceded in Mark 7:1–23 and somewhat less so in Matthew 15:1–20 by the pro-Pauline polemics – in Mark 7:6–7 and Matthew 15:9 quoting Isaiah 29:13 – having to do with ‘
teaching as doctrines the commandments of men’.
This is a very important allusion and plays off the critique of ‘
the Enemy
’ Paul, mirrored in Galatians 1:10–11’s ‘
seeking to please men
’ – and even before this in 1:1, where Paul makes the claim of b
e
ing ‘
an Apostle not through men or of man
’.

Furthermore and even perhaps more germane, these polemics in Mark 7:1–23 and Matthew 15:1–20 actually evoke the famous Talmudic Tractate
Pirke Abbot
(
The Traditions of the Fathers
which, as we have already seen, has as its variation the
ARN
or
The Fathers According to Rabbi Nathan
) – here in Mark 7:3–5 and Matthew 15:2, ‘
The Traditions of the Elders
’. This designation ‘
Elders
’ or ‘
Presbyteron
’ is used, as we have seen, at various junctures in the Gospels and the Book of Acts and is the actual de
s
ignation for James’
Jerusalem Community
in both Acts 21:18 and the Pseudoclementine
Homilies
above.
31
In perhaps the most convoluted reasoning we have yet encountered in our discussion, these polemics also invoke the Mosaic Commandment, ‘
Honor your father and your mother
’ (Mark 7:10/Matthew 15:4) and, in doing so, leave no doubt that we are in fact dealing with ‘
the Fathers
’. Just as importantly, in Mark 7:1–5 ‘
the Pharisees
’ are invoked as well – three times in five lines! As we have several times had cause to remark, this is an expression that often acts as a ‘
blind
’ for those of the ‘
Jamesian
’ persuasion within the early Church – as, for example, in Acts 15:5 at the renowned ‘
Jerusalem Council
’, the elusive ‘
some
who believed
’ of ‘
the sect of the Pharisees
’, who provoked the ‘
Council
’ by their insistence
on
‘
circumcision
’ and ‘
keeping the law of Moses
’!

Not only have we just encountered these same ‘
Pharisees
’ in the two ‘
filling those fainting from hunger
’ episodes in both Mark 8:11–14 and Matthew 16:1–12, but in this run-up to the ‘
dogs eating of the crumbs falling from their master
’
s table
’ ep
i
sode (in the variation in Luke 16:21, ‘
the Rich Man
’
s table
’), the evocation of these same ‘
Pharisees
’ is being used to attack those of the James school over the issue of
table fellowship with Gentiles
(an issue clearly being raised by Paul in Galatians 2:11–14). Moreover, there is the additional derivative attack, which now seems to us, if not bizarre, at least primitive, on the Jewish People as a whole – in this case, plainly, meant to include
the Jerusalem Community
of James, and others of this min
d
set – that ‘
eating with unwashed hands does not defile the man
’ (Matthew 15:20/Mark 7:2–3).

Not only is this attack framed in terms of the charged words, ‘
keeping
’, ‘
breaking
’, and ‘
holding fast to
’, familiar in various Dead Sea Scrolls’ texts,
but it derogates ‘
washing one
’
s hands before eating
’ only to the level of a ‘
tradition of men breaking the (obviously
‘
Higher
’
) Commandment of God
’. In the odd logic being displayed in this clearly pro-Pauline exposition, the meaning of this last would appear to be the Mosaic Commandment and that of humanity generally, to ‘
honor your father and your mother
’ (Mark 7:8–9/Matthew 15:3 and 15:19).

The argument, which is childish and self-serving in the extreme, seems to turn on the point that since one’s parents might have ‘
eaten with unwashed hands
’, the Commandment not to do so – which the Gospel Jesus is pictured as dismissing here merely as ‘
a Tradition of the Elders
’ – would be contradicting the Higher Commandment (the one he is terming a ‘
Co
m
mandment of God
’)
not to dishonour them
! This appears to be the gist of what seems a very tortured and largely unintelligible argument but, to judge by the time spent on it in Mark as well as Matthew,
clearly a pivotal one
as well. Still, should the reader feel it represents the true words of the Jesus he or she holds sacred or admires, then that person is welcome to do so. But the conclusion is ridiculous, namely ‘
don
’
t wash your hands before eating
’. As stated, the writer sees it as a striking example of retrospective pro-Pauline polemics and, consequently, feels it to be a service historically-speaking to rescue Jesus from this particular bit of prejudiced sophistry.

Furthermore, these polemics clearly evoke Paul’s attack on Peter in Galatians 2:13, in which Paul accuses him of ‘
hypocr
i
sy
’. It is actually this charge that Mark 7:6 portrays Jesus as making in commencing his attack on ‘
the Pharisees and some of the Scribes
’ (note the telltale allusion to ‘
some
’ here and in Matthew 15:1’s ‘
Scribes and Pharisees from Jerusalem
’): ‘W
ell did Isaiah prophesy concerning you Hypocrites as it is written
(in Isaiah 29:13), “
this People honor Me with the lips but the heart is far away from Me”
’.