James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls II (67 page)

To understand all of these thematic twists and turns, overwrites and reversals, the reader should group together – as we have done – all these episodes both about Talmudic
Rich
persons (whether Ben Kalba
Sabu
‘
a
,
Ben Zizzit
, Nakdimon ben Gurion, his daughter, or Boethus’ daughter) and New Testament variations or enhancements. To show that the same overlaps and/or revisions are taking place in the
Talmud
as in the New Testament, later in
Kethuboth
this same aphorism, ‘
in accordance with the camel is the burden
’, is evoked once more, but this time it is applied – as already indicated – rather to
recovering the surety in the matter of a marriage contract
(
kethubah
).
43
Now, since this is
Kethuboth
and not Lamentations
Rabbah
, it really is ‘
Martha
’ who is involved and she is correctly identified as ‘
the daughter of Boethus
’ and, as in the case of Nakdimon’s trea
t
ment of ‘
the Poor
’ previously, she is now being compared to ‘
the Poorest woman in Israel
’. Moreover, this is the context in which the aphorism ‘
in accordance with the camel is the burden
’ is quoted – this time, to show that the twenty-five year limit
a
tion for recovery of a dowry was still applicable even though she was now
Poor
–
Rich
and
Poor
being equal before the law.
44
Of course this is to say nothing about her husband’s patronym ‘
Gamala
’, which means ‘
camel
’ in Hebrew, nor the brutal ci
r
cumstance of his death (along with that of James’ judicial murderer, Jesus ben Ananias) at the hands of the so-called ‘
Idumaeans
’ and ‘
Zealots
’.
45

As
Gittin
picks up this material about ‘
Martha the daughter of Boethus
’, it too now calls her ‘
one of the Richest women in Jerusalem
’ – this, once again, in the context of reference to these three
Rich Men
, Nakdimon ben Gurion,
Ben Kalba Sabu
‘
a
, and
Ben Zizzit Hakeseth
.
46
Not only does
Gittin
reiterate here why
Ben Zizzit
was so designated, namely, either ‘
because his fringes
(
zizzith
)
used to trail on cushions
’ or because ‘
his seat
(
kiseh
)
was among the Great Ones of Rome
’, but also that these three were ‘
in a position to keep
(Jerusalem)
in supplies
(specifically denoted here as ‘
wheat and barley
,
wine
,
oil
,
salt
,
and wood
’)
for twenty-one years
’ at a time when ‘
the
Biryonim
’ were ‘
in control of the city
’. Though the chronology is important here, both in terms of Helen’s three successive
Nazirite
-oath periods of seven years imposed upon her by the Rabbis and the successive numbers of cisterns in the Nakdimon ‘
rainmaking
’ scenario, this too would seem to be an exaggeration as, whoever these
Rich Men
are in the end determined to be, they cannot be thought of as being in control of Jerusalem for twenty-one years.
47

This being said, the term
Biryonim
has been widely recognized as a Talmudic term to indicate
Revolutionaries
or ‘
Zealots
’ – in fact, actually most probably ‘
Sicarii
’.
48
It has even been associated with the term ‘
Simon Bar Jonah
’ which Jesus applies to Peter in Matthew 16:17. This is the scene in which Peter designates Jesus in 16:16 as ‘
the Christ
,
the Son of the Living God
’ (in Mark 8:29 and Luke 9:20, only ‘
the Christ
’ or ‘
the Christ of God
’) and, seemingly, in return Jesus designates Peter as his Su
c
cessor, ‘
the Rock upon which I will build my Church
’, giving him ‘
the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven
’ (
sic
–
16:18). Though it has moved very deeply into the popular consciousness, the second part is notably missing from all the other Gospels, though it is – minus ‘
the keys
’ and ‘
build my Church
’ part – to some extent reflected in John 1:42 where Jesus not only calls Peter ‘
Son of Jonah
’ (
Bar Jonah
), but applies the term ‘
Cephas
’ to him which, playing upon the meaning of ‘
Peter
’ in Greek, he or the narrator actually interprets as meaning ‘
Stone
’ (
Petros
).

Nevertheless, in the scene as it develops in John 1:45–51, it is rather left to the individual we have elsewhere identified as a stand-in for James (in John – where otherwise James is nowhere mentioned), ‘
Nathanael
’ (‘
Given-by-God
’) – because 1) Jesus first sees him like a Honi
redivivus
sitting ‘
under a fig-tree
’ (1:48) and 2) he sees ‘
the Angels of God going up and coming down upon the Son of Man
’ (1:51) – to identify Jesus as ‘
the Son of God
’ and ‘
the King of Israel
’ (1:49), the second of which we take to mean ‘
Messiah
’. Finally, as this scene draws to a close in Matthew 16:20, there is some indication that the designation is not widely known, at least not in Palestine, as Jesus tells Peter that ‘
he should tell no man he was the Christ
’.

When the Rabbis, true to the political orientation of the Pharisees, wish ‘
to go out and make peace with
’ the Romans, th
e
se ‘
Biryonim
’, according to the presentation of Tractate
Gittin
here (and this does seem to be accurate), ‘
prevent them
’. These same
Biryonim
are also described as ‘
burning all the stores of wheat and barley so that a famine ensued
’ (here, of course, the real origin probably of many of the ‘
wheat and barley
’ evocations above). Not only is this fact also borne out in Josephus’ narr
a
tive,
49
it is reflected, it would appear, in
the Famine
with which we originally began this series of traditions circulating around the persons of Nakdimon ben Gurion and his colleagues.

It is in this context, too, that one of the final stories, chronologically speaking, is told about ‘
Martha the daughter of Boethus
’ and, once again, this time
Gittin
has her
prenom
right.
50
As this is presented – and by now a certain tragic sadness has begun to envelop her story – after sending her servant out four different times: first to buy fine flour, next white flour, after that dark flour, then barley flour (clearly, four declining grades of quality, indicating how far the famine had progressed within the city) and finding there was none, suddenly she is described as ‘
taking off her shoes
’! Why she should do so at this point is u
n
clear (unless she didn’t want to get them ‘
dirty
’) but, as is the way with these Talmudic traditions, it doesn’t really matter – the allusion having made it possible for her to be barefoot again and for the final bit of information to emerge, that is, she then went out, but ‘
some
dung stuck to her feet
and she died
’. Again, too, all of this is typical both of Rabbinic hyperbole and laconic understatement.

Once again, it is Rabbi Yohanan ben Zacchai who applies the passage from Deuteronomy 28:56 (‘
The most tender and delicate of your women would not venture to set the sole of her feet upon the ground
’ – previously applied above in Lament
a
tions
Rabbah
by Rabbi Eleazar ben Zadok) – and this certainly with more justice – to the pathos of Martha’s fate and how he saw her reduced from her Rabbinic allowance of ‘
five hundred dinars daily just for her perfume box
’ to ‘
gathering barley corns from beneath the feet of horses in Acco
’ – though ‘
Rabbi Zadok
’ (not ‘
Eleazar ben Zadok
’, seemingly perhaps, his father) is evoked in almost the very next sentence about the fast he supposedly observed ‘
for forty years so that Jerusalem might not be destroyed
’.
51

In fact, so thin was he – R. Zadok, that is – that ‘
when he ate anything the food could be seen
’, meaning as it passed down his throat. It is in this context that the observation is made too that ‘
When Rabbi Zadok wished to restore himself
,
they used to bring him a fig and he used to suck the juice and
throw the rest away
’
(here, yet another variation of the ‘
casting
’ allusion, which then leads directly into those about Martha, ‘
when she was about to die
’, ‘
casting
’ all her gold and silver ‘
into the street
’, we had already seen in this section of
Gittin
).
Nor is this description of Rabbi Zadok completely unrelated to some of the u
s
ages found in Matthew and Mark’s picture of the ‘
Toilet Bowl
’ Parable Jesus tells which not only mentions
food going into his mouth
and
seemingly ‘
down his throat
’, but ‘
casting
the rest away
’. Even more to the point, this description of R. Zadok clearly correlates with and has many of the elements of depictions of James, including his perennial fasting and vegetarianism. Be this as it may, in another display of typical Talmudic earthiness or corporeality, it is now reported that some say,
she ate the fig left by Rabbi Zadok
(meaning the pulp he had discarded when he sucked out the juice),
became sick
,
and died
!
52

Here, too, one should perhaps quote another Talmudic story, which in its pathetic sadness and tragicality has to be seen as defining this period – at least from the Judean point-of-view – and really does tug at the heartstrings. Clearly it did nothing of the sort to those who created the stories from the same period that found their way into the New Testament which show ne
i
ther any such empathy or pity and, however one might admire their artfulness or the cosmopolitanism of their spiritual me
s
sage, in the circumstances,
are hardhearted in the extreme
.

The story which is conserved, as usual, in two versions – one in Lamentations
Rabbah
and one here in Tractate
Gittin
– seemingly relates to this same Rabbi Zadok, now taken for a ‘
High Priest
’ (though, since it is extant in two versions, it might be another).
53
In
Gittin
, it is told in relation to the children of a Rabbi named Ishmael ben Elisha, who probably is to be ident
i
fied with another
Boethusian
-style
High Priest
in this period, Ishmael ben Phiabi.
54
But since most of our more reliable trad
i
tions from this time, particularly this kind of heartrending material, seem to be emanating out of Lamentations
Rabbah
and the
ARN
, we will assume that the Lamentations one is more reliable although, where the sense and piteous impact of the story is concerned, it is immaterial. The story, which actually introduces this whole series of tales about ‘
Miriam the daughter of Boethus
’ (
thus
) and the aphorism attributed to R. Eleazer ben Zadok in Lamentations
Rabbah
,
reads as follows: