James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls II (71 page)

Not only should one compare this with Matthew 10:34’s ‘
I have
come
not to bring Peace
but a sword
’, but it is fiercely and apocalyptically
Messianic
linking up with the text Michael Wise and myself originally found in 1990 about ‘
the Branch of D
a
vid
’, which we called ‘
The Messianic Leader
’ or ‘
Nasi ha-
‘
Edah
’.
32
This text, which was only a fragment, also evoked Isaiah 10:34, alluding
inter alia
to both ‘
woundings
’/‘
piercings
’ and ‘
the Kittim
’, and, in the spirit of Isaiah 11:4 to follow, probably referring to ‘
judging the Peoples with the sword of his mouth
’.

As we shall see in due course, this
Nasi ha-
‘
Edah
will appear in Ms. A of the Damascus Document where he will again be identified as ‘
the Sceptre who will stand up
’ or ‘
arise out of Israel
’ of Numbers 24:17, who ‘
will smite all the sons of Seth
’ (a synonym clearly for ‘
the Evil Ones
’/‘
the Kittim
’/or ‘
the Enemies of God
’ of the Isaiah
Pesher
s,
et
al
.).

In turn, in the
Genesis
Pesher
(in our publication of it we called it, with a nod to John Allegro, ‘
The Genesis
Florilegium
’), in exposition of ‘
the Shiloh Prophecy
’ of Genesis 49:10–11, both ‘
the Sceptre
’ and ‘
the Branch of David
’ are once again evoked and now, for the first time, the all-important Messianic ‘
feet
’. Moreover, because of the curious allusion in it to ‘
tethering his donkey
’ or ‘
the colt of its she-donkey
’, it is probably also being evoked in all four Gospels in Jesus’
Messianic
entry into Jerus
a
lem (Matthew 21:1–11 and
pars
.).
33

In it, too, ‘
the Staff
’ (
Mehokkek
) is pictured as being ‘
between the Shiloh
’
s
feet
’ and interpreted as ‘
the Covenant of the Kingdom
’. In Ms. A of the Damascus Document, as we shall see below, it will be ‘
the Interpreter
’ or ‘
Doresh ha-Torah
’ who ‘
went out from the Land of Judah
’ to ‘
dig the Well of Living Waters in the Land of Damascus
’ of Numbers 21:18 – ‘
the I
n
strument for His works
’ of Isaiah 54:16 and ‘
the Star
’ evoked along with ‘
the Sceptre
’ in Numbers 24:17 and, as we shall see, the Messianic
Florilegium
as well. It is worth remarking as well that ‘
Shiloh
’ is also designated as ‘
the name of the Messiah
’ in the various Messianic allusions that follow the evocation of the ‘
Lebanon
’ quote from Isaiah 10:34 in Lamentations
Rabbah
above.
34

But here in the Genesis
Pesher
, both ‘
the Sceptre
’ and ‘
the Branch of David
’ are distinctly identified with ‘
the Messiah of Righteousness
’, who in turn is identified with ‘
the coming of the Shiloh
’, to whom and to whose ‘
seed
’ ‘
the Covenant of the Kingdom of His People
’ was given ‘
unto Eternal generations because he kept the
Torah
’ – ‘
keeping
’ being the basis of the de
f
inition, as we have seen, of
the Sons of Zadok
at Qumran. However these things may be and whatever the reader may make of the final meaning of these things, the reader should appreciate that ‘
the Branch of David
’ being referred to in these Isaiah and Genesis
Pesher
s is certainly also the same as ‘
the
Nasi ha
-
‘
Edah
’ in both the famous fragment above most now consider an add
i
tion to the War Scroll, and in the Damascus Document’s exposition of ‘
the Sceptre
’ from ‘
the Star Prophecy
’, not to mention the language used on the coinage from the period of the Bar Kochba War (132–36
CE
) in the denotation there of ‘
Bar Kochba
’/‘
the Star
’ as ‘
the
Nasi
-Israel’.
35
To complete the circle, ‘
the Sceptre
’ and its analogue, ‘
the Branch of David
’, now turn up in these Messianic allusions from Isaiah 10:21–11:5 in the various versions of the Isaiah
Pesher
, so we clearly really do have here a circle of Messianic allusions.

Rabbi Yohanan and Rabbi Joshua’s ‘
Woes
’ and Rabbi Eliezer’s ‘
Putrid Breath
’ Again

Therefore when R. Yohanan applies ‘
the Mighty One
’ terminology of Isaiah 10:34 to, however improbably, Vespasian in the various Rabbinic milieux above as well, the implication is that he also is somewhat disingenuously applying ‘
the Star
’ or ‘
Shiloh
’
Prophecies
to him as did Josephus. This story as the
ARN
presents it, while not paralleled in
Gittin
, is however with slight modifications to be found in Lamentations
Rabbah
and, to some extent, in Ecclesiastes
Rabbah
, though in these, as a
l
ready remarked, it is R. Yohanan who is exclaiming ‘
woe
’ because of his nephew (Ben Battiah), who has burned the stor
e
houses, condemning the people to starvation.

This parallels the much longer series of ‘
woes
’ we saw Jesus making in the Temple in the Gospel of Matthew 23:13–38 (though not in the other three), ending in the clearly retrospective reproof, ‘J
erusalem
,
Jerusalem
,
which kills the Prophets
’ and the additional – equally retrospective – prognostication, ‘
your house
(
will
)
be left desolate unto you
’. In Luke, these ‘
woes
’ come earlier in 11:46–52, after Jesus visits Martha’s house, when another ‘
certain Pharisee
’ had invited him to dine with him and noticed ‘
he had not first washed before eating
’ (11:38). The parallel to this was clearly the ‘
unwashed hands
’/‘
Traditions of the Elders
’ material in Matthew 15:1–20 and Mark 7:1-23, also in response to ‘
the Pharisees and some of the Scribes from J
e
rusalem
’ (
i
.
e
.,
the James Party
), when Jesus – in attacking
the Pharisees
as ‘
Blind Guides
’ – expounded the ‘
Toilet Bowl
’ Par
a
ble for
Peter
’s benefit.

It is following this extensive list of ‘
woes
’ in Matthew 23 that Jesus, upon leaving Jerusalem and the Temple and turning back – just as R. Yohanan and his
Disciple
, R. Joshua – to look at it, pronounced the devastating prediction, ‘
There shall not be left here one stone upon stone that shall not be thrown down
’ (Matthew 24:1–2 and
pars
.), before proceeding to the Mount of Olives to set forth ‘
the Little Apocalpyse
’ in all three Synoptics. Of course for the
ARN
, as opposed to both Lamentations and Ecclesiastes
Rabbah
, it is R. Joshua (‘
Jesus
’ and ‘
Joshua
’ being analogues) who, when looking back at the Temple and se
e
ing it in ruins, utters his own mournful ‘
woe
’, and it is at this point that R. Yohanan (not Ben Battiah who rebukes him) is r
a
ther comforting
his Disciple
at the sight they are now both witnessing by evoking Hosea 6:6, that is, it is ‘
Mercy
’ or ‘
Lovingkindness
’ (literally, ‘
Hesed
’/‘
Piety
’)
which the Lord
‘
desires
,
not sacrifice
’ – then going on to counsel him that he should now pray three times a day as Daniel had done in Babylon (Daniel 6:1)!
36

Following this and his application of Isaiah 10:34’s ‘
Lebanon shall fall by a Mighty One
’ to Vespasian and his rise to po
w
er,
ARN
even depicts the Romans as ‘
catapulting a pig
’
s head
’ into the Temple upon its altar, not unlike the report of some modern military tactics today. In fact in
Gittin
,
R. Yohanan is portrayed as obsequiously characterizing this rise to power by Vespasian as ‘
the Good News
’/‘
the Gospel
’ and quoting Scripture, Proverbs 15:30: ‘
Good News fattens the bone
’, as applying to it!
37
Moreover, before his application of the other ‘
Lebanon
’ and ‘
cedar tree
’ passages – including that of Zechariah 11:1–3 on ‘
Lebanon opening
(
its
)
doors so fire might consume
(‘
eat
’)
its cedars
’ – both to it and the fall of the Temple,
ARN
also pi
c
tures R. Yohanan as sitting and waiting, trembling by the side of the road, as Eli had done ‘
for the ark of the Lord
’ in 1 Samuel 4:13, when he and
his Disciples
hear that ‘
Jerusalem was destroyed and the Temple in flames
’, whereupon ‘
they tore their clothes
,
wept
,
and cried aloud in mourning
’ (
i
.
e
., the first note of ‘
Mourning for Zion
’).

Not only do these speeches by R. Yohanan parallel what Jesus is supposed to have said about ‘
there shall not be left here one stone upon stone
(
of the Temple
)
that shall not be thrown down
’ (Matthew 24:1–2 and
pars
.) when he and
his Disciples
are leaving the Temple as well, but also another speech Jesus is pictured as making in Matthew 26:61 and Mark 14:58 before ‘
the Chief Priests
,
the Elders
,
and the whole Sanhedrin
’ about ‘
being able to destroy the Temple of God and in three days build it up
’. The application of Isaiah 10:34 and Zechariah 11:1–3 in these Rabbinic traditions to these pivotal events and their picture of R. Yohanan’s appearance before the Emperor-to-be – either Vespasian or his son Titus (Talmudic tradition is really unable to distinguish between historical points as fine as these) – must also have included ‘
the Star Prophecy
’.

This picture of R. Yohanan (after his humiliating escape from Jerusalem) obsequiously applying these kinds of ‘
prophecy
’ to Vespasian’s rise to power is, perhaps, more accurately linked to Josephus, who in the
Jewish War
had already explained how he used this precious
oracle
to predict Vespasian’s coming elevation to Emperor and save, as it were, his own skin.
38
That this ‘
oracle
’ had to include, among other things, the prophecy that ‘
a world Ruler would come out of Palestine
’ seems to the author to be a given.