James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls II (73 page)

Lazarus, Liezer, Amraphel, and Ephraim

But to go back to our other historical parallels – not only have we seen the same sort of ‘
stench
’ referred to in the story of the advice R. Yohanan’s nephew ‘
Abba Sikkra
’ or ‘
Ben Battiah
’ (‘
the Head of the
Sicarii
of Jerusalem
’) gives R. Yohanan ‘
to put a clod of something smelling very putrid
’ into his coffin so people would think he was dead, but it also finds a reflection in both of John 11–12’s
Lazarus
/
Eliezer
stories.

Though what we shall now summarize is, again, to a certain extent repetitious of previous material or what we have just pointed out in a secondary or more cursory manner in other contexts, it would be useful to review all this material about ‘
smells
’ or ‘
odours
’ one last and hopefully conclusive time. In so doing, at least these things will indelibly imprint themselves on the reader’s consciousness (as they have the author’s) and, as is often the case, some new insight might and, in this case, does emerge. In this type of study, such
summations are necessary where the material is as complex as that before us.

Let us take the second passage from John 12:3–5 first: when
Mary
, Lazarus’ sister, ‘
takes the pound (litran) of ointment of pure spikenard of great price
’ to anoint Jesus’ ‘
feet and wipe them with her hair
’, the house was said to have ‘
been
filled
with (its) odour
’ or ‘
smell
’, that is,
the sweet
‘
smell
’
of the pure
‘
perfume
’. It is this ‘litra
n
’ about which ‘
Judas the son
’ or ‘
brother of Simon Iscariot
’ (here, of course, the ‘
Abba Sikkra
’ parallels) complains, reckoning it at ‘
three hundred dinars
’.

To press the point home and, with it, the further parallels with Nakdimon’s ‘
feet
’ never touching the ground because of ‘
the cushions laid for him by the Poor
’ and the questionable pretense he made of charity (or, for that matter, ‘
Boethus
’
daug
h
ter Martha
’ who
made no such pretense when she walked from her house to the Temple
and whose ‘
feet
’, likewise,
appeared to floated on air
), exemplified also in other stories about
dog
s and/or ‘
the Poor coming to his door
(
the ‘Rich Man
’’s or
Ben Kalba Sabu
‘
a
’s)
and going away
filled
’, the text has Judas add to the above complaint about the ‘
dinar
’ value of the ointment: ‘
it should have been sold and given to the Poor
’, then opining, ‘
He did not say this because he cared about the Poor
,
but because he was a thief and held the (common) purse
,
carrying away whatever was put in it’
(12:6).
To make the connection with Jesus’ coming ‘
death and burial
’ even more plain, John 12:7 then has Jesus add: ‘
Let her alone
(echoing ‘
the Blind Guides
’ rebuke in Matthew 15:14 and the admonition relative to ‘
the Sons of the Pit
’ in the Scrolls
45
).
She has kept it
(
the expensive perfume
)
for the day of my burial
.’

Interestingly enough, even this tradition about Jesus’ attitude towards the respect he was owed by
his Disciples
has a para
l
lel from the life of Eliezer ben Hyrcanus. R. Eliezer, even at the point he was about to die too and after he has been exco
m
municated by Rabban Gamaliel, when
his
Disciples
, ‘
Rabbi Akiba and his colleagues
’, come to see him on his deathbed and they discourse about the ‘
cleanness
’ or ‘
uncleanness
’ of things contained in ‘
unclean vessels
’, he is pictured as suddenly blur
t
ing out: ‘
I fear for the Disciples of this generation
,
for they will be punished by death from Heaven
.’
46
When they ask him, ‘
Master
,
what for
?’, he replies in the manner of Jesus’ various rebukes to
his Disciples
over all the women ‘
anointing him
’ and ‘
kissing his feet
,
wiping them with their hair
’: ‘
Because
,
they
(‘
you
’)
did not come and attend upon me
.’
In particular, he singles out his principal
Disciple
, Akiba
ben Joseph
, whom we know died a horrifying and terrible martyr’s death (he was drawn and quartered and pulled apart by horses) in the next generation for his support of the Bar Kochba Revolt. Not only did Akiba, according to Rabbinic lore, designate Bar Kochba ‘
the Star
’ of Numbers 24:17, thereby bestowing upon him his cognomen
,
but when he was asked by R. Eliezer, ‘
why you did not attend upon me
?’ and he answered,
because he
‘
did not have time
’, R. Eliezer is reported to have replied, ‘
the manner of your death will be the hardest of them all
’.
47

It is at this point too that John 12:9-11, right after picturing Jesus as referring to his
burial
and right before his finding ‘
a young colt
’ to sit on, then incorporates the curious tradition that ‘
a great crowd of Jews
gathered,
not because of Jesus only
,
but that they might see Lazarus whom he raised from the dead
’ (12:9), whereupon
the Chief Priests
‘
plotted together that they might also put Lazarus to death
’ (
sic
! – 12:10).

In a possible further reflection from the life of Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus (who seemed to sympathize, as we have seen, with sectarian ‘
Nazoraeans
’ like Jesus,
48
argued with R. Yohanan’s other
Disciple
, R. Joshua,
49
others from Rabbi Yohanan’s school,
50
and Rabban Gamaliel, whose sister he had married and by whom he was arbitrarily excommunicated,
51
and was co
n
sidered so ‘
Great
’ that,
when he sat before
‘
the Great Ones of Israel
’ – including ‘
Ben Sisit Hakkeset
,
Nakdimon ben Gurion
,
and Ben Kalba Sabu
‘
a
’ – his face was ‘
as luminous as the light of the sun and the beams emanated from it like the rays from Moses
’
face’
52
), John 12:9–11, as already remarked, seems to think that ‘
the High Priests
’ were acting in this way ‘
because many of the Jews were leaving and believing in Jesus because of him
’ (
Lazarus
)!

Directly after this, of course, John 12:12-15 has the material about Jesus ‘
coming
’ with
his Disciples
, ‘
riding on a young ass’ colt
’, supposedly fulfilling the passage from Zechariah 9:9 already remarked above, ‘
your King is coming
’, ‘
riding on a young donkey
–
a colt the foal of a donkey
’. Nonetheless, the context of this whole passage in the Hebrew Zechariah, inclu
d
ing both the chapters preceding and following it, could not be more aggressively nationalistic, irredentist, and Zionist,
wishing destruction on all of Zion
’
s enemies and rejoicing on the whole
‘
House of Judah
’!

Even more telling with regard to this motif of ‘
smells
’ is the previous story John 11:17–44 tells about ‘
Martha meeting
’
J
e
sus
,
while
‘
Mary was still sitting in the house
’. In this incident, it transpires that, since Martha has ‘
secretly
’ told her that ‘
the Master
’
had come
, it is now Mary who ‘
arises
’ (11:21–11:28) and ‘
goes to the tomb that she might weep there
’ (11:31). This is yet another adumbration of the ‘
weeping
’ theme we encountered in the story of R. Yohanan and
his Disciple
, R. Joshua, ‘
mourning for the fall of the Temple
’ and the ‘
weeping
’ they mutually indulge in when contemplating its ‘
ruins
’. Nor is this to say anything about R. Akiba’s own ‘
weeping
’ when he encounters R. Eliezer’s body being carried on the highway from Lydda and the ‘
woes
’ he then exclaims,
53
nor R. Yohanan’s ‘
weeping
’ when he contemplates his own death,
54
nor that of ‘
the Holy Spirit
’ or what the two children of Zadok the High Priest exchange in the Talmudic story when they find each other in Rome and expire in each other’s arms.

Nor is this Jesus’ tomb that ‘
Mary
’ goes to – as in the case of one or both of the two
Mary
s, ‘
Mary Magdalene
’ and ‘
the other Mary
’ – in John 11:31, but here the tomb of
Lazarus
, who had been in the cave blocked by the stone ‘
for four days
’ (thus – 11:38–39). The point is that, ‘
when she came
’ in the
pro forma
manner – just like R. Akiba’s wife over and over again in the Rabbinic stories about him – she ‘
falls at his (Jesus
’
) feet
’. Now, specifically tying this ‘
putrid stench
’ both to Lazarus (‘
Eliezer
’ – the ‘
Liezer
’ of the Genesis
Rabbah
version of the story about Eliezer’s bad breath above
55
) and the ‘
smell
’ of his dead body (also paralleling ‘
the smell
’ of R. Yohanan’s body above where, depending on the tradition, R. Eliezer and R. Joshua were ‘
the two Disciples
’ conducting it past either the Roman or Jewish sentries outside Jerusalem), John has Jesus now direct ‘
Martha the sister of him that died
’ to ‘
take away the stone
’ (11:39). Whereupon, as usual, she once again
complains
but this time
about the putrid stench
, ‘
Lord
,
he
already stinks for it has been four days
’.
So instead of the ‘
smell
’ of Mary’s ‘litra
of ointment of pure spikenard of great price
’ ‘
filling the house with the smell of the perfume
’ in John 12:3, it is now Mary’s
sister Martha
evoking
the putrid stench of Lazarus
’
dead body
. So that perhaps would be sufficient for the parallels involved in the ‘
smells
’ of all these various contexts involving either
Lazarus
,
Eliezer
,
Mary
,
Martha
, or eventually even, as we shall presently discuss,
Nicodemus
/
Nicodemon
.