James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls II (91 page)

In the Damascus Document, all instances of this kind of language are connected in some manner with ‘
the Well
(‘
of Li
v
ing Waters
’)
which is being dug
’
in the wilderness
, interpreted to mean, ‘
the New Covenant in the Land of Damascus
’, and the extreme purity regulations and absolute ‘
separation
of Holy from profane
’ associated with this. The exhortative part of the D
a
mascus Document ends some fifteen lines further along, after these references to ‘
fearing God
’ or ‘
God-Fearers
’, promising that those ‘
who listened to the voice of the Teacher of Righteousness and did not abandon the Laws of Righteousness
’ would gain ‘
Victory over all the sons of Earth
’. Furthermore, that God or possibly His representatives would ‘
make atonement for them and that they would
see His Salvation
(that is, ‘
see Jesus
’ – ‘
Yeshu
‘
ato
’),
because they took refuge in His Holy Name
’.
56

The apocalyptic character of this ‘
promise
’ should be clear, as should its relationship to Paul’s triumphant language at the end of 1 Corinthians 15. Certainly what we have here is an encouragement to martyrdom and a variation of what has gone in Judaism ever since under the denotation of ‘
Kiddush ha-Shem
’/‘
Sanctification of the Name
’ literally meaning ‘
martyrdom
’. Ce
r
tainly, too, those Josephus depracatingly refers to as ‘
False Prophets
’, ‘
Impostors
’, and ‘
Deceivers
’ leading the People out into the wilderness, there to show them ‘
the signs of their impending Freedom
’ or ‘
Deliverance
’ – were making claims not unsimilar to these.

The
wilderness
regime of
daily bathing
and ablution in these ‘
desert camps
’ was part and parcel of this extreme eschat
o
logical vision because of the need for absolute purity there. This was necessary because the Final Apocalyptic
War
against all Evil on the Earth, as the War Scroll – however fancifully – envisions it, could only be effected, as already explained, by the intervention and participation of the Heavenly Host, who would not or could not
join
any camps with pollution in them
. Put in another way, their
Heavenly
state could not abide human
pollution
of any kind. Therefore the stringent purity regulations required in these ‘
camps
’ if
the Heavenly Host
or ‘
Holy Angels
’
were going to
‘
join
’
them
, setting the stage for that apocalyptic Final
Judgement
which would
come down from Heaven
‘
on the clouds
’
like rain
. It is this combination of themes too, as we have seen, that characterizes the presentation of James one gets both in early Church descriptions of him and the Letter the New Testament attributes to his name.

This is the esoteric dimension to these claims about
rainmaking
as it
emerges in the War Scroll, where this kind of imagery is repeated both in the climactic exegesis of the Messianic ‘
World Ruler Prophecy
’ and at its end.
57
It is as dramatic as it is p
o
etic and worth presenting in its entirety, for only then can the reader get the real feeling of this unique combination of unco
m
promising apocalyptic ‘
zeal for the Day of Judgement
’ and meticulous attention to
bodily purification
and ‘
Perfect Holiness
’ or ‘
the Perfection of Holiness
’ – ‘
Perfection of the Way
’ as the Community Rule refers to it, variations of which being over and over again reiterated in the Scrolls.
58
This is the combination exemplified by the militant ‘
Sicarii
’ or ‘
Zealots
’ who, according to Hippolytus’ unique picture, were just another group of
Daily-Bathing
Sobiai
(‘
Essenes
’) or extreme Nazirites (some people might even consider that the tradition of the combination of these conceptualities carried on in some unique manner to Med
i
eval fighting groups like the Templars, probably via an undetermined transmission of some kind through Jewish groups such as ‘
the Mourners for Zion
’, who had preceded them by several centuries in their return to Jerusalem and in discovering Dead Sea Scrolls materials, and through them, ‘
the Karaites
’).
59

We have met many of these concepts before, for instance in Matthew’s picture of the Sermon on the Mount. For H
e
brews, permeated like Qumran with the imagery of ‘
Perfection
’ – ‘
Jesus
,
the Mediator of the New Covenant
’ (12:24), who ‘
was crowned with Glory
’ and ‘
the Leader of their Salvation
’, ‘
is made Perfect through sufferings
’ (2:9–10) ‘
and
,
being made Pe
r
fect
,
he became the author of Eternal Salvation to all those who obey him
’ (5:9). This last reiterates remonstrances prevalent in definitions of ‘
the Rechabites
’ in Jeremiah 35:6–18 in which they are repeatedly characterized as ‘
obeying the commands of their father
’.
The Letter ascribed to James, too – whether authentic or simply part of ‘
the Jamesian School
’ – also refers to ‘
the Perfect Man
’ (3:2), ‘
Perfect and Complete
,
lacking nothing
’ (1:4).

‘
Preparation for the Time of the Day of Vengeance
’, as we saw, is the essence of the exegesis in the Community Rule above of Isaiah 40:3’s pivotal ‘
prepare in the wilderness the Way of the Lord – make a straight path in the desert for Our God
’. In the Synoptics, as everyone knows, this is applied to John the Baptist’s activities ‘
in the wilderness
’ – in Matthew 3:1, ‘
of Judea
’; in John 1:28, ‘
across the Jordan
’ – in preparation for
the
coming
of
‘
Jesus
’. At Qumran, it is applied to those who ‘
walk Perfectly
,
each with his neighbor
’ and ‘
do
all that is found in the
Torah
commanded by the hand of Moses
’.

Here, not only is the emphasis on ‘
doing
’ crucial, especially when
considering parallel ‘
Jamesian
’ insistences and like-minded ones throughout the Scrolls – Pauline ones to the contrary notwithstanding, but the whole is specifically tied to ‘
the
Torah
as commanded by the hand of Moses
’ – something Paul, in turn, never fails to either belittle or pour scorn upon.
60
The one ‘
walking in
(
such
)
Perfection
’, shall ‘
separate from any man who has not turned his Way
(cf. the ‘
Way
’ terminology as a name for nascent ‘
Christianity
’ – known, for instance, even to someone like Felix in Acts 24:14 and 22)
from all Unrighteou
s
ness
’ or ‘
Ungodliness
’, and
be ‘a man
zealous for the Law
whose time is the Day of Vengeance
,
to do His will in all his hand
i
work and His Kingdom
,
exactly as commanded’
.

These words in the Community Rule reiterate what was written earlier, once again containing just the slightest hint not o
n
ly of the ‘
Rechabite
’ lifestyle but also their ‘
obedience to the commands of their father
’: ‘
They shall separate from the midst of the habitation of the Men of Unrighteousness
(or alternatively ‘
Ungodliness
’)
to go into the wilderness to prepare there the Way of the Lord
,
as it is written
(here the text quotes Isaiah 40:3 as already indicated) ...
and which the Prophets have revealed by His Holy Spirit
.’
61
The connection of this citation with parallel allusions in the War Scroll should be straightforward. The reference to ‘
volunteering
’ one finds in the War Scroll in connection to such ‘
going out into the wilderness camps
’ is also i
m
portant, as it is in the ‘Paean for King Jonathan’ where a central contingent, designated as ‘
the Joiners in the War of
’, is also evoked.
62
Going on to refer to ‘
the War of God
’ and ‘
mighty works and marvelous wonders
’ (here, ‘
war-like
’ ones, not more pacified
Hellenized
ones such as ‘
raisings
’, ‘
curings
’, and magical ‘
transformations
’ like those in the Gospels), as well as Da
n
iel’s ‘
Saints
’ or ‘
Kedoshim
’, the War Scroll turns to its exegesis of
the Star Prophecy
. It does so by introducing it amid reference to ‘
the likeness
’ or ‘
similitude of Adam
’ and imagery bearing on that of ‘
the Heavenly Host
’ – here ‘
the Holy Angels
’ – as well as its first evocation of the ‘
clouds
’ metaphor.
63

Of course, this reference to ‘
the likeness of Adam
’ either has to do with ‘
the Primal Adam
’ ideology once again or prefi
g
ures the evocation of ‘
the Son of Man coming on the clouds of Heaven
’ – if the two, ‘
the Son of Man
’ and ‘
the Primal Adam
’, can in fact be differentiated in any real way.
It is at this point that
the Star Prophecy
from Numbers is quoted in its entirety, the interpretation of which not only forms its highpoint, but is so fundamental that it is repeated again in the last two Columns of the Scroll (19–20).

The exegesis of it specifically refers to God’s
Messiah
, ‘
the Poor
’ (
Ebionim
) who have been redeemed by God’s ‘
marvelous Power
’, and ‘
the Poor in Spirit
’ (the very words used by Jesus in Matthew 5:3’s
Sermon on the Mount
). These ‘
Poor
’ will, ‘
like a flaming torch in the straw
,
consume Evil and never cease until the Wicked are destroyed
’ which is, of course, almost the very imagery John the Baptist is pictured as using in the introduction of him in the Gospels (Matthew 3:11–12 and
pars
.).
64

The War Scroll, too, at this point twice speaks of ‘
the hand of the Poor
’ who ‘
will humble the mighty of the Peoples
’ – once again, presumably the Romans.
65
This is directly reprised with the words: ‘
to whom
(meaning ‘
to the
Ebionim
’ or ‘
to the Poor
’/‘
the Ebionites
’)
will be delivered the Enemies of all Lands
...
in order to justify Your true Judgement
on all the Sons of Men and to make for Yourself an Eternal Name
’.
66
It is at this point, too, that the text quotes Isaiah 31:8 to the effect that this deliverance will be accomplished by ‘
the sword of no mere man and no mere Adam
’ – the implication being that,
together with
‘
the Poor
’
and
‘
those bent in the dust
’,
someone
or
something
more than Adam
will accomplish this
‘
Deliverance
’. Here too the reference to ‘
the Sons of Men
’ is framed in terms
of different usages, which do not include this reference to ‘
Adam
’, the implication being that
these are not really the kind of supernatural
‘
Men
’
the War Scroll is interested in
.