James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls II by Robert Eisenman Read Free Book Online

Stephen reformulates this libel he again refers, as Peter, to ‘ Heaven is My Throne and Earth a footstool for My feet ’ from Isaiah 66:1–2 and Psalm 110:1. He also adds a reference to circumcision – in this case, the ‘ uncircumcised heart ’ from Jeremiah 9:26, Ezekiel 44:7–9 and Romans 2:29, a usage specifically applied in the Habakkuk Pesher to the destroyer of the Righteous Teacher, known now rather famously as ‘ the Wicked Priest ’.
    ‘ Stephen ’’s presentation, which is no more accurate than Peter’s, is as follows: ‘ O you stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears , always resisting the Holy Spirit , as your Fathers were , so are you . Which one of the Prophets did your Fathers not persecute ? And they killed the ones who prophesied the coming of the Just One , of whom you now have become the B e trayers and murderers’ (7:51–52). Here the characterization of ‘ Judas Iscariot ’ in the Gospels has now been turned against the Jewish People as a whole – not only illustrating the true intent of such characterizations but , sadly, as he has always subco n sciously been taken to represent these last nineteen hundred years. It is probably also useful to remark that allusion to such ‘ Betrayers ’ or ‘ Traitors ’ is again known in the literature at Qumran, in particular and as usual, in both the Habakkuk Pesher and Damascus Document. 74
    Sadly, as well, this accusation has been picked up and repeated ad nauseam in the Koran even to this day as almost a setpiece of anti-Semitic vilification, notwithstanding the fact that, as just observed, there is hardly a single prophet in the Old Testament ‘the Jews ’ can actually be accused of having killed – not Moses, not Nathan, not Elijah, not Elisha, not Amos, M i cah, or Hosea, not Isaiah, not Jeremiah, not Ezekiel, etc. (unless it be perhaps Zechariah though the circumstances surroun d ing his death are far from certain 75 ).
    The charge is actually anticipated in Paul, who makes the same accusation in a probably uninterpolated section of 1 The s salonians 2:14–16: ‘ For brothers, you become the imitators of the Assemblies of God in Judea … because you also suffered the same thing from your own Countrymen as they did from the Jews , who both killed Jesus and their own Prophets and e x pelled you , displeasing God and being the Enemies of the whole Human Race (here is the final diabolical piece in this terrif y ing polemic).’ It should be clear to even new readers that what one has here is an extremely telling reversal of ‘ the Enemy ’ a c cusations in both the Pseudoclementine Recognitions and James 4:4, to say nothing of Matthew 13:13–44’s Parable of the Tares and not to mention Paul’s awareness of these accusations in Galatians 1:20, 4:16, and elsewhere. 76 Historically, despite its p a tent untruth, this accusation has proved to be of the utmost durability and probably formed, as just suggested, the basis of most of the invective so far excerpted – not to mention the intractability of the ‘ Devil People ’ accusation worldwide.
    Of course, Stephen then goes on to have the vision reported of James when he is stoned in all early Church sources, pun c tuated as in these by the actual vocabulary of ‘ crying out ’, ‘ crying out with a loud voice ’, etc. – expressions forming the bac k bone of Hegesippus’ tradition. There is also the allusion to ‘ falling asleep ’ so conspicuous in the parallel scenario in the Recogn i tions and in Paul. 77 This vision actually uses the language of ‘s eeing Heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God ’ (Acts 7:56) of Peter’s last speech and the final last-breath words of both James in Early Church accounts and Jesus in the Synoptics. 78
    One last speech is recorded of Peter before his arrest, escape, and final unlikely return and appearance before the so-called ‘ Jerusalem Council’ . It follows his vision of the Heavenly tablecloth,