James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls I Read Online Free PDF Page A

most part derivative. Later writers too – even modern researchers – sometimes forget the motives of their predecessors, adopting the position and point of view of the tradition or theology they are heirs to. In the controversy regarding the Dead Sea Scrolls, a struggle developed with just such an academic and religious élite, not only over the publication of all the documents but even, more importantly, over their interpretation.
    I have done my best to make the Dead Sea Scrolls, which have come along as if miraculously to redress the balance or haunt those who would adopt an a historical approach, available across the board to a wider populace. The matters before us are not for those who docilely accept biblical writ or scholarly consensus as the final word. The criticism we are doing is historical and literary criticism, looking at the way a given author actually put his materials together and to what end. It is the weight of the gradual accumulation of detail and textual analyses of this kind that ultimately renders the presentation credible.
    To follow the arguments, as well as to make sure the materials are being correctly presented from the sources, the reader is urged to have a copy of the New Testament, the works of Josephus and a translation of principal Dead Sea Scrolls at his or her disposal. Nothing more is really required. Even though all necessary quotations from these sources are provided in the book, it is still very useful to see them in their original context and to follow the sequencing and order surrounding a specific historical or legal point.
    It is important to look into the original contexts of passages used in scriptural and scholarly debate, because the ambience of such materials is important in determining the frame of mind and intent of the original, not its derivative application. References are confined as far as possible to primary sources, the trends implicit in secondary ones often ebbing and flowing with the times and one generation’s consensus being overturned by the next’s.
    For this reason, readers are advised to go directly to the ancient sources themselves. It is in the ancient sources that the data is to be found and this is where the battle must be joined. What is required is a critical faculty, sensitivity to language, and simple common sense. These, one hopes, are shared by everyone.
    Fountain Valley, California
    April 30th, 2012
     
    PART I:
    Palestinian Backgrounds
    Chapter 1
    James
     
    The Downplaying of James in Christian Tradition
    In the period of Palestinian history ending with the destruction of the Second Temple, one of the most under-esteemed and certainly under-estimated characters is James the brother of Jesus. James has been systematically ignored by both Christian and Jewish scholars alike, the latter hardly even having heard of him, his very existence being a source of embarrassment to them both. Muslims, too, have never heard of him, since their traditions were bequeathed to them by Christians and Jews.
    This silence surrounding James was not accidental. Augustine (354–430), writing to his older contemporary Jerome (348–420), expressed his concern about problems between Peter and Paul signaled in Paul’s Letter to the Galatians. Clearly, these were directly connected to James’ leadership in the early Church and his directives. But, curiously, neither Augustine nor Jerome even mentions James in this exchange. The early Church theologian Eusebius (260–340) had finalized the process of the downplaying of James, questioning the authenticity of the Letter of James . Martin Luther a thousand years later felt that this letter should not have been included in the New Testament anyhow. 1
    It is not surprising that these arbiters of Christian opinion in their day should have felt the way they did, because it is hard to consider the Letter of James as ‘Christian’ at all, if we take as our yardstick the Gospels or Paul’s letters. If we widen this