James the Brother of Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls II by Robert Eisenman

Author:Robert Eisenman [Eisenman, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780985599164
Amazon: 0985599162
Publisher: Grave Distractions Publications
Published: 2012-09-02T23:00:00+00:00

15 James in the Anabathmoi Jacobou and Paul as Herodian

The Anabathmoi Jacobou and the Literature of Heavenly Ascents

It would now be well to look at the evidence in the book Epiphanius entitles The Anabathmoi Jacobou or The Ascents of James about the issue of Temple sacrifice or the lack thereof. This book, which he claims actually to have seen and presents in his discussion of ‘the Ebionites’ as being a rival ‘Acts of the Apostles’, has James ‘complaining against the Temple and the sacrifices, and against the fire on the altar, and much else that is full of nonsense’.1 It is passing strange to hear Epiphanius accusing others of being ‘full of nonsense’ since this is one of his own manifest shortcomings; having said this, one should perhaps accept the reliability of at least some of what he presents. The Anabathmoi Jacobou is a lost ‘Jewish Christian’ or ‘Ebionite’ work, of which we only have these excerpts in Epiphanius and which probably took its title from either a real or symbolic understanding of the debates on the Temple steps with the Jerusalem Priesthood recorded in the Pseudoclementine Recognitions debates which were also refracted in numerous notices to similar effect in the first chapters of the Book of Acts (albeit with James’ presence neatly deleted or overwritten) and even in the picture of James’ death emerging out of Hegesippus.2

What remains of the Anabathmoi is considered to be either parallel to or incorporated in parts of the Pseudoclementines, particularly the picture of Peter, James, and John debating the Pharisaic/Sadducean Leadership on the steps of the Temple, and perhaps two other lost documents related to these – The Preaching of Peter and The Travels of Peter.3 But to be a rival Acts, it must have contained much more than this and, as its title implies, focused more on James than any of the aforementioned appear to have done, which, in more Western orthodox fashion, seem already to prefer to call, whomever they are referring to, ‘Peter’.

These ‘Ascents’ – aside from possibly alluding to the steps of the Temple and, therefore, the debates that took place on them in all parallel narratives – can also be looked upon as the ‘degrees’ of either mystic or Gnostic instruction or initiation. This is also the case for Kabbalistic Literature and what is known as ‘Hechalot’ or ‘Ascents’ Literature. This theme also appears to attach itself to James in the Gnostic variety of the tradition conserved in the Two Apocalypses under his name from Nag Hammadi.4 In the writer’s view, these represent a later stage of the tradition when all hope of a Messianic return or Victory, or a this-worldly Kingdom such as the one envisioned at Qumran, had actually evaporated, giving way to the now more familiar other-worldly, ideological perspective.

Indeed, this is something of the thrust one gets in the Habakkuk Pesher’s interpretation of Habakkuk 2:3. Here, not only is the Righteous Teacher described as receiving instruction ‘from the mouth of God’, but he is also

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