|
A vast amount of Jewish literature
written in the intertestamental period (mainly 2nd and 1st centuries BCE)
and from the 1st and 2nd centuries CE was preserved, for the most part,
through various Christian churches. A part of this literature is today
commonly called the Apocrypha (Hidden;
hence, secret books; singular apocryphon). At one time in the early church
this was one of the terms for books not regarded by the church as
canonical (scripturally acceptable), but in modern usage the Apocrypha is
the term for those Jewish books that are called in the Roman Catholic
Church deuterocanonical works--i.e., those that are canonical for Catholics but are not a part of
the Jewish Bible. (These works are also regarded as canonical in the
Eastern Orthodox churches.) When the Protestant churches returned to the
Jewish canon (Hebrew Old Testament) during the Reformation period (16th
century), the Catholic deuterocanonical works became for the Protestants
"apocryphal"--i.e., non-canonical.
In 19th-century biblical
scholarship a new term was coined for those ancient Jewish works that were
not accepted as canonical by either the Catholic or Protestant churches;
such books are now commonly called Pseudepigrapha
(Falsely Inscribed; singular pseudepigraphon), i.e.,
books wrongly ascribed to a biblical author. The term Pseudepigrapha,
however, is not an especially well suited one, not only because the
pseudepigraphic character is not restricted to the Pseudepigrapha
alone--and, indeed, not even all Pseudepigrapha are ascribed to any
author, since there are among them anonymous treatises--but also because
the group of writings so designated by this name necessarily varies in the
different modern collections. Theoretically, the name Pseudepigrapha can
designate all ancient Jewish writings that are not canonical in the
Catholic Church. The writings of the philosopher Philo of Alexandria (1st
century BCE-1st century CE) and the historian Josephus (1st century CE)
and fragments of other postbiblical Hellenistic Jewish historians and
poets, however, usually are excluded. Rabbinic literature (2nd century
BCE-2nd century CE) also is generally excluded; such literature existed
for centuries only in oral form. The edition of the Pseudepigrapha edited
by the British biblical scholar R.H. Charles in 1913, however, contains a
translation of Pirqe Avot ("Sayings
of the Fathers"), an ethical tractate from the Mishna (a collection
of oral laws), and even the non-Jewish Story
of Ahikar (a folklore hero), though other genuine Jewish writings from
antiquity are omitted. Some of the Jewish Pseudepigrapha were discovered
only in the last two centuries, and the Dead Sea Scrolls (the first of
them discovered in the 1940s), most of which belong to this category, are
not yet all published. Thus, in the broader meaning of the terms, the
Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha are a bloc of Jewish literature written in
antiquity from the later Persian period (c.
4th century BCE) and not canonized by the Jews.
A small portion of this literature
is preserved in the original languages: Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. Most
of the Hebrew or Aramaic works, however, exist today only in various
translations: Greek, Latin, Syriac, Ethiopian, Coptic, Old Slavonic,
Armenian, and Romanian. All the works of the Apocrypha are preserved in
Greek, because they have for the Greek Church a canonical value. Those
books not considered canonical by the early church have often fallen into
oblivion, and their Greek text was often lost; many of the ancient Jewish
Pseudepigrapha are today preserved only in fragments or quotations in
various languages, and sometimes only their titles are known from old
lists of books that were rejected by the church.
Of this literature only the
Apocrypha (contained in Latin and Greek Bibles) were read in the
liturgical services of the church. The Pseudepigrapha, in their various
versions, were in most cases nearly forgotten; and manuscripts of most of
them were rediscovered only in modern times, a process that continues. The
discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran
in the Judaean desert not only furnished new texts and fragments of
unknown and already known Pseudepigrapha but also contributed solutions to
problems concerning the origin of other Jewish religious writings
(including some Old Testament books), the connection between them, and
even their composition and redaction from older sources. The new original
texts also strengthened interest in the Jewish literature of the
intertestamental period because of its importance for the study of both
ancient Judaism and early Christianity. As a result of such discoveries,
better critical editions of the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, as well as
new studies of their content, have been published.
The Apocrypha, whose texts
originated mostly before the rise of Christianity, were regarded as
canonical in the early church but contain no Christian interpolations.
Many of the Pseudepigrapha, however, were interpolated by Christian
writers. The nature and the extent of these Christian interpolations are
often difficult to define since a Christian interpolator not only changes
the text according to Christian views or introduces specific Christian
terminology but also may introduce in a Jewish text ideas, motifs, or
terminology that are common to both Judaism and Christianity. For these
reasons it is sometimes difficult to decide if a passage in a
pseudepigraphon, or even sometimes the whole work, is Jewish or Christian.
Some of the Apocrypha (e.g., Judith, Tobit) may have been written already in the Persian
period (6th-4th century BCE), but, with these possible exceptions, all the
Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha were written in the Hellenistic period (c.
300 BC-c. AD 300). Yet the
influence of Persian culture and religion sometimes can be detected even
in comparatively late Jewish works, especially in Jewish apocalyptic
literature (see below Apocalypticism).
The Persian influence was facilitated by the fact that both the Jewish and
Persian religions are iconoclastic (against
the veneration or worship of images) and opposed to paganism and display
an interest in eschatology (doctrines of last times).
Although such an affinity did not
exist between Judaism and Hellenistic culture, literary activity among
Hellenistic Jews was generally Greek in character: the Greek-writing
Jewish authors thought mainly in Greek concepts, used genuine Greek
terminology, and wrote many of their works in Greek literary forms.
Though Hellenistic Jewish authors
sometimes imitated biblical forms, they learned such forms from their
Greek Bible (the Septuagint). Many Greek products written by Jews served
as religious propaganda and probably influenced many pagans to become
proselytes, or at least to abandon their heathen faith and become
"God-fearing." Thus, the Jewish literature written in Greek
could be used by Christianity for similar purposes later. (see also Index:
Hellenistic Judaism)
Greek influence on Jewish writings
written in Hebrew or Aramaic in Palestine in the intertestamental period
was by no means as significant as upon Jewish works written in Greek among
the Hellenistic Diaspora (Jews living
outside Palestine). In Palestine, religion and culture formed a unity, and
the Hellenization of the upper classes in Jerusalem before the Maccabean
wars (167-142 BCE) was restricted to some families who had accepted Greek
civilization for practical purposes. Jews in Palestine developed a
flourishing autonomous culture based upon religious ideals. Living without
interruption in their powerful religious tradition and with their own
non-Greek education, the Palestinian Jews were able to produce literary
works without significant evidences of Greek influence. The language of
this literature was both Aramaic and Hebrew. Under the national revival in
the Maccabean period, Hebrew became prevalent as the language of Jewish
literature in Palestine; but since Aramaic was a spoken language in
Palestine during the whole period, some of the extant literary works of
Palestinian Jews in the Maccabean and Roman period probably were
originally written also in Aramaic. (see also Index: Aramaic language)
In intertestamental Jewish
literature a special trend developed: namely, apocalypticism. Apokalypsis is a Greek term meaning "revelation of divine
mysteries," both about the nature of God and about the last days
(eschatology). Apocalyptic writings were composed in both Judaism and
Christianity; one of them (the Book of Daniel) was accepted in the Jewish
canon and another (the book of Revelation) in the New Testament. Other
apocalypses form a part of the Pseudepigrapha, and influences of
apocalypticism or similar approaches are found in some of the Apocrypha.
The sectarian Dead Sea Scrolls are the works of an apocalyptic movement,
though not all are written in the style of apocalypses. The
Sibylline Oracles are, in their Jewish
passages, a part of Jewish Hellenistic literature; inasmuch as they
contain eschatological prophecies of future doom and salvation, they are
apocalyptic, but in their polemics against idolatry and their apology for
Jewish faith, they are a product of Jewish Hellenistic propagandistic
literature. Because one of the central themes of apocalypticism is that of
future salvation, messianic hopes involving the advent of a deliverer are
usually the object of intertestamental Jewish apocalypticism.
The "Greek Ezra,"
sometimes named I (or II or III) Esdras,
enjoyed considerable popularity in the early church but lost its prestige
in the Middle Ages in the Latin Church. At the reforming Council of Trent
(1545-63), the Roman Catholic Church no longer recognized it as canonical
and relegated it in the Latin Bible to the end, as an appendix to the New
Testament. One of the reasons for its non-canonicity in the West is that
the "Greek Ezra" contains material parallel to the biblical
books of Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah but differs in textual recension
(points of critical revision) and occasionally in the order of the
stories. The content of the book is a history of the Jews from the
celebration of the Passover in the time of King Josiah (7th century BCE)
to the reading of the Law in the time of Ezra (5th century BCE). Though
written in an idiomatic Greek, "Greek Ezra" is probably a Greek
translation from an unknown Hebrew and Aramaic redaction of the materials
contained in the biblical books of Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah. An
important part of this book (3:1-5:6), the story of the three youths at
the court of Darius, has no parallel in the
canonical books. This story concerns a debate between three guardsmen
before Darius, king of Persia, about the question of what they consider to
be the strongest of all things; the first youth asserts that it is wine,
the second says that it is the king, and the third, who is identified with
the biblical Zerubbabel (a prince of
Davidic lineage who became governor of Judah under Darius), expresses his
opinion that "women are strongest, but truth is victor over all
things." He is acclaimed as the victor, and, as a reward, he requests
that Darius rebuild Jerusalem and its Temple. The story evidently was
written in two stages: originally, the competition was about wine, the
king, and women, but later, truth was added. Truth
is one of the central concepts of Persian religion and the competition
itself is before a Persian king; thus it seems likely that the story is
Persian in origin and that it became Jewish by the identification of the
third youth with Zerubbabel.
The book of Judith is similar to
the biblical Book of Esther in that it also describes how a woman saved
her people from impending massacre by her cunning and daring. The name of
the heroine occurs already in Gen. 26:34 as a Gentile wife of Esau, but in
the book of Judith it evidently has symbolic value. Judith
is an exemplary Jewish woman. Her deed is probably invented under the
influence of the account of the 12th-century-BCE Kenite woman Jael (Judg.
5:24-27), who killed the Canaanite general Sisera by driving a tent peg
through his head. (see also Index:
Judith, Book of)
The story is clearly fiction, and
the anachronisms in it are intentional: they show that the story itself is
a mere fiction. The book speaks about the victory of Nebuchadnezzar,
"who reigned over the Assyrians at Nineveh" (the name is of the
7th-6th-century-BCE king of Babylon, Nebuchadrezzar) in the time of an
unknown Arphaxad, king of the Medes. Since the western nations of
Nebuchadnezzar's empire had refused to come to his aid, the King ordered
his commander in chief, Holofernes (a
Persian name), to force submission upon the rebellious nations. In
subduing these nations Holofernes destroyed their sanctuaries and
proclaimed that Nebuchadnezzar alone should henceforth be worshipped as a
god. Thus, the Jews, who had recently returned from the Babylonian
Captivity (6th century BCE) and rebuilt the Temple, were compelled to
prepare for war. Holofernes laid siege to Bethulia (otherwise unknown),
described as an important strategic point on the way to Jerusalem. Because
of a long siege, the inhabitants wanted to surrender their city, but
Judith persuaded the people to delay the surrender for five days. Judith
was a virtuous, pious, and beautiful widow. She removed her mourning
garments, left the city, entered Holofernes' camp, and was brought before
him. On the fourth day, Holofernes decided to seduce Judith and invited
her to come into his tent; he then drank more wine than ever before. After
he fell into a drunken stupor, Judith cut off his head with his sword and
returned with the head to Bethulia. The Jews put Holofernes' head outside
the city wall, and the following morning, upon learning of the death of
their commander in chief, the Assyrian soldiers dispersed and were pursued
by the Jews of Bethulia, who took abundant spoil. The Jews were not
threatened again during Judith's lifetime--she lived to be 105--or for
long thereafter.
Many suggestions have been made
about the book of Judith's date of composition. Though current scholarly
opinion is that the book was written in the warlike patriotic atmosphere
of the early Maccabean period (c. 150
BCE) by a Palestinian Jew, there are no Maccabean elements in the book. It
shows no direct or indirect Greek influences, the deification of kings
existed already in the ancient Near East, and the political situation
described in the book has nothing in common with the Maccabean period. All
the apparently intentional historical mistakes, however, can be understood
if it is suggested that the book of Judith was written under Persian rule.
Holofernes is, as noted above, a typical Persian name; and the whole
political and social situation described in the book fits the Persian
world, as do the Jewish life and institutions reflected in the book. Thus,
there are no serious indications that the book of Judith is a Maccabean
product, and there are many allusions to the time of the Persian rule over
Palestine. Only a Greek translation of the book is extant, but, from its
style, it is clear that the book was originally written in Hebrew. In his
preface to the book of Judith, the Latin biblical scholar Jerome
(c. 347-419/420 CE) states that
he used for his translation a "Chaldaean" (i.e.,
Aramaic) text and that he also used an older Latin translation from
Greek. His translation differs in many points from the original text.
The other Jewish short story
possibly dating from Persian times is the book of Tobit, named after the
father of its hero. From the fragments of the book discovered at Qumran,
scholars now know that the original form of the name was Tobi. Tobit
was from the Hebrew tribe of Naphtali and lived as an exile in Nineveh;
his son was Tobias. Obeying the tenets of Jewish piety, Tobit buried the
corpses of his fellow Israelites who had been executed. One day, when he
buried a dead man, the warm dung of sparrows fell in his eyes and blinded
him. His family subsequently suffered from poverty, but then Tobit
remembered that he had once left a deposit of silver at Rages (today
Teheran) in Media. He sent his son Tobias along with a companion, who was
in reality the angel Raphael under the
guise of an Israelite, to retrieve the deposit. During the journey, while
Tobias was washing in the Tigris, a fish threatened to devour his foot.
Upon instructions from Raphael, Tobias caught the fish and removed its
gall, heart, and liver, since it was believed that the smoke from the
heart and liver had the power to exorcise demons and that ointment made
from the gall would cure blindness. On the way he stopped at Ecbatana (in
Persia), where Raguel, a member of Tobias' family, lived. His daughter
Sarah had been married seven times, but the men had been slain by the
demon Asmodeus on the wedding night, before
they had lain with her. On the counsel of Raphael, Tobias asked to marry
Raguel's daughter, and on the wedding night Tobias put Asmodeus to flight
through the stench of the burning liver and heart of the fish. Raphael
went to Rages and returned with the deposit. When he returned with his
young wife and Raphael to Nineveh, Tobias restored his father's sight by
applying the gall of the fish to his eyes. Raphael then disclosed that he
was one of God's seven angels and ascended into heaven.
The story of the book of Tobit is
a historicized and Judaized version of the well-known folktale of
"The Grateful Dead" (or "The
Grateful Ghost"), in which a young man buries the corpse of a
stranger despite injunctions against such an act; later the youth wins a
bride through the intercession of the dead man's spirit. Asmodeus (in
Persian, Aeshma Daeva, the demon of wrath) occurs as a powerful demon in
rabbinic literature as well as in folktales. In the Jewish form of the
story, "The Grateful Dead" is replaced by the angel Raphael.
According to the Ethiopic Enoch (20:3;
22:3), Raphael is appointed over the spirits of the souls of the dead (for
Enoch, see below). Because the
cause of this situation is not mentioned in the book of Tobit, the story
itself in its Jewish form probably existed before it became the subject of
the book of Tobit. The present work is a literary product; the interesting
plot gave to the author many occasions to insert religious and moral
teachings in the manner of wisdom literature, which is concerned with
practical, everyday issues. The book contains prayers, psalms, and
aphorisms, most of them put in the mouth of Tobit. It is the oldest Jewish
witness of the golden rule (4:15):
"And what you hate, do not do to anyone." Eschatological hopes
are also described: at the end of time, all Jewish exiles will return,
Jerusalem will be rebuilt of precious stones and gold, and all nations
will worship the true God. In these eschatological images, however, the
figure of the Messiah does not occur.
The religious, social, and
literary atmosphere of the book does not contain elements from the Greek
period. Thus, the book probably was written already in the Persian period
or in the early days of Greek rule (3rd century BCE). The book exists
today in three principal recensions, and it is often difficult to
determine, in a particular passage, what was the original text. The book
was written in Hebrew or Aramaic; the Greek recensions differ, perhaps
because they are based on different Semitic versions. These questions may
be answered when the Hebrew and Aramaic fragments of the book, which were
found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, are published.
According to the book of Tobit,
Ahikar, the cupbearer of the Assyrian king Esarhaddon, was Tobit's nephew;
he is a secondary personage in the plot, and his own story is mentioned.
Ahikar is the hero of a Near Eastern non-Jewish work, The
Story of Ahikar. The book exists in medieval translations, the best of
them in Syriac. The story was known in the Persian period in the Jewish
military colony in Elephantine Island in Egypt, a fact demonstrated by the
discovery of fragmentary Aramaic papyri of the work dating from 450-410
BCE. Thus, the author of the book of Tobit probably knew The
Story of Ahikar, in which, as in the book of Tobit, the plot is a
pretext for the introduction of speeches and wise sayings. Some of Tobit's
sayings have close parallels in the words of the wise Ahikar.
The apocryphon of Baruch, which is
extant in Greek and was included in the Septuagint, is attributed to Baruch,
secretary to the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah (7th-6th century BCE). It
was Baruch who read Jeremiah's letter to the exiles in Babylon. After
hearing his words, the Jews repented and confessed their sins. The first
part of the book of Baruch (1:1-3, 8),
containing a confession of sins by the Jews following the destruction of
Jerusalem and the exiles' prayer for forgiveness and salvation, may date
from the Persian or at least from the pre-Maccabean period. This early
section was originally written in Hebrew and seems to be very ancient. The
other two parts (3:9-4:4 and 4:5-5:9) were written in Greek or freely
translated from Hebrew or Aramaic. The first is a praise of wisdom: only
Israel received wisdom from God, which is the Law of Moses. The last part
of the book of Baruch contains Jerusalem's lament over her desolation and
her consolation.
The Letter
of Jeremiah, like the book of Baruch, was conserved--together with
the Greek translation of the Book of Jeremiah--in the Septuagint. The
oldest witness of the letter is a fragment of a Greek papyrus, written
about 160 BCE and found among the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran.
Whether the letter was originally written in Greek or is a translation
from Hebrew or Aramaic is difficult to decide. The letter attacks the
folly of idolatry as did Jeremiah's letter "to those who were to be
taken to Babylon as captives." Though, according to some experts, the
idolatry described in the book fits Babylonian cults, the only clear
indication of its date is that of the Qumran fragment.
In some manuscripts of the
Septuagint and in two later Christian writings, a pseudepigraphic Prayer
of Manasseh is contained. This prayer was composed with reference to II
Chron. 33:11-18, according to which the wicked Judaean king Manasseh
repented and prayed. In the present form the prayer is Greek in origin,
but it may have existed in a Hebrew version, of which the Greek is a free
adaptation. The prayer was probably composed (or translated) in the 1st
century BCE.
Two of the Old Testament
Hagiographa (Ketuvim; see above The
Hebrew canon )-- Daniel and Esther--contain, in their Greek
translations, numerous additions.
The first addition to Daniel (in
Greek and Latin translations Dan. 3:24-68) contains the Prayer
of Azariah and the Song of the Three Young
Men. These are the prayers of Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, the
three young men who praised God after they had been placed in the midst of
the fiery furnace during a persecution of Jews in Babylon, as told in the
Book of Daniel. The first prayer is said by Azariah alone; the second, a
thanksgiving prayer, is said by all three after having been saved by God.
The two poems are not found in the original Daniel and were never a part
of it. They were translated from Hebrew originals or adapted from them. A
passage from the second, a liturgical hymn of praise, is a poetic
expansion of the doxology that was sung in the Temple when the holy name
of God was pronounced. Like the other additions to Daniel, the two prayers
were probably composed before 100 BCE.
The second addition to Daniel, the
story of Susanna, and the third one, Bel and the Dragon, are preserved in
two Greek versions. In both stories the hero is the wise Daniel. Susanna
was the pious and beautiful wife of Joakim, a wealthy Jew in Babylon. Two
aged judges became inflamed with love for her. They tried to force her to
yield to their lust, and, when she refused, they accused her of committing
adultery with a young man, who escaped. She was condemned to death, but
when Daniel cross-examined the two elders separately, the first stated
that Susanna had been surprised under a mastic tree, the other under a
holm tree. Susanna was thus saved and the two false witnesses executed.
The short story, perhaps invented
even before the extant Book of Daniel was composed, could very well be
added to Daniel (whose name means God is my Judge). The story was written
in its present form in Greek, since it contains two Greek puns, but a
written Semitic prototype may have existed.
The third Greek addition to the
Book of Daniel is the story of Bel and the Dragon. The Babylonians
worshipped the idol of the god Bel and daily provided him with much food,
but Daniel proved to the King that the food was in reality eaten by the
priests. The priests were punished by death and Bel's temple destroyed.
The Babylonians also worshipped a dragon, but Daniel declined to worship
him. To destroy the beast, Daniel boiled pitch, fat, and hair together:
the dragon ate it and burst asunder. After Daniel's sacrilege of slaying
the dragon, the King was forced to cast Daniel into the lions' den, but
nothing happened to him. Indeed, he was given a dinner by the prophet
Habakkuk, who was brought there by the hair of his head by an angel. On
the seventh day the King found Daniel sitting in the den; so he led Daniel
out and cast his enemies into the den, where they were devoured.
The two stories are an attack
against idolatry. As the addition ends with the story about Daniel in the
lions' den, which is also narrated in the canonical Book of Daniel with
another motivation, it is probable that this short treatise originated in
a tradition that was parallel to the canonical Book of Daniel and that the
two stories were translated from a Hebrew or Aramaic original.
The Hebrew Book
of Esther had a religious and social value to the Jews during the
time of Greek and Roman anti-Semitism, though the Hebrew short story did
not directly mention God's intervention in history--and even God himself
is not named. To bring the canonical book up-to-date in connection with
contemporary anti-Semitism and to stress the religious meaning of the
story, additions were made in its Greek translation. These Greek additions
are (1) the dream of Mordecai (Esther's uncle), a symbolic vision written
in the spirit of apocalyptic literature; (2) the edict of King Artaxerxes
(considered by some to be Artaxerxes II, but more probably Xerxes) against
the Jews, containing arguments taken from classical anti-Semitism; (3) the
prayers of Mordecai and of Esther, containing apologies for what is said
in the Book of Esther--Mordecai saying that he refused to bow before Haman
(the grand vizier) because he is flesh and blood and Esther saying that
she strongly detests her forced marriage with the heathen king; (4) a
description of Esther's audience with the King, during which the King's
mood was favourably changed when he saw that Esther had fallen down in a
faint; (5) the decree of Artaxerxes on behalf of the Jews, in which Haman
is called a Macedonian who plotted against the King to transfer the
kingdom of Persia to the Macedonians; and (6) the interpretation of
Mordecai's dream and a colophon (inscription at the end of a manuscript
with publication facts), where the date, namely, "the fourth year of
the reign of Ptolemy and Cleopatra" (i.e., 114 BCE), is given. This indicates that the additions in the
Greek Esther were written in Egypt under the rule of the Ptolemies.
The first two of the four books of
Maccabees are deuterocanonical (accepted by the Roman Catholic Church).
The First Book of the Maccabees is
preserved in the Greek translation from the Hebrew original, the original
Hebrew name of it having been known to the Christian theologian Origen of
Alexandria. At the beginning, the author of the book mentions Alexander
the Great, then moves on to the Seleucid king of Syria, Antiochus
Epiphanes (died 164/163 BCE), and his persecution of the Jews in
Palestine, the desecration of the Jerusalem Temple, and the Maccabean
revolt. After the death of the priest Mattathias, who had refused to obey
Antiochus, his son Judas Maccabeus succeeded him and led victorious wars
against the Syrian Greeks. Exactly three years after its profanation by
Antiochus, Judas captured the Temple, cleansed and rededicated it, and in
honour of the rededication initiated an annual festival (Hanukka)
lasting eight days. After Judas later fell in battle against the Syrian
Greeks, his brother Jonathan succeeded him and continued the struggle.
Only in the time of Simon, Jonathan's brother and successor, did the
Maccabean state become independent. A short mention of the rule of Simon's
son John Hyrcanus I (135/134-104 BCE) closes the book. The author, a pious
and nationalistic Jew and an ardent adherent of the family of Maccabees,
evidently lived in the time of John Hyrcanus. The book imitates the
biblical style of the historical books of the Old Testament and contains
diplomatic and other important--though not necessarily authentic--official
documents.
The Second Book of the Maccabees,
or its source, was probably written in the same period as I Maccabees. The
book is preceded by two letters to the Jews of Egypt: the first from the
year 124 BCE and the second one written earlier (164 BCE) commemorating
the rededication of the Temple. In the preface of the book, the author
indicates that he has condensed into one book the lost five-volume history
compiled by Jason of Cyrene. II Maccabees describes the persecution under
Antiochus Epiphanes and the Maccabean wars until the victory of Judas
Maccabeus over Nicanor, the commander of the Syrian elephant corps, in 161
BCE. The book, written in Greek, is an important document of Hellenistic
historiography. Descriptions of the martyrdom of the priest Eleazar and of
the seven brothers under Antiochus, in which Greek dramatic style is
linked with Jewish religious spirit, became important for Christian
martyrology. The book also furnished proof texts for various Jewish and
subsequently Christian doctrines (e.g., doctrines of angels and the resurrection of the flesh).
There are two deuterocanonical
works of the genre known as wisdom literature, one Hebrew and one Greek.
The Hebrew work is called Ecclesiasticus,
in the Latin Bible and in Greek manuscripts Sophia Iesou hyiou
Sirach (the Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach); the original Hebrew title
was probably Hokhmat Yeshua' Ben-Sira, the Wisdom of Ben-Sira.
Written in Hebrew about 180-175 BCE, it was translated into Greek by the
author's grandson in Egypt. A Syriac translation also was made. Portions
(about three-fifths) of the Hebrew text were found in medieval copies in a
synagogue of Cairo and a part of the book in a fragment of a scroll from
Massada in Palestine (written c. 75
BCE). Small Hebrew fragments also were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls;
one of them, the Psalms scroll, contains a large part of a poem about
wisdom that is a part of the appendix (chapter 51) and that was not
written by the author. The Proverbs of Ben-Sira are often quoted in
rabbinic literature.
The book is written in the
poetical style of the wisdom books of the Old Testament (e.g.,
Proverbs, Job) and deals with the themes of practical and theoretical
morality. The religious and moral position of the author is
conservative--he does not believe in the afterlife, but he reflects the
contemporary religious positions. He identifies wisdom, the origin of
which is divine, with "the Law which Moses commanded," an idea
that became important for later Judaism. He also reflects contemporary
debates about freedom of will and determinism, and, though realistic in
his basic opinions, he sometimes expresses eschatological hopes of
salvation for his people. His piety is ethical, though lacking in
asceticism; and he invites his readers to enjoy life, which is short (in
this point some Greek influence is palpable, but it is not very deep). At
the end of the book the author praises, in chronological order, "the
fathers of old," from the beginning of history to his contemporary,
the high priest Simon, whose appearance in the Temple is poetically
described. After some verses comes the colophon with the author's
name--the last chapter being an appendix not composed by the author.
The other deuterocanonical wisdom
book, the Wisdom of Solomon, was written in
Greek, though it purports to have been written by King Solomon himself.
The hypothesis that the first half of the book was translated from Hebrew
seems to be without foundation and probably came into existence because,
in this section, the author imitated in Greek the Old Testament poetical
style. The Wisdom of Solomon was probably written in Alexandria (Egypt) in
the 1st century BCE.
The book has three parts. The
first (chapters 1-5) concerns the contrast between pious and righteous
Jews and the wicked, sinful, and mundane Jews who persecute the righteous;
the lot of the righteous is preferable to the sorrows and final
condemnation of the sinners. In the second part (chapters 6-9) Solomon
speaks about the essence of wisdom and how he attained it. In the third
part (chapters 10-19) the author proves the value of wisdom by
telling--not in an exact chronological order--how, in the history of
Israel from the beginning until the conquest of Palestine, God exalted
Israel and punished the heathens, the Egyptians, and the Canaanites. He
also describes the folly of heathenism and its origins in human
aberrations.
The author fuses Judaism and
Hellenism both in style and in thought. Though he imitates biblical style,
he is also influenced by Greek rhetoric. He also freely uses Greek
philosophical and other terms and is influenced by Jewish apocalyptic
literature. Some close parallels to the Dead Sea sect (at Qumran),
both in eschatology and in anthropology (doctrines about man), can be
found in the Wisdom of Solomon.
An important document of Jewish
Hellenistic literature is The Letter
of Aristeas, a pseudepigraphon ascribed to Aristeas,
an official of Ptolemy II Philadelphus, a Greek monarch of Egypt in the
3rd century BCE. The letter is addressed to his brother and gives an
account of the translation of the Pentateuch (first five books of the Old
Testament) into Greek, by order of Ptolemy. According to the legend,
reflected in the letter, the translation was made by 72 elders, brought
from Jerusalem, in 72 days. The letter, in reality written by an
Alexandrian Jew about 100 BCE, attempts to show the superiority of Judaism
both as religion and as philosophy. It also contains interesting
descriptions of Palestine, of Jerusalem with its Temple, and of the royal
gifts to the Temple.
Another Jewish Hellenistic work
combining history and philosophy is The
Fourth Book of Maccabees. The theme of the book, reflecting the views
of the Greek Stoics, is "whether the Inspired Reason is supreme ruler
over the passions." This thesis is demonstrated by the martyrdom of
the elderly scribe Eleazar and the unnamed seven brothers and their
mother, taken from II Macc. 6:18-7:41. The idea of the expiatory force of
martyrdom is stressed more in IV
Maccabees than in its source. The author probably lived in the 1st
century BCE and may have been from Antioch (in Syria), where the tombs of
the Maccabean martyrs were venerated by the Jews.
The Greek book called The Third Book of Maccabees itself has nothing to do with the
Maccabean period. Its content is a legend, a miraculous story of
deliverance, which is also independently told--in another historical
context--by Josephus (Against Apion II,
5). In III Maccabees the story takes place during the reign of Ptolemy
IV Philopator (reigned 221-203 BCE). The central episode of the
book is the oppression of Egyptian Jews, culminating with an anti-Jewish
decree by the King. The Jews who were registered for execution were
brought into the hippodrome outside of Alexandria; the King had ordered
500 elephants to be drugged with incense and wine for the purpose of
crushing the Jews, but by God's intercession "the beasts turned round
against the armed hosts [of the king] and began to tread them under foot
and destroy them." The Jews fixed annual celebrations of this
deliverance. The book was probably written at the end of the 1st century
BCE by an Alexandrian Jew in a period of high anti-Jewish tension.
The little book called the Lives
of the Prophets is a
collection of Jewish legends about Old Testament prophets. It is preserved
in Greek and in versions and recensions in various languages, all based on
the Greek. The purpose of the work was to furnish to the readers of the
Bible further information about the prophets. The collection evidently
passed through Christian hands since it includes an assumed prophecy of
Jeremiah about the birth of Christ. Thus, the date of composition of the
supposed original Jewish work and the question as to whether it was
originally written in Hebrew or Greek are difficult to resolve. Scholars
are inclined toward a 1st-century-CE date in Palestine--with the exception
of the life of "Jeremiah," which is Egyptian in origin.
According to the Lives of the Prophets, Jeremiah was stoned to death and Isaiah
was sawn asunder. These two legends are reflected in two originally Jewish
works. The Ascension of Isaiah, in
which the martyrdom of Isaiah is narrated, is as a whole extant only in
Ethiopic, translated from a Greek original, which itself is also known
from fragments. The book contains important Christian passages from the
1st century CE, but the story about Isaiah's martyrdom is most likely
based upon a Jewish written source. According to this legend, Isaiah was
killed by the wicked king Manasseh, who served Beliar-Sammael, the chief
of the evil spirits, instead of God. Isaiah, with his followers, had fled
to the wilderness, but upon being captured he was sawn asunder with a
wooden saw, and his followers fled to the region of Tyre and Sidon. The
activity of Beliar is known also from the writings of the sect that
preserved the Dead Sea Scrolls and similar writings, and the story itself
resembles in some way the history of the Dead Sea sect; but no fragment of
the Jewish part of the book was found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. The
original Martyrdom of Isaiah was
written probably in Hebrew or Aramaic before the 1st century CE.
In the last chapter of the Greek
text of the Paralipomena (additional
stories) of Jeremiah, there is a
hint of the Christian part of the Ascension
of Isaiah: the people stoned Jeremiah
to death because he, like Isaiah before him, prophesied the coming of
Christ. In a parallel legend (preserved in Arabic), both the violent death
of Jeremiah and the Christian motif are lacking. The book begins shortly
before and ends shortly after the Babylonian Exile and contains mostly
otherwise unknown legends. The legend about the long sleep of Abimelech
(the biblical Ebed-melech--an Ethiopian eunuch who rescued Jeremiah from a
cistern), who slept and so did not see the destruction of Jerusalem by the
Babylonians--is based upon a legendary understanding of Psalm 126:1; a
similar legend about another person is preserved in the Talmud (the
authoritative rabbinical compendium of Jewish law, lore, and commentary).
The book is basically Jewish, and the last chapter was Christianized. The
Jewish work was probably written at the end of the 1st century CE or at
the beginning of the 2nd, originally in either Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek.
Though there are scholars who
think that the Testament of Job was
once written in Hebrew or Aramaic, it is more probable that the existing
Greek text of the book is the original or even a rewritten later version
of a Greek work; a fragment of an older form is probably preserved in the
Greek translation of Job (2:9). Job is identified, according to some
Jewish traditions, with the biblical Jobab (king of Edom), and his
(second) wife is Dinah, Jacob's daughter. Job knew by revelation that, for
destroying an idol, he would undergo suffering but that a happy end would
be the final outcome. Thus, in contrast to the biblical Book of Job, this
work does not deal with the question of God's righteousness but places
great emphasis on resurrection and eternal life. These special motifs in
the book indicate that the book probably was written by a member of an
unknown Jewish group that upheld a high mystical spirituality. The extreme
"pietistic" tendency of the book is noted in the exaggeration of
Job's love for suffering and of his charity to the poor. At the end of
the book Job's soul was taken to heaven in a heavenly chariot. The
book was probably written before 70 CE.
The many Christian legends in many
languages about the lives of Adam and Eve probably have their origin in a
Jewish writing (or writings) about the biblical first man and woman. The
most important of these works are the Latin Vita
Adae et Evae (Life of Adam and
Eve) and a Greek work closely parallel to it, named erroneously by its
first editor the Apocalypse of
Moses. The narrative runs from the Fall to the deaths of Adam and Eve.
The religious message in the story involves the repentance of Adam and Eve
after their expulsion from paradise--and the description of their deaths
does not show any traces of the idea of original sin, which was important
in later Christian theology. Nonetheless, there are definitely Christian
passages in the various versions, and the treatment of Adam in the
literature of the Ebionites (an early Jewish Christian sect) shows an
affinity for the story. Thus, the Jewish source probably was composed in
the 1st century CE in Jewish circles that influenced the Ebionites. The
original language of this supposed source is unknown.
Apocalyptic literature was much
concerned about sources of information about the heavenly world and about
the places of the damned and saved souls. In later Jewish and early
Christian apocalypses, in which the hero undertakes a heavenly trip and
sees the secrets that are hidden from others, these sources of information
are highly significant. III Baruch, a
book written in Greek--in which Baruch, the disciple of the prophet
Jeremiah, visits the universe and sees its secrets and the places of the
souls and of the angels--is such an apocalypse. In the Greek text the
number of heavens visited by Baruch is five, but it is possible that
originally he was said to have seen seven heavens. There are Christian
passages in the book, but it seems to have been a Jewish work from the 1st
century CE later rewritten by a Christian. (see also Index:
apocalyptic literature, "Baruch,
Book of")
Similar in content is II Enoch, or The Book
of the Secrets of Enoch, which is preserved only in an Old
Slavonic translation. The oldest text does not contain any Christian
additions nor any passage from which it could be concluded that the book
was written in Greek. Thus, the book could have been written originally in
Hebrew or Aramaic, probably in the 1st century CE. The hero who visits the
heavens is the biblical Enoch (son of Jared). The author of the book knew
at least some of the treatises contained in I
Enoch. The book also contains the story of the miraculous birth of the
biblical priest-king Melchizedek.
Other Jewish apocalypses or books
containing eschatological elements did not deal with the mysteries of
celestial worlds but rather with the political aspect of apocalyptic
thought and with the last days and the messianic age. This latter theme is
one of the important motifs of the Psalms
of Solomon, a book written originally in Hebrew; only the Greek
translation of the Psalms is
preserved. The title is evidently a later addition--the author himself
apparently had no intention to give the impression that his 18 psalms were
composed by the biblical king Solomon. The Psalms
of Solomon were written in Jerusalem about the middle of the 1st
century BCE, and, though persons are not named, they reflect the dramatic
events of the Jewish history of that period, especially the Roman general
Pompey's conquest of Jerusalem in 63 BCE and his violent death in Egypt.
In Psalm 17, the author denounces the Hasmonean dynasty as illegal and
describes the coming of the Davidic Messiah (a kingly saviour from the
line of David). His religious opinion resembles the teachings of the
Pharisees (a sect that espoused a reinterpretation of Jewish laws and
customs), especially in his faith in the resurrection of the body and in
the question of free will, though he most likely was not a Pharisee but
rather a member of the community of Hasidim, a Jewish pietistic
group that had joined the Maccabean revolt from its beginning.
The Assumption
of Moses originally
contained apocalyptic material--no longer extant--in the form of a legend.
According to Origen, the dispute between the archangel Michael and the
devil for the body of Moses was narrated in the Assumption
of Moses. This legend, which has
parallels in the rabbinic literature, probably formed the end of the Assumption
of Moses, the first part of which was discovered in a Latin
manuscript. The Latin version was translated from Greek, but the original
language was Semitic, probably Hebrew.
The main content of the preserved
part is Moses' prophecy about the future, from his time until the Kingdom
of Heaven will be revealed. According to the custom of apocalyptic
literature, names of persons and groups are not mentioned, but from the
last events hinted at in the book it can be assumed that it was written at
the beginning of the 1st century CE, while Jesus was alive. In its older
version, the book apparently was written at the beginning of the Maccabean
revolt, some years before the Book of Daniel; after a description of the
pre-Maccabean Hellenistic priests (chapter 5) and before the description
of the persecutions by Antiochus Epiphanes (chapter 8), chapters 6-7
contain Jewish history from the time of the later Hasmonean rulers to the
time of the sons of Herod--as well as polemics against leading religious
circles, which are accused of religious hypocrisy, as are the Pharisees in
the Christian Gospels. The author of these chapters (6-7), a contemporary
of Jesus, evidently erroneously identified the wicked pre-Maccabean
priests with the wicked late Maccabean priestly rulers and also
interpreted Antiochus Epiphanes as a kind of eschatological Antichrist. No
messianic figure is mentioned in the eschatological description of the
Kingdom of God: God himself and his angel will bring the salvation.
The Sibylline
Oracles is a collection of oracles in Greek verse containing pagan,
Jewish, and Christian material from various periods. It comprised 15 books
(books IX, X, and XV are lost), of which 4,240 verses are extant. Sibyl is
the name (or title) of a legendary ancient pagan prophetess. In the
Hellenistic period, eastern nations fabricated Sibylline oracles as
propagandistic literature against Greek and, later, against Roman
occupation. The political anti-Roman and anti-pagan tone is typical of the
Jewish and Christian parts of Sibylline oracles; they also contain
religious propaganda for the respective religion. Because Jewish parts
used pagan material and Christian authors interpolated Jewish parts or
used Jewish material, it is sometimes difficult to decide what verses are
pagan, Jewish, or Christian. The
Sibylline Oracles perhaps became a part of Jewish (and Christian)
apocalyptic literature because of their emphasis on eschatology. The
oldest Jewish "Sibyl" is contained in the third book: it dates
from about 140 BCE and describes the coming of the Messiah. Book IV was
written by a Jew about 80 CE: the eruption of Vesuvius (79) is viewed as a
divine punishment for the massacre of Jews in the Roman war (70). Book V
was written by a Jew about 125.
Two important apocalyptic
pseudepigrapha (II Esdras and the Apocalypse
of Baruch), in which the political and eschatological aspects are
central to the aim of the books, were written in Palestine at the end of
the 1st century CE as a consequence of the catastrophic destruction of the
Second Temple in Jerusalem (70). Both were written as if they reflected
the doom that befell the people of Israel after the destruction of the
First Temple (586 BCE) by the Babylonians. II Esdras (or IV Esdras) was
written in Hebrew, but only various translations from a lost Greek version
are preserved. The Latin version (in which chapters 1-2 and 15-16 have
been added by a Christian hand) at one time was printed at the end of the
Latin Bible. The book consists of six visions attributed to the biblical Ezra
(who is, at the beginning of the book, erroneously identified with
Salathiel, the father of Zerubbabel, a leader of the returning exiles from
Babylon). The tragedy of his nation evokes in the heart of the author
questions about God's righteousness, the human condition, the meaning of
history, and the election of Israel; "Ezra" does not find
consolation and full answer in the words of the angel who was sent to him,
which also contain revelations about the last days. In the fourth vision
"Ezra" sees a mourning woman; she disappears and a city (the New
Jerusalem) stands in her place. In the fifth vision a monstrous eagle
appears, the symbol of the Roman Empire, and a lion, the symbol of the
Messiah. The final victory of the Messiah is described in the last vision
of the man (Son of man) coming from the sea. In chapter 14
"Ezra" is described as dictating 94 books: 24 are the books of
the Hebrew Bible, and the other 70 are esoteric. (see also Index:
Babylonia)
The Apocalypse
of Baruch was written
about the same time as II (IV) Esdras, and the less profound Apocalypse
probably depends much upon II Esdras. The Apocalypse of Baruch survives only in a Syriac version translated
from Greek; originally the book was composed in Hebrew or Aramaic and is
ascribed to Baruch, the disciple of Jeremiah and a contemporary of the
destruction of the First Temple. If II Esdras asks questions about
important problems of human history and the tragic situation of Israel
after the destruction of the Second Temple, the Apocalypse
of Baruch apparently was written to give a positive, traditional
answer to these doubts.
There are three Pseudepigrapha
that are closely connected with the writings of the Dead Sea sect: the Book
of Jubilees, the Ethiopic Book
of Enoch, and the Testaments of
the Twelve Patriarchs. It is not accidental that fragments of the two
first books and of two sources of the third were found among the Dead Sea
Scrolls.
From the fragments of the Book
of Jubilees among the
Dead Sea Scrolls, scholars note that the book was originally written in
biblical Hebrew. The whole book is preserved in an Ethiopic version
translated from Greek.
The book is written in the form of
a revealed history of Israel from the creation until the dwelling of Moses
on Mt. Sinai, where the content of the book was revealed to Moses by
"the angel of the presence." The Book
of Jubilees in fact is a legendary rewriting of the book of Genesis
and a part of Exodus. One of the main purposes of the author is to
promote, in the form of divine revelation, a special sectarian
interpretation of Jewish law. All the legal prescriptions noted in the
book were practiced by the Dead Sea sect; in connection with the solar
calendar of 52 weeks, one of the Dead Sea Scrolls even mentions the Book
of Jubilees as the source. The (unpublished) Temple
Scroll, a book of sectarian prescriptions that paraphrases--also as
divine revelation--a part of the Mosaic Law and was composed by the Dead
Sea sect before 100 BCE (i.e., in
the same period as the Book of
Jubilees), closely resembles some parts of the Book
of Jubilees. Thus, the Book of
Jubilees could be accepted by the Dead Sea sect and apparently was
written in the same circles, immediately before the sect itself came into
existence. The apocalyptical hopes expressed in the book are also
identical to those of the Dead Sea sect.
Another book that was written
during the period of the apocalyptic movement in which the Dead Sea sect
came into existence is the Book of
Enoch, or I Enoch. It was
completely preserved in an Ethiopic translation from Greek, and large
parts from the beginning and end of the Greek version have been published
from two papyri. Aramaic fragments of many parts of the book were found
among the Dead Sea Scrolls, as were Hebrew fragments of the Book
of Noah, either one of the sources of Enoch
or a parallel elaboration of the same material. Passages of the Book of Noah were included in Enoch
by its redactor (editor). Scholars generally agree that the somewhat
haphazard redaction of the book was made in its Greek stage, when a
redactor put together various treatises of the Enochic literature that
were written at various times and reflected various trends of the
movement. (see also Index: "Enoch,
First Book of," )
Besides the passages from the Book
of Noah, five treatises are included in the Book
of Enoch. The hero of all of them is the biblical Enoch. The first
treatise (chapters 1-36) speaks about the fall of the angels, who rebelled
before the Flood, and describes Enoch's celestial journeys, in which
divine secrets were revealed to him. It was probably written in the late
2nd century BCE.
The second part of the Book of Enoch is the "Parables" (or Similitudes) of Enoch (37-71). These three eschatological
sermons of Enoch refer to visions; their original language was probably
Hebrew rather than Aramaic. This treatise is an important witness for the
belief in the coming of the Son of man, who is expressly identified with
the Messiah; in chapters 70-71, which are probably a later addition, the
Son of man is identified with Enoch himself. The treatise probably dates
from the 1st century BCE.
As Aramaic fragments from the Dead
Sea Scrolls show, the astronomical book entitled "The Book of the
Heavenly Luminaries" (chapters 72-82) is in the present form
abbreviated in the Book of Enoch. All
these astronomical mysteries were shown to Enoch by the angel Uriel. The
treatise propagates the same solar calendar that is also known from the Book of Jubilees and from the Dead Sea sect. This treatise was
probably written before the year 100 BCE.
The fourth treatise (chapters
83-90) contains two visions of Enoch: the first (chapters 83-84), about
the Flood, is in reality only a sort of introduction to the second one
("the vision of seventy shepherds"), which describes the history
of the world from Adam to the messianic age; the personages of the visions
are allegorically described as various kinds of animals. The symbolic
description of history continues to the time of Judas Maccabeus; then
follows the last assault of Gentiles and the messianic period. Thus, the
treatise was written in the early Hasmonean period, some time after the
biblical Book of Daniel.
The fifth treatise (chapters
91-107) contains Enoch's speech of moral admonition to his family. The
moral stress and the social impact is similar to parts of Jesus' teaching;
even the form of beatitudes (blessings) and woes is present. The treatise
shows some affinities to the Dead Sea Scrolls, but the author was not a
member of the Dead Sea sect; he opposes the central teaching of the sect,
the doctrine of predestination (98: 4-5). The treatise apparently was
written at the end of the 1st century BCE. Chapter 105, lacking in the
Greek version, is a late interpolation, probably of Christian origin.
The author of the treatise himself
apparently incorporated into it a small apocalypse, the "Apocalypse
of Weeks" (93:1-10; 91:12-17); in it the whole of human history is
divided into ten weeks; seven of them belong to the past and the last
three to the future.
The third pseudepigraphon that
shows important affinities with the Dead Sea sect is the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, the last speeches of the 12
sons of the Hebrew patriarch Jacob. In its extant form, containing
Christian passages, the book was written in Greek. Fragments of two
original Semitic sources of the book were found among the Dead Sea
Scrolls: the Aramaic "Testament of Levi" (fragments of it were
also discovered in Aramaic in the medieval Geniza, or synagogue storeroom,
in Cairo) and a Hebrew fragment of the "Testaments of Naphtali."
A Hebrew "Testament of Judah," which was used both by the Book
of Jubilees and the Testaments
of the Twelve Patriarchs in
their description of the wars of the sons of Jacob, also probably existed.
Whether Hebrew and Aramaic
prototypes for all the 12 testaments of the patriarchs existed is
difficult to ascertain. The present book was originally written in Greek.
In it each of the sons of Jacob before his death gives moral advice to his
descendants, based upon his own experience. All the testaments, with the
exception of Gad, also contain apocalyptic predictions.
Between the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs and the Dead Sea sect there is a
historical and ideological connection. The sources of the book were found
among the scrolls, the source of the "Testament of Levi" is
quoted in a sectarian writing (the Damascus Document), a dualistic outlook
is common to the book and the sect, and the devil is named Belial in both.
There are, however, important differences: in regard to the nature of the
dualism between good and evil, there is in the Testaments
the concept of the good and bad inclination, known from rabbinical
literature, which does not exist in the scrolls; though the sect believed in an afterlife of souls, the Testaments
reflect the belief in the resurrection of the body; there are no
traces of the doctrine of predestination in the testaments, a doctrine
that is so important for the sect. Only the "Testament of Asher"
preaches, as did the Dead Sea sect, hatred against sinners; the other
testaments stress, as does rabbinic literature and especially Jesus, the
precept of love for God and neighbour. Thus, it is probable that the
testaments of the patriarchs were composed in circles in which doctrines
of the Dead Sea sect were mitigated and combined with some rabbinic
doctrines. A similar humanistic position, founded both on doctrines of the
Dead Sea sect and of the Pharisees, is typical of Jesus' message, and
there are important parallels between his message and the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs.
New literary documents from the
intertestamental period were found in the caves of Qumran in the
vicinity of the Dead Sea in the 1940s, but only a portion of them has yet
been published. All the Dead Sea Scrolls
were written before the destruction of the Second Temple; with the
exception of small Greek fragments, they are all in Hebrew and Aramaic.
The scrolls formed the library of an ancient Jewish sect, which probably
came into existence at the end of the 2nd century BCE and was founded by a
religious genius, called in the scrolls the Teacher of Righteousness.
Scholars have tried to identify the sect with all possible groups of
ancient Judaism, including the Zealots and early Christians, but it is now
most often identified with the Essenes; all
that the sectarian scrolls contain fits previous information about the
Essenes, and the Dead Sea Scrolls help scholars to interpret the
descriptions about the Essenes in ancient sources. (see also Index: Qumran community)
The importance of the discovery is
very great; the scrolls of books of the Old Testament caused a new
evaluation of the history of the text of the Hebrew Bible; fragments of
the Apocrypha (Sirach and Tobit) and of already known and unknown
Pseudepigrapha enlarge knowledge about Jewish literature of the
intertestamental period, and the properly sectarian scrolls are important
witnesses about an ancient sect that influenced, in some points, the
origins of Christianity.
Among the previously unknown
Pseudepigrapha were large parts of an Aramaic scroll, the Genesis
Apocryphon, which retells stories from Genesis in the manner of a
number of apocryphal books. The chapters that are preserved are concerned
with Lamech, his grandfather Enoch, Noah, and Abraham, and the narrators
in the scroll are the respective biblical heroes. There is a close
affinity between this scroll and the Book
of Jubilees and Book of Enoch, fragments
of these books having been also found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. Another
pseudepigraphon that resembles the Dead Sea sect in spirit is the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs; fragments of two of its
sources, namely, the Aramaic "Testament of Levi" and a Hebrew
"Testament of Naphtali," are extant in the Qumran
library. All these books were composed in an apocalyptic movement in
Judaism, in the midst of which the Dead Sea sect originated. It is
sometimes difficult to ascertain if a work was written within the sect
itself or if it represents the broader movement. The largest scroll, the Temple
Scroll, is as yet unpublished. It describes--by the mouth of God
himself and in Hebrew--not the Temple of the last days but the Temple as
it should have been built. There are strong ties between the Temple Scroll and the Book of
Jubilees and the prescriptions in it fit the conceptions of the sect;
the work was composed by the sectarians themselves.
An important source of knowledge
about the history of the Dead Sea sect is the pesharim
("commentaries"; singular pesher).
The sectarian authors commented on the books of Old Testament prophets and
the book of Psalms and in the commentaries explained the biblical text as
speaking about the history of the sect and of events that happened in the
time of its existence. According to the manner of apocalyptic literature
in the pesharim, persons and
groups are not named with their proper names but are described by symbolic
titles--e.g., the Teacher of
Righteousness for the founder of the sect. The most important sectarian
commentaries are the pesharim on
Habakkuk and on Nahum.
One of the most interesting Dead
Sea Scrolls is The
War of the Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness,
a description of the eschatological war between the Sons of Light--i.e.,
the sect--and the rest of mankind, first with the other Jews and then
with the Gentiles. At the end the Sons of Light will conquer the whole
world, and in this war they will be helped by heavenly hosts; the Sons of
Darkness, aided by the devil Belial and his demonic army, and, finally,
all wicked ones will be destroyed. The work contains prayers and speeches
that will be uttered in the eschatological war as well as military and
other ordinances. Thus, the book also could be called the Manual
of Discipline for the last war.
Other books of ordinances of the
sect have been preserved, containing prescriptions and other material.
Three such compositions are written on one scroll: the Manual
of Discipline, the Rule of the Congregation, and the manual of Benedictions. The Manual of
Discipline is the rule (or statement of regulations) of the Essene
community; the most important part of this work is a treatise about the
special theology of the sect. The Rule
of the Congregation contains prescriptions for the eschatological
future when the sect is expected to be the elite of the nation. The manual
of Benedictions, preserved only
in a fragmentary state, contains benedictions that are to be said in the
eschatological future.
Another sectarian book of
ordinances is the Damascus Document (the
Zadokite Fragments). The work was already known from two medieval copies
before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, but fragments of it also
were found in Qumran, and the connection between this work and the
Dead Sea sect is evident. The Damascus Document was written in a community
in Damascus, which was not as rigidly organized as the Essenes. The work
contains the rules of this community and reminiscences of the sect's
history. Some scholars think that "Damascus" is only a
symbolical name for Qumran.
One of the most important Essene
works is the Hodayot ("Praises")--a
modern Hebrew name for the Thanksgiving
Psalms. This scroll contains sectarian hymns of praise to God. In its
view of the fleshly nature of man, who can be justified only by God's
undeserved grace, it resembles St. Paul's approach to the same problem.
Some scholars think that the work, or a part of it, was written by the
Teacher of Righteousness.
Among other fragments of scrolls
liturgical texts of prayers were found, as well as fragments of horoscopes
written in a cryptic script. |
