A Companion to the Hellenistic and Roman Near East. Группа авторов. Читать онлайн. Newlib. NEWLIB.NET

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with a writing known as the Book of Watchers. Aramaic fragments of this work found among the Dead Sea Scrolls allow us to date it almost certainly to the third century BCE. It focuses on the ultimate judgment of wicked human beings, who have been led into sin by heavenly beings called “Watchers” (see also Dan. 4:13, 17, 23; 8:13). These powerful supernatural creatures have rebelled against God, leading humanity astray into violence and unspeakable crimes. Some students of this text perceive in the lurid and highly charged language of the Book of Watchers symbolic references to historical events, such as the struggles of the Diadochoi (Nickelsburg 2001) or vicious internal disputes within the Jewish priesthood (Suter 1979). Whether or not such explanations of the text hold water, the fact remains that violent conflict is a dominant theme in this writing, and accurate understanding of its outworking in the human realm is perceived as inseparable from the influence of supernatural powers, either good or evil. Not unrelated to this is the third section of I Enoch (chs 72–82), often called The Astronomical Book. Once more, Aramaic fragments of the text discovered at Qumran indicate its origins in the third or early second century BCE. It argues, in minute mathematical detail, for a calendar based on a solar year of exactly 364 days. The complexity of this text is overwhelming, and underscores the importance ascribed by its author or compiler to the movements of the heavenly bodies, by means of which the calendar is calculated. Fundamental is the text’s claim that its knowledge of the calendar derives from the heavenly realms, not from human calculation (Albani 1994; Leicht 2006). Although both texts evince acute awareness of the non-Jewish world, their primary concern is the right conduct of Jews against wickedness and error, which seem to predominate in the non-Jewish environment, and in Jewish activities affected by it.

      I and II Maccabees are historiographical sources which, along with the writings of the historian Josephus, give an account of these things. II Maccabees tells of the early stages of this series of episodes, conventionally, though somewhat misleadingly, called the “Hellenistic Crisis.” This text is in reality an epitome of a work in five books no longer extant by one Jason of Cyrene, who wrote before 124 BCE his account in Greek (possibly in Egypt); miraculous elements are to the fore, and the willingness of faithful Jews to die martyrs’ deaths is central to the narrative (Doran 1981; D.R. Schwartz 2008). Less dramatic is the account of I Maccabees, a main-line narrative which takes up the story from the point where Antiochus has attempted to suppress the Jewish religion. Recording some opposition to Antiochus on the part of Asideans (Hebrew Hasidim), the book tells how Judah Maccabee, son of the priest Mattathias who had also opposed Antiochus’s decrees, gathers a Jewish army and successfully and against all odds spearheads Jewish victories over the Seleucid forces until the Temple is restored to Jewish hands (I Macc. 2:1–4:61). This book gives explicit support to Judah and the Maccabee family, envisaging them as divinely chosen to save the Jews (I Macc. 5:55–62; 9:19–22). Judah’s younger brother Jonathan, who succeeded him as leader of the Jewish army, in 153 BCE accepted the high priesthood from the hands of the Seleucid Alexander Balas (I Macc. 10:62), thus establishing a dynasty of high priests (who came to be known as the Hasmoneans, a designation deriving from one of their ancestors) which held office until the time of Herod the Great. I Maccabees celebrates these triumphs, and the efforts of Jonathan’s brother and successor in office Simon, whose accession saw the establishment of an independent Jewish state in 144 BCE (I Macc. 13:41–42; Bickermann 1979).

      “Re-written Bible”

      Jubilees is a major representative of a type of Jewish literary source often described as “Re-written Bible” (Vermes 1970). Although the exact definition and suitability of this designation have been debated (Machiela 2010), “Re-written Bible” remains a useful way of speaking about a number of Jewish writings known from the Dead Sea Scrolls and elsewhere (on the Dead Sea Scrolls in general, see particularly Flint and VanderKam 1998–99). Among the Qumran manuscripts, for example, the Aramaic text often called the Genesis Apocryphon retells the biblical stories of Noah and Abraham, following the main outlines of the narrative known from Genesis, but considerably embellishing it with non-biblical information. Enough of this fragmentary text remains for us to discern clearly its glorification of Noah’s character, its intense interest