The books of the Old Testament reveal that among the ancient Israelites there were two contrasting conceptions of the dead. On the one hand, there was the view that when a person dies the body that is placed in a grave is still somewhat alive. The nails and the hair are still growing, and the bones remain articulated. In very dry climates, they may stay that way for an indefinite length of time. At the time, the Israelites held a psycho-physical understanding of the person. They did not distinguish between material and ethereal or psychic aspects of an individual. They had no abstract nouns in their vocabulary. This means that they did not conceive the notions of mind, will, idea, etc. They located psychic functions in physical organs. The hand indicates intentions; the arm, strength; the bowels, emotions; the heart, will power. The Hebrew word translated “soul” does not refer to an independent, abstract, essential aspect of a person, but to the whole person as alive, active; in fact it is best translated as “person” or “being.” One of the creation stories says that God breathed into the nostrils of a clay form and it became a “living person, or being” (Gen. 2:7). When a person, or being, dies, for the Hebrews the “soul” dies (Gen. 37:21; Dt. 19:6; Jer. 40:14-15). Moreover, the word for “spirit” which also means “wind,” refers to the moving forces within, the feelings, the ideas, the character of the whole person. Thus, according to one point of view found in the Old Testament, when a person is placed in the grave, it goes into the pit and joins the rephaim, the shades. They are negative replicas of living persons who have the remnants of life still in the body. They are a very weak form of life. In this understanding of human beings, life and death are not opposites. They are related to each other within a continuum of different degrees of vitality. While in the realm of the living, persons experience reductions of vitality when they are sick, suffering or under great distress. These experiences are understood to be drawing the person to the gates of Sheol, the place where the rephaim, the shades, are found. Thus, while living on the face of the earth, persons may be already feeling that Sheol is taking vital power away from them. The basic characteristic of the shades in Sheol is that they are weak.
The other view of the dead in the Old Testament sees death as the opposite of life. The living exist; the dead do not exist. They are extinct. Death brings about the extraction of life from the body. It is the emptying of life, the dissolution of the person. Of the suffering servant it is said that he “poured out his soul [being] to death” (Is. 53:12). Dying in childbirth, Rachel called the newborn Benoni “as her soul [being] was departing” (Gen. 35:18). When a woman of Tekoa is coached by Joab to convince King David that he should admit back Absalom into the family, she gives the iconic metaphor for death according to this view. The woman says to David, “We must all die, we are like water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again” (2 Sam. 14:14). According to this view, the dead are in Abaddon (destruction, Job 28:22; Ps. 15:11; 27:20), Dumah (silence, Ps. 115:17). Pleading with God to relent from the unjust treatment he is inflicting on an innocent man, Job says, “Are not the days of my life few? Let me alone, that I may find a little comfort before I go whence I shall not return, to the land of gloom and deep darkness, the land of gloom and chaos, where light is as darkness” (Job 10:20-22). In Job the dead are in total annihilation. Job reminds God, “now I shall die on the earth; Thou will seek me, but I shall not be” (Job 7:21). Under distress, the Psalmist pleads, “Look away from me, that I may know gladness, before I depart and be no more” (Ps. 39:13).
The author of the Book of the Watchers is aware of the biblical language describing the pit as a place of chaos and “darkness with no light in it.” But he is also living in a time when Hellenistic culture has made significant inroads in the Fertile Crescent. Among its many contributions, the Greeks fostered the cross-fertilization of cultural features between Greece and India. Among these was the distinction between the body of the dead and their souls and spirits. Our author describes the Watchers, or the giants, as dead and says that their souls ask Enoch to intercede on their behalf before God. He also sees that the spirits of the dead children of the Watchers are causing women and men to sin. This, of course, reveals the influence of the notions of the soul as an independent, living entity. The language of the defiled angels as spirits in prison, found in First and Second Peter clearly comes from The Book of the Watchers and the Hellenic understanding of life after death. To be noticed also is that those in this prison are not just there, as the rephaim in Sheol are described in Ezekiel and Isaiah. They are suffering punishments while waiting for the judgment that will exterminate them.
The Book of the Watchers provides a topography of the underworld, a place not found within the three levels of the biblical world constituted by the heavens above, the earth beneath and the waters under the earth. In the different places surveyed by Enoch the souls seems to be quite alive. This view of death informs the story of the rich man and Lazarus in the gospel According to Luke. That story says that the rich man died and was buried; “and in Hades, being in torment, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far off and Lazarus in his bosom.” He then pleaded for Abraham to send Lazarus with some water to mitigate the anguish in which he found himself (Lk. 16:19-24). In Revelation, when the Lamb opens the fifth seal, John the Prophet sees “the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne.” They cried out to God asking how much longer they are going to have to wait for the judgment that will avenge their blood (Rev. 6:9-10). These scenarios could only be conceived after the notion of an independent living soul entered the apocalyptic imagination in the Book of the Watchers. Besides, Enoch’s tour of the universe in this book provided a proto-apocalyptic model for future descriptions of journeys to the frontiers of the heavens. The tour of the universe serves to prove that God is in complete control of what takes place in the world and that, even if the spirits of the Giants are bringing havoc among women and men at the moment, those who introduced evil in the world are now in prison and all evil doers, together with the Watchers and the Giants, will be annihilated at the final judgment. The righteous are thereby assured that they will be receiving their reward. Certainty that God is in control is what gives hope.
This survey of Ezekiel, Zechariah and the Book of the Watchers in First Enoch reveals how different themes and concepts, both of the nature and identity of human beings and of the origin and agents of evil in God’s world, mark the transition from prophetic to apocalyptic biblical literature. While still working within the prophetic understanding of the God of history, these texts move in different directions as they address different historical circumstances. The widening of the horizon within which the Jews lived and the necessity to keep their faith in the promises of God forced them to seek new means for the expression of their faith. In this way these books provided the colors used by the authors of apocalypses with which to paint a relevant picture of the God of creation. The books here reviewed, however, did not quite reach the apocalyptic worldview of God and his world. They reveal that, as the Jews experienced life in a world full of confusing forces that brought about doubts and sometimes despair, they sought new ways to express their faith in the power and justice of the God they worshiped. In the process, they came up with a new conception of the world in which they lived.
Daniel
The prophet Ezekiel refers to Daniel as a most righteous and wise man. He was known as a paragon of righteousness who, if God were to punish Israel for her sins, though he was quite righteous would not be able to save any other member of his family. He would be able to save only himself. This illustration is used by Ezekiel to establish the significance of the change from a corporate, tribal to an individual, personal identity (Ez. 14:14). This legendary ancient worthy, listed by Ezekiel in the company of legendary Noah and Job, was not only remembered for his righteousness but also for his wisdom. Thus, in his taunt of the King of Tyre, Ezekiel sarcastically quotes the king claiming to be “wiser than Daniel” (Ez. 28:3). Other ancient texts from the neighboring nations also know a Dnil, or Danel, who is remembered for his extraordinary wisdom, particularly texts from the XIV century B.C.E. found at Ugarit. Whether the author of Daniel is telling stories that had come to him about a Daniel who went to Babylon as an exile from Judea, or is giving the