NT Studies 1 MASHAL AND 1 ENOCH: A TRIPTYCH ALLEGORY ABOUT SHEOL Octavian D. Baban
NT Studies 1
MASHAL AND 1 ENOCH: A TRIPTYCH
ALLEGORY ABOUT SHEOL
Octavian D. Baban
2 NT Studies
Always thankful to the Lord and always indebted to my loving wife, Daniela, and to our children Raluca and Vlad
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Abbreviations
AJA The American Journal of Archaeology
AnBib Analecta Biblica
AJPh The American Journal of Philology
ASTI Annual of the Swedish Theological Institute
Bib Biblica
BTB The Biblical Theology Bulletin
Bib.Td. The Bible Today
BZ Biblische Zeitschrift
CBQ The Catholic Biblical Quarterly
CPh Classical Philology
DNTT Dictionary of New Testament Theology
EstB Estudios Bíblicos
ExpTim The Expository Times
EvT Evangelische Theologie
HerKor Herder-Korrespondenz
HSCPh The Harvard Studies in Classical Philology
Int Interpretation
HTR The Harvard Theological Review
JAAR Journal of the American Academy of Religion
JAF Journal of American Folklore
JBL The Journal of Biblical Literature
JEChS The Journal of Early Christian Studies
JSNT The Journal for the Study of the New Testament
JSS The Journal of Semitic Studies
4 NT Studies
JR The Journal of Religion
JTS The Journal of Theological Studies
LCL The Loeb Classical Library Series
LTP Laval Théologique et Philosophique
LumV Lumen Vitae
LXX The Septuagint
Neot Neotestamentica
NIDNTT The New International Dictionary of NT
Theology
NJBC The New Jerome Bible Dictionary
NovT Novum Testamentum
NTS New Testament Studies
NRT Nouvelle Revue de Theologie
PRS Perspectives of Religious Studies
QJS The Quarterly of Jewish Studies
RCatT Revista Catalana de Teologia
RHPR Revue de l’Histoire et de Philosophie Religieuses
RHR Revue de l’Histoire des Religions
RB Revue Biblique
RevExp Review and Expositor
REL Revue des Études Latines
RSR Reserches de Science Religieuse
SBL The Society for Biblical Literature
SBT Studia Biblica et Theologica
ScE Science et Esprit
TvT Tijdschrift voor Theologie
TDNT The Theological Dictionary of the NT
EDNT The Exegetical Dictionary of NT
TLZ Theologische Literaturzeitung
TQ Theologische Quartalschrift
TR Theologische Revue
TU Texte und Untersuchungen
TynB Tyndale Bulletin
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TWNT Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament
TZ Theologische Zeitschrift
ZNW Zeitschrift für die neuetestamentlische
Wissenschaft und die Kunde des Urchristentums
VigChr. Vigilae Christianae
ZTK Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche
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The Mashal and 1 Enoch’s Metaphors
DEFINITION OF MASHAL
The mashal as a literary genre represents a type of
parable that fixes facts into a memorable story and
creates a standard, influential reference. It actually
comes as a conclusion, a highly compacted illustration
or saying that emphasises the “point” of a story. In this
Jewish tradition, the observation that “Saul is among
the prophets” (1 Sam. 10:12) has become a “proverb”
(mashal) in Israel. In another example, God made
Israel into “a mashal [example, gossip issue] among the
nations” (Ps. 44:14), and Job became a mashal (i.e., of
legendary fame) for his acquaintances (Job 17:6). Isaiah
makes a mashal (parable) against Babylon (Isa. 14:4f),
and Balaam also composed an oracle to be repeated as a
mashal against Israel (Num. 23:7,18; 24:3, 15, 20, 21,
23). As it can be seen, the role of mashal was a public-
oriented one, something that reflect its ancient oral
setting and usage.
Mashal is a public saying, a lesson in a few phrases,
a short but strong and effective parable for public use.
It has been said that its recognizable purpose is that of
“quickening an apprehension of the real as distinct
from the wished for”. Also, that it compells the hearer
(or the reader) “to form a judgement on himself, his
situation or conduct...”1 Its powers of suggestion, of
____________
1 A. S. Herbert, ‘The “parable” (Mashal) in the OT’, SJT, 7,
1954, pp. 180-96.
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irony, or playful imagination are incentives to
meditation. Modern literature might offer the parallel,
to a certain degree, of the Japanese poetical genre of
haiku. Mashal bears indeed a certain resemblance with
this short, three lines (or “stichoi”), form of a highly
evocative poem which rather proclaims a theme than
develops it, yet it may well take the form of a more
developed narrative.2
While ancient rhetoric included various forms and
figures of speech, the Hebrew mashal can be qualified,
in comparison with other related literary genres, as
“spontaneous” and “playful” more than “analytical and
contrived”.3 Mashal’s earliest OT illustrations are
Nathan’s parable about David’s sin (2 Sam. 12. 1-6),
and Jotham’s fable about the “talking” trees (Judges 9).
The genre of mashal uses symbols to “restate the
premise in a new way”, so that the listener may
understand it - or apply it to himself - in his own
terms.4 In conclusion, mashal had a didactic and
illustrative role. As a literary genre it illustrated a
____________
2 A possible connection with the Accadian mishlu (‘half’), led
scholars to consider mashal as being “a line of two stichoi” (W.
McKane, Proverbs, p. 32). It comes phonetically and literarily
very close to the Ethiopic ‘amsal and mesl (‘likeness’) (Suter,
‘Mashal in Similitudes’ p. 204; cf.’Measure of Redemption’, p.
168). Two main roots can be taken into discussion: mtl -’to
stand’, ‘representative’, and msl – ‘to rule’.
3 Bigger, ‘Symbol and Metaphor in the Hebrew Bible’, in
Creating the OT, p. 68.
4 M. Hilton and G. Marshall, The Gospel and Rabbinic
Judaism, pp. 55-56.
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point in an argument, whereas as a teaching method it
stressed particular ideas in a passage. Theological
developments turned it, later, into a major
interpretative and exegetical method. As a literary form
it did develop into different types of wisdom speeches
(e. g., proverbs), and in time mashal came to include
almost any “elaborate discourse whether in the form of
a vision, prophecy or poem”.5
In Ezekiel 17:2 mashal is synonym with hida
(“riddle”, “dark saying”). From such a relation J.
Jeremias argued that mashal has got the meaning of
“apocalyptic saying”, as illustrated in the meshalim of 1
Enoch - wrongly translated in the specialized literature
as “similitudes”.6 Habakkuk combined mashal with
hida and melisa (“satire”); Micah 2:4 uses an
intermediate form between mashal and nehi
(“lamentation”).
Mashal functioned as an “outstanding utterance”, or
a “model”, a statement of wisdom teaching,7 or as a
“word of power”, “sovereign saying”.8 One might
describe it as a form elaborating on the idea of a given
paradigm.9
____________
5 R. M. Charles, quoted in Suter, ‘Mashal in Similitudes’, p.
194.
6 J. Jeremias, Parables of Jesus, p. 16.
7 “mashal is das Feststehende”, J. Schmidt in W. McKane,
Proverbs, p. 25; see also p. 24.
8 A. Bentzen in W. McKane, Proverbs, p. 24.
9 McKane, Proverbs, p. 26.
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All these associations point towards mashal’s
generality and inclusiveness as a literary genre,
something it shares with the hebrew forms of sir
(“song”), mizmor (“psalm”) and ne’un (“oracle”).10
MASHAL’S IN 1 ENOCH: ALLEGORY AND PATTERNS
In his comprehensive studies about Enoch’s
Similitudes, D. W. Suter has stressed that mashal does
not convey here a simple likeness of the kingdom of
heaven with any of its earthly counterparts. According
to him, Enoch’s unique visionary account (1.2; 37.4)11 is
not a purely fictional narrative; transcending the situa-
tion it teaches about human destiny not conjecturally
but in the form of a permanently valid parenesis.
In an earlier work, D. W. Suter has discussed the
continuity of Jewish tradition with its past and has
identified a movement from “a myth of the origin of evil
to a theology - or demonology - of history”.12 He differen-
tiated in this context between syncretism and the
transformation of themes.13 Mashal’s contribution to
this continuity was attributed to its midrashic nature.14
In 1 Enoch the parable (mashal) about God’s Justice
____________
10 L. A. Schoekel, A Manual of Hebrew Poetics, pp. 8-10.
11 D. W. Suter, ‘Mashal in the Similitudes’, p. 194.
12 D.W. Suter, Tradition and Composition in the Parables of
Enoch, SBL Diss. Series, Missoula, MT : Scholars Press 1979, p.
166.
13 Suter, Tradition and Composition, pp. 157, 160-162.
14 Suter, Tradition and Composition, p. 159.
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makes room for diferent and powerful metaphors about
life after death.
Different Forms of Allegory in 1 Enoch
Some elaborate comparisons contrast the fate of the
righteous with that of the wicked. Others compare the
angels’ destiny with the human life, or describe the
created world by using a similar vocabulary for
Yahweh’s Temple on earth and for Yahweh’s Heavens
above.15
In his allegorical journey to the “outer” world, Enoch
visits the allegorical extremities of the earth, the
“luminaries” of heaven, the regions of the dead, the
world of angels. This enormous parade of different
metaphorical places conveys lessons about how and why
one should live righteously with God. In other words
these allegories do focus on the Enochic model of life.
The story of the Watchers parallels Israel’s drama in
history and Enoch’s Sheol offers a paradigm for the
survival of the righteous. Israel’s land and the history
of the Hebrew heroes become typology in 1 Enoch.16 To
rephrase it analogy prepares here the way for typology,
for patterns.17
Narrative Patterns in 1 Enoch
____________
15 Suter, ‘The Measure of Redemption’, p. 168; see also, M.
Himmelfarb ‘Apocalyptic Ascent and the Heavenly Temple’, in
SBL Sem. Pap. 1987, pp. 210-212.
16 S. Bigger, ‘Symbol and Metaphor’, pp. 64-65.
17 S. Bigger, ‘Symbol and Metaphor’, p. 70.
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1 Enoch uses mashal to emphasize in a different way
the traditional multivalence of allegory. Instead of
referring to later crises through the means of a
prophetic “filter” it builds a recurrent pattern of the
theme of Rebellion and Reward. Important seems not
historical uniqueness or prediction but the more
general truth.
The usual apocalyptic transposition of history to a
mythological plan is used here as a pattern: the Urzeit
opens the perspective for the Endzeit.18
As a result, no religious persecution of the Hellenistic
age is envisaged in 1 Enoch’s crisis of the fallen angels.
Instead, it “provides a lens through which any crisis can
be viewed”.19
Within its “ahistorical” perspective (Von Rad) 1
Enoch does not reflect a high view of the Torah,
either.20 For Roessler apocalypses never had great
concerns with the Torah, anyway,21 for they replaced
the land (as God’s reward) with Yahweh’s eternal and
universal blessings. In others’s interpretation, still, the
____________
18 H. Gunkel, Schoepfung und Chaos in Urzeit und Endzeit,
Goettingen, Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1895.
19 Collins, Imagination, pp. 40-46.
20 J. C. H. Lebram, ‘The piety of the Jewish Apocalyptists’, in
D. Hellholm (ed), Apocalypticism in the Mediterranean World
and in the Near East, Tuebingen: Mohr, 1983, p. 178; see also
Collins, Imagination, pp. 39-40.
21 D. Roessler, Gesetz und Geschichte, p. 78.
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“apocalyptic supports continued attachment to Scrip-
ture and tradition”.22
Enoch’s Parables about the Afterlife
In referring to 1 Enoch’s parables of life and death, this
essay will use for convenience a double, temporal and
spatial reference frame. In the same way in which
Enoch’s journeys refer to the otherworldly regions
visited by Enoch and to the Judgement to come in the
Book of the Watchers,23 the parables of 1 Enoch can be
divided in two classes: a. parables of place and b.
parables of time. A special geography of the divine
distant kingdom is joined in 1 Enoch with a divinely
controlled history.
The main parables of place in 1 Enoch are present in
the description of the “intermediaries” (Sheol) and of
the “eternal places” (the Heavens like a temple,
Paradise, the angels’ Prison, Gehenna).
Their description betrays an “astonishingly detailed”
knowledge of Palestine’s geography and of its
surrounding areas.24 Implicitly, after Milik, Enoch
enterprises here two independent expeditions: one from
Gaza to Timna in Yemen, and the other from a
Phoenician port to the lands of India. The patriarch
travels eastward to find the garden of the Eastern
____________
22 Rowland, quoted in M. Bockmuehl, Revelation and Mystery,
p. 41.
23 Collins, Imagination, p. 45.
24 Milik, Books of Enoch, pp. 36-37.
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Paradise and meanwhile he will find the punishment
places located in the west...
As mythological environs for Enoch’s journeys,
however, these places are vaguely located although
affirmed with certitude. Removed from the populated
areas they are in this way placed beyond destruction
and pollution, or human interference. Enoch’s theology
about after-life comes to “surface” in Enoch’s parables in
a geographical way.
1 ENOCH’S MAIN PARABLES OF TIME AND PLACE
The parables of time reinterpret history and destiny.
So, the meaning of present lays in the past. The
Watchers’ sin is what led to humanity’s degradation.
Israel’s story highlights the continuation of the divine
plan. In the Apocalypse of Animals Israel’s patriarchs,
pictured as white bulls, became later humans - when
God chose them. Israel as the Lord’s people starts only
when Jacob is portrayed as a sheep having Yahweh as
shepherd. The correct calendar and the proper
celebration of religious festivals become conditions for
Israel’s salvation. As J. Collins notes “the address (ch.
82) to Methuselah underlines the primary purpose of
the Astronomical Book: to prevent sin by calendrical
error”.25
One could describe them as “Sheol-related” places,
having in view that finally their concern is with
____________
25 J. J. Collins, Imagination, p. 48.
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humankind’s survival after death. They integrate
history to myth with the aid of a “cluster” of related
metaphors. The first three introduce a “triptych”-like
picture of the divine punishment. To them Paradise
adds the tension of a lost ideal. A further tension does
then manifest between the different features of the
humans’ and of the angels’ prisons: humankind’s Sheol
is less abstract and less definitive or detailed in its
functions than the angels’ prisons.
TRIPTYCH PANEL 1: THE ENOCHIC SHEOL
Chapter 22 in the Book of the Watchers tells the story
of Enoch’s journey to the heavenly places with a first
visit ever, in Jewish literature, to Sheol.26 It comes as
part of the second version of Enoch’s cosmic tour in 1
Enoch - from the book’s three ones (a. 17-19; b. 21-36; c.
41, 43-44;):
22. (1) Then I went to another place, and he
showed me on the west side a great and high
mountain of hard rock and inside it four beautiful
corners; (2) it had [in it] a deep, wide and smooth
(thing) which was rolling over, and it (the place)
was deep and dark to look at. (3) At that moment,
Rufael, one of the holy angels, who was with me,
____________
26 R. Bauckham, ‘Visions of Hell’, pp. 356, 359; Milik, Books of
Enoch, p. 38, mention it as part of the first Enoch’s journey
towards the setting of the sun (maimah - ‘towards the sea’... )
which appears in the Book of the Watchers in a double
recension: 1 En. 17-19 and 21-25.
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responded to me; and he said to me, “These
beautiful corners (are here) in order that the
spirits of the souls of the dead should assemble
into them - they are created so that the souls of
the children of the people should gather there; (4)
They prepared these places in order to put them
(i. e. the souls of the people) there until the day of
their judgement and the appointed time of the
great judgement upon them.27
Sheol’s presentation comes between the angels’ place
of punishment (1 En. 18-19,21), and the description of
the Accursed Valley (1 En. 26. 3-27. 4, 54. 1-6). Its
location is in the West, somewhere at the farthest
extremities of earth (En. 21. 1-3, 23. 1-2, etc. ).28
The cave of Sheol is placed under a mountain; the
site is undeterminatedly positioned between heaven
and earth. God’s mythic mountain in the North
(Shafon), is a theme shared by many mesopotamian
____________
27 1 Enoch 22. 1-4; trsl. by E. Isaac, in M. A. Knibb, The
Ethiopic Book of Enoch, vol. 2, p. 108-109. In 22. 1 and 22. 3,
the Greek manuscripts have instead of “beautiful places” the
more appropriate “hollow places”. The Ethiopic seems to have
misread ‘koloi’(hollow) as ‘kaloi’(beautiful). In 22. 2 the Ethiopic
“(that) which was rolling over” is, in M. A. Knibb’s words,
simply “nonsense”. Again there one has to do with a misreading
or mistranslation of the ‘kykloomata’ (rolling things) with
‘koiloomata’ (hollow places).
28 R. Bauckham, ‘Visions of Hell’, p. 364; the Hebrew
Apocalypse of Elijah (Sefer Eliyahhu) places the abode of the
dead also in the west.
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stories (cf. Isaiah 14:12-15, Ezekiel 28:16-18).29 1
Enoch’s choice contrasts with other traditional sites for
Sheol like the bottom of the “sea of reeds” yam sup, or
the Egyptian Lake of Horus (s’hr, possibly connected
with yeor, river, Nile) mentioned in Ex. 14-15 and
Jonah 2:5-6.30
Many of these biological connotations were common
places for 1 Enoch’s contemporaries and implied the use
of an early source, the archaic reference to the human
body.31 The “deep, wide, and smooth hollow place” from
the vision comes close to the image of a hollow throat
(or gullet) of Sheol portrayed as a monster.
Parallels in the ancient Ugaritic texts often
represented death in terms of being swallowed by Mot,
the god of Death (a sonorous name meaning “prince
Death”, and related to heb. mwt - “death”). Mot takes
pride that:
My appetite is like that of a lion, my energy like
the dolphins in the sea. Death is a pool luring the
wild oxen... a spring baiting herds of deer... The
dust of the grave devours its pray... eats what-
ever it wants with both hands.
____________
29 Milik, Books of Enoch, pp. 39-40; the Ugaritic expressions
des-cribing Baal’s residence in the North are “almost unaltered”
in 1 En. 17. 7-8.
30 W. Wifall, ‘The Sea of Reeds as Sheol’, ZAW, 92, 1980, pp.
325-332.
31 M. Eliade, History of Faiths and of Religious Ideas, p. 1.
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Baal and Anat Battle Mot v. ii. 15-2032
The god Mot devoured cattle, humans and gods as
well, without exception (from here, the myth of Baal’s
annual death and resurrection). They disappeared
between his jaws, down his throat and down his gullet.
Euphemistically, yet, he is called “the beautiful one”,
the “beloved son of El”. His domain is “delightfulness”,
a “dwelling of bliss” or a “land of bliss”.33
This euphemistic language provided a
supplementary background for the textual variants of
Sheol’s “hollow” places seen as “beautiful” corners (see
note 42, E. 1. a, on En. 22). Further, the Mot-related
language is reflected in 1 Enoch in the description of
Sheol’s Pit and in the portrait of the rebellious
Watchers.
Following this Canaanite tradition, the scene of
Judgment in 1 Enoch chap. 53 opens with the picture of
a “deep valley with a wide mouth” (53. 1). In chap. 56. 8
one reads that “Sheol shall open her mouth, and they
shall be swallowed up into it and perish. Thus Sheol
shall swallow up the sinners in the presence of the elect
ones.”
In the Old Testament Sheol is also often represented
as a monster swallowing its pray (the mouth of Sheol,
____________
32 V. Matthews and D. C. Benjamin, Old Testament Parallels,
p. 165.
33 M. C. A. Koerpel, A Rift in the Clouds, p. 349.
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ph, and its throat, nps -Ps. 141. 7, Isa. 5. 14; Hab. 2. 5;
Gen. 4. 11; Num. 16. 30; its belly, btn - Jon. 2. 3, etc).34
The biological metaphor of Mot describes a
segregated netherworld (son of El, the Bull, Mot has
animal features and animal parts; Baal, another son of
El, was often represented as a calf). Thus, in 1 Enoch
the dead can be placed in four separate compartments:
a. for the righteous (22. 9), b. for the wicked who died
unpunished (22. 10), c. for the righteous martyrs (22. 5-
7, 12), d. for sinners who were punished before death
(22. 13).35
In this context is worth noting that later
representations, like in 4 Ezra 7. 75-101, have reserved
the intermediary “residence” only for the righteous. In
such a perspective the wicked are punished to wander
around, unsettled, in a tormenting anticipation of their
doom.36
The theology of Sheol includes the reconsideration of
the Jewish conflict myths. The fate of humans is linked
to the rebellion of the Watchers. The Fallen Angels had
taught them “unholy” trades and occupations like
alchemy and smiting, astrology and magical
incantations, abortion and writing (8. 1-4; 69. 4-15).
One can identify in 1 Enoch different traditions
where the leader of the angelic rebellion bears different
names. In one he is Shemihaza, in another - Asael
____________
34 M. C. A. Koerpel, A Rift in the Clouds, p. 354.
35 D. Alexander, ‘The OT view of life after death’, p. 43.
36 R. Bauckham, ‘Visions of Hell’, p. 361.
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(Azazel). Their sin is also perceived as different:
Shemihaza led to unlawful marriages between humans
and the sons of God which did result in the procreation
of giants, Asael brought to earth a divinely
unwarranted revelation.37 In P. R. Davies’ words “the
origin and the nature of sin is a permanent concern of 1
Enoch”.38
These angels of death, however, are not exercising a
full lordship over humans, like the Ugaritic Mot.
Hebrew thinking has intervened dissociating the God of
death from the function of death, and the action from
its personification. As a result, on one hand, earth can
still “open its mouth” and “swallow” the disobedient but
it acts like that “impersonally”, at Yahweh’s command.
Likewise, instead of a God of Death there appeared
an angel of Death, subjected to Yahweh. In time, the
rebellious Death became replaced with a positive
character. In the Testament of Abraham 16.4-5 (first
century AD), Death is an angel of Yahweh who carries
out His orders obediently. Does this development, yet,
return somehow to a friendly relationship between
Yahweh and Death, similar to the latter sonship of Mot
to El?...
Jewish dichotomy of angel and function of death
breaks the metaphor of Mot in two and places the
____________
37 J. J. Collins, Imagination, pp. 38-39; he suggests that the
punishment of Azazel (1En. 10) adapts Lev. 16, and challenges
the official ritual (p. 58).
38 R. Davies, ‘The Social World of the Apocalyptic’, in The
World of the Ancient Israel, ed. R. E. Clemens, p. 266.
20 NT Studies
“halves” under Yahwe’s rule. One can identify however,
even a third component: the emergence of Sheol as a
Place of the Dead where people wait - collectivelly - for
the final judgement.
Scholars have distinguished three major groups of
names for the netherworld: a. those with a predominant
local aspect such as Sheol, ‘eres (“the nether world”, e.g.
Ex. 15:12) or bor (“pit”, e.g. Isa. 38:18); b. those
referring to the character of the realm of the dead, such
as Abaddon (“place of destruction”) or apar (i.e., “dust”,
e.g. Job 17:16), and c. those personifying death, like
Mot (“Sir Death”, e.g. Isa. 28. 15) or melek ballahot
(“king of terrors”, Job 18. 24).39
1 Enoch breaks new ground through a community-
like concept of Sheol. The closest parallels can be found
in the Hebrew expressions “he slept with his fathers”
and “he was gathered to his people”40 (the Enochic text
is more open to universalism). A segregated Sheol
represents a new form of “socialisation” of the grave’s
world. This details raise the question to what an extent
1 Enoch’s theology of Sheol does also represent a
sublimation of the old cult of the dead, reformulated
according to the norms of the Jewish apocalyptic.
Cultic references to Sheol are of notable antiquity.
Much of the Pentateuchal material has a cultic not only
____________
39 M. A. Knibb, ‘Life and Death’, p. 404.
40 M. A. Knibb, ‘Life and Death’, p. 411.
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a historical origin.41 The “ancestral deities” (elohei
abihim) mentioned in Gen. 31:42, 53 or in Gen. 28:10-22
are referring to the “elohim” as deified ancestors. It
seems that these ancestors could guarantee the
inalienability of the land.42 In the resulting confronta-
tion with them (Exod. 20:2), Yahweh proclaims himself
as Israel’s only “elohim”, excluding and supplanting all
the “others”.43
Later, the eighth-seventh century reforms of
Hezekiah and Josia were directed against the
consultation of the dead and banned any appeal to
human intermediaries - Lev. 19:26-31; 20:6, 27; Deut.
18:10-11, and also against “feeding” the deceased tithed
food (Deut. 26:14), etc.44
As an alternative, Enoch’s compartmented Sheol may
also reflect something of a communal life of the dead, or
even something of the architecture of the family tombs
or cave complexes. The latter could include fifteen to
thirty individuals, representing three to five gene-
rations.45
In such a perspective 1 Enoch would then represent a
form of rehabilitating the practice of consulting the
____________
41 A. Cooper and B. R. Goldstein, ‘The Cult of the Dead and the
Theme of Entry into the Land’, in Biblical Interpretation, 1, 3
(1993), p. 302.
42 Cooper & Goldstein, ‘Cult of the Dead’, pp. 296-297.
43 Cooper & Goldstein, ‘Cult of the Dead’, p. 295.
44 E. M. Bloch-Smith, ‘The Cult of the Dead in Judah:
Interpreting the material remains”, JBL, 11/2 (1992), p. 223.
45 Bloch-Smith, ‘The Cult of the Dead in Judah’, pp. 216-217.
22 NT Studies
dead. Out of a theological need for further revelation,
Enoch looks at them from a distance and meditates on
the exemplary character of their fate, while he does not
initiate a direct contact or dialogue with them (for the
sake of ritual contamination).
Enoch’s books teach a differentiation on moral
grounds among the multitudes of the dead (chap. 22)
and that there are grounds for a hope of surviving
death (1 En. 102.5-11).
Historically these views correspond with the changes
undergone by Jewish theology during the “Pharisaic
Revolution”. This, it has been said, brought over the
concepts of God’s sovereignty, “eternal individuation”
and “internalization of the Torah”. Also, the concepts of
God as Father, eternal life, “cosmos”.46
The sinners’ fate does not enjoy, yet, a coherent
presentation in 1 Enoch. This reflects the composite
nature of the book, on one hand, and on the other its
early composition and unsettled theology. Thus, one
cannot decide whether the sinners’ souls are to be
annihilated in 1 Enoch (38.6), or slain in Sheol (99.11),
or detained for ever (22.14; 108.15), or until the day of
Judgment.
In 1 Enoch, Sheol is not much of a punishment or of a
trial place, even if segregation suggests a preliminary
____________
46 E. Rivkin, ‘Pharisaism and the Crisis of the Individual in the
Greco-Roman World’, Essays in Greco-Roman and related
Talmudic Literature, pp. 501, 508, 523 (see Jewish Quarterly
Review, 1970, [114], pp. 28ff).
NT Studies 23
judgment. It represents rather a place of temporary
detainment.47 The intermediary state can be described
as a silent repose, as in 1 En. 49.3 or 1 En. 100.6, a
“dormire in terra”, or “habitare in silentio”, or “dormire
in tranquilitate” - in heb. nuhat olam (2 Macc. 12.45;
Bar. 30.1).48
1 Enoch does not go to further details. For an
example, the Testament of Abraham describes a more
elaborated judgement. People are judged before Abel,
before the twelve tribes of Israel, before God, and by
three trials: of fire, record, and balance.49 By contrast,
in 1 En. 22 the dead’s fate seems already decided. Sheol
represents for them more of a place of “petrified
moralities and suspended graces”.50
Not even the repentant Watchers are forgiven in 1
Enoch (chap. 14.4-7). They remain enchained in the
frightening desert, beyond the deep abyss of fire (18.9-
11; cf. 18.2: “topos en eremos kai phoberos”, 21.2: “topos
akataskeuatos kai phoberos”).
____________
47 R. Bauckham, ‘Visions of Hell’, p. 359.
48 P. Voltz, Die Eschatologie der Judischen Gemeinde, p. 257.
49 E. P. Sanders, ‘Testament of Abraham - a new translation
and introduc-tion’, in The OT Pseudoepigrapha, p. 871; D. S.
Russell highlights that in T. A.’s later concept of Sheol “moral
judgements and reactions are possible” (From Early Judaism to
Early Church, p. 133).
50 R. H. Charles, Eschatology, p. 218 (in D. S. Russell, The
Method and the Message of Jewish Apocalyptic, p. 361; This
view is explicit in 2 Baruch 85.12).
24 NT Studies
TRIPTYCH PANEL 2: THE PRISON OF ANGELS
While Enoch was journeying to the west - to the maim,
the watered ends of the world, in chap. 18, 21 he meets
successively different images of the punishment places
for the angels and for the seven stars. In chap. 21 the
two prisons are separate. Although “the theological
interest is blurred by scholarly curiosity in such fields
as cosmography, astronomy, meteorology”51 what the
Enochic author describes are symbolic, not actual
places. The author uses literary ingeniosity to
communicate a complete and memorable picture of an
eternally doomed world:
I saw a place without the heavenly firmament
above it or earthly foundation under it or water.
There was nothing on it - not even birds - but it
was a desolate and terrible place(... ) This place is
the (ultimate) end of heaven and earth: it is the
prison house for the stars and the powers of
heaven.
1 Enoch 18.12, 14 (E. Isaac)
And I came to an empty place. And I saw (there)
neither a heaven above nor an earth below, but a
chaotic and terrible place. And there I saw seven
stars of heaven bound together in it, like great
mountains, and burning with fire. (...) This place
____________
51 Milik, Books of Enoch, pp. 35, 39.
NT Studies 25
is the prison house of the angels; they are
detained here forever.
1 Enoch 21.1-3, 7a, 10b (E. Isaac)
God commanded Enoch to reprimand the Watchers
and tell them that “from now on you will not be able to
ascend into heaven unto all eternity but you shall
remain inside the earth, imprisoned all the days of
eternity” (14.5).
The angels’ prison represents here an abstract
construction: the utter negation of all existence, an
anti-place. It has appeared as an elaboration of the
desert as the hot and sandy wilderness that came so
often across the paths of the nomads. Gen. 1:1-3 does
also reflect this mundane reality of the formless and
void desert. Therefore this represents evidence that 1
Enoch elaborates here on earlier, inherited themes.
In 1 En. 67.1 - 69.15, part of the third vision in the
Book of Similitudes, Noah is shown the prison of the
angels, as it was shown before him to Enoch, his
grandfather. This time angels are punished underneath
the ground, in a place which again combines a pair of
incompatibles: a valley burns the angels but is full of
great turbulence and stirring of water! The waters
become a poisonous drug for people and a punishment
in the spirit (67.8). They are hot when the angels are in,
and cold when they get out - 67.1:
For these waters of judgment are poison to the
bodies of the angels as well as sensational to
26 NT Studies
their flesh; (hence) they will neither see nor
believe that these waters become transformed
and become a fire that burns forever (67.13)
Although they are part of the Similitudes, the above
images are not foreign to the description of the heaven’s
entrance, from the Book of the Watchers:
And I entered into the house, which was hot like
fire and cold like ice and there was nothing inside
it (1 Enoch 14.13).
This preference for unnatural and striking
associations seems to carry out well Enoch’s ideas about
the supernatural world. It also confirms the presence of
a common perspective and imagery in the Ethiopic
Enoch, contrary to the common opinion that there is a
clear theological disjunction among the books of 1
Enoch.
Some of D. W. Suter’s conclusions on Enoch’s
Similitudes could then be extrapolated - allowing for
differences - to the book of the Watchers as well:
The eschatological theme of the lot of the sinners
in 1 En. 62-63 thus has its cosmic counterpart (or
mashal) in the punishment of the fallen angels”.52
____________
52 Suter, ‘Mashal in Similitudes’, p. 208.
NT Studies 27
The enflamed waters and the life-devoided desert are
concurring ways of conveying the idea of the angelic
rebels’ utmost desolation. Physically unbearable and
rationally unthinkable, they deny the very idea of a
place. Natural order is reversed chaotically in such a
frightening punishment.
Here the limits of the metaphorical approach are met
in the metaphor of the Limit. At first the tomb
represented life’s irrational limit. Now, Sheol is
“explained” and the irrational extreme is represented
by the angels’ prison.
The anti-place metaphor could easily lead to an anti-
history idea, now. The boldness of this approach is not
far from the later definitions of The Incarnation...
Jewish theology did not remain within the limits of
mythology it went further to explore deeply abstract
notions.
Through mashal the divine governance is transferred
in 1 Enoch from cosmos to society. God manifests his
creative activity in “defeating the powers of chaos and
establishing order”.53 Wisdom in 1 Enoch is not an
apocalyptic knowledge of history but an acknowledge-
ment of humankind’s dependence on this “mythological-
cosmic event”.54
____________
53 Suter, ‘Mashal in Similitudes’, pp. 210-211.
54 Lebram, ‘Piety of Apocalyptists’, p. 192.
28 NT Studies
Enoch’s journey into a land of “mythical geography”
is pretext for delineating Sheol’s theology.55 Humans
receive revelation in a new way, and replace angels in
their priestly assignments witnessing to their downfall:
“it is meet (for you) that you intercede on the behalf of
man and not man on your behalf” (1 En. 15. 2).56
Enoch’s status, representative for the potential of an
obedient humanity, is higher than the angelic one.
TRIPTYCH PANEL 3: THE GEHENNA
Before reaching the Garden of Righteousness (Paradise;
1 En. 32), Enoch visits first the Mountain of the Tree of
Life and then, the Accursed Valley (towards the west,
vs. 26.4). Narrow, deep and dry, this valley had no tree
growing in it:
(The valleys) were narrow, (formed) of hard rocks
and no tree growing in them (26.6)
This accursed valley is for those accursed forever;
Here will gather all (those) accursed ones, those
who speak with their mouth unbecoming words
against the Lord and utter hard words
concerning his glory. Here shall they be gathered
____________
55 Milik, Books of Enoch, p. 39.
56 M. Himmelfarb, ‘Apocalyptic Ascent and the Heavenly
Temple’, SBL. Sem. Pap. 1987, p. 212; “the angels of the book of
the Watchers are understood as priests” (pp. 211-213).
NT Studies 29
together and here shall be their judgment in the
last days (27.3).
The absence of trees reflects not only lifelessness but
also a total lack of communication with the divine
realm. In the Ancient Near East, distinguished trees,
especially those of antiquity, might be looked upon as
the “trees of life” or as being “cosmic”. Their stump
symbolised the “navel of the earth” and their top
represented the heavens.57 These were religious places
(the oaks of Moreh or the oaks of Mamre in Gen. 12-15)
and often were dedicated to the cult of fertility.
Although the official religion has banned the planting of
trees around the altar (Deut. 16:21) their symbol
survived in the Apocalyptic.
The accursed valley enchains the human rebells with
heavy fetters prepared previously for angels:
deep and burning with fire. And they were
bringing kings and potentates and they were
throwing them into this deep valley. And my eyes
saw there their chains while they were making
them into iron fetters of immense weight.
(1 En. 54.2-4; also, see 53.1-5).
First there is obviously some common ground shared
by these concepts. As it has been often said, that Sheol
____________
57 N. Sarna, Genesis, p. 91.
30 NT Studies
is not “to be equated with later ideas of Hell, as a place
of torment. But it is definitely to be avoided as long as
possible... “ Similarly to Hades, described as ton
apotropon Haidan, Sheol represents a place one should
rather “be turned away from”.58
Closer to the idea of Hell is Gehenna, the Valley of
Judgment. As such it does not appear in the LXX. The
Aramaic gehinnam (Heb. gehinnom), is used in OT for
the valley lying south of Jerusalem given to the sons of
Hinnom (Jos. 15:8; 18:16). Child sacrifices used to be
offered there (2 Kgs. 16:3; 21:6) yet they ceased during
Josiah’s reforms (2Kgs. 23:10). Still its name kept all
the infamous connotations, even after the site became a
dumping place.
For the Jewish Apocalyptic it became the paradigm
for the hell of fire (1 Enoch 90. 26f.; 27.1 ff.; 54.1 ff.;
56.3), while it ceased being a mark of Jerusalem (2 Esd.
7.36). Between the first and the second century AD,
Rabbis started to discuss whether “gehenna” can be
understood as a purgatory.
Sheol’s vague localization in 1 Enoch is another
detail pointing to the transition suffered by this
concept. In 1 En. 22 Sheol is placed in a cave beneath a
high mountain, in a distant land, which could be the
heavenly realm itself. The parallel in 2 Enoch chap. 3-
22, thought to be an early passage although the
____________
58 Sophocles, in Ajax, quoted by J. Bowker, The meanings of
Death, p. 51.
NT Studies 31
Slavonic version is later, has both hell and paradise
viewed from or even located in the third heaven.59
The three mentioned concepts form a cluster of
metaphors with a dynamics of its own. They divided
and transferred between them various specifical
functions and became in time more and more distinct
from each other.
At the end of the Watchers Book (32.1-6) the reader
comes to the seven mountains where one finds the
Garden of Righteousness (32.3). Emblematically - and
reassuringly, there is the Tree of Wisdom, for which
fruit the forefathers were expelled from Paradise at the
beginning.
As can be noticed from ch. 30-32 the “Paradise Lost”
is found while Enoch travels eastward. Abundant in
beautiful and fragrant trees it contrasts with the utter
bareness of the Judgment places. In 1 Enoch the place
is not inhabited, but is kept as a future reward for the
righteous, to become their “Paradise regained”.
Conclusions
This study has led so far to a number of interesting
conclusions regarding the thematic unity of 1 Enoch’s
books; it also highlighted some essential specifically
Jewish features in 1 Enoch’s theology of Sheol.
____________
59 R. Bauckham, ‘Visions of Hell’, p. 360.
32 NT Studies
1. Themes. The books of the Similitudes and of the
Watchers, do not only share the parable of Justice but
do find themselves in a relation of prefiguration of this
central theme. The Book of the Watchers provides a root
theme for 1 Enoch. Its themes function as an unifying
factor for 1 Enoch’s theology.
The metaphors of Yahweh as a Warrior and Judge
concurred to the creation of a Jewish theology of life
after death.60 Until chaos and death are finally
destroyed (Isa. 25:8) the dead righteous are called to
share in this program of Yahweh by a hopefull waiting
in the intermediary place.61
2. Continuity. This essay’s views come closer to the
position held by present day Judaism who considers
mashal as an “early” and “well established” rabbinical
form, antedating Jesus’ parables. Rabbis often told
their stories starting with a “mashlu mashal”. Thus, in
contrast with J. Jeremias’ views, Jesus’ originality is
rather present in the teachings of His parables not in
their genre.62
1 Enoch offers an opportunity for evaluating the
ways in which foreign or Jewish metaphors, and
____________
60 D. Alexander, ‘The OT view of life after death’, Themelios,
vol. 2, no. 2 1986, p. 45.
61 Bailey, Biblical Perspectives, p. 77.
62 M. Hilton and G. Marshall, ‘The Gospels and Rabbinic
Judaism’, in Encyclopedia Judaica, p. 56; J. Jeremias, The
Parables of Jesus, takes the view that the parables were Jesus’
original inventions.
NT Studies 33
practices, were transmitted and transformed through
Jewish parables. This is particularly clear in 1 Enoch’s
metaphor of Sheol.
Thus, Kaesemann’s NT dictum that “Apocalyptic is
the matrix of Christian Eschatology” has been
paraphrased for the OT as “Manticism is the mother of
Jewish Apocalyptic”.63 Present in the books of Daniel
and in 1 Enoch, manticism coexisted with prophecy in
the pre-exilic times and was developed after the
Babylonian exile.64
The Jewish mantic alternative to the Torah found a
legitimation and a media in mashal, and was
introduced as a Wisdom tradition. The use of mashal
has provided the emancipation context for Jewish
manticism. It has created a prophetic continuity
between the divine oracles of OT and the later commen-
taries to them, a link between mere OT narratives and
the later metaphoric insights in God’s character and in
the nature of God’s world.
The transition between the OT prophecy and the
intertestamental forms of oracles received two
contribution. Not only the Pharisees’ emphasis on
keeping the law or on preaching a “dual” (written and
oral) Torah65 - has contributed to the transformation of
____________
63 Davies, ‘The social world’, p. 263.
64 Davies, ‘The social world’, p. 260-261.
65 E. Rivkin, ‘Pharisaism and the Crisis of the Individual in the
Greco-Roman world’, Jewish Quarterly Review, 1970 (114), pp.
501-507, 522-523; see, the alternative view which stresses the
continuation of’Aaronide supremacy in S. N. Mason, ‘Priesthood
34 NT Studies
Jewish prophecy but also the increased use of parables
and visionary experiences.
When prophets’ messages started to contradict each
other, this resulted in a loss of prophetic credibility.
People turned from the direct prophetic claims to
wisdom and also to the apocalyptic messages delivered
through parables like 1 Enoch’s mashal about God’s
Justice in heavens and on earth.66
3. Community. Wisdom literature (Wisd. of Sol. 1.
12-13; 2. 23-24) - and 1 Enoch as well - has extrapolated
into immortality the covenantal life given by Yahweh as
a reward to his people. Life in OT involves community.
Death’s presence on Earth - and the Exile’s suffering -
led to the formation of a community elsewhere, in
Sheol.67 Moreover, in 1 Enoch’s Sheol survival and
punishment (or reward) are not ethnic any longer but
universal in character.
4. Rationalization. The demons (Mot; Shemihaza or
Asael) were given a new consideration within the
incipient Yahwistic orthodoxy. Previously their auto-
nomy, potence and existence have been ignored or often
denied.68
________________________
in Josephus and the “Pharisaic Revolution”’, JBL, 107/4 (1988)
pp. 657-661.
66 J. L. Crenshaw, in D. E. Aune, Prophecy in Early Chris-
tianity, pp. 87-88;
67 Bailey, Biblical Perspectives, p. 76.
68 Bailey, Biblical Perspectives, p. 75.
NT Studies 35
In the new period, during the development of the
apocalyptic genre, the initial imagery of the angel of
death broke in several fragments and metaphors, in
death as i. biological function, ii. death as angelic
representative of Yahweh’s court and iii. as a place.
Gradually the idea of just managing to survive death
was replaced by the hope of sharing in the angelic
quality of life, eternally. This happened as a develop-
ment of the OT earlier perspectives on death seen “in
terms of life”.69 For a community like that at Qumran,
the issue was not biological death anymore, nor life
after death.70 Instead they wished to pass from death to
life while still living in this world (e. g. 1QHXI, 3. 10-
13) - in a “realized eschatology”. In Nickelsburg’s words,
the overcoming of physical death became at Qumran
“inconsequential”.71
Israel’s ancient conflict - myths are used in 1 Enoch
to integrate history to myth. The history of the angelic
rebellion before Creation was used to explain the
present fallen state of humankind and to illustrate the
future justice of God.72 This is reflected in the
progressive changes regarding the nature of Sheol. As a
further encouragement to a holy living, Sheol raised in
the Jewish thinking, to strong theological functions and
high moral differentiations.
____________
69 M. A. Knibb, ‘Life and Death’, p. 405.
70 Bailey, Biblical Perspectives, p. 82.
71 Nickelsburg, Resurrection, Immortality, and Eternal Life in
Intertestamental Judaism, pp. 144, 154, 167.
72 Bailey, Biblical Perspectives, p. 82.
36 NT Studies
5. Cluster of Metaphors. In 1 Enoch Sheol stands
next to the prison of angels (in heaven?) and the
punishment place of the Gehenna valley (on earth?).
This relationship can be seen as defining a group of
metaphors with a common theme (Sheol-related places),
and can be called a congruence of metaphors.
This concept of compatibility of metaphor, makes
room for a reconsoderation of the mechanism of the
Canonical thinking. In such a perspective, the Canon
could be seen as an interrelated set of congruent
parables translating the divine message for human
audience in the form of God’s Word. A theological
congruence of metaphors might then have become in
time a valid measure for a book’s or a general topic’s
canonicity.
Some of 1 Enoch’s metaphors are still found in a
“congruence” relationship with the accepted Scriptures,
as illustrated in St. Jude’s Epistle vss. 6-7:
And the angels who did not keep their positions
of authority but abandoned their own home -
these he has kept in darkness, bound with
everlasting chains for Judgment on the great
Day. In a similar way Sodom and Gomorrah and
the surrounding towns gave themselves up to
sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as
example of those who suffer the punishment of
eternal fire (Jude 6-7; NIV)
NT Studies 37
To echo St. Augustine, one could say that 1 Enoch’s
parables and metaphors did build an efficient bridge
between the truths of the Old and the New Testaments,
between the pre-exilic and intertestamental Jewish
prophecy. Yet, while none of these two is extensively
explicit on the issue of life after death, the imaginative
details provided by the Enochian “bridge” highlight the
special, inspired nature of both the silence of OT,
focused on what has been revealed and leaving aside
what has not, and the glorious faith of the NT, inspired
from Jesus’ teachings and his own resurrection.
NT Studies 38
an appropriate imitation of characters and situation,
a representation “true to nature”.1
Pédech, also, writes that for Duris “la mi/mhsiv est une
représentation concrète, quasi picturale de la réalité”,2 -
which is reminiscent of Plato and Plutarch (cf.
Plutarch’s comparison between painting and history,
one working with colours, the other with words).3 By
way of parenthesis, the metaphor of painting has also
been used to describe Luke’s style, his mixing of the
artistic with the discordant recalling the style of an
impressionist painter.4 One finds it, as well, in
Aristotle, where poetic mimesis is similar to painting,
and the poet is a mimetic artist, like a painter or any
other image-maker (e)sti mimhth_v o( poihth_v w(speranei zwgra&fov h! tiv a!llov ei)konopoio&v).5 The imagery of
painting is also echoed in the requirement that the
stories’ characters should be o#moion and o(malo&n (genuine and consistent).6
____________
1 V. Gray, ‘Mimesis in Greek Historical Theory’, AJPh 118
(1987), 467-486; K. Meister, Polybios, pp. 109-126; also
Walbank, in his more recent studies (Walbank, ‘Profit or
Amusement’, p. 259).
2 Pédech, Trois Historiens, p. 371.
3 Plutarch, De gloria Atheniensium, 3.347a3-c. Plato uses the
metaphor of mirror images and the illustration of painting, as
well (Rep. 596d).
4 Evans, Luke, p. 42; Cadbury, Making, p. 334; Goulder,
Luke, vol. 1, p. 231.
5 Aristotle, Poetics, 1460b.5-10; peri/ zwgra&fwn in Diog.
Laertius, Lives, 1.38.
6 Aristotle, Poetics, 1454a.15-20.
NT Studies 39
In particular, Pédech draws attention to fragment F
89, where Duris used the term e)kmimei=sqai. Commenting
on Iliad, 21.234-248 (the overflow of Scamander in the
pursuit of Achilles, as a mad flooding tide tumultuously
sweeping the shore, and everything on it: cattle, people,
trees, etc.), Duris argues that such imagery provides an
accurate idea (e!nnoian) of the real event.7 In conclusion,
for Pédech “l’objet de la mi/mhsiv est de faire naître cette
e!nnoia, qui doit produire une peinture ressemblante et
une impression forte”.8 Duris’ emphasis on historical
representation appears to advocate an accurate yet
dramatic impression of the real world.9
____________
7 Duris, Fragmenta 2a, 76 (F 89.5): tau~ta dia_ to_) th_n e)n toi=v kh&poiv u(dragwgi/an e)k mimei=sqai lanqa&nei pw~v a)nagignw&skontav, w#ste mhdemi/an e!nnoian lamba&nein pro_v o$ pepoi/hke. Duris
favoured a mimesis that conformed to the historical facts yet
allowed for poetical license in representation, as well. Homer’s
story of Achilles’ confrontation with the Scamander river has
descriptive force and his personification of the river does not
obscure the devastating effects of the flooding. The passage is
excellent description, yet it does not amount to history writing.
8 Pédech, Trois Historiens, p. 372. Cf. Pédech’s definition of
h)donh&v: ‘l’h)donh&... c’est essentiellement un plaisir esthétique,
qu’une narration fidèle... L’historie est donc avant tout une
peinture’.
9 Cf. Torraca’s assessment: ‘La mimesi di Duride è l’imitazione
della realtà secondo le regole e i procedimenti delle opere
destinate alla scena: il lettore deve essere compartecipe degli
avvenimenti narrati come lo spettatore a teatro.’ (Duride, p. 70).
NT Studies 40
Selective Bibliography
Barre, M.L., ‘rs (h)hyym - The Land of the Living?’, in
JSOT, 41 (1988) 37-59. Bauckham, R., ‘Early Jewish Visions of Hell’, Journal of Theological Studies 41 (1990), 355-85 Becker, O., Das Bild des Weges und verwandte Vorstellung im frühgriechischen Denken (Berlin: Weidmann Verlag, 1937) Berg, B., ‘Alcestis and Hercules in the Catacomb of Via Latina’, Vigilae Christianae 48 (1994), 213-34. Berger, K., Theologiegeschichte des Urchristentums: Theologie des Neuen Testament (Tübingen: Francke Verlag, 1994) Bywater, I., Aristotle on the Art of Poetry (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1909) Collins, J.J. The Apocalyptic Imagination (N.Y.: Crossroads, 1983) Curtis, A.H.W., ‘Theological Geography’, in R.J. Coggins and J.L. Houlden (eds.), A Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation (London: SCM Press, 1990), 687-90 Danker, F.W., Jesus and the New Age: According to Saint Luke, A New Commentary on the Third Gospel, rev. and exp., (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1988 (1972)) Davies, J.G., ‘The Prefigurement of the Ascension in the Third Gospel’, Journal of Theological Studies 6 (1955), 229-33
NT Studies 41
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