Bibliotheca Sacra 109 (Oct. 1952) 318-31.
Copyright © 1952 by
Department
of
New Testament Greek and Literature
The
In the Jewish Apocryphal Literature: Pt. 3
By George Ladd, Ph.D.
(Continued from
the April-June Number, 1952)
I ENOCH
Enoch is one of the most notable
examples of the genus
of Jewish literature called apocalyptic as well as
one of the
most important books for New Testament backgrounds.
In
it for the first time appears the concept of a temporal mes-
sianic kingdom, and in it is
elaborated the Jewish doctrine
of the Son of Man. Before we discuss the book itself, a
brief characterization of apocalyptic literature will
give
background for the discussion.
The word "apocalypse" has
a twofold meaning. In bib-
lical literature it is used
of divine disclosures made to indi-
viduals1 or to men collectively,2
of supernatural truths either
present3 or future.4
It is used in the introduction to the one
prophetic book of the New Testament5 of
the revelation or
disclosure of the things which were shortly to come
to pass,
which God the Father gave to His Son who in turn, as
the
mediator of revelation, made it known to John.6
The word
here refers to the total contents of our book which
God,
1Gal. 1:12, 2:2, II Cor. 12:1, I Cor. 14:6, 26.
2Rom. 16:25, Eph. 1:17,
II Thess. 1:7.
3Rom. 16:25, II Cor.
12:1, Gal. 1:12.
4Rom. 2:5, 8:19, I Pet.
1:7.
5Revelation 1:1.
6Some take the phrase, apokalypsis Iesou Christou, to involve an objective
genitive; but the
second phrase, "which God gave him", i.e., to Christ,
seems to require
the subjective genitive. Christ is indeed the mediator
of revelation.
Cf. John 7:16, 14:10, 17:7,8.
(318)
through Christ, disclosed to John on
John
later wrote down. The word may be similarly applied
to the disclosures made to Daniel although the
word is not
there used.
In modern biblical study,
"apocalypse" has been infused
with a broader technical meaning to describe the literary
product of such divine disclosures, whether they
are real or
pretended. The word has been borrowed from the Revelation
of John and applied to a series of Jewish writings
which, in
imitation of Daniel, are cast in the form of
disclosures of
future events. Epoch is the first of such books. The
word
itself is not found in any of these writings.
The adjective "apocalyptic"
has been given a still larger
meaning to include writings which are not
strictly apoc-
alypses, i.e., whose literary
form is not that of visionary rev-
elations, but whose content deals largely or in
substantial
part with the sort of eschatological expectations
which are
found in the apocalypses. In this sense the
eschatology of
Jesus
is called apocalyptic, for although He does not speak
in symbols nor experience visions, He does
prophesy the
end of the world by the dramatic Parousia of the Son of Man
from heaven and the judgment of God upon the world;
and
these are considered to be among the essential ideas
of
apocalyptic literature.7
It is customary for modern criticism
to distinguish be-
tween prophecy and
apocalyptic and to consider apocalyptic
as the successor of prophecy, arising out of the
troubles of
the Maccabean times.
There is unquestionably a substantial
measure of truth in this position, as we shall
shortly see.
However
there is one all-important factor to be taken into
consideration in the rise of the
Jewish apocalypses which
much modern criticism is unable fully to evaluate.
This is
the existence of the apocalyptic form in the
genuine pro-
7Cf. for illustrations C.
C. McCown, The
Search for the Real Jesus (New
Jesus (New York, 1937), pp. 73-75; H. H.
Rowley, The Relevance of
Apocalyptic (Second ed.; London,
1947), pp. 114-23; T. W. Manson,
The Teaching of Jesus (
320 Bibliotheca Sacra
phetic literature, especially
in the book of Daniel.8 In the
historical as well as the prophetic literature,
visions and
8Most of the study of
Jewish apocalyptic literature has been done by
scholars who
place Daniel in the Maccabean times, and understand
it
not as a genuine
prophecy but as the first representative of the formal
apocalyptic
literary efforts, like Enoch and the other non-canonical
apocalypses. (For
some of the standard studies, see H. T. Andrews,
"Apocalyptic Literature", A Commentary on the Bible [A. S. Peake, ed.;
Literature"
R. H. Charles, "Apocalyptic
Literature", Encyclopaedia Biblica, I,
umns
213-50; F. C. Porter, The Messages of the
Apocalyptical Writers
[
[Second ed.;
debt of such
scholars for their work in this difficult field, and debts
should be
acknowledged wherever they exist. However, one of the
most relevant
questions in the historical interpretation of apocalyptic
literature as a
whole is that of the date of Daniel; for if the book was
produced in
Babylonian times as it claims, then the imitative factor
in the later
apocalypses is much greater than if Daniel is practically
contemporary with
the earliest parts of Enoch. There are unquestion-
bly
difficulties particularly in the linguistic area, which must be dealt
with in
establishing the date of Daniel. Still, the crucial problem is a
theological one;
for contrary to the insistence of many, theology cannot
be isolated from
historical study. The central issue in the Babylonian
date of Daniel is
that of "the reality of the supernatural and the divine
origin of the
revelations it contains" (R. H. Pfeiffer, Introduction to
the Old Testament [
tains
that "historical research can deal only with authenticated facts
which are within
the sphere of natural possibilities and must refrain
from vouching for
the truth of supernatural events. In a historical
study of the
Bible, convictions based on faith must be deemed irrelevant,
as belonging to
subjective rather than objective knowledge" (Loc. cit. H.
H. Rowley objects to this view. Cf. The Growth of the Old Testament
[
"refrain
from vouching for the truth of supernatual events;
it, in
fact, renders a
decision against their truthfulness. If one concludes,
because of the
references to Antiochus Epiphanes, that Daniel was
not
written in
Babylonian but in Maccabean times, then one has
decided that
its alleged
prophecies are not true but are indeed history, masquerading
as prophecy"
(A. S. Peake, A Commentary
on the Bible, p. 48). This
position
eliminates on grounds the possibility of the impartation
by God to men of
a supernatural revelation, or of God's entering into
human history for
the salvation of sinful men. The conservative critic
(who needs be no
less "critical" in the true sense of the word for that
reason) is
compelled by the totality of experience to admit the reality
of the
supernatural in divine revelation and to see in Daniel predictive
prophecy, what he
does not find in Enoch or in the other non-canonical
apocalypses. For
conservative criticism of Daniel see Robert Dick
Second Series, 1938) ;
E. J. Young, An Introduction to the Old Testa-
ment (Grand Rapids, 1949).
While Dr. Young does not exegete Daniel
in a premillennial manner, his works are very helpful for these
critical problems.
symbolic imagery are a frequent medium of divine
revelation.
Furthermore,
one of the main themes of the prophetic lit-
erature is the main concern of
the later apocalypses, viz., the
Day of the Lord and the
lyptic sections are to be found
embedded in the prophetic
writings.9 Thus the apocalypse of
Daniel has its antecedents
in the other prophetic literature. "The
prophecies of Daniel
are not distinguished even in their apocalyptic
form from
the whole body of prophecy in nature, but only in
degree".10
The
existence of the canonical Daniel provided the prototype
for the subsequent apocalypses. It may well be that
the ful-
fllment of the detailed
prophecy in Daniel of Antiochus
Epiphanes provided the incitement in 168 B.C. to
production
of the earliest parts of the pseudepigraphical
apocalypses,
the books of Enoch,11 by giving rise to
the expectation that
God
was now at last about to intervene to inaugurate His
kingdom.
It is not within the scope of the
present studies to dis-
cuss the problems involved in the book of Daniel. We
believe
it to be a genuine revelation given by God to
Daniel under
genuine prophetic inspiration. The later
apocalypses were
imitative productions coming from a time when the
voice of
prophecy had long been stilled.12 For
many generations
of world empires. The people over whom God alone
should
reign were subservient to the Gentiles. Centuries
passed,
and the
did not come. God seemed to be silent and to have
removed
9Cf. such passages as
Isaiah 24-27, Joel, Zechariah 12-14, Ezekiel 38-39,
etc. Cf. T. H. Robinson in A Companion to the Bible (T. W. Manson,
ed.;
Exegetical Commentary on
the Book of Daniel
(New York, 1927),
pp. 78 ff.
10C. F. Keil, The Book of Daniel (English Trans.,
printed by Eerdmans,
1949), p. 27. Cf. further Robert Dick Wilson,
"Apocalypses and the Date of Daniel", Studies in the Book of Daniel,
(New
York, 1938), pp. 101-16.
11For the reason for the
detailed prophecy about Antiochus see Robert
Dick Wilson, op.
cit., pp. 270-80.
12For recognition of the cessation
of prophecy, see I Macc. 4:46, 14:41. For
the later talmudic literature see George Foot Moore, Judaism (
bridge, 1944), I, 421.
322 Bibliotheca Sacra
Himself from the historical experiences of His
people.
Finally,
under the domination of the Grecian Ptolemies and
then the Seleucids, there came the deadly inroads of
Hellenism
and of pagan customs and influences which
threatened to
turn the entire nation away from the Law and the
worship
of Jehovah.13 A hellenizing
party arose among the Jews
which by obtaining the high priesthood was able to
promote
its policies with great success.14 So
far did these pagan
influences advance that some scholars have felt
that if the
process had been allowed to pursue its natural
course, the
Jewish
people would have been completely hellenized
and
would have lost their religious distinctives.15
There inter-
vened the violent persecution
by Antiochus when with fire
and sword he attempted to force Greek religion upon
the
Jews.
Through these long years of
political bondage which
witnessed the slow encroachment of pagan
influences finally
culminating in one of the fiercest persecutions
God's people
ever experienced, years during which evil in both
subtle and
violent form grew increasingly worse, God was
silent.
Again
and again the question was raised, Where is God's
kingdom which the prophets promised? Why does
God not
vindicate Himself? When shall the Day of Jehovah
come? No
prophet appeared to proclaim a fresh word from
God in
answer to these questions. No Isaiah, no Joel, no
Zephaniah
stood up among the people to announce, 'Thus saith the
Lord.'
God's voice was silent.
In their despair the devout began to
search the Scriptures
afresh for an answer. They turned to the specifically predic-
tive portions of the
prophets, especially those passages
which described in great detail the coming of the Day
of
Jehovah and the inauguration of the
13Cf. I Macc. 1:11-15. Cf. also W. O.
Hebrew Religion (
under the High
Priests
(
14Cf. II Macc. 4:7-17.
15Cf.
(3 and 4 Aufl.;
the Jewish People
in the Time of Jesus Christ (New York, 1890), I, i,
197-98.
example of this predictive prophecy par
excellence was
Daniel.
Brooding over the message of these Old Testament
revelations, devout souls tried to reinterpret their
experi-
ences in the light of Old
Testament prophecy. Witnessing
the fulfillment of some of Daniel's prophecies in
the person
of Antiochus Epiphanes,16 the messianic
expectations of
the devout were aroused. God was about to
intervene! The
kingdom was at hand! God's enemies were soon to
be des-
troyed! And this not by the
success of Hasmonean arms,
but by the direct intervention of God. The
immediate future
would witness the destruction of the wicked and the salva-
tion of God's people. The
pious need only be patient, for
the end was about to come. The message of the
apocalyptic
literature is addressed mainly to this expectation.
Out of this milieu of messianic
expectation came the
various parts of Enoch. Devout men, looking for
the early
intervention of God to establish His
kingdom, wished to
encourage their discouraged fellow Jews to
steadfastness in
view of the imminent end. How could they convey this
message? The day of prophecy was over. Prophetic
inspira-
tion was no more. How could
this conviction of an immedi-
ate deliverance be authoritatively imparted? The
apocalyptic
writings needed some authority by which they
might authen-
ticate themselves to the people.
Thus arose the use of
pseudonyms, the names of some of the ancient men of
long dead. Moses to whom God had given the Law and
who
was buried by the hand of God in an unmarked grave;
Enoch
who was translated to heaven; Ezra who led God's
People
back to the land from captivity; Baruch, faithful
friend and amanuensis of Jeremiah who held an
important
place in Jewish legend;17 these and other
famous ancients
lent their names to give weight to post-prophetic
books of a
prophetic character. Prophecy was dead; the canon
was
16Cf. Daniel 8. The prophecy of the
"Abomination of Desolation" of
Daniel 9:27, 11:31, 12:11
was thought to be fulfilled by the profanation
of the temple by
Antiochus (cf. I Macc. 1:54 and Josephus,
XII, v, 4).
17This is illustrated by
the apocryphal book of Baruch. Cf. C. C. Torrey,
The Apocryphal Literature (New Haven, 1945), pp. 59 ff.
324 Bibliotheca Sacra
closed. The one way a book could obtain substantial influ-
ence with the nation was to embody
prophecies allegedly
coming from one of the prophets or inspired writers.18
Into the mouth of the ancient
patriarch or prophet, the
author placed a prophecy of events which would ensue
to the inauguration of the
to be near in the author's own time. This history,
masquer-
ading as prophecy, was
portrayed in symbolic imagery in
imitation of Daniel, but with this difference:
whereas much
of Daniel's symbolism is clear because it is
interpreted in
the book itself, the symbolism of the later
apocalypses is
usually fantastic and so obscure as to tax the
interpreter's
ability to find the intended application. In
addition to such
prophetic visions and dreams, the apocalyptic
literature con-
tains revelations of the
secrets of heaven and sheol. In the
hands of the apocalyptists,
such visions became a set literary
form and are often so wooden that they can hardly be
thought
to represent real visionary or ecstatic
experiences.
A word is now pertinent as to the
source of the books of
Enoch
and of the other Jewish apocalypses and the place
which such books had in Jewish life. Do the views
found in
these books represent the beliefs of the Pharisees?
Were
Jesus and the disciples familiar with these
expectations?
Or
were these books and their beliefs the product of
isolated,
unimportant groups and individuals who did not
represent
the normal life and thought of the first-century
Jews? This
18This is the explanation
for pseudonymity suggested by R. H. Charles
(A Critical History of the Doctrine of a
Future Life [Second ed.;
Rowley feels this to be inadequate and has
suggested a different expla-
nation which
finds pseudonymity first attaching itself to the book
of
Daniel by accident (The Relevance of Apocalyptic, pp. 37
ff.). It is
of great
significance that neither the Revelation of John nor the book
of Daniel are
pseudonymous in the above sense, even for those who
espouse the Maccabean date of Daniel. John, even according; to liberal
criticism, was a
well-known personage in
name. Daniel,
apart from the character in the canonical book, is a
person of no
significance in the Old Testament, whose name—and even
this is contested—occurs
only thrice (Ezekiel 14:14, 20, 28:5); a man
so ignored in
Jewish tradition that his very historicity is questioned by
many critics.
(Cf. Robert Dick Wilson, Studies in the
Book of Daniel
[
the same order as
an Enoch, a Moses, or an Ezra.
question, which has great implications for New
Testament
study, has been vigorously and widely debated, and
extreme
differences of opinion are to be found among
critical scholars.
On
the one hand, it is sometimes said that the period between
168
B.C. and 100 A.D. swarmed with eschatologists;19
but
on the other hand, it is maintained by students of
the rab-
binic tradition in Judaism
that the apocalyptists played no
more important role in the Jewish religious life as
a whole
than "the cabalistic combinations and
chronological calcu-
lations of our own
millenarians" play in the liberal Protestant
tradition of contemporary America.20 It
must be frankly
admitted that this problem cannot be solved with
finality,
because our sources are inadequate. We do not
have evidence
to prove that Jewry was swarming with apocalypses.
On
the other hand, the evidence which
position, viz., the antipathy of the later
rabbinic literature
to the apocalyptic materials, is susceptible of
adequate ex-
planation on other grounds. R. H.
Charles has shown that
both apocalyptic and rabbinic Judaism stem from the
same
source of reverence for the Law.21 It is
safe to conclude that
the apocalyptic ideas were quite widely known among
the
Jews,
although they may have been particularly cherished
and nurtured by individuals or groups whose
interests led
in this direction.
Much discussion has centered around the question of
the circles from which the apocalypses arose. Some
have held
19Cf. W. F. Albright, From the Stone Age to Christianity
(Baltimore,
1946), p. 287. The assumption of the
"Consistent Eschatology" of
Johannes Weiss and Albert Schweitzer is
that Jesus' idea of the kingdom
of God is
practically identical with the sort of kingdom found in these
apocalypses.
"The thoroughgoing application of Jewish eschatology to
the
interpretation of the teaching and work of Jesus has created a new
fact upon which
to base the history of dogma. . . . The Gospel is at its
starting-point
exclusively Jewish-eschatological" (A. Schweitzer, Paul
and His Interpreters
[English trans.,
20Cf. George Foot Moore, Judaism in the First Centuries of the
Christian
Era (
21 R. H. Charles, A Critical History of the Doctrine of a
Future Life
(Second ed.; London, 1913), pp. 193-96; Religious Development Be-
tween the Old and the New Testaments (
Charles' position that Christianity is the
historical successor of apoca-
lyptic
Judaism as Rabbinic Judaism was the successor of legalistic
Judaism merits a criticism which cannot
here be given.
326 Bibliotheca Sacra
that the Essenes produced
these books;22 and although this
view has not been very popular, it has recently
received the
able support of Professor Albright.23
Jewish scholars and
students of Rabbinics,
taking as their point of departure
the viewpoint of the later writings, insist that
the apocalyptic
writings could not have come from the rabbinical
schools
but must have arisen among the zealots.24
The hostility of
the later rabbinical schools to all of the
"outside books" is
well known.25 It does not necessarily
follow, however, that
the Pharisees of New Testament times, nor
especially the
Chasidim
(or Asideans)26
of nearly two centuries earlier,
maintained the same attitude. There is a great deal
in our
apocalyptic books which coincides with what we know
about
the Pharisees from other sources, particularly in
the matter
of reverence for the Law. Furthermore, it is
difficult to be-
lieve that the outlook of
such a sect would remain static for
over a period of three centuries. Events of
world-shaking
importance (from the Jewish viewpoint) took place
in the
first century A.D., in the fall of the Jewish state
and the
rise of the Christian church. Such events must have exer-
cised a strong influence upon
Jewish life and outlook,27 and
the failure of the messianic revolt under Bar Cocheba in 133
A.D.
must have brought disillusionment to the hopes ex-
pressed by the apocalyptic literature.28
We may conclude, therefore, that
those who understand
22Cf. J. E. H. Thomson,
"Apocalyptic Literature", I.S.B.E., I, 163-64;
Books
Which Influenced Our Lord and His Apostles (
pp. 76-109.
23W. F. Albright, op. cit., pp. 287-90. Albright thinks
that John the Baptist
rose out of this
milieu.
24Cf. R. Travers
1928), pp. 11, 21, 111
and especially 126-27.
25Cf. G. H. Box, The Ezra Apocalypse (
for a discussion
of the relationship of apocalyptic to rabbinic Judaism.
26Cf. F. J. Foakes Jackson and
tianity (
son are skeptical
at this point, it is usually felt that the Chasidim were
the predecessors
of the Pharisees.
27Cf. V. H. Stanton, The Jewish and the Christian Messiah (
1886), pp. 30 ff. for a
forceful statement of this position.
28Cf. H. Wheeler Robinson
in A Companion to the Bible (T. W. Manson,
ed.;
the apocalyptic literature to have arisen out of
the circle of
the devout Jews who were motivated by a strong love
for
the Law, and who expected the kingdom to be
inaugurated
by the miraculous intervention of God in
fulfillment of the
Old
Testament prophecies, rather than by the success of
Hasmonean arms or by the revolts of the zealots,
are sound
in their judgment. The "righteous" of
Enoch may well be
the Chasidim of Maccabean
times.29
The name of Enoch is associated with
two apocalyptic
books which concern us; but the two works have nothing
in common except that they describe the
experiences and
journeys of Enoch after his translation to
heaven. The two
books are called I and II Enoch, or Ethiopic and
Slavonic
Enoch,
because of the languages in which they have mainly
been preserved. The later work, also called the
Secrets of
Enoch,
will be treated toward the end of this series since it
is one of the latest of the apocalypses.
Enoch is not a single book but a
collection of books,
some of which probably enjoyed an independent
existence,30
whose history cannot be recovered. One need only read
the
several parts of the apocalypse to be struck by
the differences
of subject matter. There seems to have been a
cycle of tra-
dition that clustered around
the name of Enoch which as-
sumed written form at various
times and was compiled
finally in the book as we have it; but when and
by whom
this compilation was made we cannot say. Critics
have an-
alyzed the book in many ways;31
most recent criticism has
followed Charles' division into five books as
follows:32
I. The First Book. 1-36
A. Introduction. 1-5
B. The Fall of the
Angels. 6-16
C. Enoch's Journeys
through the Universe. 17-36
29Cf. F. M. Abel, Les Libres des Maccabees
(
30Otto Eissfeldt,