Category: Second Temple

Origins of Sin in the Dead Sea Scrolls

The significance of the Genesis 6 story in literature from this period is much clearer. The Book of Watchers and Jubilees blame the watchers for the existence of evil spirits. These evil spirits lead people to worship idols and (in Jub.) to shed human blood.

The Origin of Sin in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Stokes

Modern New Testament study generally attributes the introduction of sin in the world to the fall in Genesis 3. Judaism in the Second Temple, or intertestamental, period attributes the source of sin to multiple beings and events. Ryan Stokes (Yale Divinity School) explores the sources of sin as understood in the works of the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Jewish Second Temple Data on the Identification of the Second YHWH figure

In the second century CE Jews declared the two powers doctrine heresy. This seems to be because the Christians proposed and adopted Jesus as the identity of the second YHWH figure in the OT. Some scholars will argue that the idea that Jesus is God in the flesh is a late idea intended to prop up Christianity.

Charles Gieschen’s Angelomorphic Christology is said to contain all the data on the subject. The implication is clear that the Jews were working out this idea proposing a number of candidates themselves as early as the second century BCE. These candidates included (probably among others):

  • Adam
  • Enoch
  • Noah
  • Jacob
  • Moses
  • Michael
  • Ya’el
  • the Logos (Philo)
  • Memra
  • Angel / Spirit
  • Spirit / Wisdom

What is significant about the women in Matthew’s genealogy?

I’m reading through Amy Elizabeth Richter’s dissertation The Enochic Watchers’ Template and the Gospel of Matthew. Besides making the case that these specific women restore what was broken when the Watchers’ shared illicit knowledge and sorcery with humans – using the Watchers’ template against them so to speak, Richter does a great job in her introductory pages summarizing the salient aspects of how the Watchers’, in 1 Enoch, share the blame in bringing sin into the world.