Why cloak bible prophecies in symbols

For the pre-exile Jew God lived on the clouds and therefore under the heavens : he moved about in space riding the Cherubim see, for example, Judges 5,4 ; Isaiah 19,1 ; 37,6.

Beginning with Ezekiel God is situated beyond that ; the idea of God, the vision of the world and the circle of human interests have grown broader and more complex. Moreover, if it is true that Ezekiel has provided fuel to later Jewish movements which are adverse or opposed to the Temple of Jerusalem and to its holders, it has nevertheless affected Zadokite Judaism.

Paul D. Hanson defines the vision experienced by Ezekiel of the New Temple as «the source of the hierocratic tradition » and as «the attempt to spread a program of restoration » Cook has shown that «one needs to start from the school of Ezekiel in order to understand both priesthood and Zadokite millenarism » The Enochic otherworldly journey and the construction of an authoritative model for the prophetic tradition : proclamation vs writing.

The «otherworldly journey » of a traditional character is a motif that comes from ancient near eastern narratives22 ; it is extremely likely that the author of the earliest material later on merged into the Book of Watchers was rather familiar with Babylonian descriptions of otherworldly journeys 23,. As we have already mentioned, the «ecstatic » modes recurring in Biblical prophecies show uniformity of a sort : the prophet either represents the protagonist of a «vision » or he receives his reve-.

However, his journey in the other world is never mentioned. It is indeed the prophetic experience transmitted by «classical » prophets belonging to Ancient Israel that comes to be considered as a source of authority in the Zadokite tradition. The fact that classical prophecies were a phenomenon which had been integrated in the canon founded by Nehemiah is proved by a passage of 2 Maccabees 2, Nehemiah was the founder of a library and the curator of the collection of the «books of kings, of prophets, and of David, together with the letters of kings about gifts » the library was re-organized by Judas Maccabeus after the Maccabean revolt.

The same fact is also proved by an earlier passage, Neheniah 9,30, where Ezra — on the basis of Ezra 3,1 — while explaining the Law, refers to classical prophecies : And Thou drawest over them many years, and testifiest against them by Thy Spirit, by the hand of Thy prophets, and they have not given ear, and Thou dost give them into the hand of peoples of the lands.

This difference is perhaps due to the presence in the Book of Watchers of the motif of the otherworldly journey. In Ezekiel 2,,12 the vision of the Chariot of Jhwh is interrupted by the vision of the scroll eaten by the prophet himself see Ezekiel 2, The image of the prophet who is forced to eat the scroll is quite famous and can also be found in Revelation 10, The scroll is open see Ezekiel 2,9 Septuagint and it is not written by Ezekiel, but it is said to come directly from «a stretched hand ».

The content is explicitly reported : «it was written both on the inside and on the outside ; and there were written lamentations, weeping and troubles » Ezekiel 2,9. The text emphasizes the strict connection between the word of the prophet and the divine word. Another prophet who eats up the words of God is Jeremiah.

This passage is useful in order to explain the meaning of the action of eating the scroll see Jeremiah 15,16 even though the Septuagint does not give a limpid translation as regards the Hebrew text According to Jeremiah,. Both in ancient medicine and magic, swallowing the papyrus in order to gain the strength contained in the formula written on them was quite common. This practice is already attested in Hakkadian texts and occurs in many cultural traditions.

Moreover, in Judaism the ritual of the preparation of bitter waters was very well known. Such a ritual consisted of the priest forcing women suspected of adultery to swallow a bitter potion During the ritual, the priest would write curses on a papyrus, which was then washed : the water coming from it, which contained the words written before, was given to the poor woman to drink.

In this case, the text is not eaten but drunk and its effects would be considered as proof of adultery see Mishnah Sotah 3,4 The detail of the eaten scroll is not merely cosmetic or literary, but representative of the conception of the word held by the prophets of ancient Israel : the visionary is the «container » of the word given by God and must make the will of the God of Israel clear and visible.

The «writing » of such an announcement, since the prophetic word is mainly oral and only later on written , is a scondary act that gains relevance within the process on which prophetic authority is based The case of Enochic literature is quite different.

In 1 Enoch 1,1 ff. However, in 1 Enoch 12,1 ff. In 1 Enoch 12,3 Enoch is explicitly defined as «scribe » in the sense that he has to write of things that are beyond what is human, using the «tongue of flesh » see 1 Enoch 12,2.

In 1 Enoch 12,4 the guardian angels define Enoch as a «Righteous Scribe ». The message that the seer has to deliver to those who have transgressed by mating with women is similar to a prophetic announcement. The angels also. Enoch writes down the prayer 1 Enoch 13,6 , and while reading his written text, he falls asleep and ascends to the vision of the Great Glory see 1 Enoch 13, In 1 Enoch 15,1 it is the Great Glory itself that gives Enoch the prophetic task of telling the guardian angels about their ruin see 1 Enoch 15,3 ff.

And he was the first among men that are born on earth who learnt writing and knowledge and wisdom and who wrote down the signs of heaven according to the order of their months in a book, that men might know the seasons of the years according to the order of their separate months. And he was the first to write a testimony and he testified to the sons of men among the generations of the earth, and recounted the weeks of the jubilees, and made known to them the days of the years, and set in order the months and recounted the Sabbaths of the years as we made them , known to him.

And what was and what will be he saw in a vision of his sleep, as it will happen to the children of men throughout their generations until the day of judgment ; he saw and understood everything, and wrote his testimony, and placed the testimony on earth for all …. And he was moreover with the angels of God these six jubilees of years, and they showed him everything which is on earth and in the heavens, the rule of the sun, and he wrote down, and Enoch testified against them all.

And he was taken from amongst the children of men, and we conducted him into the Garden of Eden in majesty and honor, and behold there he writes down the condemnation and judgment of the world… This aspect is strongly stressed in.

And no one among humans has seen as I saw. The tradition accepted in the Book of Watchers constitutes a type of visionary process that can be defined as somewhat «scientific » in the sense that the authority of the seer is such expressly because it stems from an autoptic observation of superhuman realities.

Final Remarks. In the Book of Watchers Enoch gets to see the divine throne through : a series of physical experiences that can be describe like the psychological and concret experience of all externes, symbolically narrated, in the vision, throught the experience of fire and ice. The encounter with God takes place in a situation which is very different from the one belonging to the so-called «biblical » prophetic tradition.

In this sense, it is relevant to mention the comparison with chapter 6 of Isaiah, a classic example of «Biblical Prophetic Vision ». Isaiah sees the Lord sitting on a throne, and yet he can only perceive the edges of the divine cloak which fill the ekal, the room preceding the debir, the Sancta Sanctorum see 1 Kings 6, The God seen by Isaiah has a court which he has to deliberate with see Isaiah 6,8 , while the seer, aware that he lives with an impure population, feels bewildered because he has seen the Lord of Hosts, and knows that he could die just by seeing him see Isaiah 6,5.

It is for this reason that one of the Seraphim belonging to the divine court must purify Isaiah with hot charcoal, placing it on his lips see Isaiah 6, The God seen by Enoch, on the contrary, has a surrounding court, but he does not need to deliberate with it, as it is polemically stated in 1 Enoch 14,22 ; Enoch is frightened at the sight of God see 1 Enoch 14,25 , but this does not prevent God himself from giving him the task of delivering the message of ruin to the guardian angels see 1 Enoch 15, And who doth go for Us?

There is a new sense of transcendence in Israel. Its roots need to be found in the theology of Isaiah 6 and in Ezekiel, but such form of transcendence develops within the Enochic tradition in an original and autonomous way The inclusion of the otherworldly journey motif within the narration of the Book of Watchers,.

Quando nasce il cristianesimo? The Study of Jesus, Leiden, Brill, , pp. Ian P. Mircea Eliade termed the varieties of shamanism collectively «archaic techniques of ecstasy ». The idea that ecstasy is the most important part of shamanism was around long before Eliade set his sights on shamanism. But particularly since Eliade it has become axiomatic for most scholars that ecstasy is the defining aspect of shamanism.

Consequently any magical or religious practice that involves trance, possession or some other altered state of consciousness, even nominally or metaphorically, is generally classed as shamanism : cf.

Mircea Eliade,. Here, my evaluation and interpretation combine those of Hutton, von Stuckrad and Znameski. Louvain, Peeters, Here, I intend shamanism as the ecstatic technique which permits the seer to fly up to the Heaven or to descend to Hell. There is a well-known paper by Frances Flannery-Dailey, «Dream Incubation and Apocalypticism in Second Temple Judaism » , Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, in that deserves to be mentioned alongside the discussion of shamanism.

On the concept of «shamanism » , as it is applied to Ancient Judaism, recently see James R. Nickelsburg, James C. VanderKam, 1 Enoch. Urbain M. The text of Daniel is the one where the term occurs the most, and not only in LXX, but also in Theodotion : see 2,31 ; 3,92 ; 7,20 ; 8,1. Henoch 9 , pp. Davila, «The Animal Apocalypse and Daniel » , ibid.

Lars Hartman, op. Cristiana Tretti, Enoch e la sapienza celeste. Alle origini della mistica ebraica, Firenze, Giuntina, , p. Herman L. Jansen, Die Henochgestalt, Oslo, Dybwad, , pp. Luke 8 And He said, "To you it has been given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God , but to the rest it is given in parables , that 'Seeing they may not see, And hearing they may not understand.

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