RE: orion-list Enochian Sects: Samaritan vs. Judah-ite
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of George Brooks Sent: 17 August 2002 23:54 To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: orion-list Enochian Sects: Samaritan vs. Judah-ite George wrote: Jeremiah's discussion of the Rechabites [who elsewhere are connected with the region of Hamath] explains that the Rechabites had retreated to Jerusalem to avoid Assyrian predations. But how had they become so closely involved with the Yahweh cult to receive the commendations of Jeremiah? Was there faith a recent acquisition? Or had it been acquired a generation or generations earlier? The Old Testament provides a clue; in 2 Kings 17 we read: 2 Kings 17:24-31 The king of Assyria brought people from ... Hamath... and settled them in the towns of Samaria to replace the Israelites. They [Hamathites and others] took over Samaria...Then the king of Assyuria gave this order: 'Have one of the priests you took captive from Samaria go back to live there and teach the people what the god of the land requires.'...Nevertheless, each national group made its own gods in the several towns... the men from Hamath made Ashima [which is probably a-shai-ma a reference to the Caravan god Shai al Qaum, the Rechabite god who prohibited the consumption of wine]. But the text continues in a strange duality: 2 Kings 17:32-34a They [the deportees, including those of Hamath] worshipped the Lord, but they also appointed all sorts of their own people to official for them as priests in the shrines... to this day they persist in their former practices. This then alternates with the opposing view contained in verse 34b: They nieghter worship the Lord nor adhere to the decrees and ordinances, the laws and commands that the Lord gave the descendants of Jacob. This is then followed by yet ANOTHER contradictory doublet: 2 Kings 17:41 Part A - Even while these people were worshipping the Lord... Part B - they were serving their idols. And this is concluded with To this day their children and grandchildren continue to do as their fathers did. This appears to be an on point explanation for how and where this alien Rechabite guild comes from. Their ancestors, being deported by the Assyrians from the home territories of the Rechabites (i.e., Hamath) are settled in Samaria and are taught the cult of Yahweh. And that despite their interest in Yahweh, they continue to include alien elements in their religious life. Later, as Assyrian hostilities begin to creep south again, eventually to swallow up even Jerusalem, they flee southwards, to a safe haven for Yahweh worshippers. Jeremiah is obviously impressed with them. [And I find it conceivable that Jeremiah is, himself, a highly placed Rechabite. But let's not digress.] ** Dear George, 1. Jehonadab son of Recab (2 Kings 10.15) was around before the exile described in 2 Kings 17. So presumably the Rechabite lifestyle was already in evidence. 2. How do you reconcile the nomadic, tent dwelling, Maverick Rechabites with settled, law-bound, controlled, agricultural Essenes? Geoff For private reply, e-mail to Geoff Hudson [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from Orion, e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: unsubscribe Orion. Archives are on the Orion Web site, http://orion.mscc.huji.ac.il. (PLEASE REMOVE THIS TRAILOR BEFORE REPLYING TO THE MESSAGE)
orion-list Enoch vs. Zadok
More interesting items from Boccaccini's work, which describe some of the factors towards the creation of the Qumran community. The author believes the Qumran community is an offshoot of the Essene movement, and that the Enochian elements of the Essene movement considered their priesthood much older than the Zadokite priesthood. Details below. Page 73: While the Zadokites founded their legitimacy on their responsibility to be the faithful keepers of the cosmic order, the Enochians argued that this world had been corrupted by an original sin of angels, who had contaminated God's creation by crossing the boundary between heaven and earth and by revealing secret knowledge to human beings. Despite God's reaction and the subsequent flood, the original order was not, and could not be, restored. The good angels, led by Michael, defeated the evil angels, led by Semyaz and Azaz'el. The mortal bodies of the giants, the offspring of the evil union of angels and women, were killed, but their immortal souls survived as evil spirits (! En 15:8-10) and continue to roam about the world in order to corrupt human beings and destroy cosmic order. While Zadokite Judaism describes creation as a process from past disorder to current divine order, the Enochians claim that God's past order has been replaced by the current disorder. While being a member of the heavenly court (Job 1:6-12; 2:1-7; Zech 3:1-2; 1 Chr 21:1), Enochic Judaism would be ultimately responsible for the creation of the concept of the devil. While Zadokite Judaism struggles to separate evil and impurity from the demonic and makes their spread depend on human choice, Enochic Judaism removes control of these disruptive forces from humans. ...The myth of the fallen angels was not merely a bizarre or folkloric expansion of ancient legends; it disrupted the very foundations of Zadokite Judaism. Enochic Judaism directly challenged the legitimacy of the second temple and its priesthood Page 74: ...the attribution to Enoch of priestly characteristics [Footnote 45: M. Himmelfarb, Enoch as Priest and Scribe, in Ascent to Heaven in Jewish and Christian Apocalypses (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993) 23-25...] suggests the existence of a pure prediluvian, and pre-fall, priesthood and disrupts the foundations of the Zadokite priesthood, which claimed its origin in Aaron at the time of the exodus, in an age that, for the Enochians, was already corrupted after the angelic sin and the flood. Page 185: The roots of the Essene movement (and therefore of the Qumran community) are in a priestly anti-Zadokite tradition of the second temple period that expressed itself in the earliest Enochic literature (Book of the Watchers, Aramaic Levi, Astronomical Book). The generative idea of this dissident movement was that the good universe created by God was no longer such, since it had been corrupted by the sin of rebellious angels. Claiming to represent a competing (and more ancient) priestly line than that of the ruling Zadokite priesthood, the Enochians did not recognize the legitimacy of the second temple and maintained that Israel was still living in exile. The view that Essenism was a Zadokite reaction following the Maccabean crisis has no foundation in our sources. After the death of Onias III, the strictly Zadokite party fled to Egpyt, and the closest heirs of Zadokite Judaism, the Sadducees, accepted the Hasmonean rule and priesthood. The Essenes had many reasons to oppose the Hasmoneans, but their Enochic genetic code never made them miss the Zadokite high priests. Page 186: ...What in the early second temple period was probably only a minority phenomenon of some priestly families spread [to other priestly families] and won adherents during the Maccabean crisis. The end of the Zadokite priesthood gave confidence to the group, while the harshness of the struggle seemed to prove the soundness of their ideas about the spread of evil and the degeneration of history. The Enochians contributed to the coalition of groups (the Hasidim) that supported the Maccabees against the high priest Menelaus and King Antiochus IV (Dream Visions). The success of the uprising opened new horizons. A group or documents expressed dissatisfaction with the earlier Enochic concept that all human beings, including the Jews, were affected by evil. God's historical determinism restored the foundations of Israel's election and gave sense to a concrete political and religious agenda for the chosen people even in this corrupted world. The inclusive theology of Jubilees and the Temple Scroll suggests that the Enochians became the center of a vast and composite movement that aimed to replace the Zadokite leadership. The self-consciousness of the Enochians as the chosen among the chosen and as having a message significant for the entirety of Israel gave to their party a clear and distinct identity and led them to seek a certain degree of separation from the rest
orion-list What Happened to the Watchers
Boccaccini, on page 142 of BEYOND THE ESSENE HYPOTHESIS mentions a text that I had not encountered before: Pages 141-142: In the Testaments the emphasis on human responsibility reaches a degree of intensity that was unknown in the previous Enochic tradition. The document signals an epochal change in the interpretation of the sin of the Watchers. Human beings are not mere victims of the angelic sin but jointly responsible. The blame shifts from angels to women. They [women] charmed the Watchers, who were before the flood. As they continued looking at the women, they were filled with desire ... for them. They they were transformed into human males... Since the women's minds were filled with desire for these apparitions, they gave birth to giants (Testament of Reuben 5:6-7). The psychologization of the myth of the fallen angels denies the equation of impurity and evil that Jubiliees had established and the Qumran sectarians turned into one of the foundations of the doctrine of evil. [END OF CLIPS] So here we have the chain of events. The fallen angels become human males. They have giants as children. The giants are killed, but the evil spirits of the fallen angels live on as immortal souls. In these discussion of the Watchers, I cannot help but wonder how any ancient student of these ancient texts could have avoided linking the wicked Watchers with the wickedness of the Samaritans/Keepers/Watchers. The New Testament appears to be a snapshot of Jewish bias against sinners people who are not gentile, but live north of Judah. Couldn't this be a part of Jewish bias against Samaritans? Centurions don't seem to excite nearly the same level of wrath that these sinners appear to. Boccaccini, at the front of the book, depicts a flow chart of the evolution of Jewish sectarianism on FIGURE 2. A MAP OF MIDDLE JUDAISMS. On this chart, he shows Samaritanism as a 4th century offshoot of Zadokite Judaism, while Enochic Judaism is depicted emerging PARALLEL to Zadokite thought, and leading directly into Essene thought. In the book it is sometimes suggested that Enochian thought had its source the obscure period in Persia, prior to the return. And yet, the only reference in the Old Testament that connects to a dissident form of priesthood opposed to the Zadokite views AND yet is still a part of the Jersusalem cultus is the reference by Ezekiel to the priestly faction that prays to the sun with its back to the Temple. This description precedes the deportation to Babylon, for the temple is still standing. Who could this priestly faction have been? I have suggested the Rechabites, since they were in Jerusalem before its destruction. Suda ALSO suggests the Rechabites, for reasons unknown. And in a completely independent thread, we see congruence between the Syrian cult of Shai al' Qaum and the Nabataean practices of avoiding wine, living in houses, and avoiding agriculture. In the Books of the Maccabees we find a close affinity between the Maccabean forces and the Nabateans. In Josephus we find Banus who still avoids agriculture. And in Deuteronomy we find an unsually kind view of Edomites, with other Old Testament references to the Edomites also having their promised covenants with Yahweh. While I can't pretend to have all the answers proved, I think there is more than enough here to suggest further investigation. George Brooks Tampa, FL For private reply, e-mail to George Brooks [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe from Orion, e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message: unsubscribe Orion. Archives are on the Orion Web site, http://orion.mscc.huji.ac.il. (PLEASE REMOVE THIS TRAILOR BEFORE REPLYING TO THE MESSAGE)