Tuesday, February 15, 2022

Contingent Prophecy and Promises in 2 Baruch (early second century A.D.)

  

4.1-7

 

Adam plays a supportive role in this passage, the concern of which is the historical fall of Jerusalem. The author offers two reasons for not despairing: this chastening is temporary (4.1); the city which fell was not the true, celestial city (4.2-7). The author introduces Adam to demonstrate that the celestial city is pre-existent. God showed it to the first man prior to the present epoch of history now it is invisible to all but the most exceptional people, Abraham and Moses.

 

The author includes Adam alongside Abraham and Moses. Through Abraham and Moses, eschatological hope and obedience to the Law, respectively, both of which are essential features of the author’s solution to the catastrophe of 70 CE, came into existence. Because God does not easily reveal secrets to many (48.3), God’s showing paradise to Adam indicates the exalted status of Adam prior to his transgression.

 

The nature of God’s revelation is evident in the Syriac clause, mn qdm dl’ nḥṭa (4.3). Klijn translates these words, ‘before he sinned’. They could be translated, ‘beforehand, lest [in order that he might not] he should sin’ (see 64.2). God revealed the celestial city to Adam to prevent him from sinning. This suggested translation is consistent with the author’s Tendenz, according to which sin is the conscious rejection of God and God’s command (e.g. 13.12; 48.40; 54.18; 82.9). No people are excused; there is no inadvertent sin. 2Bar 4.3 is, therefore, an example of the superimposition of the author’s own view of sin upon the otherwise positive portrait of Adam’s receiving a revelation of paradise. (John R. Levison, Portraits of Adam in Early Judaism: From Sirach to 2 Baruch [Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha Supplement Series 1; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1988], 130-31, emphasis in bold added)

 

56.6-10

 

This passage provides a remarkable list which includes eleven consequences of Adam’s transgression. In 56.6-10 the author demonstrates an awareness of Genesis; the sequence proceeds from Adam to the angels (gen 6) to the flood to Abraham, Nonetheless, while some of the eleven effects of Ada’s sin emerge from Genesis 3, many are included to reflect the sorrows of the present, evil age. Because the author is intensely concerned with these difficulties, his inclusion of many elements of this list is due to the influence of his Tendenz, combined with Genesis 3, rather than to independent Adam speculation. The list includes:

 

1. ‘Untimely death’. With Adam transgression came death prior to the appropriate time. In 73.3-4 these words denote violent, early death: ‘And nobody again will die untimely, nor will any adversity take place suddenly. Judgment, condemnations, contentions, revenges, blood, passions, zeal, hate, and all such things. . . ‘ Violent, untimely death may constitute an allusion to Cain’s untimely murder of Abel. (Ibid., 139)