2 Baruch 48:42-47 reads:
42 And I answered
and said:
O Adam, what did you do to all
who were born after you? And what will be said of the first Eve who obeyed the
serpent, 43 so that this whole multitude is going to
corruption? And countless are those whom the fire devours.
44 But again I
shall speak before you.
45 You, O Lord,
my Lord, you know that which is in your creation, 46 for you
commanded the dust one day to produce Adam; and you knew the number of those
who are born from him and how they sinned before you, those who existed and who
did not recognize you as their Creator. 47 And concerning all
of those, their end will put them to shame, and your Law which they
transgressed will repay them on your day. (OTP 1:637)
4 Ezra 7:118 reads:
O Adam, what have you done? For
though it was you who sinned, the fall was not yours alone, but ours also who
are your descendants.(OTP 1:541)
2 Baruch (54: 15–19) reads:
15 For, although Adam sinned
first and has brought death upon all who were not in his own time, yet each of
them who has been born from him has prepared for himself the coming torment.
And further, each of them has chosen for himself the coming glory. 16 For
truly, the one who believes will receive reward. 17 But now, turn
yourselves to destruction, you unrighteous ones who are living now, for you
will be visited suddenly, since you have once rejected the understanding of the
Most High. 18 For his works have not taught you, nor has the artful work
of his creation which has existed always persuaded you. 19 Adam is,
therefore, not the cause, except only for himself, but each of us has become
our own Adam. (OTP 1:640)
Commenting on these texts, with a focus on the latter, Miryam
T. Brand noted that:
Here, as opposed to the literary
lament penned in 48: 42–47, the author presents a statement directly opposing the
idea of Adam as the originator of future generations’ sins. Adam’s sin has,
instead, caused the ultimate death of his descendants (54: 15). This direct
polemic is unlike anything found in 4 Ezra. In 2 Bar. 54: 15–19 the goal of the
author is to ensure that sinners take responsibility for their own sins, a
concern that is not reflected unambiguously in 4 Ezra. According to this
passage in 2 Baruch, sins are the result of a completely free decision: each
sinner has “prepared for himself” (and has not been burdened from the beginning
with a soul already inclined toward evil), and has consequently “rejected the
understanding of the Most High” (54: 17).
This emphasis on individual
responsibility can also be found in 2 Bar. 56: 10–14, where the mating of the
angels with human women in Gen 6: 2 is ultimately attributed to Adam’s sin,
which begat human lust (56: 6). In this passage the author is careful to
emphasize that, while some angels sinned, the majority of angels restrained
themselves (56: 14). Hence one can choose not to sin even when faced with lust
and granted the total “freedom” of angels (56: 11).
How then could the author of 2
Baruch present a lament blaming Adam for the sins of future generations? In
both 4 Ezra 7:118 and in 2 Bar. 48: 42–47, the lament addressed to Adam is
literarily motivated. By addressing the progenitor of humankind and lamenting
his tremendous error, an error with horrendous consequences for future
generations, the protagonist emphasizes the truly tragic position of “contemporary”
sinners. Despite the common literary use of Adam’s sin in lament form, for
neither 4 Ezra nor 2 Baruch does Adam’s role as first sinner take a central
place in the author’s theological approach to sin. In 2 Baruch, the possibility
of such a role for Adam’s sin is openly rejected alongside an emphasis on total
free will. In contrast, in 4 Ezra the desire to sin is inherited from Adam and
is thus both basic to humanity and inevitable; whether this desire was created
within him or whether it results from his sin matters little to the protagonist
Ezra or to the book’s intended audience, who must deal with the consequences
regardless. The toil and travail that Adam has brought to the world according
to the angel in 4 Ezra 7: 11–12 is likewise now a basic feature of this world
that both the righteous and the wicked must experience; it remains only to hope
for the next world. The question of who will merit the realization of this hope
is yet another bone of contention between Ezra and the angel.
The dialogue in 4 Ezra represents
the empirical difficulty with conventional wisdom that resulted from the Temple’s
destruction and the magnitude of the tragedy it represented. On the one hand,
Ezra accepts that the destruction of the Temple is a punishment for Israel’s
sins. On the other hand, these sins, whose scale does not seem to match the
enormity of the punishment received, are nearly inevitable as part of the human
condition. The “solution” proposed in 4 Ezra that this situation will only be
righted during the eschaton or after death (4 Ezra 13; 14: 34–35) is a sad
expression of what must have seemed an almost impossibly grim reality to the
author. (Miryam T. Brand, Evil Within and Without: The Source of Sin and Its
Nature as Portrayed in Second Temple Literature [Journal of Ancient Judaism
Supplements 9; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck
& Ruprecht, 2013], 140-41)
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