In addition to all the above, one final principle has operated in my selection of materials. That principle is what might be called, broadly, "interest." All other things being equal, I have tried to include in this selection some of the most interesting motifs, or interestingly stated attestations of a motif, or some of the material that was to prove particularly influential in later times. I admit that this quality of interest is hard to define—I will not define it beyond what was just said—but I must in candor make mention of it in any explanation of how I went about including what I included.

Another disclaimer: This book is not about influences. As mentioned above, I have not set myself the job of tracing relations among the various sources listed or speculating about which text may or may not have been known to which authors. Of course, such things can sometimes be determined with certainty, and even when they cannot, an educated guess can sometimes be offered. But that is decidedly not the purpose of the present volume. What I wish to do here is to show how the Bible was interpreted in ancient times and what conclusions individual interpreters drew about the meaning of individual texts. The fact that two sources present the same or similar interpretations may in some cases be quite coincidental; in others it

THE ANCIENT BIBLICAL INTERPRETERS ♦ 45

may represent a direct borrowing from source A on the part of source B; in others, a common source was shared by A and B; and in yet others, A's and B's conclusions, although arrived at quite independently, reflect not so much a coincidental resemblance as the fact that both interpreters had been "programmed" with the same set of instructions about how to go about interpreting—including, prominently, the four assumptions listed earlier—and moreover had approached the text in question equipped with a common stock of other interpretations that served as models of proper procedure.

It is sometimes possible to decide among these various alternatives, but that is not the purpose of this book: I have attempted simply to assemble the things that ancient interpreters said about different verses or episodes and, to the extent possible, try to reconstruct the exegetical thinking that stands behind their assertions.^' However, I would be less than candid if I failed to say that the material collected on the following pages is such as to persuade me, at least, that there indeed was a great common store of interpretations in antiquity, one that was widely known to interpreters and their audiences.

Having said all that this book does not do, let me now state briefly what it does seek to provide. The main purpose of this book is to present a detailed look at how the Bible was interpreted in the centuries just before and after the start of the common era—to show what the Bible essentially was in that period—and to do this by seeking to isolate and identif)^ the principal interpretive traditions of, specifically, the Pentateuch as they are preserved in various ancient writings outside the Hebrew Bible itself. To be sure, any such reconstruction is bound to provide a somewhat distorted and only approximate picture. Community X or Group Y, or individual interpreters, certainly would have differed with this reconstruction on particular points: however much individual interpretations circulated and were held in common by different people, there was no single, universally accepted set of interpretations. But in choosing and organizing the material as I have, I hope that I have been able to provide an overall feeling for what Scripture as a whole meant for most Jews and Christians in the period covered, as well as to present in detail some of the most significant and widespread bits of interpretation known from that period.

I perhaps should make explicit here what some readers will have already

31. Despite this disclaimer, I fear that some may fail to understand this book's format (or even to read this introductory chapter) and consequently find me guilty of the sin made famous by Sandmel, "Parallelomania." It may therefore be appropriate here to repeat his definition: "We might for our purposes define parallelomania as that extravagance among scholars which first overdoes the supposed similarity in passages and then proceeds to describe source and derivation as if implying a literary connection flowAing in an inevitable or predetermined direction" (p. 1, emphasis added). It is precisely that possible literary connection that I have not addressed in this book.

46 ♦ THE ANCIENT BIBLICAL INTERPRETERS

understood, namely, my reason for focusing on the particular three centuries or so that I have. It was in these three centuries that Israel's ancient library of sacred texts were becoming the Bible. From the standpoint of scriptural interpretation, then, there could hardly have been a more crucial time than this one, and the overall interpretive methods, as well as a great many individual interpretations, that were developed in this period did eventually become "canonized" by Jews and Christians no less than the scriptural texts that they explained. Interpretations of course continued to be developed and elaborated in later times; yet it is certainly no exaggeration to say that the main lines of approach, as well as an enormous body of specific motifs, continued to be transmitted by Jews and Christians from this crucial period on through the Renaissance and beyond. In short, the period covered is the formative period for the interpretation of Scripture.

A second purpose, no less important than the first, is to show in detail the how of ancient biblical interpretation. As we have already glimpsed briefly, Scripture itself was the formal starting point for ancient biblical interpretation: the motifs that ancient interpreters created and transmitted addressed specific points in the text. All too often in the past this (broadly speaking) exegetical function has been neglected; to cite but the most illustrious example, Louis Ginzberg's Legends of the Jews programmatically submerged the exegetical aspect of these motifs in order to turn them into a kind of folk literature, the legends of the Jews. But they are not legends, they are ways of explaining the biblical text.

Of course, the legends approach is not wrong in one respect: originally exegetical creations eventually did become legendized. Time and again in the history of the motifs' transmission, their particular connection to the biblical text came to be forgotten. The very genre of the Rewritten Bible encouraged this: one had to know the text and its problems virtually by heart in order to hear their solution in the rewriting. Doubtless many listeners and readers did, but eventually, the precise connection between text and motif sometimes came to be lost. Indeed, even in pesharim, commentaries, quaestiones, and the like—genres, that is, in which the biblical verse itself is first cited and then commented upon—one often finds that the original biblical site out of which a given motif arose has been lost and the motif attached to another verse.^^ Once they became separated from their original biblical sites, these exegetical motifs did in effect become something like legends, free-floating additions to bibhcal stories that were asserted to be true even though their textual justification had been lost. For just that reason, trying to figure out the relationship

32. Again, I have presented several detailed examples in In Potiphar's House.

THE ANCIENT BIBLICAL INTERPRETERS ♦ 47

between an individual motif and tiie precise verse or word in Scripture upon whicli it depends is often a difficult, challenging task: a good bit of detective work and mental reconstruction are sometimes necessary. But figuring out this relationship is absolutely crucial, since it is the connection between text and motif that is the key to all ancient biblical interpretation. And so, a second purpose of this book has been to reconstruct, to the extent possible, the thinking that lies behind the ancient interpretive motifs collected herein.

Another purpose of this book—connected with its focus on motifs, as explained above—is to show the traditional nature of ancient biblical interpretation. I have set forth the reasons for which it seemed important to focus on motifs rather than on the individual documents in which these motifs are found, or on those documents' authors as individual shapers of the traditions. For the same reasons, I hope that by setting out clearly the way in which motifs are passed on and elaborated from generation to generation, the altogether traditional nature of ancient biblical interpretation will be apparent.

It might be said of Jews and Christians—in line with the well-known witticism about the English and the Americans—that they are divided by a common Scripture. This is certainly true, and in trying to restore the Bible As It Was and so trace interpretive elements common to both religions, I am in no way attempting to paper over the great differences that separate these two faiths, including, prominently, many matters of scriptural interpretation. Yet I must confess that a fourth purpose I have had constantly in mind in preparing the present volume is frankly ecumenical. What I wish to show is that, the history of Jewish-Christian polemics aside (and along with it the sad story of church-supported anti-Semitism), rabbinic Judaism and Christianity emerged out of a common mentality including, prominently, a common set of beliefs about the Bible. In other words, it is not only Scripture itself, the written word, that Jews and Christians share. Both groups received, along with the written texts that make up the Hebrew Bible, the same set of attitudes about how the Bible ought to be read and explained, what it was meant for and how it was to be used. Moreover (as any reader of this book will see), both carried forward a substantial body of common explanations of individual words, verses, incidents, stories, songs, prayers, laws, and prophecies in Scripture. Of course, none of this is to suggest that the differences between Judaism and Christianity are somehow minor—they are not—nor is it my intention in pointing out communalities to encourage the wrongheaded efforts of those who, even as these lines are being written, have announced their renewed intention to bring about the "conversion of the Jews" by creating some strange hybrid of Christian teaching and traditional Jewish practices. Rather, it is simply my hope that in the present age, when many thoughtful Jews and

48 ♦ THE ANCIENT BIBLICAL INTERPRETERS

Christians are trying to turn a dark page of history and seek out what, despite their distinctness, nonetheless unites them, this book may make some small contribution to an awareness of common beginnings.

How Each Chapter Is Organized

Ancient interpretations are best broken down into individual interpretive motifs. In the chapters that follow I have therefore presented the material in this fashion, motif by motif. (Sometimes I have grouped together under a single rubric two or more related motifs that are nonetheless distinct; in so doing I have sacrificed a certain technical accuracy to my desire to present things in as straightforward and readable a fashion as possible. )^'' To each motif or group of related motifs I have given a brief title: "The Punishment Was Mortality," "The Garden in Heaven," "Abraham Saved from Fire." The titles appear as subheadings in the body of the chapter.^^

In presenting each motif, I first seek to reconstruct why and how the motif may have developed; I then illustrate its existence with brief excerpts from ancient writings. I have kept these excerpts short, since all that I wish to show is that a particular way of understanding the biblical text is attested in ancient documents X, Y, and Z. I have generally stayed away from questions like "Did Y's author learn this interpretation from reading X?" or "Did the authors of documents Y and Z arrive at this interpretation independently, or did they have some common source?" As noted earlier, these are interesting, even fascinating questions, and answers to them sometimes can be put forward with reasonable certainty. In some cases, we can state unequivocally that Z's author read the book X; in other cases, we can just as unequivocally state that Z's author would have sooner died than open up X or be thought to have used it. In quite a few cases, it is reasonable to assume that the authors of X and Y drew on an earlier interpretive tradition known to both; in a few instances, a resemblance between X and Y seems utterly coincidental. As fascinating as this subject may be, however, it is somewhat beside the point here: my main goal is to investigate how these traditions arose and came to be widespread, not to reconstruct the specific steps involved in that transmission.

I have generally tried to present attestations of a particular motif in

33. In such cases I have generally tried to distinguish the individual subgroups by inserting some commentary—sometimes only the word "similarly"—between citations.

34. Sometimes I have grouped together quite different motifs whose only common element is that they all address the same difficulty within the biblical text. In such cases, I have phrased the title of the section as a question: "Why Did Joseph Put It Off?" "Whose Bad Idea?" "Which Ten Commandments?"

THE ANCIENT BIBLICAL INTERPRETERS ♦ 49

(rough) chronological order. However, when a later source seems to contain an earlier or more complete form of a motif, I do sometimes put the later source first. Likewise, I sometimes violate chronological order when a later source sets forth a particular motif more clearly or understandably than earlier sources. Since sources cited are all described and dated (to the extent possible) in the Terms and Sources section at the back of the book, I trust that this arrangement will not prove to be a source of confusion.

To make perfectly clear the transformative effect of traditional interpretation upon the biblical text, I decided to begin and end the body of each chapter with a brief summary, in italics. The opening italicized summary attempts to restate what an ordinary reader, knowing nothing but the words of the Bible itself, might think about the meaning of the biblical story or section in question. Then, at the end of the chapter—having surveyed some of the most important traditions of ancient interpreters—I summarize the story or section once again, this time with the ancient traditions included. The difference is of course striking: new details, sometimes whole new incidents, and a great deal of new "spin" now accompany the bare narrative. Although these summaries are necessarily somewhat simplified, comparing the one at the beginning of the chapter with the one at the end illustrates vividly how ancient traditions of interpretation changed utterly the meaning of the Bible.

The Creation of the World

(genesis 1:1-2:3)

God and someone else

(top) divide light from darkness, then (bottom)

create the sun, the moon, and the stars.

The Creation of the World

(genesis 1:1-2:3)

The Bible begins with an account of God's creation of the world in six days: on the first day, light was created and separated from darkness; on the following days the sky and the earth were made, then plant life, heavenly lights, fish and reptiles, the animals and, lastly, humankind. Once the work was completed, God rested on the seventh day — the first Sabbath in the world.

THE Bible opens with the words "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." But did this mean the very beginning? Many interpreters beHeved that it did not. They arrived at the conclusion that God's work must have begun even before He created heaven and earth. One reason for this behef was the Bible's discussion of the creation in a few places other than Genesis; in one of these, a passage from the book of Proverbs, Wisdom (here personified as a female figure) says the following:

The Lord made me the beginning of his work, the first of his acts of

old. Ages ago I was formed, before the establishment of the earth ... When He made the heavens, I was already there, when he drew a

circle on the face of the deep. — Prov. 8:22-27

These words clearly state that God had created wisdom even before the heavens and the earth were made. (The idea that "wisdom"—that is, the great plan underlying all of reality—was of divine origin was in any case widespread in the ancient world.)' There was thus every reason to believe that the creation of wisdom had come at the very beginning of things; this fact was plainly stated in the book of Proverbs.

Wisdom Came First

And so, when ancient interpreters spoke about God's creation of the world, many mentioned specifically that wisdom existed even before the creation itself:

1. See Chapter 1.

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One of our ancestors, Solomon [the reputed author of the bibUcal book of Proverbs], said more clearly and better that wisdom existed before heaven and earth, which agrees with what has been said [by Greek philosophers].

—Aristobulus, Fragment 5 (cited in Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangelica 13.12.11)

[Wisdom says:] From eternity, in the beginning. He created me.

—Sir. 24:9

Wisdom is older than the creation ... of the whole universe.

— Philo, On the Virtues 62

Two thousand years before the world was created, [God] created the Torah [that is, divine wisdom]. — Targum Neophyti Gen. 3:24

But if Scripture said that wisdom was created before all things, was this not because wisdom actually was to play some role in the creation of the rest of world? Such an idea made good sense, and it was also suggested elsewhere in Scripture:

But the Lord God is true . . . who made the earth with His power, established the world with His wisdom, and by His understanding stretched out the heavens. —Jer. 10:10,12

Oh Lord, how great are your works, with wisdom You have made them all.

—Ps. 104:24

The Lord by wisdom founded the earth, establishing the heavens with understanding.

— Prov. 3:19

Many ancient interpreters therefore felt justified in asserting that wisdom was "present at the creation" or even had some part in creating the rest of the world:

With you [O God] is wisdom, who knows your works and was present when you made the world, and who understands what is pleasing in your sight, and what is right according to your commandments.

— Wisd. 9:9

And who is to be considered the daughter of God but Wisdom, who is the firstborn mother of all things. — Philo, Questions in Genesis 4:97

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Blessed is He who created the earth with his power, who estabhshed the world with His wisdom.

— (iiQPs*) Hymn to the Creator

God looked into the Torah [that is, the corpus of divine wisdom] and created the world. — Genesis Rabba 1:1

For reasons to be seen presently, wisdom was associated in particular with the creation of humanity on the sixth day:

Having given order by your Wisdom, You created, saying, "Let us make man according our image and likeness."

— Hellenistic Synagogal Prayer, Apostolic Constitutions y.^^.S

And on the sixth day I commanded my wisdom to create man.

— 2 Enoch 30:8

The "Beginning" Did It

But if wisdom was the first thing that God had created, and if God had in fact used it to create the rest of the world, then biblical interpreters had to wonder: why did the book of Genesis leave out this crucial detail? Why didn't the first verse in the Bible read: "In the beginning God created wisdom, and afterwards, the heavens and the earth"?

In looking for an answer, interpreters noticed a striking coincidence. In Prov. 8:22, wisdom says, "The Lord made me the beginning of his work," while the Genesis account opens, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." Perhaps this was not just a coincidence. Perhaps the word "beginning" in the Genesis verse was in fact a subtle hint, an allusion, to wisdom. For, if wisdom is called the beginning of God's work in Proverbs, then (one might argue) the word "beginning" itself might be used elsewhere in the Bible as a kind of nickname for wisdom, a shorthand reference to the very first thing that God created. If so, then the first verse of Genesis could now be understood as meaning not "At the start God created the heavens and the earth" but "In [or "with"] wisdom God created the heavens and the earth." This is precisely how that verse was translated in two ancient translations of the Bible:

With wisdom did God create and perfect the heavens and the earth.

— Fragment Targum Gen. 1:1

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In the beginning with wisdom did God create .. }

— Targum Neophyti Gen. 1:1

Similarly:

By using different names for it, Moses indicates that the exalted, heavenly wisdom has many names: he calls it "beginning," "image," and "appearance of God." — Philo, Allegorical Interpretations 1:43

And so, interpreters came to the conclusion that not only was wisdom the first thing God created, but the phrase "In the beginning" in Gen. 1:1 was intended to imply that it was by means of, or with the help of, wisdom that God had created the world.

Now of course a modern reader might well object to this kind of interpretation. Was not the fact that the word "beginning" was used in both Gen. 1:1 and Prov. 8:22 really just a coincidence? And doesn't "In the beginning" in Gen. 1:1 mean just that, at the start o/the creation of the world?

There is no single answer to this type of question, which comes up again and again with ancient biblical interpretation. It often happens that interpreters pass up what seems to us to be the more likely sense of a text in favor of some rather improbable meaning. Sometimes they do so because they want to read the text in that fashion—there is some doctrine or idea of their own (or some idea that they have inherited from elsewhere, from ancient Near Eastern tradition or Greek philosophy or some other source) for which they would like to find support in the Bible. Sometimes they depart from the straightforward meaning because they feel they have to: the text as is appears to them illogical or seems to contradict something found elsewhere in the Bible. And sometimes, they take an apparent pleasure in willful, even playful, distortion—as if the interpreter were saying: "Look, read the text my way and you will see that this or that surprising conclusion can be derived from it."

But behind any of these sorts of interpretations is the fundamental conviction that the Bible's precise wording is both utterly intentional—that is, nothing in the Bible is said by chance or said in vain—and infinitely significant.^ This meant that almost every aspect of the biblical text ought to be looked into, and that almost any sort of interpretive subtlety was justified in explaining it. The slightest unusual feature in its manner of expression—even a coincidence like the appearance of the word "beginning" in both Gen. 1:1 and

2. This is an example of a "double translation," in which the original word is translated twice (here, both "in the beginning" and "with wisdom") to fit two different understandings of the text.

3. This fundamental assumption of ancient interpreters is treated at great length above, in Chapter 1.

THE CREATION OF THE WORLD ♦ 57

Prov. 8:22—could not be dismissed as mere accident. Thus, ancient interpreters had a large task before them, but they also had enormous freedom as interpreters. For, once it was understood that Scripture required deep investigation in order for its full sense to be revealed, the groundwork was laid for interpretations that sometimes departed drastically from what the text seemed to be saying. In this way, it became possible to conclude that by the word "beginning" in Gen. 1:1 the Bible had really meant "wisdom."

A Special Light

God says on the first day, "Let there be light" (Gen. 1:3). But the light created on the first day could not have been sunlight or the light of the moon or stars, since these heavenly bodies were not created until the fourth day. Many ancient writers therefore said that it was a special light that enabled God to see as He created the world:

Then You commanded that a ray of light be brought forth from your treasuries, so that your works might then appear. — 4 Ezra 6:40

If so, then perhaps it was a light unlike any other, one that illuminated all of creation at once:

. . . the first [day], the one in which the light was born by which all things are seen together.

— Aristobulus, Fragment 3 (cited in Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangelica 13.12.9)

God commanded that there should be light. And when this had come about, He considered all of matter. —Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 1:27

[After summoning light, God says:] And I was in the midst of the light. And light out of light is carried thus. And the great age came out, and it revealed aU the creation which I had thought up to create. And I saw that it was good, — 2 Enoch {]) 25:3

God said: Let there be light to illuminate the world, and at once there was light. — Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Gen. 1:3

Said R. Eli'ezer: With the light that God created on the first day one could see from one end of the world to the other. —b. Hagigah 12a

Another possibility was that the light that was later to come from heavenly bodies was created, or conceived, on the first day, even though the heavenly bodies themselves were not created until the fourth:

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And [He created] the abysses and darkness—both evening and night—and hght—both dawn and dayHght—which He prepared in the knowledge of His heart. — Jubilees 2:2

It is said that from this [primal] light, [now] diffused, and from fire—both of which were created on the first day—the sun was fashioned, which was made in the firmament, and likewise the moon and the stars, it is said, were made from that same first light/

— Ephraem, Commentary on Genesis 9:2

Similarly:

Now that invisible light, perceptible only by mind, was created as an image of the God's Word [Logos], who made its creation known. It was a light higher than the stars, the source of the starlight that can be seen. —Philo, On the Creation 31 (also 55)

The Angels Were Also Created

The creation account in Genesis purports to tell how everything in the universe came to be. But this account apparently omits a number of details (besides the creation of wisdom). For example, where were the angels? Although all sorts of other biblical texts (and texts from outside the Bible) make mention of angels, nothing is said here about when they were first created.

The Bible contained at least one indication for ancient interpreters that the angels had in fact been created sometime during the first six days. For, after the sixth day is completed, the Bible says.

Thus, the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their hosts.

— Gen. 2:1

The phrase ''hosts of heaven" is frequently used in the Bible for angels (see, for example, 1 Kings 22:19). This verse thus seemed to imply that the creation of these "hosts of heaven" had been finished by (at least) the end of the sixth day. What is more, the book of Psalms mentioned the angels along with other things created by God in the beginning:

[God,] who has stretched out the heavens like a curtain, roofed His upper chambers with the waters,

4. Ephraem's overall view is that this first day's primal light was created to serve until the sun and other luminaries could be made and take over.

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who has made clouds His chariot and walks about on the wind's

outskirts, who makes the winds His angels and flaming fire His servants, He established the earth on its foundations, so that it shall

never be displaced.

— Ps. 104:2-5

In mentioning the angels in the context of the creation of the heavens, waters, and earth, this psalm seemed to be saying that God had created the angels at the same time as these other things. As a result of such passages (see also Job 38:7), a number of ancient interpreters included the angels among the things that God had created during the first six days—even though the book of Genesis made no mention of them.

When during the six days were the angels created? With no clear hints from the text, there was no unanimity among ancient interpreters. It seemed likely, however, that their creation preceded that of mankind and the other creatures created at the end of the six days:

When God created his created ones [that is, the angels]^ in the

beginning, their portions He allotted to them: He established [their] activities for all time, and their dominions

forever: So that they not hunger nor grow weary, nor cease from their

labors, And so that one not interfere with another, and never

might they rebel. Afterward the Lord looked down at the earth and He filled it with

His stores; He covered its face with the breath of all life, and to it they shall

return.

— Sir. 16:26-30

Dividing light from darkness, he established the dawning in His

mind's decision; When all His angels saw [it] they exulted, for He showed them what

they had not previously known.

5. The Hebrew word madsim ("created ones") frequently refers to people rather than things: see Pss. 8:7,103:22,104:24; Prov. 31:31; Job 14:15, etc. It seems likely that the "created ones" mentioned here are the angels in heaven. Ben Sira's wording paraphrases Deut. 32:8, which was understood to refer to angels being allotted their "portions"; what is more, the idea that these celestial creatures never need food or rest and do not interfere or overlap with one another in their heavenly missions—all these are elsewhere frequently asserted to be true of angels. A similar usage appears in Odes of Solomon 16:13.

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He crowned the hills with crops, abundant food for all the living.

— (iiQPs^) Hymn to the Creator

These are the holy angels, who were created first...

— Shepherd ofHermas Vision 4:1

Some ancient interpreters pointed specifically to the first day as the time of the angels' creation. Perhaps they did so because of the mention of the "spirit of God" in Gen. 1:2, since "spirit" was one term commonly understood to refer to angels:

For on the first day He created the heavens which are above and the earth and waters and all the spirits which serve before Him—the angels of the presence, and the angels of hoHness, and the angels of the spirits of fire and the angels of the spirits of the winds, and the angels of the spirit of the clouds, and of darkness, and of snow and of hail and of frost, and the angels of the sounds, the thunders and the lightnings, and the angels of the spirits of cold and of heat, and of winter and of spring and of autumn and of summer, and of all the spirits of His creatures which are in the heavens and on the earth. — Jubilees 2:2

When Scripture speaks of the creation of the world, it does not indicate clearly whether, or in what order, the angels were created. But if they are alluded to at all, it is perhaps in the word "heavens" when it says, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" [Gen. 1:1] or, more likely, in the word "light" [in the phrase, "Let there be light," Gen. 1:3]. —Augustine, City of God n:9

In the beginning, on the first day... God created heaven and earth, the angels, and the archangels and thrones and dominions and principalities and authorities^ and cherubs and seraphs, all the heavenly hosts of spirits. — Cave of Treasures (W) 1

Other sources saw the second day as the time of the angels' creation (because that was the day when the "firmament"—deemed to be part of heaven, where the angels lived—was created):

Then evening came, and morning, and it was the second day. And ... [on the second day] I created the ranks of the bodiless armies—ten

6. These are different ranks of angels; this list is apparently based on the New Testament, Col. 1:16; cf. Eph. 1:21,2 Enoch 20:1, Testament of Levi 3:7, Book of the Bee ch. 5.

THE CREATION OF THE WORLD ♦ 6l

myriad angels—and their weapons are fiery and their clothes are burning flames. — 2 Enoch (J) 29:3

And God said to the angels who serve before Him and who had been created on the second day of the Creation ...

— Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Gen. 1:26

[On the second day,] after separating off the waters He created the erelim and angels and ophanim and seraphim and hashmalim [different classes of angels] and He blew upon the fire and ignited the seven bonfires of Gehenna. — Midrash Konen

On the second day God created the firmament and the angels ... The angels, who were created on the second day, when they are sent by His word they become winds, but when they serve before Him, they are made of fire, as it is written, "Who makes His messengers the winds, and flaming fire his servants" [Ps. 104:4]. — Pirqei deR. Eliezer 4

There were yet other possibilities:

When were the angels created? R. Yohanan said: they were created on the second day . . . R. Hanina said: they were created on the fifth day, as it is said "[on the fifth day God created] birds to fly about above the earth across the firmament of the heavens" [Gen. 1:20], and it says elsewhere [speaking of an angel], "with two wings it would fly about" [Isa. 6:2]. — Genesis Rabba 1:3

God and Someone Else

After the heavens and the earth had been created, and the earth stocked with fish and birds and animals, God finally created mankind. But the precise way in which this event is related in the Bible aroused the curiosity of ancient interpreters:

Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them. —Gen. 1:26-27

Ancient readers were struck by a number of things in this passage, perhaps most of all by the fact that God starts speaking here in the plural, "Let us make

62 ♦ THE CREATION OF THE WORLD

man .. . our image ... our likeness." What did this mean? (The "royal we" is less common in biblical Hebrew than in English, so such an explanation was not necessarily obvious.)

Many ancient interpreters concluded that God was indeed addressing some other being or beings—though they did not necessarily agree on whom:

O God of my fathers and Lord of mercy, You who have made all things by Your word and by Your wisdom have formed man. —Wisd. 9:1-2

Thus it was fitting and right that when man was formed, God should assign a share in the work to His lieutenants, as He does with the words "let us make men," so that man's right actions might be attributable to God, but his sins to others. For it seemed to be unfitting to God, the ruler of all, that the road to wickedness within the reasonable soul should be of His making, and therefore He delegated the forming of this part to His inferiors. —Philo, Confusion of Tongues 179

And on the sixth day I commanded my wisdom to create man.

— 2 Enoch (J) 30:8

Having given order by your Wisdom, You created, saying, "Let us make man according to our image and likeness."

— Hellenistic Synagogal Prayer, Apostolic Constitutions 7.34.6

R. Joshua b. Levi said: He consulted with the heavens and the earth ... R. Hanina said: . . . When God set out to create the first human. He consulted with the ministering angels. He said to them: "Let us make man." — Genesis Rabba 8:3-4

Among Christians, the plural "Let us" suggested another interpretation:

And furthermore, my brothers: ... He is lord of the whole world, to whom God said at the creation of the world, "Let us make man according to our image and likeness." — Letter of Barnabas 5:5 (also 6:12)

The Father commanded with His voice; it was the Son who carried out the work.

— Ephraem, Hymns of Faith 6:13 (also Commentary on Genesis 1:28, etc.)

Other interpreters vigorously denied the idea that the phrase implied more than one Creator:

When all His angels saw [it] they exulted, for He showed them what they had not previously known. — (iiQPs^) Hymn to the Creator

THE CREATION OF THE WORLD ♦ 63

O sovereign Lord, did you not speak at the beginning when You created earth—which You did without help —and commanded the dust^ and it gave you Adam. — 4 Ezra 3:4

These [the world and its contents] God created not with hands, not with toil, not with assistants, of whom He had no need; He willed it, and so they were made in all their beauty.

— Josephus, Against Apion 2:192

R. Samuel b. Nahman said in the name of R. Yonatan: When Moses was writing down the Torah, he would write down what was created on each day [in the creation account]. When he got to the verse, "And God said, 'Let us make man ...'" he said, "Master of the Universe! Why should you give support to the heretics?" He answered: "Let anyone who wishes to go astray go astray!" — Genesis Rabba 8:8

Completed on Friday

The traditional Hebrew text at the end of the creation narrative contains a slight ambiguity:

And God ended on the seventh day His work which He had done, and God rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.

—Gen. 2:1

The word "ended" here is somewhat enigmatic. Does it mean "finished off," in which case, presumably, at least some work was done on the seventh day? Or does it mean "ceased," in which case the last bit of work was presumably done before the seventh day actually started? One would certainly think that the latter was the case, but the wording left room for misunderstanding.

Some ancient versions and retellings—perhaps in an attempt to clarify things, or perhaps reflecting a different form of the Hebrew text—specify that God had actually finished His work on the sixth day:

And on the sixth day God finished His works which He had done. And God ceased [or "rested"] on the seventh day from all of His works which He had done.

— Septuagint, Vetus Latina, Samaritan Pentateuch, and Peshitta, Gen. 2:1

7. Here God's words "Let us make man" are deemed to have been spoken to the dust of the earth from which the first human was made (Gen. 2:7).

64 ♦> THE CREATION OF THE WORLD

And He finished all His work on the sixth day—everything in heaven and on the earth, and in the seas and in the depths, in the light and in the darkness, and in every place. And He gave us a great sign, the Sabbath day, so that we should perform work for six days, but keep the Sabbath on the seventh day from all work. — Jubilees 2:16-17

Now, when the whole world had been brought to completion in accordance with the properties of six, a perfect number, the Father invested with dignity the seventh day which comes next, extolling it and pronouncing it holy. — Philo, On the Creation 89

♦ ♦ ♦

In short: Early interpreters transformed the opening chapter of Genesis in several significant respects. The very first thing that God had created was wisdom. When He said ''Let there he light" God was referring to a special light unknown to human eyes. God created the angels, either on the first, the second, or the fifth day. God's words in Gen. 1:26, "Let us make man," were understood to mean that He had received aid or advice in creating man. Finally, some translations and retellings of the creation story differed from the traditional Hebrew wording of Gen. 2:1 by making it clear that the creation was entirely finished by the end of the sixth day.

Adam and Eve

(genesis 2:4-3:24)

God created humanity with the help of angels, but then the humans went astray: was it the woman's fault?

Adam and Eve

(genesis 2:4-3:24)

Adam and Eve were the first human beings created by God. They were put in the Garden of Eden and told that they could eat any of the fruit in the garden except that of the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" A certain serpent in the garden tempted Eve to disobey and she did, eating the forbidden fruit and giving it to Adam to eat. As a result, Adam and Eve were punished and expelled from the garden forever: henceforth, he was to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow, while Eve was condemned to bring forth children in pain.

THE STORY of Adam and Eve and their life in the Garden of Eden fascinated the Bible's earliest interpreters, since it seemed to concern the very nature of the human species. This biblical story was probably written about more than any other. Not coincidentally, readers today are likely to have great difficulty looking at this story "without blinders." For the importance of this episode to the Bible's ancient interpreters has given their interpretations of it a unique staying power. Who nowadays, for example, does not automatically think of the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden as telling about some fundamental change that took place in the human condition, or what is commonly called the Fall of Man? And who does not think of the "serpent" in the story as the devil, or paradise as the reward of the righteous after death? Yet a careful reading of the Bible itself shows that none of these things is said explicitly by the text—they are all a matter of interpretation.

Death in a Day

No doubt many factors influenced the way ancient interpreters came to understand the Adam and Eve story. But certainly one of the most important was a glaring inconsistency in the story itself When God first put Adam into the garden, He said to him:

You may freely eat of every tree in the Garden. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for on the day that you eat of it you shall die. — Gen. 2:16-17

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The trouble is that Adam didn't die, at least not right away. After eating the fruit, he went on to live to the age of 930 (according to Gen. 5:5). Eve presumably had an equally impressive lifespan (we are not told exactly when she died). So what did God mean by saying, "for on the day that you eat of it you shall die"? Was this just an idle threat?

One way of resolving the situation was to claim that the "day" being referred to here was not an ordinary day. And indeed, the Bible itself provided support for this idea. A verse from the book of Psalms asserts:

A thousand years in your [God's] sight are like yesterday.

— Ps. 90:4

In context, this verse seems to mean that for God, centuries and centuries of past history are no more remote than yesterday; since He is eternal, a thousand years pass as quickly for God as a single day for us. But if so, interpreters reasoned, then perhaps there is an actual unit of time, a "day" of God's, that lasts a thousand years:

But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. — 2 Pet. 3:8

... for with Him a "day" signifies a thousand years. And He himself bears witness when he says, "Behold, the day of the Lord will be as a thousand years." — Letter of Barnabas 15:4

One day of God's is a thousand years long, as it is said, "A thousand years are in your sight as yesterday" [Ps. 90:4]. — Genesis Rabba 8:2

Here then was a possible solution. If Adam lived to the age of 930, then he actually lived less than a single one of "God's days"—and so, from God's standpoint at least, he did die on the day that he ate the fruit:

Adam died, and all his sons buried him in the land of his creation, and he was the first to be buried in the earth. And he lacked seventy years of one thousand years [that is, he died at the age of 930]; for one thousand years are as one day in the testimony of the heavens [that is, according to Psalm 90], and therefore was it written concerning the tree of knowledge: "On the day that you eat thereof, you shall die."

— Jubilees 4:29-30

It was said to Adam that on the day in which he ate of the tree, on that day he would die. And indeed, we know that he did not quite fill up a

ADAM AND EVE ♦ 69

thousand years. We thus understand the expression "a day of the Lord is a thousand years" [as clarifying] this.

— Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 81:3

He [God] did not specify to Adam if it would be a day of his [own days] or a day of God's, which lasts one thousand years, since "a thousand years in your [God's] sight are like yesterday" [Ps. 90:4].

— Pesiqta Rabbati, Bahodesh ha-shebi'i 40 (similarly Genesis Rabba 19:8)

The trouble with this explanation, however, is that it skirts the issue of punishment. After all, Adam and Eve had done what they were specifically warned not to do. Shouldn't the threatened punishment, death, have come right away? Why did God wait?

The Punishment Was Mortality

There was another possible explanation, and it answered the same question in a better way. It understood the Bible's words "you shall die" not as "you shall immediately cease to exist," but "you shall become a person who dies," you shall become mortal. This explanation assumes, in other words, that God had originally created Adam and Eve to be immortal: they would continue to live in the garden forever and ever, so long as they obeyed the rules. But God also warned them from the beginning: If you disobey, I will take away your immortality on the very day of your disobedience, and you will from then on be subject to death, mortal—even though you will, of course, still have a normal (for those days, at least) Hfetime of nine hundred years or so.

If this was indeed the meaning of "you shall die," then the sentence was in fact carried out. Adam and Eve lived a long time after their disobedience, but eventually they did die—which was, by this interpretation, exactly the punishment God had intended by the words that He uttered. And so the real punishment meted out to Adam and Eve was not the sweat of agriculture or the pains of childbirth but mortality itself.

How early was the story understood in this fashion? We have little way of knowing, but it is witnessed in a number of very early texts:

From a woman was sin's beginning, and because of her, we all die.

— Sir. 25:24 (also 15:14)

For God did not make death, nor does He take delight in the destruction of the living.

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For God created man for incorruption [immortality], and made him in the image of his own eternity, but through the devil's envy death entered the world. _ wisd. 1:13,2:23-24

Giving up immortality and a blessed life, you [Adam] have gone over to death and unhappiness,

— Philo, Questions and Answers in Genesis 1:4s (also Creation 152;

Virtues 205; etc.)

For men were created no different from the angels, that they might remain righteous and pure, and death which destroys everything, would not have touched them; but it is through this knowledge of theirs that they are being destroyed. — 1 Enoch 69:n

. . . you shall be mortal. — Symmachus Gen. 2:17

Adam said to Eve, "Why have you brought destruction among us and brought upon us great wrath, which is death gaining rule over all our racer — Apocalypse of Moses 14:2

But that man transgressed my ways and was persuaded by his wife; and she was deceived by the serpent. And then death was ordained for the generations of men. — Pseudo-Philo, Biblical Antiquities 13:10

But a very horrible

snake craftily deceived them to go to the fate

of death ...

The Immortal [God] became angry with them and expelled them

from the place of the immortals.

— Sibylline Oracles 1:39-41,50-51

And you set one commandment on him [Adam], but he violated it; as a result you estabhshed death for him and his descendants.

— 4Ezray7

What did it profit Adam that he lived nine hundred and thirty years and transgressed that which he was commanded? Therefore, the multitude of time that he lived did not profit him, but it brought death and cut off the years of those who were born from him.

Adam sinned, and death was decreed against those who were to be born. — 2 Baruch 17:2-3, 23:4 (also 48:43,54:15-19,56:6)

ADAMANDEVE ♦ 71

And while he was sleeping, I took from him a rib. And I created for him a wife, so that death might come [to him] by his wife.

— 2 Enoch (J) 30:17

When God created Adam He created him so that he might live forever like the ministering angels [as it is written] "And God said, Behold man has become like one of us" [Gen. 3:22], just as the ministering angels do not die, so will he not know the taste of death . .. But since he did not abide by His commandments, death was consequently decreed for him. — Pesiqta Rabbati 41:2

Sinfulness Is Hereditary

Thus, Adam and Eve were punished by becoming mortal. But this explanation raised another question: is the rest of humanity also mortal because we are being punished for Adam and Eve's sin? This hardly seemed fair. Why did not Adam and Eve's children get the same chance their parents had had and go back to being immortal as long as they obeyed God?

Some interpreters clearly did believe that Adam and Eve's punishment had been transmitted to all subsequent generations. Others, however, came to the conclusion that it was not their punishment, but their sinfulness, that was passed on. Yes, these interpreters said, death was decreed for Adam and Eve. But if we, their descendants, also are mortal, it is because we, in some fundamental way, are just like Adam and Eve. We inherited from them (just as children always inherit traits from their parents) their defective heart, with its predisposition to sinfulness; or they introduced sin, and it has existed ever afterward; or else, the banishment from Eden meant the end of the possibility of a sinless existence. In any case, we, too, are given over to sinning, and it is for that reason that we will die like them.

For the first Adam, burdened with an evil heart, transgressed and was overcome, as were also all who were descended from him. Thus the disease became permanent.

For a grain of evil seed was sown in Adam's heart from the beginning, and how much fruit of ungodliness it has produced until now, and will produce until the time of threshing comes!

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.

— 4 Ezra 3:21-22,4:30,7:118 (also 4:30-32,7:48)

72 ♦ ADAM AND EVE

And Adam said to Eve, "What have you done? You have brought upon us a great wound, transgression and sin in all our generations."

— (Latin) Life of Adam and Eve 44:2

By this interpretation, the narrative of Adam and Eve is indeed the story of the Fall of Man: human beings have ever afterward been condemned to a life of "transgression and sin in all our generations." Although this idea occurs in Jewish texts of (probably) the first century c.e., it came to be championed by Christians, while later Jews by and large abandoned it. Thus, this teaching is found in the New Testament:

Therefore as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men in that all men sinned.

— Rom. 5:12

For Christians, this interpretation of the Adam and Eve story also suggested a certain correspondence between that story and the Resurrection: the latter seemed to answer, and set aright, the Fall of Man. Paul thus saw a relationship between the "first Adam" of the Old Testament and the "second Adam" of the

New:

For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. —1 Cor. 15:21-22

And so, thanks in part to the problem raised by God's threatened punishment, "on the day that you eat of it you shall die," interpreters came to see the true significance of the story as relating to human mortality and, perhaps, a human predisposition to sinfulness. Ultimately, Christianity developed the doctrine of original sin, whereby Adam and Eve's sinfulness was transmitted (in the view of some, through the act of sexual intercourse) to all subsequent generations.

The Serpent Was Satan

The identity of the serpent in the story was certainly tied to the overall meaning of the story. Who was he? In the text itself, the serpent (or snake) appears to be merely a clever animal who leads the humans astray. But this also struck interpreters as strange. To begin with, snakes are not particularly clever: they can be dangerous or annoying, but they are hardly distinguished by their intelHgence. Why, then, did the Bible flatly assert that the serpent "was cleverer than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made" (Gen. 3:1)? And why was he a talking serpent?

ADAM AND EVE ♦ 73

A number of ancient interpreters maintained that this snake was simply a snake, albeit an unusual one. If he talked, it may have been because snakes, or perhaps all animals, originally knew how to speak:

On that day [when Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden], the mouth of all the beasts and cattle and birds and whatever walked or moved was stopped from speaking because all of them used to speak with one another with one speech and one language. — Jubilees y.28

It is said that, in olden times,... snakes could speak with a man's voice.

— Philo, On the Creation 156

At that time all living things spoke the same language.

— Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 1:41

Similarly, if the snake was ultimately condemned to slither about on his belly (Gen. 3:14), this merely implied that snakes originally had legs like dogs or horses. None of these details necessarily meant that the snake had any supernatural qualities. After all, did not the Bible plainly say that the serpent was one of the "beasts of the field" (Gen. 3:1)?

Other interpreters, however, saw the snake as Satan (or Satan's agent), or some other devil-like figure in disguise. This identification not only explained why this particular snake talked and was smarter than all other creatures, but also was reinforced by God's words to the snake at the end of the story:

I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he [mankind] shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. —Gen. 3:15

It seemed most unlikely that the Bible here was really concerned with future relations between humans and snakes. (Moreover, how was this "enmity" between humans and snakes different from the enmity that exists between humans and lions or bears or tarantulas, none of whom had done anything to Adam and Eve in the garden?) Instead, many interpreters concluded that these words were addressed to the eternal Tempter with whom humanity would forever after be pitted in an unending struggle.

[The angel Michael explains:] "And the name of the third angel is Gadreel: this is the one who showed all the deadly blows to the sons of men, and he led Eve astray, and he showed the weapons of death to the children of men." — 1 Enoch 69:6

The devil said to him [the serpent]: "Do not fear, only become my vessel, and I will speak a word through your mouth by which you will be able to deceive."

74 <• ADAM AND EVE

[Later, Eve recalls:] "The devil answered me through the mouth of the serpent." — Apocalypse of Moses 16:4,17:4

[A woman recalls:] . . . nor did the Destroyer, the deceitful serpent, defile the purity of my virginity. — 4 Mace. 18:7-8

The devil is of the lowest places . . . and he became aware of his condemnation and of the sin which he had sinned previously. And that is why he thought up the scheme against Adam. In such form he entered paradise and corrupted Eve. — 2 Enoch 31:4-6

And the great dragon, the ancient serpent, who is called Devil and Satan, was cast out, he who deceives the whole world.

And he [an angel] seized the dragon, the ancient serpent, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years.

— Rev. 12:9,20:2

The tree is sinful desire which Satanel [a wicked angel] spread over Eve and Adam, and because of this God has cursed the vine because Satanel had planted it, and by that he deceived the first-formed Adam and Eve. —3 Bamch (Slavonic) 4:8

Satanel, when he took the serpent as a garment...

—3 Baruch (Greek) 9:7

The devil... whom Moses calls the serpent...

— Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 103

[God says:] However, he [Adam] disobeyed my commandment and, having been deceived by the devil, he ate from the tree.

— Apocalypse ofSedrach 4:5

And the woman said, "The serpent is the one who instructed me." And He cursed the serpent and called him "devil."

— Testimony of Truth 47:3-6

And the woman saw Sammael [a wicked angel] the angel of death and was afraid. — Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Gen. 3:6

Perhaps also:

Through the devil's envy death entered the world, and those who are on his side suffer it.' —Wisd. 2:24

1. Some have suggested that this verse refers to the incident of Cain and Abel (see below, Chapter 4), but it may actually refer to the sin of Adam and Eve.

ADAM AND EVE ♦ 75

God's announcement of the serpent's punishment ("I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed") thus came to have a new meaning. It now appeared really to be a statement about the fight against the devil that all subsequent human beings would have to wage. And this view in turn strengthened the conclusion that the true subject of the story was the Fall of Man, how humanity gained its susceptibility to sinfulness. That susceptibility meant that the devil would henceforth be humanity's eternal enemy, always playing on people's weakness in the face of temptation.

Blame It on the Woman

Another question occurred to interpreters: whose fault was it? A great deal hung on the answer. If Eve was mostly to blame, then this first female was responsible (according to the line of reasoning we have been following) for nothing less than sin and death, and women ever after could be blamed for these human ills. But if it was primarily Adam's fault, then the opposite was true.

What does the Bible itself say? It is Eve who is persuaded by the serpent to try the fruit, and she in turn gives it to Adam—so the evidence does seem to support blaming Eve somewhat more than Adam. What is more, when God details the punishments to be given out to the various principals (Gen. 3:14-19), He first announces the serpent's punishment, then Eve's, then Adam's. To interpreters this seemed to suggest a descending order of guilt: the serpent was certainly the most guilty, since he instigated the crime. If Eve came next and only after her Adam, did this not imply that she was more guilty than Adam but less guilty than the serpent? For both these reasons, many of the sources mentioned earlier specify that Eve bore the primary responsibility:

From a woman was sin's beginning, and because of her, we all die.

— Sir. 25:24

Woman becomes for him [Adam] the beginning of blameworthy life. For so long as he was by himself, as accorded with such solitude, he went on growing like to the world and like God ... But when woman too had been made ... love [eros] enters in .., and this desire [pothos] likewise engendered bodily pleasure, that pleasure which is the beginning of wrongs and violation of law, the pleasure for the sake of which men bring on themselves the life of mortality and wretchedness in lieu of that of immortality and bliss. — Philo, Creation 151-152 (also 165-166)

■je ♦ ADAM AND EVE

But the woman first became a betrayer to him [Adam]. She gave, and persuaded him to sin in his ignorance.

— Sibylline Oracles 1:42-43

Adam said to Eve, "Why have you brought destruction among us and brought upon us great wrath, which is death gaining rule over all our race?

"Oh evil woman! Why have you wrought destruction among us?"

— Apocalypse of Moses 14:2,21:6

But that man transgressed my ways and was persuaded by his wife ... And then death was ordained for the generations of men.

— Pseudo-Philo, Biblical Antiquities 13:10

Thereupon God imposed punishment on Adam for having yielded to a woman's counsel... Eve He punished by childbirth and its attendant pains, because she had deluded Adam, just as the serpent had beguiled her. — Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 1:49

I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor.

— 1 Tim. 2:13-14

I [God] created for him a wife, so that death might come [to him] by his wife.

In such a form he [the devil] entered paradise and corrupted Eve. But he did not contact Adam. — 2 Enoch (J) 30:17,31:6

An Extra Proviso

There was, however, one detail in the text that supported Eve's side in the debate. It might at first appear to be a minor discrepancy. When God first told Adam the rules of the garden. He did so in these terms:

And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, "You may freely eat of every tree in the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it, you shall die." —Gen. 2:16-17

But when the serpent asked Eve about the same rules, she had a slightly different answer:

And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but God said, 'You may not eat of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'" —Gen. 3:2-3

Why should this additional proviso, "neither shall you touch it," have been added? It could hardly have been an accident. Here, then, was another question interpreters had to answer:

Why, when the command was given not to eat of one particular tree, did the woman include even approaching it closely... ? First, because taste—and every sense—functions by means of contact. Second, [because] if even touching [the tree] was forbidden, how much greater a crime would those have done who, in addition to touching it, then ate of it and enjoyed it? Would they not therefore have condemned and brought punishment down upon themselves?

— Philo, Questions and Answers in Genesis 1:35

Later interpreters, however, saw in the extra words "neither shall you touch it" a very subtle hint in the text—a hint, first of all, about how the serpent managed to trick Eve into eating the forbidden fruit and, as well, a clue as to who was ultimately responsible:

The text says, "And God commanded Adam, saying, 'Of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die' [Gen. 2:17]." But Adam did not choose to tell God's words to Eve exactly as they had been spoken. Instead he said to her, "God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die' [as per Gen. 3:3]." Whereupon the wicked serpent said to himself, "Since I seem to be unable to trip up Adam, let me go and try to trip up Eve." He went and sat down next to her and started talking with her. He said: "Now you say that God has forbidden us to touch the tree. Well, I can touch the tree and not die, and so can you." What did the wicked serpent then do? He touched the tree with his hands and feet and shook it so hard that some of its fruit fell to the ground . . . Then he said to her, "[You see? So likewise] you say that God has forbidden us to eat from the tree. But I can eat from it and not die, and so can you." What did Eve think to herself? "All the things that my husband has told me are lies"... Whereupon she took the fruit and ate it and gave to Adam and he ate, as it is written, "The woman saw that the tree was good to eat from and a delight to the eyes" [Gen. 3:6]. — Abot deR. Natan (A) ch. 1

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The extra proviso, according to this interpretation, did not come from Eve. She did not change God's words because she did not hear them in the first place. When God spoke to Adam about the tree in chapter 2 of Genesis, Eve had not even been created yet. (God's words appear in Gen. 2:16-17; Eve is not created until Gen. 2:22.) So it must have been Adam who, in telHng Eve about God's prohibition after she was created, added the words "neither shall you touch it." Perhaps he did so to make sure that she would not even come close to eating the fruit. But if so, the plan backfired. The serpent came to her and first touched the tree himself. Then he invited Eve to touch it as well and so see for herself that nothing bad would happen. Then the serpent actually took a piece of fruit and ate it, and urged her to do the same thing. At this point she began to doubt the truth of everything that Adam had told her: "All the things that my husband has told me are lies." And so she decided to take a bite.

The Earthly Paradise

After their sin, Adam and Eve were banished from the garden, and God placed cherubim and a flaming sword at its entrance "to guard the way to the tree of life" (Gen. 3:24)—presumably, to prevent Adam and Eve, or later human beings, from reentering the garden. This very fact seemed to indicate that the garden had been located somewhere on earth. And the Bible had elsewhere said as much: God had planted the garden "in the east" (Gen. 2:8), and at least two well-known rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates, are said to originate from a river that flowed from inside it (Gen. 2:14).- So the garden was indeed an earthly one. Those writing in Greek might refer to the garden as "paradise," but this word was, at first, only the regular term for an enclosed garden or orchard.^

But why had God, after expelling Adam and Eve, placed cherubim and a flaming sword at the entrance to this elegant garden, rather than simply destroying the whole thing or letting it revert to wilderness? Some interpreters doubtless concluded that God must have had some further plans for the garden after Adam and Eve's stay there.''

Ideas about the garden at a very early point joined speculation on other, broader issues—life after death, and the reward to be given to the righteous.

2. Eden is also found as an apparent place-name elsewhere: 2 Kings 19:12 {=Isa. 37:12), Ezek. 27:23, Amos 1:5.

3. "Paradise" had been used by the Septuagint translation for "garden" in Gen. 2:8-10,16.

4. Note the references to the "garden of God" and the like in Gen. 13:10; Isa. 51:3; Ezek. 28:13,31:9, etc.; and Joel 2:3. Though all these places might refer to a garden that had existed but was no more, this was hardly the only possible reading, and thus the very profusion of such references might be taken as an indication that the garden was still in existence and still of importance.

ADAMANDEVE ♦ 79

For centuries, different religions and civilizations had taught that people continue to exist in some fashion after their death, or that at some time following death a dead person's bones might be joined together and reshaped into a living being again. This life after death was sometimes thought to be God's reward to the righteous for having lived a good life. The Bible here and there seems to suggest as much.

It certainly must have struck some ancient readers that God's closing off of the garden was a clear indication that it was the intended dwelling place for the righteous after their death. After all, this garden did contain a tree called the "tree of life" whose fruit would allow people to "live forever" (Gen. 3:22)—might this not be precisely what the righteous would eat after their first existence? No wonder the Bible had said that the cherubim and flaming sword were there specifically to guard the way to the tree (Gen. 3:24).

And so, many ancient readers assumed that the Garden of Eden still existed somewhere on earth as the intended resting place for the righteous after their death. "Paradise" now came to mean more than an ordinary garden—it was the garden of the righteous (or of "righteousness" or "truth"), the place of their final reward:

And from there I [Enoch] went over ... far away to the east, and I went over the Red Sea and I was far from it, and ... I came to the Garden of Righteousness, and I saw . . . many large trees growing there, sweet-smelling, large, very beautiful, and glorious, and the tree of wisdom from which they eat and know great wisdom.

— 1 Enoch 32:2-4 (=[4Q2o6] Enoch" fragments 2 and 3)

[Noah says:] ... the garden where the chosen and the righteous dwell, where my great grandfather [Enoch] was received, who was the seventh from Adam ... All these things I saw toward the Garden of Righteousness. — 1 Enoch 60:8,23 (also 61:12,70:4, etc.)

But those who honor the true eternal God inherit life, dwelling in the luxuriant garden of Paradise for the time of eternity, feasting on sweet bread from starry heaven.^

— Fragment 3 from Sibylline Oracles (cited in Theophylus, To Autolycus 2.:i6)

[God says to Adam:] But when you come out of Paradise, if you guard yourself from all evil, preferring death to it, at the time of the resurrec-

5. That is, manna; see Chapter 19. The description "from starry heaven" may imply that this author felt the garden to be an earthly one.

8o ♦ ADAM AND EVE

tion I will raise you again, and then there shall be given to you from the tree of life, and you shall be immortal forever.

And both [Adam and Eve] were buried according to the command of God in the regions of Paradise, in the place from which God had found the dust [from which Adam was formed, Gen. 2:7].

— Apocalypse of Moses 28:4,40:6 (also 6:2,9:3,13:1-4)

And I saw there the earth and its fruit... and the garden of Eden and its fruits, and the source and the river flowing from it, and its trees and their flowering, making fruits, and I saw righteous men therein, their food and their rest. — Apocalypse of Abraham 21:3,6

[An angel tells Baruch:] "When God caused the flood over the earth . . . and the water rose over the heights 15 cubits, the water entered Paradise and killed every flower." —3 Baruch 4:10

The Garden in Heaven

Other interpreters, however, were troubled by the idea that the garden might be anywhere on the earth. Was not heaven the abode of God and the angels, that is, of beings who live forever? Indeed, did not the righteous Enoch and Elijah ascend into heaven (Gen. 5:24, 2 Kings 2:11)? So the prophet Isaiah had alluded to the reward of the righteous in these terms:

He who walks righteously and speaks uprightly, who despises the gain of oppressions, who shakes his hands lest they hold a bribe, who stops his ears from hearing of bloodshed and shuts his eyes from looking upon evil—he will dwell on high, his refuge will be craggy fortresses; his food will be given him, his water will be sure. Your eyes will behold the King in His splendor, they will see the earth from afar.

— 153.34:15-17

Considering such evidence, some interpreters found it only reasonable to suppose that the true garden was in heaven, perhaps presided over by God Himself:

Michael turned the chariot and brought Abraham toward the east, to the first gate of heaven.^ And Abraham saw two paths. The first was

6. The phrase "toward the east" betrays this author's desire to reconcile his own idea of a heavenly paradise with the biblical tradition that Eden was an (apparently) earthly garden planted "in the east."

ADAMANDEVE ♦ 8l

Strait and narrow ... [and] this strait gate is the gate of the righteous, which leads to Hfe, and those who enter through it come into paradise.

— Testament of Abraham (A) 11:1,10

If I had asked you how many dwellings are in the heart of the sea . . . or which are the exits out of hell, or which are the entrances of Paradise, perhaps you would have said, "I never went down into the deep, nor as yet into hell, neither did I ever ascend into heaven."

— 4 Ezra 4:7-8 (also 7:36, 8:52)

[God says:] It [the likeness of the temple] is preserved with Me, as also paradise. — 2 Baruch 4:6 (also 51:7-11)

And I saw a chariot like the wind and its wheels were fiery. I was carried off into the paradise of righteousness, and I saw the Lord sitting and His appearance was unbearable flaming fire.

— Life of Adam and Eve (Vita) 25:3 (also 42:4)

Take him up to paradise, to the third heaven,

— Apocalypse of Moses (also Georgian and Slavonic) 37:5 (see also 29:6,40:1)

Fourteen years ago [I] was caught up to the third heaven ... caught up into paradise, whether in the body or out of the body I do not know.

— 2 Cor. 12:2-3

And those men took me from there, and they brought me up to the third heaven. And they placed me in the midst of paradise . . . And I said, "How very pleasant is this place!" The men answered me: "This place has been prepared for the righteous, who suffer every kind of tribulation in this life and who afflict their souls, and who turn their eyes from [looking upon] injustice [Isa. 33:15], and who carry out righteous judgment to give bread to the hungry, and to cover the naked with clothing, and to lift up the fallen, and to help the injured, who walk before the face of the Lord, and who worship Him alone— for them this has been prepared as an eternal inheritance."

— 2 Enoch (A) 8:1-9:1

Other references to this garden do not specify exactly where it was, but it was, in any case, the place where the righteous were to find their eternal repose:

And He shall open the gates of paradise; he shall remove the sword that has threatened since Adam, and he will grant to the righteous to eat of the tree of life. — Testament of Levi 18:10

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[In the coming time] the saints will refresh themselves in Eden.

— Testament of Dan 5:12

And he [Jesus] said to him, "Truly I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise." — Luke 23:43

To him who conquers I will grant to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God. — Rev. 2:7 (also 22:2,14,18)

And God took him [Sedrach] and put him within Paradise with all the saints. — Apocalypse of Sedrach 16:6 (also 12:2)

Enoch pleased God and was transferred into paradise, so that he might give repentance to the nations.

— (Vulgate) Ecdus. (Sir.) 44:16

And so, the garden of delights in which, the Bible said, God had placed the first man and woman was understood by interpreters to have had a further purpose. It was the reward and final resting place of the righteous after death, located either in some obscure corner of earth or, perhaps, in heaven.

In short: Although the Bible spelled out the punishments that Adam and Eve would suffer for their transgression — the toils of agriculture and pains of childbirth — ancient interpreters found a different meaning implied by the story. The real punishment of Adam and Eve, many thought, was the mortality implied in God's words, "for on the day that you eat of it you shall die." This same punishment was passed on to all later human beings, either because mortality is hereditary, or because sinfulness has been transmitted to each successive generation of humans. The serpent, who brought about this catastrophe, was identified with Satan or some other wicked angel. As for the question of guilt, most interpreters seem to have blamed Eve, but there were also good grounds for saying that what happened was ultimately Adam's fault. The garden that God had planted still exists, either on earth or in heaven; it is to be the final reward of the righteous.

Cain and Abel

(genesis 4:1-16)

Why did God favor AbeVs sacrifice?

Cain and Abel

(genesis 4:1-16)

After they were expelled from the garden, Adam and Eve had two sons, Cain and Abel; Cain was a farmer and Abel a herdsman. The two sons decided to bring sacrifices to God — Cain from his agricultural produce and Abel from his herds. God received AbeVs sacrifice with favor, but not Cains. For this reason, Cain became angry at his brother and killed him. He thus was the world's first murderer, and God banished him from the settled land and condemned him to a life of wandering.

Cain's m u r d e r of his brother Abel raised many questions: Why had one brother's sacrifice been favored by God and the other's not—are not all offerings acceptable to God? And what was it that led Cain to murder Abel—should not his anger have been directed against God rather than his innocent sibling? How was the murder accomplished, and with what weapon? And what was the real nature of Cain's punishment?

Interpreters searching for answers to these major questions were ultimately led back to the story's very beginning, the one-sentence account of Cain's birth. Here was a rather minor question about the text, but one that had potentially great consequences for the other, larger questions:

Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, "I have gotten a man with the Lord." —Gen. 4:1

The minor question was this: why did Eve, as she contemplated her just-born son, refer to him as a "man"? The word "man" in Hebrew does not simply mean "male person," and certainly does not mean "male child"—there are other words for that. Man means man, a grown-up male. But what could Eve have meant by calling her baby that?

Some interpreters apparently understood that the baby Cain was born with abilities well beyond his years:

And she bore a son and he was lustrous. And at once the infant rose, ran, and brought in his hands a reed [in Hebrew, qaneh] and gave it to his mother. And his name was called Cain [qayin].

— Life of Adam and Eve (Vita) 21:3

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If the newborn baby could walk, nay, run and carry something, here was a good reason for Eve to say, with only a little exaggeration, that he was a "man." And as for him being born "with the Lord," the apparent meaning was that he was born through God's direct intervention, "with the help of the Lord," since such an unusual child could not have been produced in the usual way.

Son of the Devil

But another explanation existed. In view of the wicked turn that his life was to take, some interpreters thought Cain might have been evil from birth, in fact, an offspring of the devil or some wicked angel. Indeed, this might be the cryptic point of the very beginning of Gen. 4:1, "And Adam knew his wife Eve"—Adam did not "know" his wife in the biblical sense, he knew something abouther:

By this it may be seen who are the children of God and who are the children of the devil; whoever does not do right is not of God, nor he who does not love his brother. For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning [that is, the book of Genesis]: that we should love one another and not be like Cain, who was of the Evil One [that is, the devil] and murdered his brother. —1 John 3:10-12

Having been made pregnant by the seed of the devil. . . she brought forth a son. — Tertullian, On Patience 5:15

First adultery came into being, afterward murder. And he [Cain] was begotten in adultery, for he was the child of the serpent. So he became a murderer, just like his father, and he killed his brother.

— (Gnostic) Gospel of Philip 61:5-10

And Adam knew about his wife Eve that she had conceived by Sam-mael the [wicked] angel of the Lord, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain. He resembled the upper ones [angels] and not the lower ones, and she [therefore] said, "I have acquired a man, indeed, an angel of the Lord." — Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Gen. 4:1

The serpent came into her and she became pregnant with Cain, as it says, "And the man knew his wife Eve." What did he know? That she was already pregnant [from someone else]. — Pirqei deR. Eliezer 21

The idea that Cain was the offspring of Eve and the devil may also be reflected elsewhere:

CAIN AND ABEL ♦ 87

[A heroic mother recalls:] I was a pure virgin and did not go outside my father's house; I guarded the rib that [Eve] was built [from] . . . nor did the Destroyer, the deceitful serpent, defile the purity of my virginity. — 4 Mace. 18:7-8

If Cain's true father was the devil, this would provide another explanation for Eve's cryptic words at the baby's birth, "I have gotten a man with the Lord." For, if Cain had in fact been engendered by one of God's angels—however wicked that particular angel might have been—then "with the Lord" could be a shorthand way of saying "with an angel of the Lord." Likewise, this divinely begotten child could appropriately be called a man (rather than a "baby") because angels are frequently called "man" in the Bible (see Gen. 18:2, 32:24, and elsewhere). Thus, some ancient interpreters concluded that Cain had in fact been a half-human, half-angelic creature begotten by the devil.

Cains Sisters

We know that Adam and Eve had two sons, Cain and Abel, but the Bible tells us nothing about any daughters. If no daughters were born, how did the human race ever continue to propagate? Faced with this dilemma, some ancient interpreters simply supplied the missing female(s):

And in the third "week" [that is, period of seven years] in the second jubilee, she bore Cain. And in the fourth she bore Abel. And in the fifth she bore Awan, her daughter. — Jubilees 4:1

In the beginning of the world Adam became the father of three sons and one daughter: Cain, Noaba, Abel, and Seth [born in Gen. 4:25].

— Pseudo-Philo, Biblical Antiquities 1:1

Two male children were born to them; the first was called Cain, whose name may be translated "Acquisition," and the second Abel, meaning "Nothingness." They also had daughters.

— Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 1:54

And she additionally bore from Adam her husband his [Cain's] twin sister and Abel. — Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Gen. 4:2

"And additionally, she bore his brother Abel..." (Gen. 4:2). This word additionally supports [the idea that daughters were born; it means] in addition to the birth [of Abel] were other births in the same pregnancy. — Genesis Rabba 22:3

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If Adam and Eve had had two daughters, that would have provided a wife for both Cain and Abel. But what if only one daughter had been born (as some of the above sources suggest)? It occurred to some interpreters that this might have been the real reason for Cain's killing his brother:

[Adam says to Seth:] ... A flood is coming and will wash the whole earth because of the daughters of Cain, your brother, who killed your brother Abel out of passion for your sister Lebuda.

— Testament of Adam 3:5

Said R. Huna: An extra twin was born with Abel. [Cain] said, "I shall take her [as my wife]," [Abel] said "No, I shall take her." The former said, "I should get her, since I am the firstborn," while the latter said, "I should get her, since she was born with me." — Genesis Rabba 22:7

And she [Eve] became pregnant and bore Cain and Lebuda along with him; [some texts: "then she became pregnant again and bore Abel and his sister Qelima"]. And when the children had grown Adam said to Eve: "Let Cain take Qelima [as a wife], since she was born with Abel, and let Abel take Lebuda, who was born with Cain." Then said Cain to his mother Eve: "I will take my own sister, and let Abel take his own," for Lebuda was very beautiful. — Cave of Treasures (W) 5:20-22

Professions Decided

Cain's devilish ancestry might indeed explain why he ended up as a murderer. But it hardly explained why God did not accept his sacrifice at the beginning of the story. Presumably both Cain and Abel offered sacrifices in good faith. Surely it was not the case that God preferred meat offerings to vegetable ones. So why did He accept Abel's sacrifice and not Cain's?

One line of interpretation suggested that the brothers' two professions, farmer and shepherd, determined the fate of their sacrifices, God's apparent preference for the shepherd's offering over the farmer's may really have reflected something of the differences involved in the two professions:

One of them labors and takes care of living beings ... gladly undertaking the pastoral work which is preparatory to rulership and kingship. But the other occupies himself with earthly and inanimate things.

— Philo, Questions and Answers in Genesis 1:59 (also The Sacrifices of Cain and Abel 14,51)

Now the brothers enjoyed different pursuits. Abel, the younger one, was concerned with justice, and, believing that God was present at

CAINANDABEL ♦ 89

every action that he himself undertook, he made a practice of virtue: he was a shepherd. Cain, however, was altogether wicked, and on the lookout only for his own profit: he was the first person to think of plowing the earth.

Now he killed his brother under these circumstances: They had decided to offer sacrifices to God. Cain brought the produce of the tilled earth and plants, while Abel brought the milk and the firstborn of the flocks. This latter was the sacrifice that God preferred, who is paid homage by whatever grows on its own and in keeping with nature, but not by things brought forth by force and the scheming of greedy man. — Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 1:53-54

Plowing the earth ... is inferior to pasturing sheep . . . Quite rightly, then, when the brothers are born, the chronological order [of their birth] is preserved in Scripture [that is, Cain is mentioned before Abel, Gen. 4:1-2]. When, however, their way of life is mentioned, [that of] the younger comes before the older [that is, shepherding comes first, showing its superiority; Gen. 4:2].

—Ambrose of Milan, Cain and Abel 1.3.10

Defective Sacrifices

Another line of interpretation held that there was some problem with Cain's sacrifice. For example, the Bible states that Abel brought the firstborn of his flocks—the first part is indeed normally reserved for God—whereas Cain's sacrifice seems pointedly not the first part of his harvest. Moreover, Cain is said to have offered his sacrifice "in the course of time" (Gen. 4:3). Did not both specifications imply that Cain's offering was in itself flawed?

"And it came to pass after some days that Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground" (Gen. 4:3). There are here two indictments of this self-lover [Cain]. One is that he made an offering to God "after some days" and not right away; the other that it was "of the fruit" but not "of the first fruit."

— Philo, The Sacrifices of Cain and Abel 52

Abel chose and brought for sacrifice from the firstborn and the fattest, but Cain brought [merely] the fruits he found at the time ... He [God] chose not to accept his sacrifice from him in order to teach him how it was to be offered up. For Cain had bulls and calves, nor did he lack other animals and fowl that he might sacrifice. But these he did

90 ♦ CAIN AND ABEL

not bring on the day of the first fruit offering, but brought the fruit of his land. —Ephraem, Commentary on Genesis yi

"And Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground" (Gen. 4:3)—from the leftovers. — Genesis Rabba 22:5

"And Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground" (Gen. 4:3)—what does this imply? The ordinary fruit [rather than the first fruits reserved for God]. — Midrash Tanhuma 9

The Problem Was the Sacrificer

There was yet a third, slightly different, explanation for God's preference. Could it not have been the past history of the two sacrificers that caused God to accept Abel's sacrifice but not Cain's? That is, if Cain had a long history of sins and evil deeds while Abel had always been an exemplary human being, perhaps that would have given God a reason for accepting only Abel's sacrifice:

And while indeed from Abel, as from a righteous man, you received a sacrifice with favor, from the brother-murderer Cain you turned aside the offering as from an accursed person.

— Hellenistic Synagogal Prayer, Apostolic Constitutions 8.12.21

[After the incident of the sacrifices] Cain said to his brother Abel, "Come, let us both go out into the field," and it came to pass that when the two had gone into the field Cain cried out to Abel, "It is my view that the world was not created with divine love and is not arranged in keeping with people's good deeds, but justice is corrupted—for why else would your sacrifice have been accepted with favor and mine not?"

Abel said to Cain: "No, it is my view that the world was indeed created with divine love and is altogether arranged in keeping with people's good deeds. But it was because my deeds have been better than yours that my sacrifice was accepted with favor and your sacrifice was not." — Targum Neophyti Gen. 4:8

Having Abel contrast his own past deeds to those of Cain not only explained why one sacrifice was accepted and the other not. It also gave a good reason for Cain's killing of his brother. Now jealousy was not the only thing that pushed Cain to murder Abel: there was also the fact that Abel had so matter-of-factly pointed out that his own past deeds were much better than Cain's.

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This may have been true, but Abel's saying it so bluntly might well have caused Cain to fly into a blind rage.

The Good and the Bad

Thanks in part to such explanations as these, the whole character of the story was altered by ancient interpreters. In Genesis, Abel is neither good nor bad—in fact, we really know nothing about him. He seems to be little more than a prop, the victim of his brother's rage. As for Cain, if he ends up being bad, he certainly did not start out that way; it was only the incident of the sacrifices that drove him to murder.

But ancient interpreters subtly turned the story into an elemental conflict between good and evil. As we have already seen, Cain was now believed to have been wicked from birth (according to some, the offspring of the devil), while Abel, despite the lack of biblical evidence, came to be thought of as fundamentally good, righteous, Cain's diametrical opposite:

Even though the righteous man [Abel] was younger in time than the wicked one ... — Philo, Questions in Genesis 1:59

And while indeed from Abel, as from a righteous man, you received a sacrifice with favor....

— Hellenistic Synagogal Prayer, Apostolic Constitutions 8.12.21

And in his nine hundredth year he [Cain] was destroyed in the Flood on account of his righteous brother Abel. — Testament of Benjamin 7:4

Thus the Lord will bless you with the first fruits, as he has blessed all the saints, from Abel until the present. — Testament oflssachar 5:4

Abel, the younger one ... made a practice of virtue ... Cain, however, was altogether wicked. — Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 1:53

... so that upon you may come all the righteous blood on earth, from the blood of innocent Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Barachiah, —Matt. 23:35

By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he received approval as righteous, God bearing witness by accepting his gifts; he died, but through his faith he is still speaking.

— Heb. 11:4 (also 12:24)

And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother's righteous. —1 John 3:12

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This is the son of Adam, the first-formed, who is called Abel, whom Cain the wicked killed. He sits here to judge the entire creation, examining both righteous and sinners. — Testament of Abraham 13:2

And there I saw the holy Abel and all the righteous ... And Adam and Abel and Seth and all the righteous approached.

— Martyrdom and Ascension of Isaiah 9:8, 28

God had made a distinction between the two men's sacrifices, having respect for the one but not for the other . . . because the works of the one were bad, while those of his brother were good.

—Augustine, CityofGodiS-j

Since Abel was a righteous man, his death took on a new coloring as well. In an age when many Jews were called upon to sacrifice their lives for their beliefs, Abel became one more biblical example of the martyr who willingly submits to suffering and even death:

He read to you about Abel slain by Cain, and Isaac who was offered as a burnt offering, and of Joseph in prison. — 4 Mace. i8:n

Meanwhile, Cain became more than one bad individual. He became the very symbol of evil, and his progeny (though technically all his offspring were thought to have perished in the flood at the time of Noah) were considered responsible for human wickedness in subsequent generations:

This is the spirit which had left Abel, whom Cain, his brother, had killed; it [continues to] pursue him until all of [Cain's] seed is exterminated from the face of the earth. — 1 Enoch 22:7

But these men revile whatever they do not understand, and by those things that they know by instinct as irrational animals do, they are destroyed. Woe to them! For they walk in the way of Cain.

— Jude 1:10-11

From Cain sprang all the generations of the wicked.

— Pirqei deR. Eliezer 22

Killed with a Stone

How did Cain kill Abel? The Bible doesn't say. But since it does say that the murder occurred "when they were in the field" (Gen. 4:8), some interpreters saw in this detail a hint concerning the weapon: it must have been something likely to be found in a field, namely, a stone:

CAIN AND ABEL ♦ 93

He [Cain] killed Abel with a stone. — Jubilees 4:31

He took a stone and drove it into his forehead and killed him.

— Pirqei deR. Eliezer 21

How did he kill him? He made many wounds and bruises with a stone on his arms and legs, because he did not know whence his soul would go forth, until he got to his neck. — Midrash Tanhuma, Bereshit9

God Knew Where Abel Was

After he killed Abel, Cain buried him in the earth, but God soon arrived on the scene:

Then the Lord said to Cain, "Where is Abel your brother?" He said, "I do not know; am I my brother's keeper?" And the Lord said, "What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground. And now, you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand."

—Gen. 4:9-11

This passage was likewise troubHng to interpreters, since God's question—"Where is Abel your brother?"—seemed to imply that He did not know. Still worse, God's further assertion that "your brother's blood is crying to me from the ground" seemed to imply that, were it not for hearing this sound, God indeed would never have known where Abel was. But if God does not know everything that happens on earth, then how can He be a just judge?

For that reason, many interpreters stressed that God in fact knew all along what had occurred; His question to Cain was merely a way of proving the murderer's evil intentions:

Why does He who knows everything ask of the fratricide [Cain], "Where is Abel your brother?" He wishes that man himself shall confess of his own free will ... for he who killed through necessity would confess ... but he who sins of his own free will denies it.

— Philo, Questions in Genesis 1:68

Abel, the younger one, was concerned with justice, and, believing that God was present at every action that he himself undertook, he made a practice of virtue ...

[After the sacrifices:] Thereupon Cain, incensed at God's preference for Abel, slew his brother and hid his corpse, since he thought that the matter might thus remain a secret. But God, aware of the deed, came

94 '> CAIN AND ABEL

to Cain and asked him where his brother had gone, since He had not seen him for many days, although previously He had always seen him together with Cain. Cain was thus cast into difficulty and, having nothing to reply to God, at first said that he was likewise surprised at not seeing his brother. But then, exasperated by God's persistent, inquisitive meddling, he finally said that he was not his brother's baby-sitter or body-guard responsible for whatever happened to him. At this, God accused Cain of being his brother's murderer.'

— Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 1:55-56

It was not for lack of understanding on God's part that He asked Adam where he was, or Cain where Abel was, but to convince each what kind of a person he was, and so that the knowledge of all things should come to us through the [sacred] Scripture.

— Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho 99:3

God tested three and found them all [deficient, namely, Cain, Hezekiah, and Balaam]: Cain, when God said to him, "Where is your brother Abel?" sought, as it were, to lead God astray. He ought to have said, "Master of the Universe! Things both hidden and revealed are known to You, yet You are asking me about my brother?!" Instead, however, he said, "I do not know, am I my brother's keeper?" God said to him: "Such is your answer [when] your brother's blood is crying out to Me?" — Numbers Rabba 20:6

Cains Sevenfold Punishment

For his crime, Cain was punished with exile and a life of wandering. When Cain protested that his punishment was too severe, since anyone who happened upon him in his wanderings might kill him, God said, "Not so!' Anyone who slays Cain will suffer vengeance sevenfold" (Gen. 4:15).

The idea of God threatening a sevenfold revenge on Cain's murderer bothered a number of interpreters. They therefore sought to find in God's

1. In the Bible, Cain answers God's question "Where is Abel?" with the words "I do not know—am I my brother's keeper?" To Josephus, this looks like two answers. He therefore supposes that some time gap separated them. Thus, at first Cain simply said, "I do not know." But later (and the very fact that Cain ends up giving a second answer implied for Josephus that God had kept asking the same question again and again) Cain became exasperated and blurted out, "Am I my brother's keeper?" thus showing his true colors.

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words some further elaboration of Cains punishment (although they disagreed on the particulars):

Because sevenfold has it been avenged from Cain ...

— Septuagint Gen. 4:24

For according to the law, a sevenfold punishment was given [to Cain]. First, upon the eyes, because they saw what was not fitting; second, upon the ears, because they heard what was not proper; third, upon the nose, which was deceived by smoke and steam; fourth, upon the [organ of] taste, which was a servant of the belly's pleasure; fifth, upon the [organs of] touch, to which by the collaboration of the former senses in overcoming the soul are also brought in addition other separate acts, such as the seizure of cities and the capture of men and the demolition of the citadel of the city where the council resides; sixth, upon the tongue and the organs of speech, for being silent about things that should be said and for saying things that should be kept silent; seventh, upon the lower belly, which with lawless licentiousness sets the senses on fire. This is what is said [in Scripture], that a sevenfold vengeance is taken on Cain. —Philo, Questions in Genesis 1:77

It is for this reason that Cain was handed over by God for seven punishments, for in every hundredth year the Lord brought upon him one plague. When he was two hundred his suffering began and in his nine hundredeth year he was deprived of life. For he was condemned on account of Abel his brother as a result of all his evil deeds, but Lamech was condemned seventy times seven.

— Testament of Benjamin 7:3-5

Other interpreters believed that Cain's just punishment—death—was somehow suspended by God for seven generations:^

He [God] made him [Cain] accursed and threatened to punish his posterity in the seventh generation. — Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 1:58

For seven generations punishment was suspended for Cain.

— Targums Onqelos, Neophyti, Pseudo-Jonathan Gen. 4:24

3. Indeed, the same idea underlies the passage just cited from the Testament of Benjamin 7:3-5, for if Cain is punished with seven punishments spaced at one hundred year intervals, until he is finally killed off in his nine-hundredth year, then the death penalty will have been suspended for seven centuries or (by a certain understanding) "generations."

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[Cain's punishment] was delayed by the most merciful God for seven generations. —Jerome, Epistle36 to Damasus 164

Cain's Repentance

Strange to tell, Cain's protest to God, "My punishment is too great to bear" (Gen. 4:13), might also be translated "My sin is too great to forgive." Now, this is clearly nof what Cain was saying. But ancient interpreters, who were fond of preaching the virtues of repentance, seized on this opportunity to claim that the world's first murderer was overcome with his own guilt after the deed was done. Even after God had pronounced a severe sentence upon him, Cain still cried out: "My sin is too great [for You] to forgive." (If, as just seen, Cain's sentence was suspended for seven generations, was it not in consideration of these heartfelt words?)

And Cain said to the Lord God: My guilt is too great for me to be forgiven. — Septuagint Gen. 4:13

My sins are too great to bear ... — Targum Neophyti 4:13

My iniquity is too great for me to merit forgiveness.

— (Vulgate) Gen. 4:13

Whence do we know that he [Cain] repented? "And Cain said to the Lord, 'My sin is too great to forgive.'" — Pesiqta deR. Kahana Shubah 11

♦ ♦ ♦

In short: Cain was not really Adam's son but the offspring of Eve and the devil or some other demonic angel. His hatred for Abel was in part inspired by their long-standing rivalry over their sister. As for God's preference for AbeVs sacrifice, this was caused by the moral differences reflected in the sacrifices the two brought, or by the past history of the two sacrificers. For Cain had always been altogether sinful and wicked, while Abel was just the opposite, righteous in all his deeds. Cain murdered Abel in the field by striking him with a stone. When God later asked him where Abel was, the question was intended to trip Cain up and so reveal his true character. Despite his wicked reply, there is some evidence that Cain was later sorry, since he said to God, "My sin is too great to forgive."

Noah and the Flood

(genesis 6-8)

Noah and the Flood

(genesis 6-8)

After the death of Abel, Adam and Eve had another son, Seth, and the human race continued to grow. But as the generations multiplied, God came to be displeased with how humanity had turned out. At length He resolved to destroy it once and for all. "But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord" (Gen. 6:8). He therefore ordered Noah to build an ark big enough to hold himself and his family as well as a large number of animals, so that this remnant might survive the destruction. Then He brought a flood upon the earth for forty days and forty nights. After it was over, the waters began to recede, until finally Noah was able to leave the ark and settle on the dry land.

EARLY READERS of the Bible wondered why there had been a flood at all. The Bible says that it was humanity's "wickedness" (Gen. 6:5) that made God resolve to annihilate life on earth. But really, what had human beings done that was so bad?

Cain Was the Worst

The one truly wicked deed recorded from the era preceding the flood was Cain's murder of his brother Abel. Some interpreters therefore singled out Cain as a crucial factor in God's decision:

When an unrighteous man [Cain] departed from her [that is, from Wisdom] in his anger, he perished because in rage he slew his brother. When the earth was flooded because of him. Wisdom again saved it, steering the righteous man by a paltry piece of wood. —Wisd. 10:3-4

[Seth is told:] A flood is coming and will wash the whole earth because of the daughters of Cain, your brother, who killed your brother Abel.

— Testament of Adam 3:5

Here, apparently, Cain's crime is specially mentioned because his wickedness, passed on to his descendants, was thought to have been an important cause of

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the flood.' Were it not for the "righteous man" (Noah), the world would indeed have perished.

But to most interpreters it seemed that even if Cain had something to do with bringing about the flood, his crime could not have been the only thing involved—for otherwise, why had God waited so long after the murder before destroying humanity? There must have been another reason.

The Immortal Enoch

Some supposed that the human beings who came after Cain had been almost as bad as Cain himself, and that the flood was thus the result of all the evil that had piled up from the time of Adam and Eve to that of Noah. Accordingly, this period, the ten generations from Adam to Noah, eventually came to be regarded as a time of increasing corruption.

There were ten generations from Adam to Noah. This demonstrates how patient God was, for all these generations brought God to anger, until He brought upon the waters of the flood. — m. Abot 6:2

In other words, it was only after God had patiently delayed punishment over these ten evil generations—waiting for some sign of goodness—that He finally visited on Noah's generation the deserved punishment.

But such an explanation was difficult to accept. Certainly some of the people who lived during the ten generations were thought to have been good, notably Adam's son Seth, or later, Enosh and Enoch. Enoch in particular struck most ancient interpreters as the very model of virtue and piety.

Enoch is mentioned among the descendants of Seth in Gen. 5:18-24. In spite of this brief "cameo appearance" in Genesis, a great deal of speculation surrounded Enoch—in particular because of a few pecuharities in the bibhcal description of him:

And Enoch lived sixty-five years and he became the father of Methuselah. And Enoch walked with God after he became the father of Methuselah for three hundred years; and he fathered sons and daughters. And all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years. And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God had taken him. _ Gen. 5:21-24

1. That is not to say that Cain's sin was all that was involved, even for the author of the Wisdom of Solomon. See below.

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One thing interpreters concluded from this passage was that Enoch must have been especially righteous, since he is twice said to have "walked with God," whereas the same phrase is only used once of the righteous Noah (Gen. 6:9). (The Septuagint version rendered "walked with God" as "was pleasing to God," and this may have seemed to underline Enoch's virtue to readers of the Greek text.) As for the cryptic phrase "he was not, for God had taken him," this was interpreted to mean that Enoch had not died —his death is, after all, not mentioned—but that he had instead ascended bodily into heaven while still alive, a notion detailed by such texts as 1 Enoch, which recounted at length Enoch's heavenly journey:

And Enoch was pleasing to God; and he was not, for God had transferred him. — Septuagint Gen. 5:24

And the vision appeared to me as follows . . . : winds caused me [Enoch] to fly and hastened me and lifted me up into heaven.

— 1 Enoch 14:8 (also [4Q204] 1 Enoch col. 6:21)

Few on earth were created like Enoch, and he was likewise taken within.^ —Sir. 49:14

And the Lord said to [the angel] Michael: Go and extract Enoch from his earthly clothing. And anoint him with my delightful oil, and put him into the clothes of My glory. — 2 Enoch (J) 22:8

[Noah] lived longer on the earth than [other] people, except Enoch because of his righteousness in which he was perfect; for Enoch's work was something created as a warning to the generations of the world, so that he should report all deeds of each generation on the day of judgment. — Jubilees 10:17

He [Enoch] was "transferred," that is, he changed his abode and journeyed as an emigrant from the mortal life to the immortal.

— Philo, Change of Names 38

He [Enoch] lived three hundred and sixty-five years and then returned to the divinity, which is why nothing is recorded concerning his death.

However, concerning Elijah and Enoch, who lived before the Flood, it is written in the sacred books that they became invisible, and no one knows of their death. — Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, 1:85,9:28

2. "Taken within"—a somewhat obscure phrase—seems to mean taken bodily inside heaven. Ben Sira says "likewise"; he had earlier mentioned Elijah's ascent into Heaven (Sir. 48:9-10).

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By faith was Enoch taken up so that he should not see death; and he

was not found, because God had taken him. Now before he was taken he was attested as having pleased God.^ — Heb. 11:5

Enoch was thus held to be similar to the prophet Elijah, who, the Bible later implies, likewise entered heaven alive. Indeed, Scripture uses the same word in both cases: God "took" Enoch and Elijah (Gen. 5:24, 2 Kings 2:1). However, in some later texts Enoch was presented as less than righteous and his immortality was sometimes denied:

And Enoch walked in the fear of the Lord, and he was not, for the Lord had killed him. — Targum Onqelos Gen. 5:24

The Heavenly Scribe

Having—according to many interpreters—entered heaven alive, Enoch was naturally assumed to have continued living there, and, in the process, to have acquired a unique knowledge of "heavenly things"—not only the ways of God and the angels, but also of natural phenomena on earth as observed from above. It is in part upon this (very old) assumption that there arose an early body of writings attributed to Enoch: several ancient authors, speaking through the figure of Enoch, set forth their own ideas as well as ancient traditions about the world and future history.

In so doing, these writers—and other ancient interpreters who followed them—frequently referred to "Enoch the [Heavenly] Scribe": he had to be a scribe in order for his esoteric knowledge to have been transmitted back to human beings in written form. Some ancient writers therefore also stressed Enoch's connection with the art of writing, specifying as well that his information had come to him from the angels he encountered in heaven:

And I, Enoch, was blessing the Great Lord and King of Eternity, and behold the Watchers called to me, Enoch the scribe, and said to me: "Enoch, scribe of righteousness, go inform the Watchers of heaven who have left the high heaven and holy eternal place, and have corrupted themselves with the women."

And the Lord called me with His own mouth and said to me,.. ."Hear! Do not be afraid, Enoch, scribe of righteousness. Come here and hear my voice." — 1 Enoch 12:3-4; 14:24-15:1

3. This last part may reflect the Septuagint translation of "Enoch walked with God" (Gen. 5:22), namely, "Enoch was pleasing to God."

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And he [the angel] said to me: O Enoch, look at the book of the tablets of heaven and read what is written upon them and note every individual fact. And I looked at everything in the tablets of heaven and I read everything which was written and I noted everything.

— 1 Enoch 8i:i-2

And he called him Enoch. He was the first of mankind born on earth who learned writing and instruction and wisdom from [among] the sons of men the signs of the sky in accord with the fixed pattern of their months, so that mankind would know the seasons of the years according to the fixed pattern of each of their months. He was the first to write a testimony. He testified to [that is, warned] mankind in the generations of the earth: the weeks of the jubilees he related, and made known the days of the years; the months he arranged, and related the sabbaths of the years, as we [angels] had told him.

And he was therefore with the angels of God six jubilees of years, and they showed him everything which is on earth and in the heavens, and the rule of the sun, and he wrote down everything.

For the work of Enoch had been created as a witness to the generations of the world, so that he might report every deed of each generation in the day of judgment. — jubilees 4:17-18,21; 10:17

.. .E]noch, after we [angels?] taught him[. ..

...] six jubilees of years [...

.. .ea]rth, to among the sons of men, and he testified against [that is,

warned] them about all things[... .. .]and also about the Watchers, and he wrote everything down[. .. .. .]the heavens and the ways of their hosts, and the mo[nths... .. .S]o that the ri[ghteous?] not go astray[...

— (4Q227) Pseudo-Jubilees

... in the writing of Enoch, the excellent scribe ...

— (4Q203) Book of Giants", fragment 8

[God says:] "Apply your mind, Enoch, and acknowledge the One who is speaking. And take the books which you yourself have written . . . and go down to earth and tell your sons all that I have told you ... and give them the books in your handwriting . . . and let them distribute the books in your handwriting, children to children and family to family and kinfolk to kinfolk."

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And he remained in heaven for sixty days, writing down all [those] notes about all the creatures which the Lord had created. And he wrote three hundred sixty-six books and he handed them over to his sons.

— 2 Enoch (J) 33:5-9; 68:1-2

[In the heavenly court] the one who produces the evidence is the teacher of heaven and earth and the scribe of righteousness, Enoch.

— Testament of Abraham 11:3

And Enoch served faithfully before God and behold he was not with the inhabitants of the earth, for he had perished and ascended to heaven and He called his name Metatron the great scribe.

— Targum Pseudo-Jonathan Gen. 5:24

In line with his scribal functions as presented in some of the passages cited above, Enoch was also held to have written things down as a legal scribe or officer of the court:

And they asked me [Enoch] to write out for them the record of a petition that they might receive forgiveness, and to take the record of their petition up to the Lord in heaven ...

And behold a dream came to me ... and I saw a vision of wrath, that I should speak to the sons of heaven and reprove them.

The book of the words of righteousness and reproof of the Watchers ... As He has created and appointed men to understand the word of knowledge, so He created and appointed me to reprove the Watchers, the sons of heaven. — 1 Enoch 13:4,8; 14:1,4 [ = 4Q204 Enoch" col. 6]

He was the first to write a testimony. He testified to [that is, warned] mankind in the generations of the earth ... And behold he [Enoch] is there [in heaven] writing down the condemnation and judgment of the world, and all the wickedness of the children of men.

— Jubilees 4:18, 23

Words of "reproof" or "reproach," as well as words of "testimony" or "witness," were warnings that the law required to be administered before sentence could be imposed (see Chapter 22). Other Qumran fragments seem to refer to the same motif:

And he [Enoch] testified against [that is, warned] them about all things [ . . . — (4Q227) Pseudo-Jubilees

Did not Enoch accuse[. ..

.. .]and who will bear the guilt [...

[if] not I and you, my children. Then you will know[...

— (4Q213) Aramaic Lev? fragment 5, col. 3.6-7

Enoch the Sage

Of a piece with "Enoch the Heavenly Scribe" are the still more numerous references to him as a wise man and, in particular, an astronomer. After all, any Jewish scribe of late antiquity was almost by definition also a sage. Moreover, the fact that "Enoch's" writings came to include an entire treatise on astronomy and related phenomena (i Enoch 72-82) caused him to be thought of as a master of astral sciences and to be presented in terms redolent of ancient scholarship:

And in those days [the angel] Uriel answered me and said to me: "Behold I have shown you everything, O Enoch, and have revealed everything to you, that you may see this sun, and this moon, and those who lead the stars of heaven, and all those who turn them, their tasks, and their times, and their rising." — 1 Enoch 80:1

And he [Enoch] wrote in a book the signs of the heaven according to the order of their months, so that the sons of man might know the [appointed] times of the years according to their order. — Jubilees 4:17

Abraham . . . explained astrology and the other sciences to them [the Egyptian priests], saying that the Babylonians and he himself had obtained this knowledge. However, he attributed the discovery of them to Enoch. Enoch first discovered astrology, not the Egyptians.

— [Pseudo-]Eupolemus (Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangelica 9.17.8)

[Enoch was] a sign of knowledge forever and ever.

— Sir. (Hebrew) 44:16

... since he [Enoch] is beloved and since [with the holy ones] is his lot apportioned and they inform him of everything.

— Genesis Apocryphon 2:20-21

It was of these also that Enoch in the seventh generation from Adam prophesied, saying, "Behold the Lord came with his holy myriads to execute judgment. .." [a quotation from 1 Enoch 1.9]. —Jude 14-15

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This accumulated learning Enoch passed on to later generations through his son Methuselah:

And now, my son Methuselah, all these things I recount to you and write down for you; I have revealed everything to you and have given you books about all these things. Keep, my son Methuselah, the books from the hand of your father, that you may pass [them] on to the generations of eternity. — i Enoch 82:1

The Greeks say that Atlas discovered astrology. However, Atlas is the same as Enoch. The son of Enoch was Methuselah. He learned everything through the angels of God, and so knowledge came to us.

— [Pseudo-]Eupolemus (Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangelica 9.17.9)

and now I [Enoch] say to you.. .and to you I make known [... Go, say to Lamech, your son [... And when Methuselah heard [...

— Genesis Apocryphon 5:9-10,24

Enoch the Penitent

Another important aspect of Enoch's image also emerged from the brief biblical passage cited above:

And Enoch lived sixty-five years and he became the father of Methuselah. And Enoch walked with God after he became the father of Methuselah for three hundred years; and he fathered sons and daughters. —Gen. 5:21-22

The text says that Enoch walked with God (Septuagint: "was pleasing to God"—see above) after Methuselah's birth. The clear implication is that before Methuselah's birth he did not walk with God (or was not pleasing to Him). From this interpreters concluded that Enoch had repented—he may have done evil at the beginning of his life, but after his son's birth he changed his ways:

Enoch pleased the Lord, and was taken up; he was an example of repentance to all generations. —Sir. (Greek) 44:16

There was one [Enoch] who pleased God and was loved by him, and while living among sinners was taken up. He was caught up lest evil change his understanding, or guile deceive his soul . . . Being per-

NOAH AND THE FLOOD ♦ 107

fected in a short time/ he fulfilled long years; for his soul was pleasing to the Lord, therefore he took him quickly from the midst of wickedness.

—Wisd. 4:10-14

What is the meaning of the words, "Enoch was pleasing to God after he begot Methuselah . . ."? [Scripture] legislates about the sources of all good things at the beginning of Genesis ... For not very long after the forgiving of Cain it introduces the fact that Enoch repented, informing us that forgiveness is wont to produce repentance.

— Philo, Questions and Answers in Genesis, 1:82

Moses next mentions [Enoch], who changed from the worse life to the better; he is called in Hebrew "Enoch," which in Greek means "recipient of grace." — Philo, "On Abraham," 17

And Enoch lived after he became the father of Methuselah for 200 years, and he was the father of five sons and three daughters. However, Enoch pleased God at that time and he was not found, for God had transferred him.^ — Pseudo-Philo, Biblical Antiquities 1:15-16

In short, Enoch was a righteous man, or at least a righteous penitent. It seemed unlikely to most interpreters that, after such a person, God would nonetheless punish the world for a sin that Cain had committed generations before Enoch. Instead, they looked to the events immediately preceding the flood.

A Bad Match

The Bible says little openly. One rather cryptic passage, however, seemed to interpreters to imply that one truly evil thing had occurred just before the flood episode:

When people began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men

4. If Enoch was sixty-five when Methuselah was born, and after that he "walked with God," then it must be that he became "perfected" at the age of sixty-five, a relatively short time in the view of the author of the Wisdom of Solomon. Incidentally, where the traditional Hebrew text puts Enoch's age at sixty-five here, the Septuagint says that he was one hundred and sixty-five.

5. The phrase "at that time" is not found in Gen. 5:24; its addition appears designed to reflect the motif "Enoch the Penitent." Note also that both the "200 years" and "transferred" here agree with the Septuagint against the traditional Hebrew text.

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were fair; and they married such of them as they chose. Then the Lord said, "My spirit shall not abide in man for ever, for he is flesh, but his days shall be a hundred and twenty years." The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown. Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth.

— Gen. 6:1-5

It is hard to know what to make of this strange passage even today. In any case, ancient readers saw in these words a hint that the immediate cause of the flood (and perhaps of other ills) had been the mating of the "sons of God" (generally interpreted to mean some sort of angel or heavenly creature)^ with the "daughters of men." The flood must have come about, directly or indirectly, as a result of this union. Perhaps it was because of some sort of sexual profligacy implied in this passage, or because the mating of these two groups brought about a new race of beings who were given over to sinfulness, or because, through their contact with the humans, the angels had passed along a knowledge of secret things that led to the humans' corruption. All three traditions are found intermingled even in the most ancient writings of the period.

And the angels, the sons of heaven,^ saw them and desired them. And they said to one another: Come, let us choose for ourselves wives from the children of men, and let us beget for ourselves children.

And they took wives for themselves and everyone chose for himself one each. And they began to go in to them and were promiscuous with them. And they taught them charms and spells, and showed to them the cutting of roots and trees. And they became pregnant and bore great giants, whose height was three thousand cubits. These devoured all the [products of the] toil of men, until men were unable to sustain them. Then the giants turned against them in order to devour men. And they began to sin against birds, and against animals, and against reptiles, and against fish, and they devoured one another's flesh and drank the blood from it.

6. Some ancient writers refer to these as the "Watchers." This term (the Aramaic 'irin) is used of a type of angel in Dan. 4:11, 20 (some versions, 4:13, 23) and was employed specifically with regard to Gen. 6:1-4 in 1 and 2 Enoch, Jubilees, and other writings.

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And the women bore giants, and thereby the whole earth has been filled with blood and iniquity.**

— 1 Enoch 6:2-7:5,9:9 (= [4Q201] J Enoch col. 3)

And it came to pass that when the children of men began to multiply on the face of the earth and daughters were born to them, that the angels of God saw . . . that they were beautiful to look upon. So they [the angels] married of them [the human females] whomever they chose. They gave birth to children for them and the[se] were giants. Wickedness increased on the earth. All flesh corrupted its way—from people to cattle, animals, birds, and everything that moves about on the ground. All of them corrupted their way and their prescribed course. They began to devour each other, and wickedness increased on the earth. Every thought of all mankind's knowledge was in this way continually evil. The Lord saw the earth, and behold it was corrupted, and all flesh had corrupted its prescribed course, and all that were upon the earth had acted wickedly before His eyes. And He said that He would destroy man and all flesh upon the earth which He had created. But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.

— Jubilees 5:1-5 (also 7:21-25)

In examining these and other ancient traditions about the flood, it is difficult to judge how much of their contents arose exclusively out of a contemplation of the biblical material and how much may have been influenced by outside factors. (This is particularly so in the case of 1 Enoch, which, because of its great antiquity and its overall connection to Mesopotamian lore—which had itself preserved the memory of a great flood—may well have passed on traditions originally unrelated to the biblical text.) Whatever their origins, however, these traditions, transmitted to later readers, suggested that the flood narrated in Genesis had, in one of the three ways mentioned, resulted from the disastrous union of human females with the angels.'*

8. In this part of 1 Enoch, the act of the "sons of God" in mating with the "daughters of men" is interpreted as a rebellion against God, a "great sin" (1 Enoch 6:3). The "giants" (see below) apparently result from this forbidden union. Even though the Bible seems to praise them as "men of renown," our text presents them as a race of tyrannical and oppressive creatures who terrorize humanity, deplete the earth's resources, and spread violence and death everywhere.

9. i Enoch was itself undoubtedly considered by many to be sacred Scripture—it is cited, for example, in the New Testament, Jude 14—and its contents were themselves interpreted and passed on as authoritative teachings supplementing the Genesis narrative.

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The Wicked Giants

In particular, attention came to be focused on the offspring of the angels ("sons of God") and the humans. On the one hand, the Bible describes these hybrid offspring as "mighty men of old, men of renown" (Gen. 6:4)—which certainly makes them sound good. On the other hand, since the very next verse speaks of the "wickedness" of humanity, most interpreters were inclined to see these divine-human creatures in a less than positive light.

One clue as to their true nature lay in the sentence cited earlier, "The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them" (Gen. 6:4). It was not clear to interpreters if these Nephilim were the divine-human hybrids, or if they merely were around at the time when this mating took place. Nor was the meaning of the word "Nephilim" crystal clear to them. However, this word does occur in one other place in the Bible, in the report of the Israelite spies whom Moses sent to scout out the land of Canaan:

[The returning spies said:] The land through which we have gone to spy it out is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are men of great stature. And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.

—Num. 13:32-33

This passage implies that Nephilim were giants, "men of great stature," in comparison to whom the spies "seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them." Here, then, was an indication from elsewhere that the word "Nephilim" meant "giants." This identification of the Nephilim in Gen. 6:4 is attested early:

The giants were on the earth in those days, and after that, when the sons of God went into the daughters of men. — Septuagint Gen. 6:4

If the Nephilim were giants, then it did make sense that they were the offspring of the "sons of God" and human females—where else would giants come from but such a divine-human union? And if they were described as "mighty men of old, the men of renown," this was probably just a reflection of their great physical size, not of their moral standing.'" Indeed, they must have been bad if the Bible mentions them just before God resolves to bring the flood.

10. In keeping with this view, the Septuagint version has for the Hebrew phrase "mighty men of old" the Greek "giants of old " using the same word for "giants" as it had for the Nephilim mentioned at the beginning of this verse.

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Thus it seemed that these giants were fundamentally wicked. Did not the very fact that they were described as "mighty" imply that they were arrogant rebels whose great size led them to challenge God's authority?

He [God] did not forgive the princes of yore, who in their might rebeUedofold."

— Sir. 16:7

The giants were born there, who were famous of old, great in

stature, expert in war. God did not choose them, nor give them the way to knowledge, so they perished, because they had no wisdom, they perished

through their folly.

— Bar. 3:26-28

Abraham traced his ancestry to the giants. These dwelt in the land of Babylonia. Because of their impiety, they were destroyed by the gods. —Anonymous tradition cited in Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangelica 9.18.2

The interpretation [pesher] concerning Azazel and the angels wh[o went in to the daughters of men and b]ore them giants, and concerning Azazel [who turned them astray to deceit, to the love of] evil and to pass along wickedness ... — (4Q180) Pesher of the Periods 7-9

For even in the beginning, when arrogant giants were perishing, the hope of the world took refuge on a raft. —Wisd. 14:6

You did destroy long ago those who did injustice, among whom were the giants trusting in their strength and arrogance, bringing upon them a boundless flood of water. —3 Mace. 2:4

[Hear me] so that you are not taken in by the designs of the inclination to evil and by lustful eyes ...

The Watchers of Heaven [that is, the "sons of God"] fell because of this; they were taken because they did not keep the commandments of God. And their sons—as tall as cedar trees and whose bodies were like mountains—[likewise] fell. All flesh on dry land perished, they were as though they had not been, because they did their own will and did not keep the commandments of their Maker, so that his anger was kindled against them. — Damascus Document 2:16-21

11. The Hebrew text of Sirach makes it clear that this is a reference to the Nephilim, the "mighty men that were of old," both by its use of the word "might" and, in one surviving manuscript, the same expression "of old" that appears in Gen. 6:4.

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For many angels of God had consorted with women and brought forth wanton children, children who were disdainful of all good because of their overweening trust in brute strength.

— Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 1:73

From them were born the giants who walked about haughtily and indulged themselves in all manner of theft and corruption and bloodshed. — Pirqei deR. Eliezer 22

In short, the union of the "sons of God" with the "daughters of men" had, either by itself or because of the hybrid giants who resulted from this union, caused God to bring about the flood.

But then another question occurred to interpreters: Why did God decide to spare Noah and his family? What had Noah done to be so singled out? There is not a single good deed of Noah's that is told about before the flood. Why then should Scripture have said that "Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord" (Gen, 6:8)? Interpreters were also anxious to know why God had not at least warned the other human beings of impending doom before the flood actually occurred. Certainly it was not in the nature of divine justice to impose a penalty without prior warning. Should not God have given them some opportunity to repent?

One Hundred and Twenty until Punishment

A possible answer to this second question (and, eventually, to the first as well) was spotted by interpreters in the biblical passage already seen above. For there, it will be recalled, God had reacted to the deeds of His "sons" with a particular pronouncement:

When people began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were fair; and they married such of them as they chose. Then the Lord said, "My spirit shall not abide in man for ever, for he is flesh, but his days shall be a hundred and twenty years." — Gen. 6:1-3

These words spoken by God were not taken by most interpreters at face value, that is, as if God were now decreeing that humans could not live more than a hundred and twenty years each. How could such an interpretation be correct, when so many later biblical figures lived considerably longer? (Noah himself lived to the age 950, while his son Shem lived to 600, his grandson Arpachshad to 438, his great-grandson Shelah to 433, his great-great-grandson Eber to 464, and so forth.)

And so, these words were instead interpreted as a warning: if human

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beings don't improve, I will destroy them a hundred and twenty years from now. Alternately, what God might have meant was, 1 will destroy the wicked people of this generation at an early age (for those days, at least), namely, when they are one hundred and twenty years old. In either case, God's words did not announce a fundamental change in human longevity but warned of an impending punishment of the flood generation alone. Such an understanding is attested as early as the Septuagint translation of the Bible:

And the Lord God said: "My spirit will not abide with these men forever, because they are flesh, but their days shall be one hundred and twenty years." — Septuagint Gen. 6:3 (also Symmachus Gen. 6:3)

Where the traditional Hebrew text reads, "My spirit shall not abide in man" — apparently a general pronouncement about aU of humanity—the Septuagint specifies that God was talking only about a particular group of humans, the generation of the flood. The same idea was stated or implied by other interpreters:

In the four hundred and eightieth year of Noah's life, their end-time was made known to Noah, for God said: My spirit will not abide in man forever. Let their days be cut short, one hundred and twenty years, until the time of the flood. '^ — (4Q252) Genesis Pesher col. 1:1-3

And God said, "This evil generation shall not endure before me forever; for they are flesh and their deeds are evil. I will grant them an extension of one hundred and twenty years, [to see] if they repent.

— Targum Onqelos Gen. 6:3

And the Lord said: None of the generations that is to arise will be judged according to the judgment of the generation of the flood. In truth, the judgment of the generation of the flood is sealed before Me, to have it destroyed and blotted out from the midst of the world. Behold, I have given my spirit to the sons of man because they are flesh and their works are evil. Behold, I have given you the space of a hundred and twenty years [hoping that] they might repent, but they have not done so. — Targum Neophyti Gen. 6:3

For you gave an extension to the generation of the flood in order to repent, and they did not repent; as it is said, "My spirit shall not abide in man." — Mekhilta deR. Ishmael, Beshallah 5

12. Here, the 120 years are clearly the time until the flood, since Noah's age at the time of this supposed warning, 480, plus 120 equals his stated age at the onset of the flood, 600 (Gen. 7:6).

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God established for them a time after one hundred and twenty years in case they should repent, but they did not.

— Abot deR. Nathan (A) 32

In the time of Noah, He also gave the wicked a period of one hundred and twenty years, but they were unwilling to repent.

— Aphrahat the Persian (cited in Funk, Die Haggadische Eletnente, 27)

They had one hundred and twenty years [in which] to repent. This does not mean, as many erroneously believe, that human life was to be shrunk down to one hundred and twenty years. But to that particular generation, one hundred and twenty years were given until the punishment. — Jerome, Questions in Genesis 6:3

When God said "Their days will be one hundred and twenty years," this certainly is not to be understood as if it were foretelling that henceforth human beings would not live more than one hundred and twenty years, since even after the flood we find that [some] exceeded five hundred ... But the one hundred and twenty years predicted here are [what remain of] the lives of the peoples who were to perish: after these [years] had passed, they were destroyed in the flood.

— Augustine, City of God 15.24

Here, then, was proof that humanity had been given an opportunity to repent and stave off disaster.

Noah Warned of the Flood

As for Noah's (unspoken) good deeds before the flood, they came to be connected to this idea of a warning prior to the flood. For if Noah had "found favor in the eyes of the Lord," was it not merely logical that he himself—by his example, or perhaps by actual exhortation—had tried to turn his fellow human beings away from sin and so save them from destruction? Support for this idea was found, once again, in the passage cited above:

Then the Lord said, "My spirit shall not abide in man for ever, for he is flesh, but his days shall be a hundred and twenty years." —Gen. 6:3

Said to whom? If the reference to one hundred and twenty years was indeed a warning, then this warning must have been spoken to some human being(s) in the hope of being heeded. Since Noah is later singled out as the righteous man of his time, it seemed only natural to interpreters that the divine warning was spoken to him—and that he must have immediately passed it along to his

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contemporaries, perhaps trying to get them to mend their ways and so be saved. Thus emerged the figure of Noah the preacher:

To him God Himself spoke as follows from heaven:

"Noah, embolden yourself, and proclaim repentance

to all the peoples, so that all may be saved.

But if they do not heed, since they have a shameless spirit,

I will destroy the entire race with great floods of water .,."

[Then Noah] entreated the peoples and began to speak such words:

"Men, sated with faithlessness, smitten with great madness,

what you did will not escape the notice of God."

— Sibylline Oracles 1:127-131,149-151

But Noah, displeased with the deeds [of his contemporaries] and finding their intentions to be odious, sought to persuade them to [adopt] a better way of thinking and to change their ways.

— Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 1:73

[God] preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness.

— 2 Pet. 2:5 (see also 1 Pet. 3:19-20)

Noah preached repentance, and those who obeyed were saved.

— 1 Clement 7:6 (also 9:1)

[Noah recalls:] "And I did not cease proclaiming to men, 'Repent, for behold, a deluge is coming.' But no one heeded."

— Revelation of Paul 50

Noah preached repentance. —Clement of Alexandria, Miscellanies 1,21

The righteous Noah used to warn them [his contemporaries] and say to them: Repent, for if you do not, God will bring a flood upon you.

— b. Sanhedrin 108a

But the greatness of the light of the foreknowledge informed Noah, and he proclaimed [it] to all the offspring which are the sons of men. But those who were strangers to him did not listen.

— Apocryphon of John 29:1-5

And he [Noah] preached piety for one hundred and twenty years. And no one hstened to him.

— Concept of Our Great Power 38:25-28 (also 43.17-20)

Noah the Righteous

This tradition of Noah the preacher helped to explain why God had saved him. Noah had gone about trying to get others to repent—certainly this was one good deed to his credit. Perhaps this was why Scripture had called him "righteous" (Gen. 6:9, 7:1; see also Ezek. 14:14). In any case, Noah's righteousness was elaborated by many interpreters:

And in those days the word of the Lord came to me [Noah], and He said to me: Noah, behold your lot has come up before me, a lot without reproach, a lot of love and of uprightness. — 1 Enoch 67:1

On account of his righteousness, in which he [Noah] was perfected, his life on earth was more excellent than [any of] the sons of men except Enoch. — Jubilees 10:17

The righteous Noah was found to be perfect, in time of

destruction he was a ransom [for humanity]. Because of him a remnant was left, and by his covenant floods

ceased. — Sir. 44:17

When the earth was flooded . . . wisdom again saved it, steering the righteous man by a paltry piece of wood. —Wisd. 10:4

[The name] "Noah" means "righteousness."

— Philo, The Worse Attacks the Better 121 (also On Abraham 27;

Questions and Answers in Genesis 1:87)

Noah alone among all was most upright and true, a most trustworthy man, concerned for noble deeds.

— Sibylline Oracles 1:125

God loved him [Noah] for his righteousness.

— Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 1:75

God used a most righteous man to be the father of all born after the flood. —Origen, Contra Celsum 4:41

Only in His Generation

This opinion was not unanimous, however. Some interpreters felt that Noah was hardly a model of righteousness: apart from his heeding (and perhaps passing on) God's warning, he does not seem to have done anything remarkable before the flood—and even afterward, his conduct seemed hardly exem-

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