So, what happens in Genesis 3, if that's the explanation for all of human evil, for depravity,
you would think somebody would quote it in the rest of the Old Testament,
but they don't. So again, that's an issue.
I want to start here with a reference to this book, I believe you could get,
this is an expensive book, but it's the most exhaustive study to date on
the issue that we're going to be covering. This is a study of prayers, and etiological stories
of the origin of evil in human history. Etiology is a big academic word that speaks of
the point of origin, you know, where this thing comes from. So etiological stories
of the origin of evil in human history, and it is to date the most exhaustive study
on this subject, and it is driven by primary sources.
So, this is going to be Second Temple Jewish literature. And that literature,
as I've said many times before, you have people, they're not just writing
between the Testaments about anything. Okay, you know, just like,
"Oh, what did we write about today? Let's just pick a subject." No.
They are processing their sacred literature; the Hebrew Bible.
And so that's what they're doing. And then, in the process of doing that,
the New Testament era, the first century is part of the Second Temple period.
And it's quite evident that New Testament writers and again, wider people
living in the first century, were either very acquainted with this literature.
And in some cases, they actually allude to it or quoted,
in the case of the New Testament writers.
So, there's a serious contributing factor.
Again, we talk a lot about interpreting Scripture in context here.
And by context, we mean the original ancient context of the writers.
Okay, you're not going to be a writer in the first century and writing about the Hebrew Bible
without knowing this material and dipping into it. And it's going to help and it did help
the New Testament writers to articulate certain points.
That's not in conflict with the idea of inspiration.
And anything more than just having your brain engaged would be in conflict
with inspiration. These things are not in conflict with inspiration.
Now, I want to start off with Brand, and I'm going to quote from her dissertation.
So, this isn't the actual books, so I can't really give you page numbers of the book.
But just to give you a flavoring of what she does, in her discussion of how did jews
of the Second Temple period think about the entrance of evil
into the world and human depravity.
So, in her study of prayers, specifically the prayers that people prayed
about sin and evil and whatnot, protection and help with that. She writes;
«In those prayers that reflect a human inclination to sin (both sectarian and nonsectarian)»,
and what she means by that is, anything from the Dead Sea scrolls that was sort of
produced by the community is viewed as a sectarian document
of the community who lived at Qumran. So
«In those prayers that reflect a human inclination to sin, such as 4Q [if you see a "Q",
it's from the Dead Sea Scrolls, 4QBarkhi Nafshi, Psalm 155, the Hodayot,
and the ‘Hymn of Praise’ in the Community Rule.
In those documents or documents like them,
humans are generally described as subject to an innate inclination to sin
[and that should sound familiar to us theologically], or even to a condition of sinfulness
[again, that should sound familiar], sometimes described as a disease.
Humans are unable to extricate themselves from this condition without divine assistance.
[That should sound familiar].
It is for this reason that the supplicants turn to God in prayer,
expressing their helplessness and God’s goodness. The idea of an innate
evil inclination that cannot be fought without the help of the Deity»,
is again part and parcel of this worldview, these texts. She goes on and says:
«Passages in the Cave 1 version of the Community Rule (1QS V-VI)
and in the Damascus Document (CD III.2-12a) reflect a belief in human free will
concerning the decision to sin, [and that should sound familiar] while still assuming
that humans possess an innate inclination to sin, the human capacity to sin
must be distanced from God, and as a part of the human condition.
They solve the problem of theodicy [God's relationship to evil] in regard to sin
by emphasizing human free will.» She goes on and says
«the idea that humans are sinful because Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden fruit
(“original sin”) is rarely found in surviving Second Temple literature.»
And let me just stop there, you also won't see that referenced in the Hebrew Bible,
in the Old Testament. So, what happens in Genesis 3, you would think
if that's the explanation for all of human evil, for depravity,
you would think somebody would quote it in the rest of the Old Testament, but they don't.
So again, that's an issue and I would even dispute that Paul is thinking of that specifically,
at least he in Romans 5:12, I don't think Paul is thinking of what happens in Eden
the way typically theologians are thinking about it in the history of Christianity,
there certainly is some connection there. There's an obvious connection,
but it's a little bit different, but I don't want a rabbit trail on Romans 5:12 here,
you can go to my website and look up the series I did on that.
«The earliest reference to this idea, [humans are sinful because Adam and Eve
ate from the forbidden fruit], may be found in Sir 25:24
[which is part of the Second Temple period], which, while referring to a wicked wife,
reflects a familiarity with an ‘original sin’ tradition whereby death and sin both originated
from the eating of the forbidden fruit, at Eve’s instigation.
However, only the two works written in the aftermath of the temple’s destruction
[so this is after 70 ad.],
4 Ezra and 2 Baruch, explicitly present the idea that the desire to sin originated
with the transgression of Adam and Eve.» So, that thing that's really familiar
to Christian theology, church tradition is really, really rare, really rare
in Second Temple literature. And again, Paul does make some connection
in his discussion of sin (Romans 5) with that event.
You can go to my website and look that up, it's not really part of the class here.
On the other hand, so that's the human side. On the other hand, Brand writes;
«the reference to the sin-causing spirits of the Watchers in 1 En. 19:1-2
indicates that while the Watchers story [that's Enoch version
of what happens in Genesis 6:1-5] while the Watchers story was not
the explanation of the origin of sin [I mean, that happens back in the garden],
it could be used to explain the occurrence of specific sins that might seem
otherwise unreasonable, such as the worship of demons. The author/redactor
[editor] of Jubilees [it's another book in the Second Temple period]
also makes a bold move in order to ‘fix’ the problem of the Watchers’ nature and origin.
The Watchers’ descendants result from an act of rebellion and sin
on the part of the Watchers, [that's the Genesis 6 episode]
and consequently they act without supervision
from the divine sphere [they rebeled], the author/redactor of Jubilees clearly accepts
that demons can, in fact, cause sin. However, he wishes to emphasize
that these demons function within a divine system and cannot compel
‘Israelites’ to sin.» So, in other words, they're the catalyst, but they're not the cause.
And our sins are not the effect. I mean, the devil doesn't make us do what we do,
we have free will. But when it comes to promptings or sort of being steered
in certain directions, we have two problems as humans that Brand is saying,
this is reflected in Second Temple Judaism, we have an innate sin problem, okay.
But we also need to recognize, again, Second Temple Jews would say,
we also need to recognize that there are these external spiritual forces
that sort of nudge us, steer us, prompt us in certain ways to destroy ourselves,
to proliferate evil. And what I'm suggesting is I think that's a very biblical doctrine,
but it has a history here in Second Temple Judaism, and specifically,
for our purposes today, specifically, that trajectory is propelled by,
it can be traced to the episode of Genesis 6:1-5,
or in Second Temple language, the Watcher story.