Old Testament Apocalyptic

OLD TESTAMENT APOCALYPTIC i. Canonical: Isa. xxiv.–xxvii. ; xxxiii. ; xxxiv.–xxxv. (Jer. xxxiii. ; Ezek. ii. 8; xxxviii.–xxxix. ; Joel iii. 9-17 ; Zech. xii.–xiv. ; Daniel All these are probably pseudepigraphic except the passages from Ezekiel and Joel. Of the remaining passages and books Daniel belongs unquestionably to the Maccabean period, and the rest pos sibly to the same period, approximately.

ii. Extra-canonical: (a) Palestinian (2oo–loo B.e.) : Book of Noah; I. Enoch vi. xxxvi. ; lxxii.–xc. ; Testaments of the XII. Patriarchs. (I oo B.C. to B.e.) : I. Enoch i.–v. ; xxxvii.–lxxi. ; xci.–civ. ; Testaments of the XII. Patriarchs, i.e., T. Lev. x. ; xiv.–xvi. ; T. Jud. xxi. 6 xxiii. ; T. Zeb. ix. ; T. Dan. v. 6, 7. Psalms of Solomon (A.D. I–Ioo and later) : Assumption of Moses, Apocalypse of Baruch, 4 Ezra, Greek Apocalypse of Baruch, Apocalypse of Zephaniah, Apoc alypse of Abraham, Prayer of Joseph, Book of Eldad and Modad, Apocalypse of Elijah.

(b) Hellenistic: II. Enoch, Oracles of Hystaspes, Testament of Job, Testaments of the III. Patriarchs. Sibylline Oracles (exclud ing Christian portions) .

Book of Noah.—This book has in large measure been incor porated in the Ethiopic Book of Enoch, and can in part be re constructed from it. The Book of Noah is mentioned in Jubilees x. 13, xxi. 1o. Chapters lx., lxv.–lxix. 25 of the Ethiopic Enoch are without question derived from it.

The Hebrew Book of Noah, a later work, is printed in Jellinek's Bet ha-Midrasch, iii. 155-156, and translated into German in Ronsch, Das Buch der Jubilden, 385-387. It is based on the part of the above Book of Noah which is preserved in the Book of Jubilees. The portion of this Hebrew work which is derived from the older work is reprinted in Charles's Ethiopic Version of the Hebrew Book of Jubilees, p. 179.

I. Enoch or the Ethiopic Book of Enoch.—This is the most important of all the Apocryphal writings for the history of religious thought. Like the Pentateuch, the Psalms, the Megilloth, and the Pirke Aboth, this work was divided into five parts. The various elements of the book were written by different authors at different dates. vi.–xxxvi. was written bef ore 166 B.C., lxxii. lxxxii. before the Book of Jubilees, i.e., before 120 B.C. or there abouts, lxxxiii.–xc. about 166 B.C., i.—V., xci.—civ. before 95 B.C., and xxxvii.–lxxi. before 64 B.c. There are many interpolations drawn mainly from the Book of Noah.

Testaments of the XII. Patriarchs.

This book, in some re spects the most important of Old Testament Apocryphs, has only recently come into its own. It is acknowledged by Christian and Jewish scholars alike to have been written in Hebrew in the 2nd century B.C. The Testaments were written about the same date as the Book of Jubilees. These two books form the only Apology in Jewish literature for the religious and civil hegemony of the Maccabees from the Pharisaic standpoint. The ethical character of the book is of the highest type, and its profound influence on the writers of the New Testament is yet to be appreciated. (See