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MASHAL AND 1 ENOCH: A TRIPTYCH

ALLEGORY ABOUT SHEOL

Octavian D. Baban

2 NT Studies

Always thankful to the Lord and always indebted to my loving wife, Daniela, and to our children Raluca and Vlad

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Abbreviations

AJA The American Journal of Archaeology

AnBib Analecta Biblica

AJPh The American Journal of Philology

ASTI Annual of the Swedish Theological Institute

Bib Biblica

BTB The Biblical Theology Bulletin

Bib.Td. The Bible Today

BZ Biblische Zeitschrift

CBQ The Catholic Biblical Quarterly

CPh Classical Philology

DNTT Dictionary of New Testament Theology

EstB Estudios Bíblicos

ExpTim The Expository Times

EvT Evangelische Theologie

HerKor Herder-Korrespondenz

HSCPh The Harvard Studies in Classical Philology

Int Interpretation

HTR The Harvard Theological Review

JAAR Journal of the American Academy of Religion

JAF Journal of American Folklore

JBL The Journal of Biblical Literature

JEChS The Journal of Early Christian Studies

JSNT The Journal for the Study of the New Testament

JSS The Journal of Semitic Studies

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JR The Journal of Religion

JTS The Journal of Theological Studies

LCL The Loeb Classical Library Series

LTP Laval Théologique et Philosophique

LumV Lumen Vitae

LXX The Septuagint

Neot Neotestamentica

NIDNTT The New International Dictionary of NT

Theology

NJBC The New Jerome Bible Dictionary

NovT Novum Testamentum

NTS New Testament Studies

NRT Nouvelle Revue de Theologie

PRS Perspectives of Religious Studies

QJS The Quarterly of Jewish Studies

RCatT Revista Catalana de Teologia

RHPR Revue de l’Histoire et de Philosophie Religieuses

RHR Revue de l’Histoire des Religions

RB Revue Biblique

RevExp Review and Expositor

REL Revue des Études Latines

RSR Reserches de Science Religieuse

SBL The Society for Biblical Literature

SBT Studia Biblica et Theologica

ScE Science et Esprit

TvT Tijdschrift voor Theologie

TDNT The Theological Dictionary of the NT

EDNT The Exegetical Dictionary of NT

TLZ Theologische Literaturzeitung

TQ Theologische Quartalschrift

TR Theologische Revue

TU Texte und Untersuchungen

TynB Tyndale Bulletin

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TWNT Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament

TZ Theologische Zeitschrift

ZNW Zeitschrift für die neuetestamentlische

Wissenschaft und die Kunde des Urchristentums

VigChr. Vigilae Christianae

ZTK Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche

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The Mashal and 1 Enoch’s Metaphors

DEFINITION OF MASHAL

The mashal as a literary genre represents a type of

parable that fixes facts into a memorable story and

creates a standard, influential reference. It actually

comes as a conclusion, a highly compacted illustration

or saying that emphasises the “point” of a story. In this

Jewish tradition, the observation that “Saul is among

the prophets” (1 Sam. 10:12) has become a “proverb”

(mashal) in Israel. In another example, God made

Israel into “a mashal [example, gossip issue] among the

nations” (Ps. 44:14), and Job became a mashal (i.e., of

legendary fame) for his acquaintances (Job 17:6). Isaiah

makes a mashal (parable) against Babylon (Isa. 14:4f),

and Balaam also composed an oracle to be repeated as a

mashal against Israel (Num. 23:7,18; 24:3, 15, 20, 21,

23). As it can be seen, the role of mashal was a public-

oriented one, something that reflect its ancient oral

setting and usage.

Mashal is a public saying, a lesson in a few phrases,

a short but strong and effective parable for public use.

It has been said that its recognizable purpose is that of

“quickening an apprehension of the real as distinct

from the wished for”. Also, that it compells the hearer

(or the reader) “to form a judgement on himself, his

situation or conduct...”1 Its powers of suggestion, of

____________

1 A. S. Herbert, ‘The “parable” (Mashal) in the OT’, SJT, 7,

1954, pp. 180-96.

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irony, or playful imagination are incentives to

meditation. Modern literature might offer the parallel,

to a certain degree, of the Japanese poetical genre of

haiku. Mashal bears indeed a certain resemblance with

this short, three lines (or “stichoi”), form of a highly

evocative poem which rather proclaims a theme than

develops it, yet it may well take the form of a more

developed narrative.2

While ancient rhetoric included various forms and

figures of speech, the Hebrew mashal can be qualified,

in comparison with other related literary genres, as

“spontaneous” and “playful” more than “analytical and

contrived”.3 Mashal’s earliest OT illustrations are

Nathan’s parable about David’s sin (2 Sam. 12. 1-6),

and Jotham’s fable about the “talking” trees (Judges 9).

The genre of mashal uses symbols to “restate the

premise in a new way”, so that the listener may

understand it - or apply it to himself - in his own

terms.4 In conclusion, mashal had a didactic and

illustrative role. As a literary genre it illustrated a

____________

2 A possible connection with the Accadian mishlu (‘half’), led

scholars to consider mashal as being “a line of two stichoi” (W.

McKane, Proverbs, p. 32). It comes phonetically and literarily

very close to the Ethiopic ‘amsal and mesl (‘likeness’) (Suter,

‘Mashal in Similitudes’ p. 204; cf.’Measure of Redemption’, p.

168). Two main roots can be taken into discussion: mtl -’to

stand’, ‘representative’, and msl – ‘to rule’.

3 Bigger, ‘Symbol and Metaphor in the Hebrew Bible’, in

Creating the OT, p. 68.

4 M. Hilton and G. Marshall, The Gospel and Rabbinic

Judaism, pp. 55-56.

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point in an argument, whereas as a teaching method it

stressed particular ideas in a passage. Theological

developments turned it, later, into a major

interpretative and exegetical method. As a literary form

it did develop into different types of wisdom speeches

(e. g., proverbs), and in time mashal came to include

almost any “elaborate discourse whether in the form of

a vision, prophecy or poem”.5

In Ezekiel 17:2 mashal is synonym with hida

(“riddle”, “dark saying”). From such a relation J.

Jeremias argued that mashal has got the meaning of

“apocalyptic saying”, as illustrated in the meshalim of 1

Enoch - wrongly translated in the specialized literature

as “similitudes”.6 Habakkuk combined mashal with

hida and melisa (“satire”); Micah 2:4 uses an

intermediate form between mashal and nehi

(“lamentation”).

Mashal functioned as an “outstanding utterance”, or

a “model”, a statement of wisdom teaching,7 or as a

“word of power”, “sovereign saying”.8 One might

describe it as a form elaborating on the idea of a given

paradigm.9

____________

5 R. M. Charles, quoted in Suter, ‘Mashal in Similitudes’, p.

194.

6 J. Jeremias, Parables of Jesus, p. 16.

7 “mashal is das Feststehende”, J. Schmidt in W. McKane,

Proverbs, p. 25; see also p. 24.

8 A. Bentzen in W. McKane, Proverbs, p. 24.

9 McKane, Proverbs, p. 26.

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All these associations point towards mashal’s

generality and inclusiveness as a literary genre,

something it shares with the hebrew forms of sir

(“song”), mizmor (“psalm”) and ne’un (“oracle”).10

MASHAL’S IN 1 ENOCH: ALLEGORY AND PATTERNS

In his comprehensive studies about Enoch’s

Similitudes, D. W. Suter has stressed that mashal does

not convey here a simple likeness of the kingdom of

heaven with any of its earthly counterparts. According

to him, Enoch’s unique visionary account (1.2; 37.4)11 is

not a purely fictional narrative; transcending the situa-

tion it teaches about human destiny not conjecturally

but in the form of a permanently valid parenesis.

In an earlier work, D. W. Suter has discussed the

continuity of Jewish tradition with its past and has

identified a movement from “a myth of the origin of evil

to a theology - or demonology - of history”.12 He differen-

tiated in this context between syncretism and the

transformation of themes.13 Mashal’s contribution to

this continuity was attributed to its midrashic nature.14

In 1 Enoch the parable (mashal) about God’s Justice

____________

10 L. A. Schoekel, A Manual of Hebrew Poetics, pp. 8-10.

11 D. W. Suter, ‘Mashal in the Similitudes’, p. 194.

12 D.W. Suter, Tradition and Composition in the Parables of

Enoch, SBL Diss. Series, Missoula, MT : Scholars Press 1979, p.

166.

13 Suter, Tradition and Composition, pp. 157, 160-162.

14 Suter, Tradition and Composition, p. 159.

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makes room for diferent and powerful metaphors about

life after death.

Different Forms of Allegory in 1 Enoch

Some elaborate comparisons contrast the fate of the

righteous with that of the wicked. Others compare the

angels’ destiny with the human life, or describe the

created world by using a similar vocabulary for

Yahweh’s Temple on earth and for Yahweh’s Heavens

above.15

In his allegorical journey to the “outer” world, Enoch

visits the allegorical extremities of the earth, the

“luminaries” of heaven, the regions of the dead, the

world of angels. This enormous parade of different

metaphorical places conveys lessons about how and why

one should live righteously with God. In other words

these allegories do focus on the Enochic model of life.

The story of the Watchers parallels Israel’s drama in

history and Enoch’s Sheol offers a paradigm for the

survival of the righteous. Israel’s land and the history

of the Hebrew heroes become typology in 1 Enoch.16 To

rephrase it analogy prepares here the way for typology,

for patterns.17

Narrative Patterns in 1 Enoch

____________

15 Suter, ‘The Measure of Redemption’, p. 168; see also, M.

Himmelfarb ‘Apocalyptic Ascent and the Heavenly Temple’, in

SBL Sem. Pap. 1987, pp. 210-212.

16 S. Bigger, ‘Symbol and Metaphor’, pp. 64-65.

17 S. Bigger, ‘Symbol and Metaphor’, p. 70.

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1 Enoch uses mashal to emphasize in a different way

the traditional multivalence of allegory. Instead of

referring to later crises through the means of a

prophetic “filter” it builds a recurrent pattern of the

theme of Rebellion and Reward. Important seems not

historical uniqueness or prediction but the more

general truth.

The usual apocalyptic transposition of history to a

mythological plan is used here as a pattern: the Urzeit

opens the perspective for the Endzeit.18

As a result, no religious persecution of the Hellenistic

age is envisaged in 1 Enoch’s crisis of the fallen angels.

Instead, it “provides a lens through which any crisis can

be viewed”.19

Within its “ahistorical” perspective (Von Rad) 1

Enoch does not reflect a high view of the Torah,

either.20 For Roessler apocalypses never had great

concerns with the Torah, anyway,21 for they replaced

the land (as God’s reward) with Yahweh’s eternal and

universal blessings. In others’s interpretation, still, the

____________

18 H. Gunkel, Schoepfung und Chaos in Urzeit und Endzeit,

Goettingen, Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1895.

19 Collins, Imagination, pp. 40-46.

20 J. C. H. Lebram, ‘The piety of the Jewish Apocalyptists’, in

D. Hellholm (ed), Apocalypticism in the Mediterranean World

and in the Near East, Tuebingen: Mohr, 1983, p. 178; see also

Collins, Imagination, pp. 39-40.

21 D. Roessler, Gesetz und Geschichte, p. 78.

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“apocalyptic supports continued attachment to Scrip-

ture and tradition”.22

Enoch’s Parables about the Afterlife

In referring to 1 Enoch’s parables of life and death, this

essay will use for convenience a double, temporal and

spatial reference frame. In the same way in which

Enoch’s journeys refer to the otherworldly regions

visited by Enoch and to the Judgement to come in the

Book of the Watchers,23 the parables of 1 Enoch can be

divided in two classes: a. parables of place and b.

parables of time. A special geography of the divine

distant kingdom is joined in 1 Enoch with a divinely

controlled history.

The main parables of place in 1 Enoch are present in

the description of the “intermediaries” (Sheol) and of

the “eternal places” (the Heavens like a temple,

Paradise, the angels’ Prison, Gehenna).

Their description betrays an “astonishingly detailed”

knowledge of Palestine’s geography and of its

surrounding areas.24 Implicitly, after Milik, Enoch

enterprises here two independent expeditions: one from

Gaza to Timna in Yemen, and the other from a

Phoenician port to the lands of India. The patriarch

travels eastward to find the garden of the Eastern

____________

22 Rowland, quoted in M. Bockmuehl, Revelation and Mystery,

p. 41.

23 Collins, Imagination, p. 45.

24 Milik, Books of Enoch, pp. 36-37.

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Paradise and meanwhile he will find the punishment

places located in the west...

As mythological environs for Enoch’s journeys,

however, these places are vaguely located although

affirmed with certitude. Removed from the populated

areas they are in this way placed beyond destruction

and pollution, or human interference. Enoch’s theology

about after-life comes to “surface” in Enoch’s parables in

a geographical way.

1 ENOCH’S MAIN PARABLES OF TIME AND PLACE

The parables of time reinterpret history and destiny.

So, the meaning of present lays in the past. The

Watchers’ sin is what led to humanity’s degradation.

Israel’s story highlights the continuation of the divine

plan. In the Apocalypse of Animals Israel’s patriarchs,

pictured as white bulls, became later humans - when

God chose them. Israel as the Lord’s people starts only

when Jacob is portrayed as a sheep having Yahweh as

shepherd. The correct calendar and the proper

celebration of religious festivals become conditions for

Israel’s salvation. As J. Collins notes “the address (ch.

82) to Methuselah underlines the primary purpose of

the Astronomical Book: to prevent sin by calendrical

error”.25

One could describe them as “Sheol-related” places,

having in view that finally their concern is with

____________

25 J. J. Collins, Imagination, p. 48.

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humankind’s survival after death. They integrate

history to myth with the aid of a “cluster” of related

metaphors. The first three introduce a “triptych”-like

picture of the divine punishment. To them Paradise

adds the tension of a lost ideal. A further tension does

then manifest between the different features of the

humans’ and of the angels’ prisons: humankind’s Sheol

is less abstract and less definitive or detailed in its

functions than the angels’ prisons.

TRIPTYCH PANEL 1: THE ENOCHIC SHEOL

Chapter 22 in the Book of the Watchers tells the story

of Enoch’s journey to the heavenly places with a first

visit ever, in Jewish literature, to Sheol.26 It comes as

part of the second version of Enoch’s cosmic tour in 1

Enoch - from the book’s three ones (a. 17-19; b. 21-36; c.

41, 43-44;):

22. (1) Then I went to another place, and he

showed me on the west side a great and high

mountain of hard rock and inside it four beautiful

corners; (2) it had [in it] a deep, wide and smooth

(thing) which was rolling over, and it (the place)

was deep and dark to look at. (3) At that moment,

Rufael, one of the holy angels, who was with me,

____________

26 R. Bauckham, ‘Visions of Hell’, pp. 356, 359; Milik, Books of

Enoch, p. 38, mention it as part of the first Enoch’s journey

towards the setting of the sun (maimah - ‘towards the sea’... )

which appears in the Book of the Watchers in a double

recension: 1 En. 17-19 and 21-25.

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responded to me; and he said to me, “These

beautiful corners (are here) in order that the

spirits of the souls of the dead should assemble

into them - they are created so that the souls of

the children of the people should gather there; (4)

They prepared these places in order to put them

(i. e. the souls of the people) there until the day of

their judgement and the appointed time of the

great judgement upon them.27

Sheol’s presentation comes between the angels’ place

of punishment (1 En. 18-19,21), and the description of

the Accursed Valley (1 En. 26. 3-27. 4, 54. 1-6). Its

location is in the West, somewhere at the farthest

extremities of earth (En. 21. 1-3, 23. 1-2, etc. ).28

The cave of Sheol is placed under a mountain; the

site is undeterminatedly positioned between heaven

and earth. God’s mythic mountain in the North

(Shafon), is a theme shared by many mesopotamian

____________

27 1 Enoch 22. 1-4; trsl. by E. Isaac, in M. A. Knibb, The

Ethiopic Book of Enoch, vol. 2, p. 108-109. In 22. 1 and 22. 3,

the Greek manuscripts have instead of “beautiful places” the

more appropriate “hollow places”. The Ethiopic seems to have

misread ‘koloi’(hollow) as ‘kaloi’(beautiful). In 22. 2 the Ethiopic

“(that) which was rolling over” is, in M. A. Knibb’s words,

simply “nonsense”. Again there one has to do with a misreading

or mistranslation of the ‘kykloomata’ (rolling things) with

‘koiloomata’ (hollow places).

28 R. Bauckham, ‘Visions of Hell’, p. 364; the Hebrew

Apocalypse of Elijah (Sefer Eliyahhu) places the abode of the

dead also in the west.

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stories (cf. Isaiah 14:12-15, Ezekiel 28:16-18).29 1

Enoch’s choice contrasts with other traditional sites for

Sheol like the bottom of the “sea of reeds” yam sup, or

the Egyptian Lake of Horus (s’hr, possibly connected

with yeor, river, Nile) mentioned in Ex. 14-15 and

Jonah 2:5-6.30

Many of these biological connotations were common

places for 1 Enoch’s contemporaries and implied the use

of an early source, the archaic reference to the human

body.31 The “deep, wide, and smooth hollow place” from

the vision comes close to the image of a hollow throat

(or gullet) of Sheol portrayed as a monster.

Parallels in the ancient Ugaritic texts often

represented death in terms of being swallowed by Mot,

the god of Death (a sonorous name meaning “prince

Death”, and related to heb. mwt - “death”). Mot takes

pride that:

My appetite is like that of a lion, my energy like

the dolphins in the sea. Death is a pool luring the

wild oxen... a spring baiting herds of deer... The

dust of the grave devours its pray... eats what-

ever it wants with both hands.

____________

29 Milik, Books of Enoch, pp. 39-40; the Ugaritic expressions

des-cribing Baal’s residence in the North are “almost unaltered”

in 1 En. 17. 7-8.

30 W. Wifall, ‘The Sea of Reeds as Sheol’, ZAW, 92, 1980, pp.

325-332.

31 M. Eliade, History of Faiths and of Religious Ideas, p. 1.

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Baal and Anat Battle Mot v. ii. 15-2032

The god Mot devoured cattle, humans and gods as

well, without exception (from here, the myth of Baal’s

annual death and resurrection). They disappeared

between his jaws, down his throat and down his gullet.

Euphemistically, yet, he is called “the beautiful one”,

the “beloved son of El”. His domain is “delightfulness”,

a “dwelling of bliss” or a “land of bliss”.33

This euphemistic language provided a

supplementary background for the textual variants of

Sheol’s “hollow” places seen as “beautiful” corners (see

note 42, E. 1. a, on En. 22). Further, the Mot-related

language is reflected in 1 Enoch in the description of

Sheol’s Pit and in the portrait of the rebellious

Watchers.

Following this Canaanite tradition, the scene of

Judgment in 1 Enoch chap. 53 opens with the picture of

a “deep valley with a wide mouth” (53. 1). In chap. 56. 8

one reads that “Sheol shall open her mouth, and they

shall be swallowed up into it and perish. Thus Sheol

shall swallow up the sinners in the presence of the elect

ones.”

In the Old Testament Sheol is also often represented

as a monster swallowing its pray (the mouth of Sheol,

____________

32 V. Matthews and D. C. Benjamin, Old Testament Parallels,

p. 165.

33 M. C. A. Koerpel, A Rift in the Clouds, p. 349.

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ph, and its throat, nps -Ps. 141. 7, Isa. 5. 14; Hab. 2. 5;

Gen. 4. 11; Num. 16. 30; its belly, btn - Jon. 2. 3, etc).34

The biological metaphor of Mot describes a

segregated netherworld (son of El, the Bull, Mot has

animal features and animal parts; Baal, another son of

El, was often represented as a calf). Thus, in 1 Enoch

the dead can be placed in four separate compartments:

a. for the righteous (22. 9), b. for the wicked who died

unpunished (22. 10), c. for the righteous martyrs (22. 5-

7, 12), d. for sinners who were punished before death

(22. 13).35

In this context is worth noting that later

representations, like in 4 Ezra 7. 75-101, have reserved

the intermediary “residence” only for the righteous. In

such a perspective the wicked are punished to wander

around, unsettled, in a tormenting anticipation of their

doom.36

The theology of Sheol includes the reconsideration of

the Jewish conflict myths. The fate of humans is linked

to the rebellion of the Watchers. The Fallen Angels had

taught them “unholy” trades and occupations like

alchemy and smiting, astrology and magical

incantations, abortion and writing (8. 1-4; 69. 4-15).

One can identify in 1 Enoch different traditions

where the leader of the angelic rebellion bears different

names. In one he is Shemihaza, in another - Asael

____________

34 M. C. A. Koerpel, A Rift in the Clouds, p. 354.

35 D. Alexander, ‘The OT view of life after death’, p. 43.

36 R. Bauckham, ‘Visions of Hell’, p. 361.

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(Azazel). Their sin is also perceived as different:

Shemihaza led to unlawful marriages between humans

and the sons of God which did result in the procreation

of giants, Asael brought to earth a divinely

unwarranted revelation.37 In P. R. Davies’ words “the

origin and the nature of sin is a permanent concern of 1

Enoch”.38

These angels of death, however, are not exercising a

full lordship over humans, like the Ugaritic Mot.

Hebrew thinking has intervened dissociating the God of

death from the function of death, and the action from

its personification. As a result, on one hand, earth can

still “open its mouth” and “swallow” the disobedient but

it acts like that “impersonally”, at Yahweh’s command.

Likewise, instead of a God of Death there appeared

an angel of Death, subjected to Yahweh. In time, the

rebellious Death became replaced with a positive

character. In the Testament of Abraham 16.4-5 (first

century AD), Death is an angel of Yahweh who carries

out His orders obediently. Does this development, yet,

return somehow to a friendly relationship between

Yahweh and Death, similar to the latter sonship of Mot

to El?...

Jewish dichotomy of angel and function of death

breaks the metaphor of Mot in two and places the

____________

37 J. J. Collins, Imagination, pp. 38-39; he suggests that the

punishment of Azazel (1En. 10) adapts Lev. 16, and challenges

the official ritual (p. 58).

38 R. Davies, ‘The Social World of the Apocalyptic’, in The

World of the Ancient Israel, ed. R. E. Clemens, p. 266.

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“halves” under Yahwe’s rule. One can identify however,

even a third component: the emergence of Sheol as a

Place of the Dead where people wait - collectivelly - for

the final judgement.

Scholars have distinguished three major groups of

names for the netherworld: a. those with a predominant

local aspect such as Sheol, ‘eres (“the nether world”, e.g.

Ex. 15:12) or bor (“pit”, e.g. Isa. 38:18); b. those

referring to the character of the realm of the dead, such

as Abaddon (“place of destruction”) or apar (i.e., “dust”,

e.g. Job 17:16), and c. those personifying death, like

Mot (“Sir Death”, e.g. Isa. 28. 15) or melek ballahot

(“king of terrors”, Job 18. 24).39

1 Enoch breaks new ground through a community-

like concept of Sheol. The closest parallels can be found

in the Hebrew expressions “he slept with his fathers”

and “he was gathered to his people”40 (the Enochic text

is more open to universalism). A segregated Sheol

represents a new form of “socialisation” of the grave’s

world. This details raise the question to what an extent

1 Enoch’s theology of Sheol does also represent a

sublimation of the old cult of the dead, reformulated

according to the norms of the Jewish apocalyptic.

Cultic references to Sheol are of notable antiquity.

Much of the Pentateuchal material has a cultic not only

____________

39 M. A. Knibb, ‘Life and Death’, p. 404.

40 M. A. Knibb, ‘Life and Death’, p. 411.

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a historical origin.41 The “ancestral deities” (elohei

abihim) mentioned in Gen. 31:42, 53 or in Gen. 28:10-22

are referring to the “elohim” as deified ancestors. It

seems that these ancestors could guarantee the

inalienability of the land.42 In the resulting confronta-

tion with them (Exod. 20:2), Yahweh proclaims himself

as Israel’s only “elohim”, excluding and supplanting all

the “others”.43

Later, the eighth-seventh century reforms of

Hezekiah and Josia were directed against the

consultation of the dead and banned any appeal to

human intermediaries - Lev. 19:26-31; 20:6, 27; Deut.

18:10-11, and also against “feeding” the deceased tithed

food (Deut. 26:14), etc.44

As an alternative, Enoch’s compartmented Sheol may

also reflect something of a communal life of the dead, or

even something of the architecture of the family tombs

or cave complexes. The latter could include fifteen to

thirty individuals, representing three to five gene-

rations.45

In such a perspective 1 Enoch would then represent a

form of rehabilitating the practice of consulting the

____________

41 A. Cooper and B. R. Goldstein, ‘The Cult of the Dead and the

Theme of Entry into the Land’, in Biblical Interpretation, 1, 3

(1993), p. 302.

42 Cooper & Goldstein, ‘Cult of the Dead’, pp. 296-297.

43 Cooper & Goldstein, ‘Cult of the Dead’, p. 295.

44 E. M. Bloch-Smith, ‘The Cult of the Dead in Judah:

Interpreting the material remains”, JBL, 11/2 (1992), p. 223.

45 Bloch-Smith, ‘The Cult of the Dead in Judah’, pp. 216-217.

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dead. Out of a theological need for further revelation,

Enoch looks at them from a distance and meditates on

the exemplary character of their fate, while he does not

initiate a direct contact or dialogue with them (for the

sake of ritual contamination).

Enoch’s books teach a differentiation on moral

grounds among the multitudes of the dead (chap. 22)

and that there are grounds for a hope of surviving

death (1 En. 102.5-11).

Historically these views correspond with the changes

undergone by Jewish theology during the “Pharisaic

Revolution”. This, it has been said, brought over the

concepts of God’s sovereignty, “eternal individuation”

and “internalization of the Torah”. Also, the concepts of

God as Father, eternal life, “cosmos”.46

The sinners’ fate does not enjoy, yet, a coherent

presentation in 1 Enoch. This reflects the composite

nature of the book, on one hand, and on the other its

early composition and unsettled theology. Thus, one

cannot decide whether the sinners’ souls are to be

annihilated in 1 Enoch (38.6), or slain in Sheol (99.11),

or detained for ever (22.14; 108.15), or until the day of

Judgment.

In 1 Enoch, Sheol is not much of a punishment or of a

trial place, even if segregation suggests a preliminary

____________

46 E. Rivkin, ‘Pharisaism and the Crisis of the Individual in the

Greco-Roman World’, Essays in Greco-Roman and related

Talmudic Literature, pp. 501, 508, 523 (see Jewish Quarterly

Review, 1970, [114], pp. 28ff).

NT Studies 23

judgment. It represents rather a place of temporary

detainment.47 The intermediary state can be described

as a silent repose, as in 1 En. 49.3 or 1 En. 100.6, a

“dormire in terra”, or “habitare in silentio”, or “dormire

in tranquilitate” - in heb. nuhat olam (2 Macc. 12.45;

Bar. 30.1).48

1 Enoch does not go to further details. For an

example, the Testament of Abraham describes a more

elaborated judgement. People are judged before Abel,

before the twelve tribes of Israel, before God, and by

three trials: of fire, record, and balance.49 By contrast,

in 1 En. 22 the dead’s fate seems already decided. Sheol

represents for them more of a place of “petrified

moralities and suspended graces”.50

Not even the repentant Watchers are forgiven in 1

Enoch (chap. 14.4-7). They remain enchained in the

frightening desert, beyond the deep abyss of fire (18.9-

11; cf. 18.2: “topos en eremos kai phoberos”, 21.2: “topos

akataskeuatos kai phoberos”).

____________

47 R. Bauckham, ‘Visions of Hell’, p. 359.

48 P. Voltz, Die Eschatologie der Judischen Gemeinde, p. 257.

49 E. P. Sanders, ‘Testament of Abraham - a new translation

and introduc-tion’, in The OT Pseudoepigrapha, p. 871; D. S.

Russell highlights that in T. A.’s later concept of Sheol “moral

judgements and reactions are possible” (From Early Judaism to

Early Church, p. 133).

50 R. H. Charles, Eschatology, p. 218 (in D. S. Russell, The

Method and the Message of Jewish Apocalyptic, p. 361; This

view is explicit in 2 Baruch 85.12).

24 NT Studies

TRIPTYCH PANEL 2: THE PRISON OF ANGELS

While Enoch was journeying to the west - to the maim,

the watered ends of the world, in chap. 18, 21 he meets

successively different images of the punishment places

for the angels and for the seven stars. In chap. 21 the

two prisons are separate. Although “the theological

interest is blurred by scholarly curiosity in such fields

as cosmography, astronomy, meteorology”51 what the

Enochic author describes are symbolic, not actual

places. The author uses literary ingeniosity to

communicate a complete and memorable picture of an

eternally doomed world:

I saw a place without the heavenly firmament

above it or earthly foundation under it or water.

There was nothing on it - not even birds - but it

was a desolate and terrible place(... ) This place is

the (ultimate) end of heaven and earth: it is the

prison house for the stars and the powers of

heaven.

1 Enoch 18.12, 14 (E. Isaac)

And I came to an empty place. And I saw (there)

neither a heaven above nor an earth below, but a

chaotic and terrible place. And there I saw seven

stars of heaven bound together in it, like great

mountains, and burning with fire. (...) This place

____________

51 Milik, Books of Enoch, pp. 35, 39.

NT Studies 25

is the prison house of the angels; they are

detained here forever.

1 Enoch 21.1-3, 7a, 10b (E. Isaac)

God commanded Enoch to reprimand the Watchers

and tell them that “from now on you will not be able to

ascend into heaven unto all eternity but you shall

remain inside the earth, imprisoned all the days of

eternity” (14.5).

The angels’ prison represents here an abstract

construction: the utter negation of all existence, an

anti-place. It has appeared as an elaboration of the

desert as the hot and sandy wilderness that came so

often across the paths of the nomads. Gen. 1:1-3 does

also reflect this mundane reality of the formless and

void desert. Therefore this represents evidence that 1

Enoch elaborates here on earlier, inherited themes.

In 1 En. 67.1 - 69.15, part of the third vision in the

Book of Similitudes, Noah is shown the prison of the

angels, as it was shown before him to Enoch, his

grandfather. This time angels are punished underneath

the ground, in a place which again combines a pair of

incompatibles: a valley burns the angels but is full of

great turbulence and stirring of water! The waters

become a poisonous drug for people and a punishment

in the spirit (67.8). They are hot when the angels are in,

and cold when they get out - 67.1:

For these waters of judgment are poison to the

bodies of the angels as well as sensational to

26 NT Studies

their flesh; (hence) they will neither see nor

believe that these waters become transformed

and become a fire that burns forever (67.13)

Although they are part of the Similitudes, the above

images are not foreign to the description of the heaven’s

entrance, from the Book of the Watchers:

And I entered into the house, which was hot like

fire and cold like ice and there was nothing inside

it (1 Enoch 14.13).

This preference for unnatural and striking

associations seems to carry out well Enoch’s ideas about

the supernatural world. It also confirms the presence of

a common perspective and imagery in the Ethiopic

Enoch, contrary to the common opinion that there is a

clear theological disjunction among the books of 1

Enoch.

Some of D. W. Suter’s conclusions on Enoch’s

Similitudes could then be extrapolated - allowing for

differences - to the book of the Watchers as well:

The eschatological theme of the lot of the sinners

in 1 En. 62-63 thus has its cosmic counterpart (or

mashal) in the punishment of the fallen angels”.52

____________

52 Suter, ‘Mashal in Similitudes’, p. 208.

NT Studies 27

The enflamed waters and the life-devoided desert are

concurring ways of conveying the idea of the angelic

rebels’ utmost desolation. Physically unbearable and

rationally unthinkable, they deny the very idea of a

place. Natural order is reversed chaotically in such a

frightening punishment.

Here the limits of the metaphorical approach are met

in the metaphor of the Limit. At first the tomb

represented life’s irrational limit. Now, Sheol is

“explained” and the irrational extreme is represented

by the angels’ prison.

The anti-place metaphor could easily lead to an anti-

history idea, now. The boldness of this approach is not

far from the later definitions of The Incarnation...

Jewish theology did not remain within the limits of

mythology it went further to explore deeply abstract

notions.

Through mashal the divine governance is transferred

in 1 Enoch from cosmos to society. God manifests his

creative activity in “defeating the powers of chaos and

establishing order”.53 Wisdom in 1 Enoch is not an

apocalyptic knowledge of history but an acknowledge-

ment of humankind’s dependence on this “mythological-

cosmic event”.54

____________

53 Suter, ‘Mashal in Similitudes’, pp. 210-211.

54 Lebram, ‘Piety of Apocalyptists’, p. 192.

28 NT Studies

Enoch’s journey into a land of “mythical geography”

is pretext for delineating Sheol’s theology.55 Humans

receive revelation in a new way, and replace angels in

their priestly assignments witnessing to their downfall:

“it is meet (for you) that you intercede on the behalf of

man and not man on your behalf” (1 En. 15. 2).56

Enoch’s status, representative for the potential of an

obedient humanity, is higher than the angelic one.

TRIPTYCH PANEL 3: THE GEHENNA

Before reaching the Garden of Righteousness (Paradise;

1 En. 32), Enoch visits first the Mountain of the Tree of

Life and then, the Accursed Valley (towards the west,

vs. 26.4). Narrow, deep and dry, this valley had no tree

growing in it:

(The valleys) were narrow, (formed) of hard rocks

and no tree growing in them (26.6)

This accursed valley is for those accursed forever;

Here will gather all (those) accursed ones, those

who speak with their mouth unbecoming words

against the Lord and utter hard words

concerning his glory. Here shall they be gathered

____________

55 Milik, Books of Enoch, p. 39.

56 M. Himmelfarb, ‘Apocalyptic Ascent and the Heavenly

Temple’, SBL. Sem. Pap. 1987, p. 212; “the angels of the book of

the Watchers are understood as priests” (pp. 211-213).

NT Studies 29

together and here shall be their judgment in the

last days (27.3).

The absence of trees reflects not only lifelessness but

also a total lack of communication with the divine

realm. In the Ancient Near East, distinguished trees,

especially those of antiquity, might be looked upon as

the “trees of life” or as being “cosmic”. Their stump

symbolised the “navel of the earth” and their top

represented the heavens.57 These were religious places

(the oaks of Moreh or the oaks of Mamre in Gen. 12-15)

and often were dedicated to the cult of fertility.

Although the official religion has banned the planting of

trees around the altar (Deut. 16:21) their symbol

survived in the Apocalyptic.

The accursed valley enchains the human rebells with

heavy fetters prepared previously for angels:

deep and burning with fire. And they were

bringing kings and potentates and they were

throwing them into this deep valley. And my eyes

saw there their chains while they were making

them into iron fetters of immense weight.

(1 En. 54.2-4; also, see 53.1-5).

First there is obviously some common ground shared

by these concepts. As it has been often said, that Sheol

____________

57 N. Sarna, Genesis, p. 91.

30 NT Studies

is not “to be equated with later ideas of Hell, as a place

of torment. But it is definitely to be avoided as long as

possible... “ Similarly to Hades, described as ton

apotropon Haidan, Sheol represents a place one should

rather “be turned away from”.58

Closer to the idea of Hell is Gehenna, the Valley of

Judgment. As such it does not appear in the LXX. The

Aramaic gehinnam (Heb. gehinnom), is used in OT for

the valley lying south of Jerusalem given to the sons of

Hinnom (Jos. 15:8; 18:16). Child sacrifices used to be

offered there (2 Kgs. 16:3; 21:6) yet they ceased during

Josiah’s reforms (2Kgs. 23:10). Still its name kept all

the infamous connotations, even after the site became a

dumping place.

For the Jewish Apocalyptic it became the paradigm

for the hell of fire (1 Enoch 90. 26f.; 27.1 ff.; 54.1 ff.;

56.3), while it ceased being a mark of Jerusalem (2 Esd.

7.36). Between the first and the second century AD,

Rabbis started to discuss whether “gehenna” can be

understood as a purgatory.

Sheol’s vague localization in 1 Enoch is another

detail pointing to the transition suffered by this

concept. In 1 En. 22 Sheol is placed in a cave beneath a

high mountain, in a distant land, which could be the

heavenly realm itself. The parallel in 2 Enoch chap. 3-

22, thought to be an early passage although the

____________

58 Sophocles, in Ajax, quoted by J. Bowker, The meanings of

Death, p. 51.

NT Studies 31

Slavonic version is later, has both hell and paradise

viewed from or even located in the third heaven.59

The three mentioned concepts form a cluster of

metaphors with a dynamics of its own. They divided

and transferred between them various specifical

functions and became in time more and more distinct

from each other.

At the end of the Watchers Book (32.1-6) the reader

comes to the seven mountains where one finds the

Garden of Righteousness (32.3). Emblematically - and

reassuringly, there is the Tree of Wisdom, for which

fruit the forefathers were expelled from Paradise at the

beginning.

As can be noticed from ch. 30-32 the “Paradise Lost”

is found while Enoch travels eastward. Abundant in

beautiful and fragrant trees it contrasts with the utter

bareness of the Judgment places. In 1 Enoch the place

is not inhabited, but is kept as a future reward for the

righteous, to become their “Paradise regained”.

Conclusions

This study has led so far to a number of interesting

conclusions regarding the thematic unity of 1 Enoch’s

books; it also highlighted some essential specifically

Jewish features in 1 Enoch’s theology of Sheol.

____________

59 R. Bauckham, ‘Visions of Hell’, p. 360.

32 NT Studies

1. Themes. The books of the Similitudes and of the

Watchers, do not only share the parable of Justice but

do find themselves in a relation of prefiguration of this

central theme. The Book of the Watchers provides a root

theme for 1 Enoch. Its themes function as an unifying

factor for 1 Enoch’s theology.

The metaphors of Yahweh as a Warrior and Judge

concurred to the creation of a Jewish theology of life

after death.60 Until chaos and death are finally

destroyed (Isa. 25:8) the dead righteous are called to

share in this program of Yahweh by a hopefull waiting

in the intermediary place.61

2. Continuity. This essay’s views come closer to the

position held by present day Judaism who considers

mashal as an “early” and “well established” rabbinical

form, antedating Jesus’ parables. Rabbis often told

their stories starting with a “mashlu mashal”. Thus, in

contrast with J. Jeremias’ views, Jesus’ originality is

rather present in the teachings of His parables not in

their genre.62

1 Enoch offers an opportunity for evaluating the

ways in which foreign or Jewish metaphors, and

____________

60 D. Alexander, ‘The OT view of life after death’, Themelios,

vol. 2, no. 2 1986, p. 45.

61 Bailey, Biblical Perspectives, p. 77.

62 M. Hilton and G. Marshall, ‘The Gospels and Rabbinic

Judaism’, in Encyclopedia Judaica, p. 56; J. Jeremias, The

Parables of Jesus, takes the view that the parables were Jesus’

original inventions.

NT Studies 33

practices, were transmitted and transformed through

Jewish parables. This is particularly clear in 1 Enoch’s

metaphor of Sheol.

Thus, Kaesemann’s NT dictum that “Apocalyptic is

the matrix of Christian Eschatology” has been

paraphrased for the OT as “Manticism is the mother of

Jewish Apocalyptic”.63 Present in the books of Daniel

and in 1 Enoch, manticism coexisted with prophecy in

the pre-exilic times and was developed after the

Babylonian exile.64

The Jewish mantic alternative to the Torah found a

legitimation and a media in mashal, and was

introduced as a Wisdom tradition. The use of mashal

has provided the emancipation context for Jewish

manticism. It has created a prophetic continuity

between the divine oracles of OT and the later commen-

taries to them, a link between mere OT narratives and

the later metaphoric insights in God’s character and in

the nature of God’s world.

The transition between the OT prophecy and the

intertestamental forms of oracles received two

contribution. Not only the Pharisees’ emphasis on

keeping the law or on preaching a “dual” (written and

oral) Torah65 - has contributed to the transformation of

____________

63 Davies, ‘The social world’, p. 263.

64 Davies, ‘The social world’, p. 260-261.

65 E. Rivkin, ‘Pharisaism and the Crisis of the Individual in the

Greco-Roman world’, Jewish Quarterly Review, 1970 (114), pp.

501-507, 522-523; see, the alternative view which stresses the

continuation of’Aaronide supremacy in S. N. Mason, ‘Priesthood

34 NT Studies

Jewish prophecy but also the increased use of parables

and visionary experiences.

When prophets’ messages started to contradict each

other, this resulted in a loss of prophetic credibility.

People turned from the direct prophetic claims to

wisdom and also to the apocalyptic messages delivered

through parables like 1 Enoch’s mashal about God’s

Justice in heavens and on earth.66

3. Community. Wisdom literature (Wisd. of Sol. 1.

12-13; 2. 23-24) - and 1 Enoch as well - has extrapolated

into immortality the covenantal life given by Yahweh as

a reward to his people. Life in OT involves community.

Death’s presence on Earth - and the Exile’s suffering -

led to the formation of a community elsewhere, in

Sheol.67 Moreover, in 1 Enoch’s Sheol survival and

punishment (or reward) are not ethnic any longer but

universal in character.

4. Rationalization. The demons (Mot; Shemihaza or

Asael) were given a new consideration within the

incipient Yahwistic orthodoxy. Previously their auto-

nomy, potence and existence have been ignored or often

denied.68

________________________

in Josephus and the “Pharisaic Revolution”’, JBL, 107/4 (1988)

pp. 657-661.

66 J. L. Crenshaw, in D. E. Aune, Prophecy in Early Chris-

tianity, pp. 87-88;

67 Bailey, Biblical Perspectives, p. 76.

68 Bailey, Biblical Perspectives, p. 75.

NT Studies 35

In the new period, during the development of the

apocalyptic genre, the initial imagery of the angel of

death broke in several fragments and metaphors, in

death as i. biological function, ii. death as angelic

representative of Yahweh’s court and iii. as a place.

Gradually the idea of just managing to survive death

was replaced by the hope of sharing in the angelic

quality of life, eternally. This happened as a develop-

ment of the OT earlier perspectives on death seen “in

terms of life”.69 For a community like that at Qumran,

the issue was not biological death anymore, nor life

after death.70 Instead they wished to pass from death to

life while still living in this world (e. g. 1QHXI, 3. 10-

13) - in a “realized eschatology”. In Nickelsburg’s words,

the overcoming of physical death became at Qumran

“inconsequential”.71

Israel’s ancient conflict - myths are used in 1 Enoch

to integrate history to myth. The history of the angelic

rebellion before Creation was used to explain the

present fallen state of humankind and to illustrate the

future justice of God.72 This is reflected in the

progressive changes regarding the nature of Sheol. As a

further encouragement to a holy living, Sheol raised in

the Jewish thinking, to strong theological functions and

high moral differentiations.

____________

69 M. A. Knibb, ‘Life and Death’, p. 405.

70 Bailey, Biblical Perspectives, p. 82.

71 Nickelsburg, Resurrection, Immortality, and Eternal Life in

Intertestamental Judaism, pp. 144, 154, 167.

72 Bailey, Biblical Perspectives, p. 82.

36 NT Studies

5. Cluster of Metaphors. In 1 Enoch Sheol stands

next to the prison of angels (in heaven?) and the

punishment place of the Gehenna valley (on earth?).

This relationship can be seen as defining a group of

metaphors with a common theme (Sheol-related places),

and can be called a congruence of metaphors.

This concept of compatibility of metaphor, makes

room for a reconsoderation of the mechanism of the

Canonical thinking. In such a perspective, the Canon

could be seen as an interrelated set of congruent

parables translating the divine message for human

audience in the form of God’s Word. A theological

congruence of metaphors might then have become in

time a valid measure for a book’s or a general topic’s

canonicity.

Some of 1 Enoch’s metaphors are still found in a

“congruence” relationship with the accepted Scriptures,

as illustrated in St. Jude’s Epistle vss. 6-7:

And the angels who did not keep their positions

of authority but abandoned their own home -

these he has kept in darkness, bound with

everlasting chains for Judgment on the great

Day. In a similar way Sodom and Gomorrah and

the surrounding towns gave themselves up to

sexual immorality and perversion. They serve as

example of those who suffer the punishment of

eternal fire (Jude 6-7; NIV)

NT Studies 37

To echo St. Augustine, one could say that 1 Enoch’s

parables and metaphors did build an efficient bridge

between the truths of the Old and the New Testaments,

between the pre-exilic and intertestamental Jewish

prophecy. Yet, while none of these two is extensively

explicit on the issue of life after death, the imaginative

details provided by the Enochian “bridge” highlight the

special, inspired nature of both the silence of OT,

focused on what has been revealed and leaving aside

what has not, and the glorious faith of the NT, inspired

from Jesus’ teachings and his own resurrection.

NT Studies 38

an appropriate imitation of characters and situation,

a representation “true to nature”.1

Pédech, also, writes that for Duris “la mi/mhsiv est une

représentation concrète, quasi picturale de la réalité”,2 -

which is reminiscent of Plato and Plutarch (cf.

Plutarch’s comparison between painting and history,

one working with colours, the other with words).3 By

way of parenthesis, the metaphor of painting has also

been used to describe Luke’s style, his mixing of the

artistic with the discordant recalling the style of an

impressionist painter.4 One finds it, as well, in

Aristotle, where poetic mimesis is similar to painting,

and the poet is a mimetic artist, like a painter or any

other image-maker (e)sti mimhth_v o( poihth_v w(speranei zwgra&fov h! tiv a!llov ei)konopoio&v).5 The imagery of

painting is also echoed in the requirement that the

stories’ characters should be o#moion and o(malo&n (genuine and consistent).6

____________

1 V. Gray, ‘Mimesis in Greek Historical Theory’, AJPh 118

(1987), 467-486; K. Meister, Polybios, pp. 109-126; also

Walbank, in his more recent studies (Walbank, ‘Profit or

Amusement’, p. 259).

2 Pédech, Trois Historiens, p. 371.

3 Plutarch, De gloria Atheniensium, 3.347a3-c. Plato uses the

metaphor of mirror images and the illustration of painting, as

well (Rep. 596d).

4 Evans, Luke, p. 42; Cadbury, Making, p. 334; Goulder,

Luke, vol. 1, p. 231.

5 Aristotle, Poetics, 1460b.5-10; peri/ zwgra&fwn in Diog.

Laertius, Lives, 1.38.

6 Aristotle, Poetics, 1454a.15-20.

NT Studies 39

In particular, Pédech draws attention to fragment F

89, where Duris used the term e)kmimei=sqai. Commenting

on Iliad, 21.234-248 (the overflow of Scamander in the

pursuit of Achilles, as a mad flooding tide tumultuously

sweeping the shore, and everything on it: cattle, people,

trees, etc.), Duris argues that such imagery provides an

accurate idea (e!nnoian) of the real event.7 In conclusion,

for Pédech “l’objet de la mi/mhsiv est de faire naître cette

e!nnoia, qui doit produire une peinture ressemblante et

une impression forte”.8 Duris’ emphasis on historical

representation appears to advocate an accurate yet

dramatic impression of the real world.9

____________

7 Duris, Fragmenta 2a, 76 (F 89.5): tau~ta dia_ to_) th_n e)n toi=v kh&poiv u(dragwgi/an e)k mimei=sqai lanqa&nei pw~v a)nagignw&skontav, w#ste mhdemi/an e!nnoian lamba&nein pro_v o$ pepoi/hke. Duris

favoured a mimesis that conformed to the historical facts yet

allowed for poetical license in representation, as well. Homer’s

story of Achilles’ confrontation with the Scamander river has

descriptive force and his personification of the river does not

obscure the devastating effects of the flooding. The passage is

excellent description, yet it does not amount to history writing.

8 Pédech, Trois Historiens, p. 372. Cf. Pédech’s definition of

h)donh&v: ‘l’h)donh&... c’est essentiellement un plaisir esthétique,

qu’une narration fidèle... L’historie est donc avant tout une

peinture’.

9 Cf. Torraca’s assessment: ‘La mimesi di Duride è l’imitazione

della realtà secondo le regole e i procedimenti delle opere

destinate alla scena: il lettore deve essere compartecipe degli

avvenimenti narrati come lo spettatore a teatro.’ (Duride, p. 70).

NT Studies 40

Selective Bibliography

Barre, M.L., ‘rs (h)hyym - The Land of the Living?’, in

JSOT, 41 (1988) 37-59. Bauckham, R., ‘Early Jewish Visions of Hell’, Journal of Theological Studies 41 (1990), 355-85 Becker, O., Das Bild des Weges und verwandte Vorstellung im frühgriechischen Denken (Berlin: Weidmann Verlag, 1937) Berg, B., ‘Alcestis and Hercules in the Catacomb of Via Latina’, Vigilae Christianae 48 (1994), 213-34. Berger, K., Theologiegeschichte des Urchristentums: Theologie des Neuen Testament (Tübingen: Francke Verlag, 1994) Bywater, I., Aristotle on the Art of Poetry (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1909) Collins, J.J. The Apocalyptic Imagination (N.Y.: Crossroads, 1983) Curtis, A.H.W., ‘Theological Geography’, in R.J. Coggins and J.L. Houlden (eds.), A Dictionary of Biblical Interpretation (London: SCM Press, 1990), 687-90 Danker, F.W., Jesus and the New Age: According to Saint Luke, A New Commentary on the Third Gospel, rev. and exp., (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1988 (1972)) Davies, J.G., ‘The Prefigurement of the Ascension in the Third Gospel’, Journal of Theological Studies 6 (1955), 229-33

NT Studies 41

—, He Ascended Into Heaven: A Study in the History of Doctrine (London: Lutterworth, 1958) Fackre, G., ‘Narrative Theology. An Overview’, Interpretation 37 (1983), 340-352 Fink, J., Bildfrömmigkeit und Bekenntnis: das Alte Testament, Herakles und die Herrlichkeit Christi an der Via Latina in Rom (Köln: Böhlau Verlag, 1978) Gebauer, G., and C. Wulf, Mimesis: Culture. Art. Society (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1995) (German ed., Mimesis: Kultur. Kunst. Gesellschaft (Reinbeck: Rowohlt, 1992)) Gellrich, J.M., ‘Figura, Allegory and the Question of History’, in Lerer S. (ed.), Literary History and the Challenge of Philology: The legacy of Erich Auerbach (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1996), 107-123 Hansen, W., Antology of Ancient Greek Popular Literature (Bloomington, IN: Indiana UP, 1998) Harnack, A., The Acts of the Apostles (London: Williams & Norgate, 1909) Himmelfarb, M., Ascent to Heaven in Jewish and Christian Apocalypses (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993) —, Tours of Hell: Apocalyptic Form in Jewish and Christian Literature (Philadelphia, PA: State University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983) Hock, R.F., ‘The Greek Novel’, in D.E. Aune (ed.), Greco-Roman Literature and the New Testament, SBL Sources for Biblical Scholars (21) (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1988), 127-146 Holtz, T., Untersuchungen über die Alttestamentlichen Zitate bei Lukas (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1968) Höistad, R. Cynic Hero and Cynic King: Studies in the Cynic Conception of Man (Uppsala: C. Bloms, 1948) Jaeger, W., The Theology of the Early Greek Philosophers: The Gifford Lectures 1936 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1947)

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