The Greatest Mirror

Heavenly Counterparts in the Jewish Pseudepigrapha

Andrei A. Orlov

• Publisher: SUNY Press
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781438466927
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

The idea of a heavenly double—an angelic twin of an earthbound human—can be found in Christian, Manichaean, Islamic, and Kabbalistic traditions. Scholars have long traced the lineage of these ideas to Greco-Roman and Iranian sources. In The Greatest Mirror, Andrei A. Orlov shows that heavenly twin imagery drew in large part from early Jewish writings. The Jewish pseudepigrapha—books from the Second Temple period that were attributed to biblical figures but excluded from the Hebrew Bible—contain accounts of heavenly twins in the form of spirits, images, faces, children, mirrors, and angels of the Presence. Orlov provides a comprehensive analysis of these traditions in their full historical and interpretive complexity. He focuses on heavenly alter egos of Enoch, Moses, Jacob, Joseph, and Aseneth in often neglected books, including Animal Apocalypse, Book of the Watchers, 2 Enoch, Ladder of Jacob, and Joseph and Aseneth, some of which are preserved solely in the Slavonic language.

Chapter One

The Heavenly Counterpart Traditions in the Enochic Pseudepigrapha

As has been already mentioned, our study of the heavenly counterpart traditions found in the Jewish pseudepigrapha will be organized around the major mediatorial trends prominent in the Second Temple period and associated with protological characters found in the Hebrew Bible—patriarchical, prophetic, and priestly figures, like Enoch, Noah, Melchizedek, Jacob, Joseph, and Moses, whose stories become greatly expanded in Jewish extrabiblical accounts. We will begin our exploration of the doppelganger symbolism with an analysis of some currents found in the early Enochic lore.

The choice of the Enochic legends as the first step in our analysis of heavenly counterpart imagery is dictated by the fact that nowhere in early Second Temple literature can one find such ardent attention to the realities of the heavenly world and opportunities for a human being to breach the boundaries between earthly and celestial realms.

Scholars have previously noted that the interest of the Enochic tradition in the heavenly realities and the possibilities for breaching the boundaries between realms manifests a striking contrast with conceptual currents reflected in the body of the early Jewish literature gathered in the Hebrew Bible, a collection, which according to some studies, was profoundly shaped by the Zadokite priestly ideology.1 In contrast to the corpus of early Enochic writings, the student of the Hebrew Bible finds very limited information about the possibility for human beings to traverse the heavens. Few heroes of the biblical accounts are said to be translated into the heavenly abode. Among these unique figures, Enoch and Elijah are notably singled out; yet the biblical references about their translations are quite abbreviated, and they do not provide any details about the content of their heavenly journeys and celestial initiations. Such marked disinterest in the realities of the heavenly world, manifested in the Hebrew Bible, appears to represent a distinctive ideological tendency. Traversing the upper realms is clearly discouraged in such a theological framework, and an attentive reader of the biblical accounts soon learns that all portentous formative encounters between human beings and otherworldly characters take place not in heaven or hell but instead in the terrestrial world—in the wilderness or on a mountain. Thus, Ezekiel receives his vision of the Merkavah not in the heavenly throne room, like Enoch, but instead on the river Chebar, and the son of Amram obtains his revelations from the deity on the mountain. Scholars previously reflected on the topological peculiarities of biblical accounts that attempt to discourage any depiction of humans ascending to upper realms in order to receive the divine revelation. Gabriele Boccaccini rightly observes that in “the primeval history, as edited in the Zadokite Torah (Gen 1–11) … any attempt to cross the boundary between humanity and the divine always results in disaster.”2

Yet, despite these topological proclivities, the possibility of the existence of heavenly counterparts was not entirely abandoned in the Hebrew Bible. In view of the pronounced sacerdotal tendencies of the Zadokite ideology, its application of the counterparts’ imagery became permeated by cultic concerns manifesting itself in the idea of a heavenly correlative to the earthly sanctuary.3 Such traditions of the heavenly counterparts first unfold in the paradigmatic revelation given to Moses on Mount Sinai. Several biblical passages from Exodus and Numbers4 insist that “the earlier pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all its furniture was made after the [heavenly] pattern … which was shown … on the mountain.”5 A passage from 1 Chronicles 28:19 further affirms the possibility that the plan of the earthly sanctuary came from above.6 All these passages postulate the idea that earthly cultic settings ought to be faithful imitations of heavenly ones.7 As one scholar rightly observes, “the goal of history … is that the cultus will be ‘on earth as in heaven.’ ”8 This notion that the earthly sanctuary is a replica of the heavenly one makes its first appearance not in the texts of the Hebrew Bible but in early Mesopotamian traditions.9 There, earthly temples are repeatedly portrayed as counterparts of heavenly realities.10

Yet, despite these specimens of sacerdotal counterparts’ traditions in biblical accounts, it appears that the conceptual developments pertaining to heavenly identities of human seers play a more prominent role in early Enochic lore, with its marked interest in the realities of the celestial world. We therefore must direct our attention to some of these developments.

The Book of the Watchers

Already in one of the earliest Enochic booklets, the Book of the Watchers,11 the reader notices the fascination of the Enochic writers with the heavenly counterparts of the earthly realities, especially the cultic ones. Thus, in 1 Enoch 14, which portrays the patriarch’s travel to the heavenly sanctuary located in the heavenly abode, the structure and the attributes of the celestial shrine are markedly reminiscent of the features of the Jerusalem temple. 1 Enoch 14:9–18 details the following intriguing portrayal of the heavenly structures:

And I proceeded until I came near to a wall which was built of hailstones, and a tongue of fire surrounded it, and it began to make me afraid. And I went into the tongue of fire and came near to a large house which was built of hailstones, and the wall of that house (was) like a mosaic (made) of hailstones, and its floor (was) snow. Its roof (was) like the path of the stars and flashes of lightning, and among them (were) fiery Cherubim, and their heaven (was like) water. And (there was) a fire burning around its wall, and its door was ablaze with fire. And I went into that house, and (it was) hot as fire and cold as snow, and there was neither pleasure nor life in it. Fear covered me and trembling, I fell on my face. And I saw in the vision, and behold, another house, which was larger than the former, and all its doors (were) open before me, and (it was) built of a tongue of fire. And in everything it so excelled in glory and splendor and size that I am unable to describe to you its glory and its size. And its floor (was) fire, and above (were) lightning and the path of the stars, and its roof also (was) a burning fire. And I looked and I saw in it a high throne, and its appearance (was) like ice and its surrounds like the shining sun and the sound of Cherubim.12

Commenting on this passage, Martha Himmelfarb draws attention to the description of the celestial edifices that Enoch encounters in his progress to the divine Throne. She notes that in the Ethiopic text, in order to reach God’s heavenly Seat, the patriarch passes through three celestial constructions: a wall, an outer house, and an inner house. The Greek version of this narrative mentions a house instead of a wall. Himmelfarb observes that more clearly in the Greek, but also in the Ethiopic, this arrangement echoes the structure of the earthly temple with its vestibule, sanctuary, and the Holy of Holies.13

God’s throne is located in the innermost chamber of this heavenly construction and is represented by a throne of cherubim (1 Enoch 14:18). These are the heavenly counterparts to the cherubim found in the Holy of Holies in the Jerusalem temple. In drawing parallels between the descriptions of the heavenly temple in the Book of the Watchers and the features of the earthly sanctuary, Himmelfarb observes that the fiery cherubim that Enoch sees on the ceiling of the first house (Ethiopic) or middle house (Greek) of the heavenly structure do not represent the cherubim of the divine throne but are images that recall the figures on the hangings on the wall of the tabernacle mentioned in Exodus 26:1, 26:31, 36:8, and 36:35 or possibly the figures that, according to 1 Kings 6:29, 2 Chronicles 3:7, and Ezekiel 41:15–26, were engraved on the walls of the earthly temple.14 As one can see, the structure of the heavenly sanctuary and its features are reminiscent of the earthly temple and thus can be viewed as corresponding counterparts, one celestial and another terrestrial.

Moreover, in the course of this encounter, Enoch himself becomes a heavenly counterpart of the earthly sacerdotal servant, the high priest, who once a year on Yom Kippur was allowed to enter the divine Presence. Scholars previously noted these correspondences. For example, George Nickelsburg suggests that Enoch’s progressions through the chambers of the celestial sanctuary might indicate that the author(s) of the Book of the Watchers perceived him as a servant associated with the activities in these chambers.15 Similarly, Nickelsburg argues that Enoch’s vision of the Throne in the Book of the Watchers is “qualitatively different from that described in the biblical throne visions” because of the new active role of its visionary.16

Himmelfarb also points to the possibility that in the Book of the Watchers the patriarch himself becomes a priest in the course of his ascent,17 similar to the angels.18 In this conceptual development, the angelic status of the patriarch and his priestly role19 are viewed as mutually interconnected. Himmelfarb stresses that “the author of the Book of the Watchers claims angelic status for Enoch through his service in the heavenly temple” since “the ascent shows him passing through the outer court of the temple and the sanctuary to the door of the Holy of Holies, where God addresses him with his own mouth.”20

Helge Kvanvig highlights another aspect of Enoch’s dream-vision in 1 Enoch 14 that is very important for our study of the heavenly counterpart traditions. Kvanvig argues that the dream about the celestial temple “is told by Enoch from two perspectives. The first tells the whole series of events, emphasizing that Enoch stays on the earth during the entire dream. … The second perspective focuses on Enoch as the protagonist of the dream itself, and he is carried away to the heavenly temple.”21 If Kvanvig is correct in his assessment of the peculiarities of Enoch’s dream, the seer appears to be simultaneously in both realms: dreaming in his sleep on the earth and at the same time installed as the sacerdotal servant in the heavenly temple. As will...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Chapter One: The Heavenly Counterpart Traditions in the Enochic Pseudepigrapha
• Chapter Two: The Heavenly Counterpart Traditions in the Mosaic Pseudepigrapha
• Chapter Three: The Heavenly Counterpart Traditions in the Pseudepigrapha about Jacob
• Chapter Four: The Heavenly Counterpart Traditions in Joseph and Aseneth
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• Back Cover