Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha

Euripides’ play Hippolytus has an interest and strategy in disclosing divine intervention through story form that encourages a reexamination of the Book of Tobit and a recognition of its apocalyptic focus. Hippolytus opens with the goddess Aphrodite venting about Hippolytus’ disavowal of love and her decision to curse him. From that point on, Euripides’ tragedy narrates how the goddess’ curse was realized and ends with Hippolytus’ death. Tobit begins with an account of Tobit and Sarah’s suffering that leads them to beg God for death. Ironically, God decides to end their suffering by delivering them. Similar to Hippolytus, the Book of Tobit then narrates how God’s decree is fulfilled and ends with their deliverance. Tobit’s interests set it apart from Hippolytus as it pivots on a foundational Jewish tradition of angelic deliverance. God’s decree depends upon the angel Raphael, with Tobit extending the angel of the Lord trajectory that began with Israel’s earliest traditions and informs Jewish apocalypticism. Tobit will introduce indigenous contours however, that renders its angelic intervention unparalleled. In this fashion, Hippolytus’ narrative traits invite an apocalyptic interpretation of Tobit that focuses on disclosing the mystery of divine deliverance.

This article traces a number of overlapping themes related to the origins of evil that are present in certain Jewish and Christian pseudepigraphic texts, the Quran, and the Gǝ‘ǝz (or Ethiopic) Kǝbrä nägäśt. The Kǝbrä nägäśt features a mythology of evil that conflates different narratives about how evil was introduced into the world. In particular, the Ethiopic work brings together narratives about the fall of the angels in the Book of the Watchers in 1 Enoch with stories about the fall of Satan as related in pseudepigraphic texts like the Life of Adam and Eve and the Apocalypse of Moses. An expansion of the biblical account of Adam and Eve in Genesis can also be found in the Quran, which expounds on the motivations that led Satan to rebel against Allah. One finds echoes of these various themes in the mythology of evil in the Kǝbrä nägäśt, which I argue not only evinces a number of entanglements between different scriptural and parabiblical traditions, but is also thematically linked to the glorification of Ethiopia over Israel as the new location of the glory of Zion.

The citation from the Book of the Watchers (1 Enoch 1.9) in Jude 14–15 is, I argue, from a previously unidentified Greek edition of Enoch. This is quite likely a revision of an earlier Greek edition to align it closer to the Aramaic original. This article addresses the variation in text-types cited by the New Testament to establish the options available for authors to cite. It then compares our earliest manuscript of the Greek translation of Enoch with the citation in Jude. In light of my work on kaige revision of the Septuagint, I suggest the text in Jude reflects a revision of an Old Greek translation similar to Codex Panopolitanus and this revision shares kaige characteristics. This has implications for comprehending the popularity of Enochic scripture as authoritative scripture in early Judaism and Christianity.

Idolatry is the ultimate concern of the pseudepigraphic Epistle of Jeremiah (Baruch 6). Correspondingly, some have argued that the author of the epistle aimed to disparage idolatry, while others have argued that the author composed the epistle to dissuade Jews from worshipping false gods. While these theses have some merit, I contend that the author did not target the ultimate concern of idolatry head on but rather the penultimate concern, namely the fear of idols, which the author conceptualized as a precursor to idol worship. Accordingly, I demonstrate how the epistle’s opening address (vv. 1–6), repetitive refrains, and individual strophes reveal the author’s focus on assuaging the fear of idols. The study not only refines our understanding of the author’s objective in composing the epistle, but makes the often-noted satirical nature of the strophes all the more fitting, to the extent that humor can be an antidote to fear.