From Kings to Monsters: Jewish Perspectives on the Hellenistic and Roman Empires in Sibylline Oracles 3 and 5

Both the third and fifth books of the Sibylline Oracles engage with the threat and challenges of the political powers of their day, the Hellenistic and Roman respectively (Sib. Or. 3:657-714; 5:28-34, 155-161, 342-359). Both books also construe these powers as part of the reason for the arrival of God as Divine Warrior to execute judgement. In contrast to Alexandria Frisch, who argued that the Hellenistic Empire was the cause of greater Jewish critique, this article demonstrates that within the Sibylline tradition, the development in use of Jewish combat myth of the Divine Warrior across the two books actually shows the reverse. The texts from Sibylline Oracles 5 escalate the threat of the political enemy, not only depicting the Roman Empire and emperor within the cosmic drama, but as a force of chaos and agent of evil.

The origin of Beliar in Sibylline Oracle 3.63: A new proposal

This article investigates Sibylline Oracle 3.63 which states that Beliar will come ἐκ Σεβαστηνῶν, “from the Sebastenoi.” Scholars have understood the verse as meaning that Beliar will be either a Roman imperial figure or a Samaritan false prophet. Pointing out the serious shortcomings of these hypotheses, the article argues that the Sibylline Beliar should be seen as originating in Asia, most probably in Phrygia or northern Galatia. The relevant numismatic and epigraphic evidence is explored along with references to those regions across the Sibylline Oracles. New interpretative possibilities generated by the proposal are also presented along with the suggestion that Sib. Or. 3.63–74 should be dated sometime between mid-first and mid-third century C.E. and provenanced to central Asia Minor.

The Dead Sea Scrolls, Pseudepigrapha, and Expansions of Scripture

The sources presented here reflect voices from various creative strands of Jewish community life between 700 BCE and 135 CE. All of them in varying ways approach divine guidance through communal rereading, reinterpretation, and expansion of scripture. The Qumran community (which produced the Dead Sea Scrolls) took a hierarchical view of guidance, placing discernment largely in the hands of the elders. Pseudepigrapha and expansions of scripture, like the Prayer of Manasseh, used the name of a biblical figure to expand on what the biblical text itself may have mentioned only in passing. Jubilees elaborates on Abram’s crucial but brief encounter with God in Genesis 12 and depicts it as a response to Abram’s request for divine guidance. The Sibylline Oracles (as distinct from the Roman Sibylline Books) attribute Jewish oracles to the pagan Sibyl. 3 Maccabees weaves together human initiative with divine guidance to the Jewish community in Alexandria.

Irish

In the early Irish Church (600–800 CE) there were apocrypha of Oriental origin and in the tenth-century poem Saltair na Rann (“Psalter of Quatrains”) the account of the Fall of Adam and Eve is recognized as having analogues with rabbinic tradition and also a poem on Adam’s head. This essay first considers Jewish texts that have, or may have, influenced Irish tradition. Jewish influence on Irish traditions is then considered: Latin conjoined treatises on Adam and Eve; Adam created in agro Damasceno, in the field of Damascus; the seven or eight parts from which Adam was made; the four elements from which Adam was made (with rabbinic analogues); the naming of Adam (Slavonic Enoch and Sibylline Oracles 3:24–26); Penance of Adam and Eve; Sunday, Sabbath, respite for the damned; XV Signs before Doomsday; Jewish traditions in Saltair na Rann; the influence of Hebrew Bible traditions on early Irish genealogies and imagined prehistory.