Mark Edward • Bible

Notes on Genesis 1-11

Fri, 04 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Genesis 1

Gen 1.1-2.4a come from P (the Priestly source).

1.1 — Traditionally translated ‘In the beginning God created’. Some more recent translations have ‘In the beginning when God created’. Now critically argued to be ‘When God began to create’. These alternative translations impose different meanings on the when and what of creation. The third, probably the most accurate, indicates that the initial state of ‘the earth’ was ‘desolate and waste’ before God ‘began to create’, rather than indicating it was created from nothing as a blank slate. There is no distinction in Hebrew between ‘heaven’ (as an exclusively immaterial dimension invisible to mortals) and ‘sky’ (as the volume of air all above the surface of the land), so the latter is to be preferred to properly convey the cosmology of the authors.

The second god

Mon, 15 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Genesis

5.21–24 When Enoch had lived for sixty-five years, he became the father of Methuselah. Enoch walked with God after the birth of Methuselah for three hundred years, and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years. Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him.

Exodus

23.20–21 ‘I am going to send a messenger in front of you, to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place that I have prepared. Be attentive to him and listen to his voice; do not rebel against him, for he will not pardon your transgression; for my name is in him.’

Second Peter

Wed, 01 Oct 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

There are some small puzzles in the Bible that I have been curious about for a decade or two. These are miniscule curiosities that, while odd enough to catch my attention, I had no serious expectation of finding an explanation.

One example is that of the trifecta of Peter, John, and James. In the synoptic gospel tradition, these three men are given the privilege of witnessing unique moments in Jesus’ career. In Paul’s letter to the Galatians we also find Peter, John, and James as the senior leaders of the early Jesus Movement. However, these two attestations to such a trio of men are not identical. In the synoptic tradition, James is the brother of John; these two sons of Zebedee are each counted among the twelve disciples. In Galatians, James is the brother of Jesus, and was evidently not one of the twelve. In the New Testament, the only text to depict both John’s brother James and Jesus’ brother James as active within the Jesus Movement is the Book of Acts, which introduces Jesus’ brother to the reader only after John’s brother had died. This prevents the two men from being confused, and may indicate the author also noticed this little oddity—the importance of James as part of a trifecta of disciples in the synoptics, and the primacy of James as part of a trifecta of leaders in Paul’s letter, but these two men are not the same James—and intended to explain it by omitting any reference to Jesus’ brother until after John’s brother had left the narrative.

Slander of the holy spirit

Sun, 15 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Synoptic Problem

Sat, 15 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Josephus’ Account of Jesus

Thu, 01 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

Joseph son of Matthiah—more commonly known by his Hellenized name Josephus—was a descendant of the Hasmoneans, a family of Judean priests which also ruled Jerusalem as its princes and kings for a short time. Josephus was highly educated and well-traveled, such that, when revolt broke out in Iudaea Province against Roman authority in 66 CE, he was placed in charge of the military in Galilee. Through happenstance and ingenuity (and, perhaps, some duplicity), Josephus avoided death in the war, instead being captured by the Romans. He ingratiated himself with his captors by acting as their negotiator with the revolutionaries defending Jerusalem.

Anachronisms in Genesis

Mon, 15 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Focusing on Genesis (rather than the Torah as a whole), we find several anachronistic elements in the book. The book’s traditional origin is that it was written in the late fifteenth century BCE, coming from the hand of Moses during Israel’s journey through the wilderness toward Canaan following the exodus from Egypt. While many of the folklore elements found in the book must predate the time of its creation, their cumulative weight points toward Genesis having been written and edited in the seventh, sixth, and possibly fifth centuries BCE.

Sources used in Matthew 24

Thu, 15 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000

The ‘name’ in Matthew 28

Mon, 15 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

And Jesus came and said to them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the son and of the holy spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.’

Compare incantation texts. Dozens from third through seventh centuries CE, under the Sassanian Empire.

The Death of Jesus

Wed, 01 Feb 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

For nearly two thousand years, the concept which stands at the center of Christian thought has been that the death of Jesus is the means by which the creator of the universe rescues humans from the problem of evil. Over this time, theologians have offered a variety of theories for how, exactly, this is accomplished. While many of them fixate on the letters of Paul to define their arguments for a proper salvation theology, the actual narrative for Jesus’ death is found elsewhere.

Vicarious atonement in late Second Temple Judaism

Thu, 15 Dec 2022 00:00:00 +0000

4 Maccabees 17.7–10, 17–22

If it were possible for us to paint the history of your religion as an artist might, would not those who first beheld it have shuddered as they saw the mother of the seven children enduring their varied tortures to death for the sake of religion? Indeed it would be proper to inscribe on their tomb these words as a reminder to the people of our nation: ‘Here lie buried an aged priest and an aged woman and seven sons, because of the violence of the tyrant who wished to destroy the way of life of the Hebrews. They vindicated their nation, looking to God and enduring torture even to death.’

The Legends of the Judges

Sat, 01 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

The descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob have grown into twelve tribes consisting of millions of people. They escaped slavery in Egypt, wandered in the wilderness for a generation, and eventually conquered the land of Canaan to live in. The Book of Judges, as situated in the Hebrew Bible, continues the narrative of the Torah and the Book of Joshua. Having settled in the land, the Israelites now face foreign threats to their livelihood.

The Gods of Israel

Mon, 01 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

Chapter three of Habakkuk is widely regarded as one of the ‘most difficult’ passages in the Hebrew Bible to translate,1 due to its ‘poor condition’.2 It contains a large number of ‘apparently insurmountable’3 textual corruptions,4 some of them ‘impossibly corrupt’,5 with a ‘severe lack of agreement’ in places on how they should be corrected or translated.6 In some places the text is verbally coherent, but conceptually meaningless. These difficulties require scholars to consult early translations of Habakkuk—such as Greek, Syriac, and Latin—to attempt puzzling out what the original Hebrew text may have said. Even aside from this, Hab 3 stands out in the Hebrew Bible for a few reasons. It is unusual for being a hymn set within poetic prophecy; usually such hymns are located within a narrative. It also contains several textual markers used in the Psalms.7

The Infancy Story in Luke

Sat, 01 Jan 2022 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

The first two chapters of the Gospel of Matthew tell the story of the birth and infancy of Jesus. The story did not originate with the author of Matthew, but the author’s source borrowed heavily from known legends concerning the birth of Moses, among other things. The account is almost entirely an invention of Jesus’ followers, probably after the mid-first century. The infancy narrative in Matthew tells us more about early ‘Christian’ beliefs regarding Jesus than it tells us about Jesus himself.

The Divine Agent of God

Mon, 01 Nov 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

One tenet of Christian theology that has been carefully defined over many centuries is the identity of Jesus as God. The historically orthodox teaching of Christianity is highly specific, and its biblical foundation is taken for granted in a confessional context. The case is different for critical scholarship. The topic has been approached from a number of directions for more than a century. Did Jesus think he was God? Did the authors of the gospels think he was? Did Paul? Does the Revelation portray him as God? Does the Old Testament?

Destroy This Temple

Wed, 01 Sep 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

The earliest known gospel is Mark. The gospel was subsequently expanded and redacted by Matthew and Luke. A hypothetical source used by both Matthew and Luke is named Q. Aside from these three gospels and Q, we have other gospels named for John, Thomas, Peter, and fragments of lost gospels.

In every one of these gospels, Jesus clashes with the religious elite of Israel, identified by the authors as members of the Pharisee and Sadducee parties, as well as members of the scribal and priestly classes. His sharp criticisms of their perceived sins and hypocrisies occasionally turn to declarations of end-times doom. This theme is so prevalent in Mark that it fills several chapters. Once Jesus arrives in Jerusalem for the Passover festival, his criticism of the city, its leadership, and its temple is brought up repeatedly. In the center of these chapters is a section called the ‘Olivet Discourse’ or ‘Little Apocalypse’ (somewhat inaccurately1), the longest section of Mark dedicated to a single topic,2 which begins with a prediction that the temple will be destroyed.

The Golden Calves

Tue, 01 Jun 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

The Prince of Egypt cuts to the end credits as Moses triumphantly descends Mount Sinai with the tablets of God’s law. If the film had continued, the very next scene would have been Moses discovering Israel worshiping a golden idol of a young bull, created by Moses’ own brother Aaron. Moses cracks the stone tablets on the ground in anger, having just defended Israel to God. He seizes the idol, grinds it into a fine powder, and forces the idolators to drink the powder mixed in water. Moses then instructs the Levite tribe to kill anyone who failed to repudiate the idol.

Original Sin

Thu, 01 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

The concept of ‘original sin’ is pervasive in Western Christianity. The historical teaching is this: When Adam sinned in the garden of Eden, his act corrupted humanity’s very nature so that all of his descendants suffer an innate desire to disobey God. Further, Adam’s guilt was not his alone. All humans inherit not only his ‘sin nature’, but the guilt for Adam’s sin as well; every human is born — even conceived — already guilty of sin.

The imminent eschaton in early Christian literature

Mon, 15 Mar 2021 00:00:00 +0000

The early followers of Jesus were deeply apocalyptic, but not just in the technical sense of ‘apocalypse’ meaning ‘revelation’. The ancient literary genre of the apocalypse was dominated by predictions about the end of the world. This community, diverse as it was, believed that God’s plan for the end of the world had been revealed to them. Through Jesus’ teachings, and especially through his resurrection, they knew the end was near.

The Failed Messiah Zerubbabel

Mon, 01 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

After Persia conquered Babylon in 538 BCE, King Cyrus II soon released the Judeans from their captivity, allowing them to return to their ancestral homeland and begin the process of rebuilding their society under his rule. Sometime in the decade or two after this, a large group of repatriates traveled to Judah, and among them was a man named Zerubbabel. Ezra and Nehemiah briefly describe how Zerubbabel, appointed as governor over the returning community, led the efforts alongside the high priest Jeshua to build a new temple for Yhwh in Jerusalem.

The Infancy Story in Matthew

Tue, 01 Dec 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

The chronological problems in the two stories of Jesus’ infancy in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke are well-known to scholars.

Matthew

Luke

Jesus born before the death of Herod I in 4 BCE

Jesus born during or after the census of the newly-annexed Iudaea Province in 6 CE

Joseph and Mary live in Bethlehem

Joseph and Mary live in Nazareth, but travel to Bethlehem because of the census

The Suffering Servant

Thu, 01 Oct 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

In the time after the New Testament texts were written, Christians have attached a variety of passages from the Hebrew Bible to Jesus. He realizes this prediction or embodies that psalm. One of the traditions that is found in the New Testament itself is that Jesus fulfilled Isaiah’s prophecy of the ‘suffering servant’, a figure described four times in Isa 40–55. For example:

Isaiah 53

1 Peter 2

Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. […] All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and Yhwh has laid on him the iniquity of us all. […] although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth.

The Demise of Babylon

Wed, 01 Apr 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

The Book of Isaiah is typically divided by scholars into three sections: Proto-Isaiah or First Isaiah consists of chapters 1–39, Deutero-Isaiah or Second Isaiah is chapters 40–55, and Trito-Isaiah or Third Isaiah is chapters 56–66. Proto-Isaiah is attributed to the actual Isaiah, who lived in the eighth century BCE. Deutero-Isaiah and Trito-Isaiah each come from authors in the late exilic and early post-exilic periods — just before, and sometime after, 538 BCE — respectively.

A Prophecy of Two Cities

Sun, 01 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

It is commonly accepted Isaiah is comprised of at least four sections, written by different authors and appended to each other. Setting aside later redactions and interpolations, Isaiah 1–35 is the earliest section, called Proto-Isaiah or First Isaiah, the contents of which are attributed to the historical prophet Isaiah. Here are prophecies concerning the fate of the northern kingdom Israel and the southern kingdom Judah, along with prophecies condemning various neighboring countries.

The Transfiguration of Jesus

Mon, 01 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

One of the most enigmatic stories in the Synoptic Gospels is the ‘transfiguration’ of Jesus, originally found in Mark 9, and expanded in Matt 17 and Luke 9. In this episode, Jesus leads three of his disciples up a mountain, where they witness Jesus suddenly transform.

Mark 9.2–8

Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. Then Peter said to Jesus, ‘Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three tents, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.’ He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, ‘This is my beloved son. Listen to him!’ Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them anymore, but only Jesus.

The Fabled King Melchizedek

Wed, 01 May 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

While researching Saul’s family, I was reminded of David’s procession of the ark of the covenant into Jerusalem, a story found in 2 Sam 6. On the initial attempt, a priest tries prevent the ark from falling when the oxen carrying it stumble. Yhwh immediately kills the priest for touching the ark, and David leaves it in a small village for three months. Eventually overcoming his fear, David takes up the procession again.

The Family of King Saul

Fri, 01 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

Saul’s story begins with him searching for his father’s missing donkeys. He finds the prophet Samuel, who anoints him to be Israel’s first king. Samuel later publicly declares Saul king, and Saul begins to lead Israel in fighting against their enemies. Chapter 15 shows Saul disobey an order from Samuel, sparing the life of the Amalekite king Agag. Samuel curses Saul, telling him that Yhwh will replace him with a new king. Saul begs forgiveness, but doesn’t receive it. The part which puzzled me was that, near the end of chapter 14, in the middle of the story of Saul’s military exploits, there is a brief detour. For just three verses we are suddenly told the identities of Saul’s family members.

Six Hundred Sixty Six

Sat, 01 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

Every decade or so, end-times hysteria grips American evangelicals. Justified or not, a new scapegoat is found and said to be ‘the beast’ of the Revelation of John. Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Bill Gates, George W. Bush, Saddam Hussein, Barack Obama, and the World Wide Web have been contenders in the past.

Revelation of John 13.18

And the number is six hundred sixty-six.

Readers invent an interpretive system that enables them to make the connection they ‘always knew’ was right. No one seeking to identify a present or future villain with ‘the beast’ will ever succeed, because the Revelation’s author expected his original readers to be able to do it.

The Deaths of Goliath

Fri, 01 Jul 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction

Years after David became king, stories were told of his elite soldiers. The feats some of them performed, the daring combats they won, were captured in the bible. Second Samuel 21 tells of how different Israelite champions slayed Philistine giants. Many readers are unaware of this section, and even those who get here tend to skim. However, buried in 2 Samuel is a small, but hugely important statement.

2 Samuel 21.19

Then there was another battle with the Philistines at Gob; and Elhanan son of Jaare-oregim, the Bethlehemite, killed Goliath of Gath. The shaft of his spear was like a weaver’s beam.

Apocalypse

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

John describes an elaborate vision of God's temple in heaven, in which the Anointed One arrives to initiate divine judgment on the world, concluding with the final judgment. Most influenced by Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Exodus, Zechariah, and Joel.

The Throne

I, John, your brother and sharer in the tribulation and kingdom and endurance in Jesus, was on the island that is called Patmos because of God’s word and the witness of Jesus. I was in the pneuma on the Lord’s Day and I heard a loud voice behind me, like a trumpet, saying, ‘Write what you see in a scroll.’

Elsewhere

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Amateur Exegete Matthew Hartke Paul Davidson

Epistle

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

John addresses seven churches in Asia, repeatedly declaring that his prophecies are about to be fulfilled. Most influenced by Daniel and the Gospel of Matthew.

Title

A Revelation of Jesus the Anointed One: which God gave him to show his slaves what must happen soon. And he signified it, sending it through his messenger to his slave John, who witnessed God’s word and the witness of Jesus the Anointed One, as much as he saw.

The Revelation of John

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Stage 1

In stage one, ‘John of Patmos’ wrote a series of apocalyptic tracts across 60–90 CE, reacting to socio-political events. His predictions borrowed extensively from the Hebrew Bible, mixing and reimagining many elements from his sources. His later tracts assume a degree of familiarity with his earlier ones. John was not a Christian during this time.

Tract 01 • The Little Scroll Tract 02 • The 144,000 Israelites Tract 03 • The Two Witnesses Tract 04 • The Two Wild Animals Tract 05 • Babylon the Whore Tract 06 • Babylon’s Destruction Tract 07 • Jerusalem from the Sky Tract 08 • The Anointed One Hidden Tract 09 • The Anointed One Revealed Tract 10 • The Harvest

Stage 2

In stage two, John decided to consolidate his tracts into a single document, around 85–100 CE. He drafted up a larger apocalyptic framework, with a complete narrative of its own, and decided on points to insert his tracts. The result was about double the length of the tracts on their own. Though he did make small modifications to his tracts for their new contexts, and likewise made adjustments to the apocalypse in the process of inserting the tracts, many of his editorial seams are still apparent. John had also become a Christian by the time wrote his apocalypse, so he made several interpolations to his tracts to accommodate his new christology.

Tract 01 • The Little Scroll

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

John describes his (re)commission to be a prophet. This is perhaps John’s earliest surviving tract. It is possible, even likely, he had written other documents—before, during, and after what he decided to use in his Revelation—but they are no longer extant. His primary influences in this tract were Ezekiel, in which the prophet was given a scroll to ingest (symbolizing his reception of his prophetic message to pass forward), and Daniel, in which a man swore an oath regarding the fulfillment of prophecy. Extremely close parallels are found in the Revelation of Zephaniah and 4 Ezra, suggesting common traditions behind the three texts.

Tract 02 • The 144,000 Israelites

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

John prophesies the survival of Israel through an imminent threat. John’s primary influence may have been Jeremiah, in which the ‘redeemed’ of Israel stand on Zion and sing praises to God. John saw the end times on the horizon, which would include events threatening the survival of Israel. He wrote this tract to assure his readers that Israel will be protected. Total certainty for the survival of God’s chosen people is taken for granted in the New Testament, but the idea that future events have been predetermined by God was not a normative element of Judaism until near the end of the Second Temple period. Examples of prophets going out of their way to provide such assurances are found throughout the Hebrew Bible. Compare the 1 Enoch, 4 Ezra, and 2 Baruch.

Tract 03 • The Two Witnesses

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

John prophesies the survival of Jerusalem's temple amid the Judean-Roman War, and predicts the martyrdom of a prophet like Elijah to the eschatological tyrant. This tract probably underwent multiple editorial passes. The first paragraph of John’s tract seems to have originated separately. The temple is supposed to be measured, but God abruptly turns John’s attention to the two witnesses, abandoning the topic of Jerusalem’s suffering. Parallel versions are found in the Revelation of Elijah and the Divine Institutes of Lactantius. While the Revelation of Elijah is recognized as originating as a Judean apocalyptic text, it appears to have undergone extensive redaction by a Christian editor who was dependent on the Revelation of John. How much of it existed before this redaction is impossible to determine. The parallel in Lactantius incorporates elements from older Christian texts, but the differences from the Revelation of John are pronounced enough—particularly that his version contains just one prophet—that Lactantius appears to have received his equivalent of this tract independently. There is a category of scribal errors called ‘editorial fatigue’. This is when an author incorporates a source into a new document, and the author decides to correct or otherwise change some element of their source. As the author continues on, they may overlook occasions where these changes need to be made, or they simply forget as their attention is drawn elsewhere. (An example can be seen in the synoptic gospels. Mark 6 refers to Herod Antipas incorrectly as a ‘king’. Where Matthew 14 copies from Mark, it initially changes ‘king’ to the correct title ‘tetrarch’, but soon fails to continue this correction, falling back to Mark’s title of ‘king’.) The Revelation of John says of the two witnesses that ‘fire will come from their mouth’, which appears to be such an example of this sort of error. In altering the story of a single prophet to instead have ‘two witnesses’, John made numerous changes to accommodate for there being more than one character, but failed to correct the detail of a singular mouth. It would appear that John’s tract began from a core story about a prophet killed by the eschatological tyrant, which John expanded with the details of the ‘great city’. He later made a variety of changes to harmonize with Tracts 4, 5, and possibly 9, probably during the second stage of composition, when he inserted the tracts into the apocalypse. Based on these clues, the oldest detectable form of Tract 3: lacked the first paragraph (about the temple); contained just one prophet; lacked the influences from Zechariah and Daniel; and, lacked any references to any cities. These details—where Tract 3 most differs from the parallel in Lactantius—are the points where John’s text has obvious editorial seams and internal narrative difficulties.

Tract 04 • The Two Wild Animals

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

John prophesies ex eventu about the death of Nero Caesar, and predicts his revival as the eschatological tyrant. The ‘wild animal’ is John’s version of the chief villain from Daniel. In that book, five apocalyptic prophecies are found in chapters 2, 7, 8, 9, and 10–12. Each one begins with the ‘present day’ (of the character Daniel, not the pseudonymous author), and covers the rise and fall of a series of four gentile kingdoms, each of them ruling Judah in succession: Babylon, Media, Persia, and Greece. This order is not historically accurate, but the author of Daniel insisted on this sequence (cf. Dan 2.37–38; 8.20–21; 10.13, 20; 11.2) by adapting a common division of history into four ages. In reality, Media rose to power before Babylon, and never ruled over Judah. Instead, the Persians conquered Media first, then Babylon. Daniel’s historical revisionism may be explained as an attempt to rescue a failed prophecy in the Book of Jeremiah, that Media would conquer Babylon (Jer 51.11, 28; cf. Dan 9.2). The Greek kingdom—which in the Book of Daniel comprised Alexander III of Macedon and his successors in the Seleucid and Ptolemaic dynasties—was regarded by the author as the worst of the four gentile kingdoms. Daniel further identifies the Seleucid king Antiochus IV as the world-conqueror, a tyrant who would usher in the end times. God would then intervene, rewarding Israel with a restored kingdom, and punishing their enemies. The five prophecies are quite redundant, and only provide new information insofar as the author himself experienced the unfolding Maccabee Revolt against Antiochus IV. Daniel’s predictions did not come to pass, but the book received widespread popularity very early, which required further revisionist interpretations to keep it relevant and protect it from its own failure. Media and Persia were conflated as a single kingdom which followed Babylon, moving the Greeks up to become the third kingdom. Daniel’s rebuke of a world-conquering king became a cornerstone in apocalyptic imagination, even for writers who were not directly dependent on the book. The prophecy in Daniel 7 is presented as a symbolic vision, in which the four gentile kingdoms are monsters. The first three are each compared to an animal, while the fourth is described only as ‘terrifying and dreadful and exceedingly strong’. Apocalypses in the late first century CE only focused on Daniel’s fourth beast, which they identified with the Roman Empire. This is also the case for John, who introduced it as ‘a wild animal rising from the sea’. However, John then immediately imagined ‘another wild animal’, this one ‘rising from the earth’. John did not add this new monster into Daniel’s sequence as a previously unknown fifth empire. Rather, he depicted it as contemporary with, and subservient to, his version of the fourth and final empire. Compare the Psalms of Solomon, 4 Ezra, 2 Baruch, the Martyrdom of Isaiah, the Sibylline Oracles, and Lactantius’ Divine Institutes.

Tract 05 • Babylon the Whore

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

John prophesies the destruction of Rome, as vengeance for destroying Jerusalem and its temple, by the eschatological tyrant, the revived Nero Caesar. John’s primary influences were Ezekiel, in which Jerusalem is portrayed as God’s adulterous wife, and Daniel, in which gentile empires are depicted as a series of monsters, and their appendages—such as heads or horns—represent the rulers of those empires. Although the relevant passage in Ezekiel uses sexual infidelity as a metaphor in criticism of Jerusalem, accusations of ‘whoredom’ are leveled against gentile cities in other prophetic literature. The name ‘Babylon’ became symbolic code for Rome after 70 CE, applied by Judean and Christian theologians because both the Babylonian and the Roman empires uniquely shared the historical act of destroying Jerusalem and its temple. The double-interpretation of visionary symbolism is unusual, and suggests John expanded the text slightly to clarify that he had Rome in mind. The brief comments about the final war between the eschatological tyrant and the Anointed One interrupts this text, appearing to have been based on the equivalent scene in Tract 9. This and the opening paragraph were probably written when John inserted the tracts into his apocalypse, attempting to make them more cohesive. Compare the Revelation of Abraham, 4 Ezra, 2 Baruch, and the Sibylline Oracles.

Tract 06 • Babylon’s Destruction

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

John condemns Babylon to destruction. John’s primary influence was Ezekiel 26–28, in which a long prophetic indictment is leveled against the gentile city-state Tyre and its king. Nearly two full chapters of Ezekiel’s rebuke focus on the exploitative economy that enriched Tyre, while a third chapter lambasts Tyre’s king individually for exchanging his God-given wisdom for the immense wealth which he unjustly attained by his violent trade tactics. John infused this passage from Ezekiel with swaths of text adapted from Jeremiah 51–52, which focus almost exclusively on the destruction of the historical Babylon. Compare the Sibylline Oracles.

Tract 07 • Jerusalem from the Sky

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

John prophesies the unveiling of a glorified Jerusalem. John’s primary influences were Isaiah, Ezekiel, Zechariah, and Joel, each of which describes an idealized, supremely exalted Jerusalem, which each author expected to be built in their near future, sometime after the Babylonian exile. Compare 1 Enoch and Tobit.

And in the pneuma he carried me to a massive and tall mountain, and he showed me the holy city Jerusalem descending from the sky, from God. It has God’s glory. Its radiance is like a precious stone, like a crystal-clear jasper stone. It has a huge and tall wall. It has twelve gates, and twelve messengers stand at the gates, and names were inscribed, which are the names of the twelve tribes of Israel’s sons: three gates from the east, and three gates from the north, and three gates from the south, and three gates from the west. And the city’s wall has twelve foundations, and the twelve names of the lamb’s twelve envoys is on them.

Tract 08 • The Anointed One Hidden

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

John describes the protection and hiding of the Anointed One after his birth, in contrast to the persecution of the rest of Israel. John wrote a midrash which expanded on the conflict briefly mentioned in Daniel 12.1. Everything in Daniel 11 which preceded this point—including the accession and eventual death of Antiochus IV as the world-conqueror—was merely the lead-up to the final eschatological crisis. Only at that point would Israel’s divine representative rise up, the messenger-prince Michael, elevating Israel with him. The primary influence on John’s thought process was a Greco-Roman myth, in which Zeus rescues the pregnant goddess Leto from the dragon Python, so that Leto may safely give birth to her son Apollo, who was fated to slay Python. John changed the identities of the myth’s characters through his scriptural allusions. Compare 1 Enoch, the Dead Sea Scrolls, 4 Ezra, and 2 Baruch.

Tract 09 • The Anointed One Revealed

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

John prophesies the unveiling of the Anointed One to wage his messianic holy war against the Roman Empire, followed by his ages-long kingdom and the final judgment. John has written a midrash on both the judgment scene in Daniel 7 and the defeat of Israel’s final enemies in Ezekiel 37–39. Compare 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch.

And I saw three impure pneumas like frogs come from the mouth of the dragon and from the mouth of the wild animal and from the mouth of the false prophet. They are pneumas of daemons performing signs, which go to the world’s kings to gather them for the battle of the great day of God the Almighty. And he gathered them together at a place called Armagedōn in Hebrew.

Tract 10 • The Harvest

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

John prophesies the final judgment of God's enemies and the rescue of his chosen. John’s primary influences are Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Joel, each of which compares divine judgment to a harvest of grain and/or grapes, but several other common eschatological images are used as well. This text, more than any other, assumes the reader’s knowledge of John’s previous tracts: the second messenger names ‘the great city Babylon’ (Tracts 5 and 6), accuses her of ‘whoredom’ (Tract 5), and reiterates her punishments (Tract 6). John provides an outline of the eternal torture which awaits sinners (Tracts 4 and 9), returns to the ‘harvest’ of Israel (Tract 2), and alludes to the cavalry which battles evildoers (Tract 9). This tract also contains a very loose seven-part structure, anticipating the three sets of seven which John will create and use as the primary framework in the second stage of composition.