Exodus 32:32

Hebrew Bible

30 The next day Moses said to the people, “You have committed a very serious sin, but now I will go up to the Lord—perhaps I can make atonement on behalf of your sin.” 31 So Moses returned to the Lord and said, “Alas, this people has committed a very serious sin, and they have made for themselves gods of gold. 32 But now, if you will forgive their sin…, but if not, wipe me out from your book that you have written. 33 The Lord said to Moses, “Whoever has sinned against me—that person I will wipe out of my book. 34 So now go, lead the people to the place I have spoken to you about. See, my angel will go before you. But on the day that I punish, I will indeed punish them for their sin.”

1 Enoch 108:3

Pseudepigrapha

2 You who have observed it will wait for these days until an end is made of those who do evil and the power of wrongdoers comes to an end. 3 You, however, wait until sin passes away; for their names will be erased from the book of life and from the books of the holy ones. And their seed will be destroyed forever. 4 And I saw there something like an invisible cloud; for by reason of its depth I could not look over, and I saw a flame of fire blazing brightly, and things like shining mountains circling and sweeping to and fro.

 Notes and References

"... In Revelation the expression “book of life” (τὸ βιβλίον τῆς ζωῆς) occurs a number of times (Revelation 3:5; 13:8; 17:8; 20:15; 21:27), while elsewhere in the New Testament it appears only in Philippians 4:3. An approximate form of the expression, “book of the living (ones)”, is attested in the Book of Parables at 1 Enoch 47:3 and in Psalm 69:28 (“let them be blotted out from the book of the living and let them not be enrolled among the righteous”). A more exact equivalent is preserved in the Eschatological Admonition of 1 Enoch 108:3, where it is twinned with “the books of the holy ones”. The latter text announces that the names of the wicked “will be erased from the book of life”, a phrase that has its negative equivalent in Revelation 3:5: “To those who conquer … I will not blot your name out of the book of life”. Both Revelation 3:5 and 1 Enoch 108:3 are allusions to Psalm 69:28 and, perhaps secondarily, to Exodus 32:32 (“but now, if you will only forgive their sin – and if not, blot me out of the book you have written”); they go beyond the texts from the Hebrew Bible, however, in regarding the book of life as a list of names of those who will survive the eschatological judgment, an idea which among literature composed before the Common Era is also found in Daniel 12:1 and Jubilees 36:10 (compare also 1 Enoch 103:2; 104:1). Since the motif is broadly shared, it is difficult to isolate influence on or an immediate link with Revelation from either the Book of Parables or Eschatological Admonition ..."

Stuckenbruck, Loren T. The Myth of Rebellious Angels: Studies in Second Temple Judaism and New Testament Texts (pp. 317-318) Mohr Siebeck, 2014

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