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2 Maccabees and Josephus describe heavenly armies appearing in the sky, with cavalry and weapons that mirror the military technology of their own eras, Hellenistic or Roman, linking their historical conflicts to larger cosmological wars.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
2 Maccabees 5:2
Deuterocanon
1 Now about this time Antiochus made his second invasion into Egypt. 2 It happened that throughout all the city, for almost forty days, cavalry appeared in the midst of the sky in swift motion, wearing robes woven with gold and carrying spears, equipped with troops for battle, drawing swords— 3 squadrons of cavalry in array, encounters and pursuits of both armies, shaking shields, multitudes of lances, throwing of missiles, flashing of golden trappings, and putting on all sorts of armor. 4 Therefore everyone prayed that the manifestation might have been given for good.
Date: 160–63 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Josephus, The Jewish War 6.5.3
Classical
Besides these, a few days after that feast, on the one and twentieth day of the month Artemisius, [Jyar,] a certain prodigious and incredible phenomenon appeared: I suppose the account of it would seem to be a fable, were it not related by those that saw it, and were not the events that followed it of so considerable a nature as to deserve such signals; for, before sun-setting, chariots and troops of soldiers in their armor were seen running about among the clouds, and surrounding of cities. Moreover, at that feast which we call Pentecost, as the priests were going by night into the inner [court of the temple,] as their custom was, to perform their sacred ministrations, they said that, in the first place, they felt a quaking, and heard a great noise, and after that they heard a sound as of a great multitude, saying, “Let us depart from here.”
Date: 75 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... Here the realm of the ruler’s authority is said to be the air. Elsewhere in Ephesians, hostile powers inhabit the heavenly realms (compare 3:10; 6:12). This notion has its background in Old Testament and Jewish thought where angels and spirit powers were often represented as in heaven (e.g., Job 1:6; Dan 10:13, 21; 2 Maccabees 5:2; 1 Enoch 61.10; 90.21, 24); it was also developed in Philo. What is the relationship of “the air” to “the heavenly realms”? It may be that the writer is using terminology from different cosmological schemes, but it is fairly certain that he intends the two terms to indicate the same realm inhabited by malevolent agencies. If there is any distinct connotation, it could be that the “air” indicates the lower reaches of that realm and therefore emphasizes the proximity of this evil power and his influence over the world. In later Judaism the air is in fact thought of as the region under the firmament as in 2 Enoch 29.4, 5, “And I threw him out from the height with his angels, and he was flying in the air continuously above the abyss.” (Compare also Testament of Benjamin 3.4; Targum of Job 5.7; and Ascension of Isaiah 7.9; 10.29; 11.23 where the firmament is called the air and the ruler of this world and his angels are said to live in it) ..."
Andrew T. Lincoln, Word Biblical Commentary: Ephesians (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2017), 460.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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