Texts in Conversation
In Matthew 13, Jesus echoes a Jewish tradition that uses fire as a symbol of eschatological judgment, using language similar to 1 Enoch 108. The imagery of fire and associated sounds describe the punishment of the unrighteous.
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1 Enoch 108:5
Pseudepigrapha
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. 5 And I asked one of the holy angels who was with me and said unto him: 'What is this shining thing? for it is not a heaven but only the flame of a blazing fire, and the voice of weeping, crying, and strong pain.' 6 And he said unto me: 'This place which you see—here are cast the spirits of sinners and blasphemers, and of those who work wickedness, and of those who pervert everything that the Lord hath spoken through the mouth of the prophets—the things that shall be.
Date: 200-50 B.C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
Source
Matthew 13:12
New Testament
40 As the poisonous weeds are collected and burned with fire, so it will be at the end of the age. 41 The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather from his kingdom everything that causes sin as well as all lawbreakers. 42 They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 43 Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. The one who has ears had better listen! 44 “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure, hidden in a field, that a person found and hid. Then because of joy he went and sold all that he had and bought that field.
Date: 70-90 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... Matthew and Luke both follow a longer form of the Baptist’s saying in a fuller context which apparently speaks of a judgment baptism in fire as well as in the Spirit (compare also Luke 12:49–50 in light of Mark 10:38–39). The contextual image of a harvest and threshing floor in that Q tradition often functioned in the Hebrew Bible as judgment and/or endtime imagery. Fire also symbolized eschatological judgment in this context (Matt 3:10, 12; Luke 3:9, 17) as in the Hebrew Bible; Jewish tradition also developed a doctrine of an eternal or temporary hell (Chaff did not burn eternally, Isaiah 1:31; 66:24; Jeremiah 7:20; that Q’s fire is unquenchable suggests a particular Jewish image of judgment as eternal; the worst sinners in 4 Maccabees 9:9; 12:12; tosefta Sanhedrin 13:5; probably 1 Enoch 108:5–6; Life of Adam and Eve 38:4; Ascension of Isaiah 1:2; 3 Enoch 44:3; Sanhedrin 6:6, Plutarch Concerning Virtues 31. There was no unanimous Jewish view; see the probably first-century dispute in Avot of Rabbi Natan 41 A; compare also 36 A. Matthew’s view is more obviously Jewish than Luke’s, though Luke’s Hellenistic contextualization does not abandon future eschatology; Acts 17:31–32; 23:6; 24:15; contrast to some extent, e.g., Josephus Antiquities 18.14, 18; Jewish War 2.163; Philo Sacrifices 5, 8). Like Mark, the Fourth Gospel omits the mention of fire baptism along with the context in Q that makes it clear that it represents eschatological wrath ..."
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