Texts in Conversation
The Dead Sea Scroll 4Q184 personifies sin as a seductive woman whose followers inherit eternal fire, contrasted with the righteous. This resembles Jesus’ description of eternal fire, based on interpretive traditions of texts like Isaiah and Ezekiel.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
4Q184 1 7
The Seductress
Dead Sea Scrolls, Wisdom and Instruction
5 Her coverings are the deep darkness of twilight, and her ornaments are plagues of the pit. Her couches, her beds, are beds of Sheol […] 6 depths of the pit. Her lodgings are couches of darkness, and in the dead of night are her dominions. From the foundations of deep darkness 7 she pitches her dwelling, and she resides in the tents of silence, in the midst of everlasting burnings. She has no inheritance among all 8 the lights of brightness. She is the beginning of all the ways of iniquity. Woe, disaster to all who inherit her, and ruin to all 9 who hold on to her. For her ways are ways of death, and her paths are tracks of sin. Her trails lead astray 10 into iniquity, and her pathways are the guilt of transgression. Her gates are gates of death; at the entrance of her house she strides. To Sheol
Date: 100–60 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Matthew 25:41
New Testament
39 When did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ 40 And the king will answer them, ‘I tell you the truth, just as you did it for one of the least of these brothers or sisters of mine, you did it for me.’ 41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire that has been prepared for the devil and his angels! 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink. 43 I was a stranger and you did not receive me as a guest, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’
Date: 70–90 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
"... The last couplet of this first section introduces the theme of the fate of Lady Folly and those who are seduced by her: “Amid everlasting fire is her inheritance, not among all those who shine brightly.” Those who shine brightly are presumably the stars or the angels—the kind of imagery used in Daniel 12:3 to describe the immortality to be enjoyed by the righteous at the resurrection from the dead. The everlasting fire is on the other hand the abode of the wicked as in Matthew 25:41: “You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” In this respect—the theme of the eternal rewards for following Lady Wisdom and the eternal punishment for following Lady Folly, the Qumran text goes beyond what appears in its biblical model, Proverbs 1–9 ..."
Daniel J. Harrington, Wisdom Texts from Qumran, Literature of the Dead Sea Scrolls (London: Routledge, 1996), 33.
* 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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