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In 3 Enoch, God makes Enoch as large as the world. Rabbinic tradition in Genesis Rabbah gives Adam that size at creation, linking Enoch's new body with the original human body.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
3 Enoch 9:2
Hebrew Book of Enoch
Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses
R. Ishmael said: Metatron, the Prince of the Presence, said to me: After all these things the Holy One, blessed be He, put His hand upon me and blessed me with 5360 blessings. And I was raised and enlarged to the size of the length and width of the world. And He caused 72 wings to grow on me, 36 on each side. And each wing was as the whole world. And He fixed on me 365 eyes: each eye was as the great luminary. And He left no kind of splendour, brilliance, radiance, beauty in (of) all the lights of the universe that He did not fix on me.
Genesis Rabbah 8:1
Aggadah
Rabbinic
Rabbi Yehoshua bar Neḥemya and Rabbi Yehuda bar Simon in the name of Rabbi Elazar said: He created him filling the whole world. From east to west, from where is it derived? It is as it is stated: “Back [aḥor] and front [kedem], You shaped me…” (Psalms 139:5). From north to south, from where is it derived? It is as it is stated: “[From the day God made Adam on the earth,] and from one end of the heavens to the other end of the heavens” (Deuteronomy 4:32). From where is it derived that he even filled the empty space of the world? It is as it is stated: “You placed Your palm on me” (Psalms 139:5) just as it says: “Distance Your palm from me” (Job 13: 21).
Date: 500 C.E. (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
“... Adam and Enoch: “Two Powers” in Heaven
Previous studies proposed that the traditions about the cosmic body of
Metatron in later Jewish mysticism might have originated as a result of
polemics with the traditions about the cosmic body of the protoplast. Thus,
Philip Alexander, in his comment on the motif of Enoch-Metatron
enlargement in Synopse §12 (3 Enoch 9), refers to certain rabbinic
traditions171 about “the primordial Adam’s body, like that of the Gnostic
protoanthropos, [which] corresponded to the world in size, but was
diminished to the present limited dimensions of the human body as a result
of the fall.”172 He further suggests that 3 Enoch’s account about the gigantic
body of Enoch-Metatron “may be expressing in mythological language the
idea that Enoch reversed the fall of Adam.”173 ...”
* 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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