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3 Enoch

Hebrew Book of Enoch

About this book
Chapter 9

1 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. 2 And I was raised and enlarged to the size of the length and width of the world.⁠ 3 And He caused 72 wings to grow on me, 36 on each side. And each wing was as the whole world. 4 And He fixed on me 365 eyes: each eye was as the great luminary. 5 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.

Texts in conversation

Compare 3 Enoch 9:2 and Genesis Rabbah 8:1

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses · Rabbinic

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Summary

In 3 Enoch, God makes Enoch grow to be as large as the world. Rabbinic tradition in Genesis Rabbah similarly describes Adam at that size at creation, connecting Enoch's new divine body with the original human body.

Passages

3 Enoch 9:2

Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses · Hebrew Book of Enoch
1 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. 2 And I was raised and enlarged to the size of the length and width of the world. 3 And He caused 72 wings to grow on me, 36 on each side. And each wing was as the whole world. 4 And He fixed on me 365 eyes: each eye was as the great luminary. 5 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.
400–600 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in 3 Enoch

Genesis Rabbah 8:1

Rabbinic · Aggadah
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).
500 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Genesis Rabbah

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 traditions 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.” 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.” ...”
Andrei Orlov, The Enoch-Metatron Tradition (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005), 248–249.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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3 Enoch 9:2 and Genesis Rabbah 8:1

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