Texts in conversation

Compare Jubilees 1:20 and 4Q213a 1 17

Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions · Dead Sea Scrolls, Biblical Retellings

Summary

In 4Q213a from the Dead Sea Scrolls, Levi asks that no satan rule over him. Jubilees describes Moses offering a similar prayer for all Israel, naming the threat as the spirit of Belial.

Passages

Jubilees 1:20

Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions

19 And Moses bowed facedown and prayed, 'Lord my God, do not abandon Your people and Your inheritance, or allow them to follow their misguided hearts, and do not deliver them into the hands of their enemies, the nations, so that they do not rule over them and cause them to sin against You. 20 Let Your mercy, Lord, extend over Your people, and create in them an upright spirit, and do not let the spirit of Beliar rule over them to accuse them before You, and to trap them and lead them away from all the paths of righteousness, so that they may be destroyed from Your presence. 21 But they are Your people and Your inheritance, which You have rescued with Your great power from the hands of the Egyptians: create in them a clean heart and a holy spirit, and do not let them be trapped in their sins from now on until eternity.'

170–125 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Jubilees

4Q213a 1 17

Dead Sea Scrolls, Biblical Retellings · Aramaic Levi b

10 […] I said, “My Lord, you 11 [… you] alone know 12 […] the ways of truth. Put far 13 […] evil, and fornication drive away 14 […] wisdom and knowledge and strength 15 […] to find your mercy before you 16 […] what is beautiful and what is good before you. 17 [… and] do not let any satan rule over me 18 [… upon] me, my Lord, and bring me near to be yours.”

160–60 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in 4Q213a

References

“... These considerations suggest that both Levi’s prayer in Aramaic Levi Docu- ment and Moses’ intercession in Jubilees 1:20 reflect the influence of a tradition that is extant through the “Prayer of Deliverance”. If this is the case, however, their common concern with the bestowal of a “holy spirit” in the context of the petition (cf. Aramaic Levi Document Grk. v. 8; Jub. 1:21), suggests that the underlying tradition was not entirely in line with the petition as preserved in 11Q5. Moreover, if the text of Psalm 119:133 is lurking in the background, by the time of Jubilees, at least, it lies well behind, and we may infer that the peti- tion for protection from demonic power was beginning to acquire a life of its own. If this is correct, then we may offer two observations: First, the writers of these texts have adapted the generally formulated prayer text to suit the purposes of their narrative, doing so in different ways. Whereas the author of Jubilees has transformed the ambiguous “satan”, perhaps from 11Q5, into a proper name Beliar while retaining his adversarial function, the author of the prayer of Levi retains “satan” as a type of demonic being that poses a threat. Second, the exis- tence of the deliverance prayer in 11Q5 demonstrates that the attestation of the petitions for deliverance within larger narratives that have shaped them (i. e., in 4Q213a and Jub. 1), does not mean they bear no relation to religious practice. In fact, if the underlying tradition to Aramaic Levi Document and Jubilees was inde- pendent from the petition in 11Q5, then we have to deal with a more wide- spread prayer than has previously been recognised. ...”

Loren T. Stuckenbruck, The Myth of Rebellious Angels: Studies in Second Temple Judaism and New Testament Texts (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2014), 205.

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

Fragment 1

4Q213a6 chapters

Compare Jubilees 1:20 and 4Q213a 1 17

Summary

Passages

Jubilees 1:20

4Q213a 1 17

References

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