Texts in Conversation
Daniel promises that the wise will shine like the stars after the dead awaken. In 4Q184 from the Dead Sea Scrolls, the wicked woman has no share among the shining ones, suggesting that this promise of life after death does not extend to her.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Daniel 12:1-3
Hebrew Bible
1 “At that time Michael, the great prince who watches over your people, will arise. There will be a time of distress unlike any other from the nation’s beginning up to that time. But at that time your own people, all those whose names are found written in the book, will escape. 2 Many of those who sleep in the dusty ground will awake—some to everlasting life, and others to shame and everlasting abhorrence. 3 But the wise will shine like the brightness of the heavenly expanse. And those bringing many to righteousness will be like the stars forever and ever.
4Q184 1:6-9
The Seductress
Dead Sea Scrolls, Wisdom and Instruction
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
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Notes and References
“... These expressions do not describe the time of night when the
woman stalks through city streets, as in Prov 7. It is the darkness of
the underworld where she resides. 4Q184 elaborates the claim in
Proverbs that the Strange Woman represents a path to death. The
language of darkness and death is intensified with a more vivid
description of Sheol than in Proverbs. [...] The
affirmation that her domain is amidst the "eternal flames" is
immediately followed by the statement that "none of her inheritance
is among all who shine brightly [...] " (4Q184 1 7-8).
52 This
suggests a form of astral immortality for the righteous after death, in a
manner similar to Dan 12:3 and 1 En. 104:2-6 (cf. 1QM 1:8-9; Matt
25:41).
53
While those who are to enjoy a blessed afterlife are
distinguished from the woman of 4Q184, those who are part of her
allotment suffer punishment after death. ...”
Goff, Matthew J.
Discerning Wisdom: The Sapiential Literature of the Dead Sea Scrolls
(p. 115) Brill, 2007
* 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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