Background
(Bible Study - May 2000) We sometimes think of the first century as being a doctrinal golden age when believers did not have to deal with all the false ideas circulating in our own day. Maybe we are even slightly jealous that the first believers were blessed not only to have the inspired apostles, but also to be spared the inventions of later centuries.
This view of the first century church is largely true when it comes to doctrines that are specifically New Testament in their origin, e.g. teaching about the nature of Christ, baptism into him, and his church. Yes, there were those in the early church who had wrong ideas about Christ, but the apostles did not have to deal with the Trinity [1], nor did the next several generations. For example, the very earliest post-apostolic documents such as Clement (c.90 AD) and the Apostle’s Creed (c.150 AD) could just as well have been written by Christadelphians, yet by the time of the Nicean Creed (325 AD) a statement such as Paul’s "there is one mediator between man and God, the man Jesus Christ" (I Tim. 2:5) would be heresy. Likewise the early church did not have to deal with infant baptism (the Didache c.120 AD, clearly specifies adult baptism), nor until Constantine’s conversion (337AD) were compromises of church and state a problem.
False doctrine pre-NT
But this view is not true of the state of other doctrines which did not originate in
the New Testament. While it took little more than 100 years for the specifically New
Testament doctrines to start being corrupted, the first principles of Bible teaching found
in the Old Testament had already been suffering this process for centuries. False
teachings about the immortality of the soul, the flight of the soul to paradise or hell on
death, dualism (one God of good, one demi-god of evil), belief in demons, witchcraft,
astrology, and so on, were all flourishing long before Christendom arrived on the scene.
Indeed, we can trace doctrinal decline right back to the words of the serpent "thou shalt not surely die" (Gen. 3:4). Throughout the Old Testament from Cain, via the golden calf, to the high places and the groves of Israel and Judah, we find a never-ending struggle against false teaching. If the Israelites were so doctrinally corrupt under the leadership of men like Moses, David, Hezekiah, Josiah and Ezra, it shouldn’t be a surprise to us that in the 300 year "gap" between Old and New Testaments, when the land was largely under the rule of, and settled by, pagans, things would go from bad to worse.
Consequently when Christ was born, it was into a world with as much false doctrine as the world of today. The Gospel was not solely corrupted by Hellenism after the ascension of the Lord, because the process had already been at work in Judaism since long before Alexander the Great brought the culture of Hellenism to the middle east. In fact it is not really even correct to use the term "Hellenism" of the problem we are addressing here. Most of the false doctrines we will look at predate the Greeks.
Jewish myths
We tend to think of mythology in association with Greece or Rome, but the starting
point of this series is Paul’s warning to Titus not to give heed to "Jewish
fables" (Titus 1:4). This word "fables" in the AV ("myths"
in most versions, mythos in Greek) is used five times in the New Testament. In one
of these instances, Paul warns of myths which will come (II Tim. 4:4), which we might
assume from our knowledge of subsequent church history would be pagan myths, but the other
four uses (I Tim. 1:4, 4:7; Tit. 1:4; II Pet. 1:16) speak of myths already present and
which the context strongly indicates are myths introduced from popular Judaism.
While it is disturbing to realize these myths are so resilient, it may at least encourage us that the problems we face in a world full of myths, legends and false doctrine is a condition not unknown to the apostles, nor to our Lord himself.
What myths?
So what do we know about these Jewish myths? Did Paul mean myths as a body of
literature like the myths of Greece or Rome, or just individuals telling foolish stories?
Do they survive today? And even if they do, why are they of any interest to us?
Until quite recently very little was known at all but thanks to some major rediscoveries and the work of scholars like C. Tischendorf [2] and R.H. Charles [3], we now know quite a lot about the Jewish myths Paul was referring to. They were never an independent body of literature like the myths of Greece and Rome, because the Jewish authors had some basic limits set on their imagination by the Bible (e.g. there can be no polytheism in Jewish myth), but popular Judaism had its mythology back then no less than Christianity has its myths today. Not all of the Jewish myths survive today, any more than all of Greek and Roman myth survives, and we have lists of banned books (either banned by the rabbis or by Christian bishops) which show that a good number of them have perished without trace. Nevertheless enough have survived to have a reasonable picture of the Jewish myths Paul was referring to.
The basis on which this series will proceed is primarily "know thine enemy." We are not interested in the myths themselves, but rather in how an understanding of what the Lord and the apostles were contending against can help us better understand the New Testament text.
God willing this series will continue as follows:
1. Background
2. Abraham and Hades
3. Jannes and Jambres
4. Enoch in Peter and Jude (part I)
5. Enoch in Peter and Jude (part II)
6. Michael, the Devil, and the body of Moses
Sources
It is worth introducing the main sources which will appear and reappear in the series.
1. Josephus [4] and Philo [5]. While we read Josephus for the history, Antiquities of the Jews also shows us some of the mythology believed by a well educated Pharisee (e.g. the magic legends concerning Solomon). Philo of Alexandria also refers to many popular myths.
2. The Old Testament Apocrypha -- as found between Old and New Testaments of Catholic Bibles [6]. Much of the Apocrypha is not "myth": for example the Wisdom of Sirach, and the "history" of Maccabees. A more typical example of Paul’s "Jewish myths" is to be found in the Book of Tobit which, with its stories about angels and demons, is very much representative of what people in Jesus’ day believed. Tobit is essential reading for any understanding of the popular demon belief described in the gospels.
3. The Dead Sea Scrolls ("DSS") -- discovered in 1948 at Qumran [7]. The Scrolls have the disadvantage of coming from one particular religious community, which was probably not typical of pre-70 AD Judaism, but many of the books in their library are simply copies of the religious bestsellers of their day -- and these fill in gaps in our knowledge of Jewish myth.
4. The OT Pseudepigrapha ("OTP") - meaning "falsely signed writings" [8]. This loose body of literature has some overlap with Dead Sea Scrolls and Apocrypha. In some ways it is the worst of all the sources available to us because by their very nature many of these pseudepigraphic books are deliberate fakes and forgeries, often pretending to be the work of a Bible figure such as Moses or Enoch. Pseudepigraphic books characteristically expand straightforward events in the Old Testament into the purest pulp fiction, with liberal doses of heaven and hell, angels and demons, soul journeys and so on. But it is exactly because these works are the worst that they are also our best source for the "Jewish myths" we are searching for.
5. Rabbinical writings -- Mishnah [9], Talmuds [10] and Midrash [11]. While the rabbis made a conscious effort to clean up Judaism doctrinally after the disasters of 70 AD and the Bar Khokba revolt, much of the mythological material survived the rabbis’ best efforts.
Health warning
A good overview of all the above sources is found in a book by Craig Evans [12] which
gives a straight account of the sources available. However a warning needs to be issued on
most other books about this material. Most writers on the Apocrypha, Dead Sea Scrolls and
Pseudepigrapha don’t have any respect for the Bible as the inspired word of God.
While that shouldn’t stop us making our own first hand studies of source material,
commentaries written on these works can be every bit as corrosive to faith in the
Scriptures as are modern commentaries on the Bible books themselves. It would be tragic if
misdirected inquiry into these Jewish myths had the opposite effect that Paul and Peter
intended in addressing them.
Inspiration vs. non-inspiration
As we proceed in this series, one of the consistent recurring themes will be to show
how the New Testament writers demonstrate the authority and inspiration of Scriptures by
contrast with the Jewish myths. It is therefore no coincidence that the famous proof
verses for the inspiration of Scripture (II Tim. 3:14-17; II Pet. 1:16-21) occur in
immediate proximity to specific Jewish legends (about which more later). This should not
be a surprise: if God’s word were the only authority competing for the mind of man --
which would not be the case even if the Bible were the only book in print -- inspiration
would be a non-issue. On the contrary, it is the competing presence of alternatives, be
they myths, man-made religions, science or philosophy, which makes it necessary to
distinguish between inspired and non-inspired, between truth and lies, the divine genuine
item and human imitations. The doctrine of inspiration in II Timothy 3:14-17 and II Peter
1:16-21 is not a theoretical description of the mechanism by which the Bible was written;
it is instead a practical challenge to all other messages and media. Therefore the contact
points with "Jewish myth" in the New Testament are points of combat.
The main purpose of this series is firstly to strengthen our belief and confidence in the inspiration of Scripture, meaning all Scripture, even those embarrassing mentions of "third heaven," "deaf mute demons," and "angels that sinned" that can raise doubts. This can only be done by uncovering the myth, and letting the arguments of the New Testament writers disprove them.
Although it is not the function of this series to serve as a kind of "Wrested Scriptures" on Jewish fables, it will be a sad theme of the articles that most of these myths are only mentioned in the New Testament with the aim of refuting them, yet in popular Christianity mere mention has been taken as proof of the myth, because of superficial reading and disregard of context. In some ways this is not surprising: if stories of soul journeys, magic, demons, and fallen angels are absent in the Old Testament but to be found in Jewish myth, those who are predisposed to believe in such things will naturally be drawn to the parts of the New Testament where these myths are dealt with.
Steven Cox
[1] Griffiths, Triads and Trinity University of
Swansea, A. Buzzard Trinity
[2] W. Whiston, reprint Hendrickson 1993
[3] C. Younge, reprint Hendrickson 1993
[4] C. Tishchendorf, Apocalypses Apocryphae, Leipzig
[5] RH Charles’ main work was his edition of the Pseudepigrapha Oxford 1910, but this
has now been superseded by Charlesworth below
[6] Jerusalem Bible.
[7] G. Vermes,Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English Penguin
[8] J. Charlesworth, Old Testament Pseudepigrapha 2 vols. Doubleday 1983
[9] Danby, Oxford 1933
[10] Soncino edition, see also Ginzberg below
[11] These sources are difficult to access (due to lack of translations and modern
editions) but many Midrash are indexed in the notes in volumes to Louis Ginzberg’s
mammoth "Legends of the Jews" 7 vols. 1938 reprinted John Hopkins 1999
[12] Craig Evans, Non-canonical Writings and New Testament Interpretation
Hendrickson 1992