Understanding the Demonologies of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Accomplishments and Directions for the Future

Understanding the Demonologies of the Dead SeaScrolls: Accomplishments and Directions for the Future

Bennie H. Reynolds III*Millsaps College

Abstract

This essay examines scholarship on the demonology of the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS). It places aspecial focus on how the notions of evil spirits found in the Book of Watchers (1 Enoch 1–36)were adopted, adapted, and reconfigured in various ways in the scrolls. Concepts crucial to manygroups within Second Temple Judaism (impurity, dualism, apocalypticism, and monotheism) func-tioned to influence how the evolving concept of demonic beings was received and deployed inHellenistic Jewish thought. The DSS provide the largest and most significant data set for analyzingthese developments. The essay concludes by suggesting a critical methodological issue for futureresearch on Jewish demonology.

Some of the oldest Israelite texts we possess describe supernatural beings that exist meta-physically somewhere between deities and humans.1 These types of figures continue toappear in modest numbers in Israelite ⁄ Jewish literature throughout the Iron Age and Per-sian Period. But a change in the metaphysical landscape of Jewish thought takes placeduring Hellenistic times. Jewish writings of the Hellenistic Period bear witness to anunprecedented proliferation of angel ⁄demonologies. For example, one finds seventeendistinct figures mentioned in 1 Enoch 6 alone. Since 1947 the manuscripts discovered atand around Qumran, the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS), have provided the single most signifi-cant source of data for understanding this religious and literary phenomenon. The impor-tance of the Qumran library for ancient Jewish demonology is at least threefold. First, itprovides the oldest and best witnesses to ‘‘biblical’’2 texts (Ulrich 2012). Second, it pro-vides original-language copies of Hellenistic-era Jewish texts known previously only inGreek or Ethiopic translation (e.g., 1 Enoch, Jubilees).3 Third, it provides a trove of previ-ously unknown Jewish texts from the Hellenistic period in which demons appear. Ofspecial importance is that these texts often interact with one another (across the categoriesdescribed here). For example, 1 Enoch (category 2) interprets the Book of Genesis (cate-gory 1). In turn, 1 Enoch (category 2) is interpreted by texts such as 4Q510 ⁄4QShira (cat-egory 3). This essay focuses primarily on how scholars have treated the second and thirdtypes of data available from Qumran. Not all of the DSS mention demons, but the cor-pus as a whole significantly increases the data with which one can work.4

Until relatively recently, much of the work performed on the DSS involved determin-ing their content. Many of the books and articles dealing with demons in the DSS havefocused either on transcriptions and translations of texts or on gathering together textswhose content or linguistic features signify that they might be of use in understandingJewish demonology (e.g., Baillet 1982; Garc�ıa-Mart�ınez et al. 1998; Milik 1976). Thework of publishing accurate transcriptions and translations has now given way to thework of interpretation. What do the texts mean? How do they illuminate the religion,history, literature, languages, etc., of their time period? These questions have only begunto be posed to the DSS that mention demons and this essay surveys some of the most

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recent and important contributions to that endeavor. I conclude by suggesting an agendafor future research.

What is a Demon?

A methodological problem complicates any investigation of demonology in ancient Juda-ism: what is a demon? How is a demon different than (or the same as) an angel or adeity? Will our definition be ancient or modern? Demon is a Greek word (daim�on,dailxm) that comes to English through Latin. Today the English word means ‘‘evilspirit’’ almost exclusively, though 14th–15th century English also included a connotationcloser to ancient Greek meanings: a lesser deity that could be either good, evil, or neu-tral. Plato described the daim�on Eros as merely ‘‘between a god and a mortal’’ (Symposium202d–e; Ahn 2007, p. 503). For some, this definition of Plato is too broad to apply toancient Judaism because it does not allow for distinctions between beneficent and malev-olent forces. But a definition with more specificity might not be intelligible in the dataset available from Qumran. To be sure, there exist among the DSS expressions of ethicaland cosmological dualism (e.g., light vs. darkness, righteousness vs. wickedness). But itseems in many cases that a modern notion of demons, derived from ancient and medievalChristian theology, does not actually describe the metaphysical ideas that one confrontsin the Qumran library. So should any being appearing in the Hebrew or Aramaic DSS bereferred to as a demon? Does the word lend any clarity to understanding the metaphysicsof Hellenistic Judaism? Should both helpful and harmful spirits bear the designation?Should harmful spirits alone be given the designation? Are angels demons? Fallen angels?Up to now, these questions have not been seriously engaged by those working on theDSS. Instead, a de facto definition of demons, taken primarily from much later Christianthought, is assumed. Therefore, I return to these questions at the end of the essay andsuggest that they provide a crucial path forward for using the DSS to illuminate Hellenis-tic Judaism. For now, I note that the majority of the scholars included in this short his-tory of research either explicitly or implicitly regard demons as: (1) evil spirits, (2) whowield power over humans in the human realm, and (3) who are distinct from, perhapseven opposite counterparts to, angels.

A Turning Point

1999 marked a turning point in scholarship on the demonology of the DSS.5 In that yearEsther Eshel completed a major study of Second Temple demonology that remains themost comprehensive and important study to date. In the same year, two significant arti-cles were also published by Philip Alexander and Menahem Kister. Eshel’s work remainsinaccessible to many since it is written in modern Hebrew and still unpublished. Thus, itis useful to summarize her findings. Eshel defines three distinct areas in which one mightinquire about demons of Second Temple Judaism and, as already indicated above, theQumran library plays the most significant role in providing data. In the first instance, onefinds claims about demons in mythological speculations about their origins. One also findstexts at Qumran that contain descriptions of (and prescriptions against!) demon possessionas well as texts relating to exorcism. Finally, one can learn about Second Temple demon-ology from records of incantations and apotropaic prayers against demons.Eshel uncovers multiple and sometimes competing mythologies of the origins of

(fallen) angels, but she fits most of them within two basic mythological motifs: (1) mythsof the watchers (fallen angels), especially as reflected in 1 Enoch and Jubilees, and (2) myths

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of divine creation. The DSS provide our first Aramaic and Hebrew manuscripts of 1Enoch and Jubilees. While the manuscripts are highly fragmentary, they confirm that themuch later Greek and Ethiopic manuscripts are reliable witnesses to the Hellenistic-eraSemitic originals. Eshel’s second area includes descriptions of possession and exorcisms.While examples of exorcisms from, e.g., the New Testament have been analyzed bymany scholars, she adds new data from, e.g., Prayer of Nabonidus and the Qumran manu-scripts of Tobit. These sources are almost exclusively narrative texts. Eshel’s third area isan analysis of incantations and apotropaic prayers. It is especially significant that she high-lights widespread speech-patterns within Hellenistic Judaism. In this way, she emulatesearlier studies of, e.g., Greek magical papyri and is able to bring the study of ancientJudaism into conversation with the field of Classics. She demonstrates that a regular andformal vocabulary for incantations and apotropaic prayers is used across a spectrum ofunrelated Jewish texts (see also Eshel 2003; Flusser 1988; Fr€ohlich 2008). Thus, she high-lights important cross-cultural perspectives and important linguistic trends. For example,she demonstrates that formulae such as הנאהבשמ ‘‘I adjure,’’ common from Byzantinetimes, were already being used in apotropaic texts found at Qumran (cf. 11Q11 and4Q560). This early consistency bears witness to a developed and sophisticated concept ofdemons as well as sophisticated and widespread notions of the prayers and other tech-niques that a person might use to protect against them.

Origins and Evolutions

Of the three areas that Eshel investigates, it is probably her first category, etiologies, thathas received the most subsequent attention by those working on the DSS. Several impor-tant studies have shed light on how writers have used ideas from, e.g., the Books ofWatchers. Rarely does one find a simplistic or naive repetition of ideas from 1 Enoch.Instead, scholars have proposed how additional strains of tradition have been fused withthe Watcher-traditions to produce the varied demonologies that exist in the DSS and inHellenistic-era Jewish texts more generally.In the first major article published on demonology in the DSS, Philip Alexander con-

nects the etiology of demons in 1 Enoch with the demonology of the DSS. (When Alex-ander says ‘‘DSS,’’ he seems to mean primarily the Sectarian scrolls and he finds acoherent demonology running across the corpus.) Like Eshel, he finds that the while thesimilarities in themes are impressive, there are probably direct linguistic connections too.For example, there probably exists a direct connection between 1 Enoch and scrolls thatuse the expression תוחורםירזממ ‘‘spirits of the bastards,’’ e.g., 4Q510 (Alexander 1999,pp. 337–41). In other words, the ‘‘bastards’’ refers to the offspring produced by the unionof angels and human women in 1 Enoch 7. Alexander also makes an important connec-tion between the etiologies of 1 Enoch and the concerns about impurity found in manytexts from Qumran:

The Community’s defence against demonic intrusion is strongly reminiscent of its defenceagainst impurity. The Community was dominated by priests and displayed typical priestly con-cern over matters of purity and impurity. It regarded itself as a holy community, and the spacewhere it lived, worked and worshipped was a holy precinct, like the Jerusalem Temple, intowhich only the ritually pure could enter. (Alexander 1999, p. 348)

Thus, in the apotropaic texts from Qumran, Alexander does not find texts that merelyaccept or recapitulate a concept of demons found in 1 Enoch. He suggests they may trans-form the notion of demons found in 1 Enoch in order to emphasize that demons exist

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because of the improper mixing of pure and impure. For example, some texts specificallydescribe spirits as being ‘‘unclean’’ or ‘‘impure’’ (cf. האמטחור in 11QPsa 19:15, 4Q444 l i8, and possibly 4Q458 2 i 5) well before expressions like pmetla ajahaqsom ‘‘uncleanspirit’’ become standard epithets in the New Testament (Alexander 1999, p. 349).6 Heexplains this move in the following way:

A demon which invades a human body is out of place: it should not be there, and as a result itpollutes and causes problems. Indeed, if we were to develop the Enochic aetiology of demonsin a certain way, we could argue that the very existence of demons pollutes the world. Theclassification of their parents, the Giants, was undoubtedly ambiguous (mixed, as they were, ofnatures which should not have been mixed), and their begetters, the fallen Watchers, were cer-tainly out of their proper place. And all of them – demons, Giants and the fallen Watchers –represent forces which have no place in this created order, but belong properly to the abyss,and to the chaos which God subdued at creation. (Alexander 1999, p. 350)

In 2005 Archie Wright devoted an entire monograph to the origins of evil spirits in Sec-ond Temple Judaism. Some of his main conclusions support those of Eshel and Alexan-der. He finds little evidence for a belief in autonomous or semi-autonomous evil spiritsin Jewish thought before the second temple period and locates the primarily mythologicalstimulus for the development of demons in the Book of the Watchers (1 Enoch 1–36). Morespecifically, he finds that the origins of demons are posited as a means to interpret anotherwise highly ambiguous scriptural text: Genesis 6:1–4. He argues that the conceptionof evil spirits in BW catalyzed Jewish demonology of the Hellenistic period and uses theDSS as his primary data set. He makes a new and significant contribution by pointingout that the notions of demons found in many scrolls are not merely adopted directlyfrom BW, but have undergone other changes that can be explained in light of the dualis-tic and apocalyptic thought found in many of the DSS. For example, in some demon-ological texts, a conceptual world exists in which (the problem of) evil is largely divorcedfrom the deity. Moreover, the demonological terminology found in several DSS offers anexplicitly dualistic worldview. For example, 1QS 3.18 and 1QHa 4.17 both contrast a‘‘spirit of deceit’’ with a ‘‘spirit of truth’’ (Wright 2005, pp. 166–77). The rise of thenotion of evil spirits within texts like 1 Enoch was important to the demonology of theDSS, but no less important for Qumran is the dualistic worldview found in many scrolls.They contribute equally to a metaphysics that is shifting within some of the scrolls andwill continue to shift in the New Testament and beyond in both Judaism and Christian-ity. Wright describes part of this complex evolution as follows:

The combination of the themes found in BW, DSS, and other texts, allowed for the emergenceof a theology, demonology, and anthropology within Early Judaism that disassociated God fromthe origin of evil. These developing motifs in 2TP Judaism would eventually evolve to thepoint at which we see the emergence of the ‘‘kingdom of Satan’’ in the Gospels (Matt 12.26;Lk 11.18), bringing about a recognized dualism in the spirit world of the first century. Theresulting anthropology assumed that human nature is weak, corruptible, and subject to themanipulation of evil spirits. These are the same evil spirits, although reconceived, that theauthor of BW had affirmed exist in his day. (Wright 2005, p. 190)

Hermann Lichtenberger has reached similar conclusions, finding that both ethical andcosmic dualism, as well as apocalypticism, color the kind of demonology that one finds intexts from the late second temple period:

This demonology, although consistently subordinated to Jewish monotheism, is nonetheless partof a cosmological dualism comprising space and time. Space encompasses the whole world, both

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humankind and angels – including the princes of the ‘‘good’’ angels on the one hand, and thedemons, evil angels, and their princes (e.g., Belial) on the other; time ranges from primeval timesto the present, and on to the eschaton. In the eschaton God will definitively destroy all negativepowers (bad spirits, evil angels, demons, Belial, Mastema). The present age, however, is thetime of the reign of Belial, to whom in his inscrutable mysteries God gives space and time forhis reign. (Lichtenberger 2009)

One finds the same cosmological dualism in the conceptions of space and time amongancient Jewish apocalypses (Collins 1998, pp. 4–5). It should be emphasized, as Lichten-berger does in multiple essays, that texts from the Qumran library do not always resort toan angel ⁄demonology in order to articulate the lack of freedom possessed by humans.Astronomical categories as well as the use of ‘‘heavenly tablets’’ and other deterministicdevices are also used (Lichtenberger 2004, p. 15; 2009, pp. 269–70).B. H. Reynolds III suggests in a 2006 article that another factor in the developing

demonologies of the Hellenistic Period may be the need to account for deities in a timewhen monotheism has flowered and begun to flourish. He analyzes the expression אתועטידיש ‘‘demons of error’’ in 4QPsDana–b and suggests that while the term has close

similarities with expressions from both biblical Psalms and the book of Jubilees, it func-tions as a cipher for ‘‘foreign deities’’ that were once an integral part of the Israelite pan-theon. In other words, the ‘‘demons of error’’ are less fallen angels than demoted deities:

The term אתועטידיש is used to describe the ‘‘foreign’’ deities that played a part in the pre-exiliccult of Israel. They are not the troublesome, mischievous spirits plaguing humans as we see withthe malevolent Akkadian �s�ed�u or Tobit’s Asmodeus. They are not members of the divine councilof El. They are not fallen angels run amuck. They are ciphers for Baal, Asherah, and a host ofother deities that played active and important roles in the pre-exilic cult of Israel. (Reynolds2006, p. 612)

Ida Fr€ohlich has devoted several studies to the demonology of the DSS. Like many oth-ers, she views many of the demons in light of etiologies from 1 Enoch. She also concurswith Alexander that the unique notions of impurity found at Qumran shaped the ulti-mate form that demonology took there (Fr€ohlich 2010; pp. 114–16).7 She attempts tobreak new ground by connecting Jewish demonology with Mesopotamian ideas and prac-tices. She argues, contra Wright, that 1 Enoch 6–11 is unrelated to Genesis 6:1–4. Shesees it instead as a response to exilic life in Mesopotamia (she sees Jubilees as a laterattempt to square 1 Enoch 6–11 and Genesis 6:1–4; Fr€ohlich 2010; pp. 111–2). She pro-vides a substantive definition of demons, which she claims summarizes Mesopotamianthought, and which was adopted through 1 Enoch 6–11 into Jewish thought: ‘‘representa-tions of natural evil in the world’’ (Fr€ohlich 2010; p. 128). I caution that she may nothave taken full account of the Mesopotamian evidence. One can certainly find examplesof helpful or benign ‘‘demons’’ in Mesopotamian texts (Reynolds 2006, p. 604).Loren Stuckenbruck has recently attempted to add greater clarity to our image of how

demons evolved throughout the Second Temple Period (Stuckenbruck 2005, 2006,2011a,b). While he agrees with many of Alexander’s main arguments, it would seem thathe does not agree with Alexander that the Qumran texts present a coherent and sophisti-cated demonology (Alexander 1999, p. 332). Stuckenbruck argues that careful attentionto chronological, linguistic, and social concerns helps one to parse several differentnotions of demons within the diverse collection of scrolls found at Qumran (Stucken-bruck 2011a). For example, he finds that in the Aramaic texts from Qumran, the termruah (spirit) is used only eight times to describe an evil being and always in the singular.Among the Hebrew texts, ruah is used far more often and mostly in the plural. Moreover,



among texts such as Damascus Document, Serek ha-Milhamah, Hodayot, and 4QCatena A(4Q177) it is commonly paired with ‘‘Belial’’ in expressions such as ‘‘spirits of Belial’’(e.g., CD xii 2). On the other hand, one does not find many examples of expressionssuch as ‘‘spirits of the mamzerim’’ (bastards) among the ‘‘sectarian’’ texts. Thus, one canconclude that while the sectarian texts from Qumran were greatly influenced by thedemonology found in 1 Enoch, they demonstrate considerable evolution of thought (Stuc-kenbruck 2011a, pp. 127–30). This example from Stuckenbruck is part of a larger portraitthat he paints: the early Aramaic texts apply a wide variety of terms to the demonic (e.g.,demon, angel, watcher, holy ones) and bear witness to a developed hierarchy of leadership.Later Hebrew texts tend to subordinate demons under a chief demon and in many casesstrip the evil spirits of any unique, individual identity. This trend is characteristic of sec-tarian ⁄Essene texts found at Qumran, but is already present in the second century BCE in,e.g., Jubilees. Thus, one can say that the second century BCE in particular saw a majorevolution in Jewish demonological thought.

Satan in the Dead Sea Scrolls?

We have seen that many scholars pinpoint the origins of second temple Jewish demonol-ogies in the Book of the Watchers [1 Enoch 1–36] (or at least the early traditions that wereused to compose BW). We have also seen that the demonologies of the late second tem-ple period are not mere recapitulations of the ideas in BW. Literature from Qumranshows that dualism, apocalyptic thought, the rise of monotheism, and an acute concernfor impurity were combined with the notion of evil spirits in a variety of ways. The rootsof yet another development can be found at Qumran.Stuckenbruck has demonstrated a pattern of collapsing demonic categories and subordi-

nating them under chief demonic beings in the later Hebrew scrolls found at Qumran. Itis well known that in the demonology of the New Testament one finds a powerful chiefdemon named Satan. Like one finds in the sectarian scrolls from Qumran, the evil spiritsunder Satan’s leadership have little or no unique identity (e.g., personal names).As many studies have shown, the notion of Satan as a chief demon does not exist in the

Hebrew Bible (e.g., Day 1998; Fabry 2003; Hamilton 1996). Instead, one finds more gen-eric conceptions of an adversary or accuser, who in some cases functions as an official or ser-vant of the deity. So does the Satan known from the New Testament take the stage atQumran? Several studies have demonstrated that the answer is no (Lange 2009; Stucken-bruck 2011a). What one does find, however, is a transformation of ‘‘satan’’ from an adver-sary into a category or species of demon. For example, the writer of the Aramaic LeviDocument 3:9 (4QLevib ar 1 17) prays, לכיבטלשתלאןטש ‘‘Let not any satan have dominionover me,’’ and the speaker in 11QPsalmsa XIX 15 offers the following plea: ןטשיבטלשתלא

האמטחורו ‘‘Let no satan or unclean spirit have dominion over me’’ (see Lange 2009, pp.38–41). One can view this development alongside the second century BCE book of Jubi-lees, which added its own unique perspective to the concept of evil spirits found in theBW (1 Enoch 1–36). In Jubilees, all demons function under the auspices of a chief demon:Mastema.8 Thus, the roots of the New Testament ‘‘Satan’’ can be located in two impor-tant transitions that can be found in the data from the DSS: (1) the transformation of‘‘satan’’ from a general title to a species of demon, and (2) the growing tendency to pro-mote a single demonic figure to the position of chief demon. One can first observe thistransition take place with the angel Mastema in Jubilees, but it is also well attested for Belialin the sectarian scrolls from Qumran. (Stuckenbruck 2011a; pp. 137–9). Indeed, D. Di-mant’s recent work on the two figures Belial and Mastemah exposes some fine distinctions

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between the figures, all of which seems to funnel eventually into the concept of Satanthat is found in the New Testament and beyond: ‘‘The Angel of m�stmh plays the role ofthe adversary par excellence. By contrast, Belial is presented as the sinner par excellence, wholeads Israel astray’’ (Dimant 2011, p. 253; see earlier work from von der Osten-Sacken1969; Steudel 2000, 2007). As Dimant notes, both of these names are eventually used asnames of Satan, so their identities quite clearly influence the developing concept of Satan(Dimant 2011, p. 256). Thus, even if Satan does not exist in any of the DSS, the theo-logical and metaphysical building blocks for Satan are prominently on display.

Future Work

It is understandable that most of the work done on demons at Qumran has focused onissues of content. Another aspect of the question that has received comparatively littleattention is a methodological one. The very use of the term ‘‘demon’’ is problematic. Itmay not help us to paint the most accurate picture of Jewish notions of metaphysics inthe Second Temple period. Many scholars admit that ‘‘demon’’ is not a concept native tothe Levant. Some employ it as a cipher for evil spirits and others use it as a convenienttrope for ‘‘demi-god’’ or ‘‘lower-divinity.’’ This practice is understandable, but more pre-cise language might lead to more productive research. Thus far, no articles have beendevoted specifically to this topic. The notion of demons in the DSS has been essentiallytaken for granted. Nevertheless, three noteworthy articles touch on this important issue.These articles present sophisticated methodological analyses of notions of supernaturalbeings in various Near Eastern cultures.In the cross-disciplinary volume Die D€amonen, Anders Klostergaard Petersen presents a

concise but sophisticated history of the usage of the term demon (Klostergaard Petersen2003). He confronts the manner in which modern scholarship on the history of religionshas been influenced by Christian notions of ‘‘demons’’ and how those notions have beenread back onto religious concepts across the world and, especially, the ancient Near East.Indeed, he makes this powerful claim at the outset of his essay: ‘‘Notions of demon donot indigenously belong to this cultural context [Eastern Mediterranean]’’ (KlostergaardPetersen 2003, p. 23). He nevertheless finds value in the notion as long as scholarsattempt to take a primarily functional approach to the evidence:

If a particular discursive function underlying the diverse semantic uses of the ancient Greek tra-dition can be identified, it is tempting to include the concept’s wider history of reception inorder to see whether such a function continues to linger behind the different uses. If it isimpossible to provide a substantive definition that is capable of encapsulating the semanticdiversity of the different applications, then the potential of a functional definition should beexplored. The very fact – witnessed by the concept’s history of reception – that it was continu-ously held to constitute an apt category of meaning to be applied in different contexts doesindicate a certain continuity. (Klostergaard Petersen 2003, pp. 25–6)

In other words, the correct questions cannot be ‘‘what are Jewish demons’’ or ‘‘what areChristian demons?’’ More appropriate questions would be ‘‘how and when have variousGreek notions of demon been appropriated and ⁄or developed in Judaism and Christian-ity?’’ Or, ‘‘How might various Jewish conceptions of demi-gods be compared to thosefound in ancient Greece (or other cultures)?’’Like Klostergaard Petersen, Bernd Schipper’s analysis of divine messengers in Egypt

makes the case that dualistic notions of ‘‘evil’’ demons and ‘‘good’’ angels are toooften the product of Christian influence within the history of science in Europe



(Schipper 2007). He demonstrates decisively that such notions are largely foreign toEgyptian thought and goes so far as to suggest that the terms angel and demon arenot useful for studies in the history of religion. In the first instance, he shows that,‘‘In Egyptian religion one and the same god can appear as a regional as well as a sub-ordinated deity in reference to another god, and also the superior unit for anotherdeity’’ (Schipper 2007, p. 3). Gods are fluid entities that can have both positive andnegative traits. Moreover, while divine messengers might sometimes seem to be lesseror subordinate deities, one finds several cases in which major deities act as messengersfor other deities. It is of major significance that, as Schipper points out, Egyptian hasno determinative (hieroglyphic sign) for subordinate deities. The same designation isused for both the state deity (Amun-Re) and for deities of much more local and ⁄orlimited significance.9

Unlike, Schipper, Manfred Hutter is not necessarily opposed to the use of the termdemon, but finds problems with using that word to describe only negative or evil beings.He shows that the Greek word dailxm [da�ım�on] could refer to any supernatural being,sometimes functioning as a parallel term for theoi (Hutter 2007, p. 21). Indeed, he arguesthat for this reason the ambivalence of the word applies well to conceptions of divinebeings in Mesopotamia, Northern Syria, and Anatolia. He argues that in the same waythat Egyptian has no determinative sign for minor deities or demons, the cuneiformDINGIR sign can be used for ‘‘demons’’ just as well as it can for deities like Marduk.And while minor deities in Mesopotamia are more often than not harmful, he points outthat Mesopotamian languages have no comparable term to Greek dailxm [da�ım�on] andthat the figures sometimes perform divine messenger functions that overlap with laternotions of ‘‘angels.’’ Thus, the term demon might be imposed on Near Eastern evidenceto describe lesser gods who are typically anonymous and often interact with humans in anegative or harmful way. He locates the main exception to this rule in Persia, where adivision of good and evil supernatural powers is found.10 While he may be correct, I has-ten to point out that the texts that demonstrate these Persian ideas cannot be dated withany certainty (Skjaervø 2011, pp. 55–91, esp., 76–91).Already in 1999, Alexander argued that by the late Hellenistic Period, many scrolls

from Qumran made an intentional division between ‘‘evil’’ demons and ‘‘good’’ angels.In terms of the cosmic dualism exhibited by many scrolls, one must conclude that he iscorrect. But if the term demon is (1) not Hebrew, (2) not native to the Levant, and (3)large enough to encompass all forms of the divine in its own native context, then thedivision between ‘‘evil demons’’ and ‘‘good angels’’ is a non sequitor nevertheless. I suggestthat in the future, research will reap great benefits from greater terminological precision.Perhaps Klostergaard Petersen’s call for a functional rather than substantive definition ofdemons would be a good start.

SHORT BIOGRAPHY

Bennie H. Reynolds III conducts research and teaches on the religions of the ancientMediterranean world, with a special focus on history, literature, and linguistics in theLevant. He is a specialist on the Hebrew Bible, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the develop-ment of apocalypticism in ancient Judaism. His most recent monograph, Between Symbol-ism and Realism: The Use of Symbolic and Non-Symbolic Language in Ancient JewishApocalypses 333–63 BCE (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 2011), investigates the poetics ofancient Jewish apocalypses and devotes special attention to the fragmentary apocalypses

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discovered at Qumran. His next book-length study investigates quotations and allusionsto the Book of Genesis in Jewish literature from the Hellenistic period.

Notes

* Correspondence address: Dr Bennie Reynolds III, 1701 North State Street, Box 150972, Jackson, MS 39210,USA. E-mail: [email protected]

1 See, for example, Judges 5:20 where ‘‘the stars fought from heaven, from their courses they fought against Siser-a.’’ See also the use of ‘‘holy ones’’ to indicate angelic figures in Ps 89:6, 8 [Heb.], Job 5:1, 15:15, Prov 3:30, Zech14:5, Deut 33:2–3 and perhaps Exod 5:11 if one reads with the OG.2 The ‘‘Bible’’ did not exist at Qumran or anywhere else in the Hellenistic Period. Individual books that wouldbecome part of later bibles did exist, though in some well known cases they are represented in significantly differenttextual traditions. In other words, it is not simply that the canon (official list of books) had not closed, but that theform of some of individual the books had not yet reached what is now known to us in the Masoretic text tradition.See (Bowley & Reeves 2003; Lange 2004; Ulrich 2011). Moreover, pressing questions about the reception and sta-tus of texts like the so-called ‘‘4QReworked Pentateuch,’’ the Temple Scroll, etc., also point to this problem. Muchhas been written on the topic recently. See, (e.g., Zahn 2011).3 Sadly, these manuscripts are highly fragmentary. Nevertheless, they provide essential resources for primary sourceresearch.4 It is worth noting for the non-specialist that the more than nine hundred manuscripts found in the eleven cavesat Qumran were not written or even copied entirely by one group or in one place. The texts span in age fromthe 3rd century BCE to the 1st century CE. Some seem to be the product of a particular Jewish sect that manyscholars identify as the Essenes. These sectarian ⁄Essene texts share distinctive characteristics such as vocabulary andtheological concerns. For the criteria that many scholars use to determine whether a document belongs to this sect,see: Armin Lange, ‘‘Kriterien essinischer Texte,’’ in Qumran Kontrovers: Beitr€age zu den Textfunden vom Toten Meer(eds., J€org Frey and Hartmutt Stegemann; Paderborn: Bonifatius, 2003), 59–69. In the same volume, CharlotteHempel, ‘‘Kriterien zur Bestimmung ‘essinischer Verfasserschaft’ von Qumrantexten,’’ 71–85. See also Carol New-som, ‘‘Sectually Explicit Literature from Qumran,’’ in The Hebrew Bible and Its Interpreters (eds., Baruch Halpernand David N. Freedman; Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1990), 167–87; Devorah Dimant, ‘‘Qumran Sectarian Litera-ture,’’ in Jewish Writings of the Second Temple Period: Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha, Qumran Sectarian Writings, Philo, Jose-phus (ed. M. E. Stone; Philadelphia: Assen, 1984), 483–550. Even within those documents to which many scholarsassign labels such as sectarian ⁄Essene, there is great complexity. And among scholars there is an increasing aware-ness that the documents contain stages of textual development and perhaps even reflect the regional differences⁄ preferences of their readers. Two recent studies are important in this regard: Alison Schofield, From Qumran to theYah

˙ad: A New Paradigm of Textual Development for The Community Rule (STDJ 77; Leiden: Brill, 2008); and John J.

Collins, Beyond the Qumran Community: The Sectarian Movement of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,2010). Not all of the studies surveyed in this work are of the same opinion about the provenance of many scrolls.Indeed, some argue for a coherent demonology throughout all the scrolls. Because of the nature of this article, Ihave not attempted to ‘‘flatten’’ them or note each time a scholar makes a different assumption about what is ‘‘sec-tarian’’ or what is a ‘‘dead sea scroll.’’ For the non-specialist, it might be easiest to understand the corpus of thescrolls in three categories: (1) Books that eventually became part of the Bible: Most of these texts have long literaryhistories and exist in multiple textual forms among the DSS. Most of these texts are not discussed in this article.(2) Texts that were known or partially known before the discovery of the DSS: This category includes texts like 1Enoch and Jubilees as well as the Damascus Document. Some of these texts, such as the Damascus Document, wereprobably written by Essenes. But more importantly for this paper is that some of them, such as 1 Enoch, were readand interpreted by the Qumran sectarians and inspired theological claims found in the texts that the sectarianswrote. Some scholars refer to these texts as ‘‘DSS’’ but most place them in a different category since they wereknown or partially known before the discovery of Qurman. (3) Texts that were unknown before the discovery ofQumran: Many of these texts seem to have been written by Essenes ⁄Qumran Sectarians, though others weremerely copied or collected by them. Some of these texts present new ideas about demons and others seem toexplicitly adapt claims about demons made in earlier works of literature. A general overview of the contents of theQumran caves can be found in James VanderKam, The Dead Sea Scrolls Today (second ed.; Grand Rapids: Eerd-mans, 2010), 47–95. The upshot is that it is probably inaccurate to speak of ‘‘a’’ demonology of the DSS. Instead,the chance collection of texts found at Qumran bears witness to a variety of demonologies.5 To be sure, sophisticated analyses of texts dealing with demons took place before 1999. But these investigationswere rarely focused on demons. Examples would include, for example, Lange (1997) and Nitzan 1994.6 There is precedent for the ‘‘spirit of impurity’’ already in Zechariah 13:2. See, Lange 2003.7 The article builds on and recapitulates earlier work Fr€ohlich did on apotropaic prayers at Qumran (Fr€ohlich2008).



8 The three consonant root of Mastema, םטש , is probably related to and ultimately even derived from ןטש .9 The only potential exception would be the beings referred to as h’tyw, who are only attested as being subordinateand negative in nature (Schipper 2007, pp. 7–9).10 E.g., the opposition between Ahura Mazda and Angra Mainyu (Hutter 2007, p. 22).

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Petersen, A. K. (2003). The Notion of a Demon: Open Questions to a Diffuse Concept. In: A. Lange, H. Lichten-berger and K. F. D. R€omheld (eds.), Die D€amonen: Die D€amonlogie der israelitisch-judischen und fr€uhchristlichen Litera-tur im Kontext ihrer Umwelt, pp. 23–41. T€ubingen: Mohr Siebeck.

Reynolds, B. H. III. (2006). What are Demons of Error? The Meaning of אתועטידיש and Israelite Child Sacrifices,RevQ, 22, pp. 593–613.

Schipper, B. (2007). Angels or Demons? Divine Messengers in Ancient Egypt. In: F. V. Reiterer, T. Nicklas andK. Sch€opflin (eds.), Yearbook 2007: Angels. The Concept of Celestial Beings – Origins, Development, Reception, pp.1–19. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.

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——. (2011a). Demonic Beings and the Dead Sea Scrolls. In: J. H. Ellens (ed.), Explaining Evil. Volume 1: Defini-tions and Development, pp. 121–44. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO.

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Further Reading

Annus, A. (2010). On the Origin of Watchers: A Comparative Study of the Antediluvian Wisdom in Mesopota-mian and Jewish Traditions, JSP, 19, pp. 277–320.

Beyerle, S. (2007). Angelic Revelation in Jewish Apocalyptic Literaure. In: F. V. Reiterer, T. Nicklas andK. Sch€opflin (eds.), Yearbook 2007: Angels: The Concept of Celestial Beings: Origins, Development and Reception,pp. 205–23. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.

Blair, J. M. (2009). De-Demonising the Old Testament: An Investigation of Azazel, Lilith, Deber, Qeteb and Reshef in theHebrew Bible. T€ubingen: Mohr Siebeck.

Brand, Miryam. (2012). Evil Within and Without: The Source of Sin and its Nature as Portrayed in Second Temple Litera-ture. JAJSup 9. G€ottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

Brooke, G. J. (2005). Men and Women as Angels in Joseph and Aseneth, JSP, 14, pp. 159–77.Dimant, D. (2006). Israel’s Subjugation to the Gentiles as an Expression of Demonic Power in Qumran Documentsand Related Literature, RevQ, 22, pp. 373–88.

—— (2010). ןארמוקתדעיבתכבוםילבויהרפסבםיכאלמהתרות:םימשינב In: תיבהרבדמתוליגמ:םיבולשםילכימיתורפסוהדוהיינשה [Connected Vessels: The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Literature of the Second Temple Period]. Jerusalem: The

Bialik Institute.



Fr€ohlich, I. (2001). Demons, Scribes, and Exorcists in Qumran. In: K. D�ev�enyi and T. Iv�anyi (eds.), Essays in Hon-our of Alexander Fodor on His Sixtieth Birthday, pp. 73–81. Budapest: E€otu€os Lor�and University Press.

—— (2011). The Figures of the Watchers in the Enoch Tradition (1–3 Enoch), Henoch, 33, pp. 6–26.Garc�ıa-Mart�ınez, F. (1992). Qurman and Apocalyptic: Studies on the Aramaic Texts from Qumran. STDJ 9. Leiden:Brill.

Hanneken, T. R. (2006). Angels and Demons in the Book of Jubilees and Contemporary Apocalypses, Henoch, 28,pp. 11–25.

Kuemmerlin-McLean, J. (1996). Demons (Old Testament) 2:138–40 In: D. N. Freedman (ed.), The Anchor YaleBible Dictionary, pp. 2:138–40. New Haven: Yale University Press.

—— (1997). The Essene Position on Magic and Divination. In: M. Bernstein, F. Garc�ıa Mart�ınez and J. Kampen(eds.), Legal Texts and Legal Issues: Proceedings of the 2nd Meeting of the International Organization for Qumran Studies,Cambridge, 1995. STDJ 23, pp. 377–435. Leiden: Brill.

—— (2004). From Literature to Scripture: The Unity and Plurality of the Hebrew Scriptures in Light of the Qum-ran Library. In: C. Helmer and C. Landmesser (eds.), One Scripture or Many? Canon from Biblical, Theological, andPhilsosophical Perspectives, pp. 51–107. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

——. (2009). Satanic Verses: The Adversary in the Qumran Manuscripts and Elsewhere, RevQ, 24, pp. 35–48.—— (2011). From Paratext to Commentary. In: A. D. Roitman, L. H. Schiffman and S. Tzoref (eds.), The DeadSea Scrolls and Contemporary Culture: Proceedings of the International Conference held at the Israel Museum, Jerusalem (July6–8, 2008). STDJ 93, pp. 195–216. Leiden: Brill.

Langlois, M. (2010). Shemihazah et compagnie(s): Onomastique des anges d�echus dans les manuscrits aram�eens duLivre d’H�enoch. In: K. Berthelot and D. S. Ben Ezra (eds.), Aramaica Qumranica: Proceedings of the Conference onthe Aramaic Texts from Qumran in Aix-en-Provence, 30 June–2 July 2008. STDJ 94, pp. 145–80. Leiden: Brill.

Mach, M. (2000). Demons. In: Lawrence Schiffman and James Vanderkam (eds.), The Encyclopedia of the Dead SeaScrolls Vol 1, pp. 189–92. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Orlov, A. (2011). Dark Mirrors: Azazel and Satanael in Early Jewish Demonology. Albany: SUNY Press.Reed, A. Y. (2009). Enochic and Mosaic Traditions in Jubilees: The Evidence of Angelology and Demonology. In:G. Boccaccini and G. Ibba (eds.), Enoch and the Mosaic Torah: The Evidence of Jubilees, pp. 353–68.Grand Rapids:Eerdmans.

Reynolds, B. H. III. (2011). Between Symbolism and Realism: The Use of Symbolic and Non-Symbolic Language inAncient Jewish Apocalypses 333–63 B.C.E. JAJSup 8. G€ottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

van Ruiten, J. (2007). Angels and Demons in the Book of Jubilees. In: F. V. Reiterer, T. Nicklas and K. Sch€opflin(eds.), Angels: The Concept of Celestial Beings: Origins, Development and Reception. Deuterocanonical and Cognate Litera-ture Yearbook 2007, pp. 585–609. Berlin: De Gruyter.

Sorensen, E. (2002). Possession and Exorcism in the New Testament and Early Christianity. WUNT II 157. T€ubingen:Mohr Siebeck.

Tiller, P. A. (2005). Israel at the Mercy of the Demonic Powers: An Enochic Interpretation of Postexilic Imperial-ism. In: B. G. Wright III and L. M. Wills (eds.), Conflicted Boundaries in Wisdom and Apocalypticism, SBLSS 35,pp. 113–21, Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature.

Toepel, A. (2005). Planetary Demons in Early Jewish Literature, JSP, 14, pp. 231–8.Vukosavovic, F., (ed.) (2010). Angles and Demons: Jewish Magic Through the Ages. Jerusalem: Bible Lands Museum.Werline, R. A. (2008). The Experience of Prayer and Resistance to Demonic Powers in the Gospel of Mark. In:F. Flannery, C. Shantz and R. A. Werline (eds.), Experientia, Volume 1: Inquiry into Religious Experience in EarlyJudaism and Christianity, pp. 59–74, SBLSS 40. Leiden: Brill.

114 Bennie Reynolds
