This study looks at three of the most prominent instances of eschatological viticulture in early Judaism and Christianity, namely 1 En. 10.19, 2 Bar. 29.5, and the presbyters of Papias in Irenaeus, Adv. haer. 5.33.3, paying particular attention to their tradition histories and intertextual relationships. All three of these texts imagine that the grape vine will be fantastically productive in God’s renewed creation, but they develop this image in different ways based on different biblical texts. First Enoch uses the trope in conjunction with its use of the account of Noah’s renewal of the earth after the Flood in Gen 9. Second Baruch uses it to complement an eschatological banquet feasting upon the primordial beasts of Leviathan and Behemoth, followed by a return to the fragrant fruits of paradise of Gen 2. Papias, by contrast, applies the trope to the Blessing of Isaac in Gen 27:28.
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Black, Henochi, 26. J. T. Milik with Matthew Black, The Books of Enoch: Aramaic Fragments of Qumrân Cave 4 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976) 192. The Aramaic of 4QEnc is fragmentary (Milik, Enoch, 189), so only a few words and phrases of the saying are attested: “. . . in honesty and all plant[s] . . . blessing and all trees . . . plants on it . . . [tho]usand . . .”
Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch, 227; Hartman, “Early Example,” 19, 22; Hartman, “Comfort,” 90. But Kvanvig, Primeval History, 411 n.98, objects to this allusion on the grounds that Enochic scribes may not have “had the whole of Genesis in our present form before their eyes” and that the context of 1 Enoch 10:19 is “not Noah, but the people living in the eschatological era.” The first objection reflects Kvanvig’s somewhat implausible view that the Watcher Story is not dependent on Genesis at all but rather on its Priestly Source (P); the second does not fully take into account the typological use of Noah (Hartman, “Comfort,” 91).
Noted long ago by August Dillmann, Das Buch Henoch (Leipzig: Vogel, 1853) 102. See also Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch, 227. Walsh, Fruit, 111-112, points out that the size of this vineyard is very large, about twenty times the size of the plot of an average viner planter. Kvanvig, Primeval History, 411, relates 1 Enoch 10:16b-19 to Is 65:17-32.
Charles, Baruch, 53; Bogaert, Baruchii, 63; Whitney, Two Strange Beasts, 41; and Lied, Other Lands, 213. These are only two of several texts that describe an eschatological banquet on these beasts; see further Debra Scoggins Ballentine, The Conflict Myth and the Biblical Tradition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015) 150-166.
E.g., Charles, Baruch, 53; Bogaert, Baruchii, 64; Léon Gry, “Le Papias des belles promesses messianique,” Vivre et Penser 3 (1944) 112-124; Whitney, Two Strange Beasts, 41; and Lied, Other Lands, 213. There is some dispute about what “the fruits of the earth” refer to. On the one hand, Nir, Destruction, 136, argues that it refers to the harvest of grain, based on an Arabic version of the text, which allows her to relate to Papias and other Christian traditions. On the other hand, Lied, Other Lands, 215, interprets the term in reference to fruit trees, which allows her to link it to Ezek 47:12 and Rev 22:2. In my view, however, the generality of the term suggests agricultural produce in general.
Nir, Destruction, 138; Lied, Other Lands, 214 (also citing Homer and Hesiod); and Pentiuc, “Nature,” 314 n.20.
Lied, Other Lands, 213-217. Lied, 217-219, goes to argue that these foods also temporally recapitulate creation, with the monsters being created on the fifth day, the dew and agricultural produce on the third day, and manna on the seventh day.
Charles, Baruch, 54; R. H. Charles, The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testa ment in English, vol. 2 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913) 498.
Indeed, Sib. Or. 7.146-149 calls for the cessation of agricultural toil and the supersession of vine branches and ears of wheat by the provision of “dewy manna” at the restoration of the world. Whitney, Two Strange Beasts, 4; Kulik, 3 Baruch, 250 (in connection with 3 Bar. 6.11).
Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 3.36.2, calls him a bishop of Hierapolis, but this church office may be an anachronism. On Papias generally, see Enrico Norelli, Papia di Hierapolis, Esposizione degli oracoli del Signore: I frammenti, lcpm 36 (Milan, Paoline, 2005); Ulrich H. J. Körtner, Papias von Hierapolis: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des frühen Christentums, frlant 155 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1983); William R. Schoedel, Polycarp, Martyrdom of Polycarp, Fragments of Papias, The Apostolic Fathers 5 (London: Thomas Nelson, 1967); and Vernon Bartlet, “Papias’s ‘Exposition’: Its Date and Contents,” in Amicitiae Corolla: A Volume of Essays Presented to James Rendel Harris, ed. H. G. Wood (London: University of London Press, 1933) 15-44.
So, e.g., Tim Hegedus, “Midrash and Papias of Hierapolis,” Biblical Theology Bulletin 42 (2012) 30-35 at 34, arguing that neither one “had the requisite familiarity with Hebrew to access the original text of Genesis in [this] way.” By contrast, both Irenaeus and Papias were fluent in Greek, but the Greek word for abundance, πλῆθος, in Gen 27:28 lxx bears almost no phonological resemblance to the Greek word for ten thousand, µυριάς.
H. J. de Jonge, “BOTPYC BOHCEI,” in Studies in Hellenistic Religions, ed. M. J. Vermaseren, epro 78 (Leiden: Brill, 1979) 37-49 at 47. So also Dubois, “Remarques,” 8. Some scholars see Semitic wordplay underlying this statement; for example, Gry, “Papias,” 117, argues that this reflects a midrashic interpretation of חכלילי (“be dim”) in Gen 49:12 as הכי לי לי (“bring to me, to me”), followed also by Schoedel, Polycarp, 95-96, and Hegedus, “Midrash,” 33.
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This study looks at three of the most prominent instances of eschatological viticulture in early Judaism and Christianity, namely 1 En. 10.19, 2 Bar. 29.5, and the presbyters of Papias in Irenaeus, Adv. haer. 5.33.3, paying particular attention to their tradition histories and intertextual relationships. All three of these texts imagine that the grape vine will be fantastically productive in God’s renewed creation, but they develop this image in different ways based on different biblical texts. First Enoch uses the trope in conjunction with its use of the account of Noah’s renewal of the earth after the Flood in Gen 9. Second Baruch uses it to complement an eschatological banquet feasting upon the primordial beasts of Leviathan and Behemoth, followed by a return to the fragrant fruits of paradise of Gen 2. Papias, by contrast, applies the trope to the Blessing of Isaac in Gen 27:28.
All Time | Past 365 days | Past 30 Days | |
---|---|---|---|
Abstract Views | 516 | 60 | 13 |
Full Text Views | 150 | 1 | 0 |
PDF Views & Downloads | 106 | 4 | 0 |