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- Title
Formed from the Earth: Adam and Created Mortality in Second Temple Literature.
- Authors
Horst, William
- Abstract
This article analyzes Jewish writings normally placed in the period between about 200 b.c.e. and 200 c.e. that associate human mortality with the formation of Adam from the dust of the earth (cf. Gen 2.7). In particular, Ben Sira (16.30–17.1), the Thanksgiving Hymns of the Dead Sea Scrolls (5.32; 7.34; 9.17; 11.22, 24–25; 12.30; 20.27–34; 21.11–17, 25, 31–38; 22.12, 19; 23.13, 23, 26–27), Wisdom of Solomon (7.1–6), Philo's On the Creation (134–35), and Second Enoch (30.8–10) all include material to this effect. The relevant passages generally give the impression that humans are susceptible to death due to the earthly constitution with which they were created, not because of a "fall" of Eden that had a corrupting effect on a previously pristine creation. A number of passages in the same texts have typically been understood to express the notion of a "fall" that introduced death to human existence (Sir 25.24; 1QH 4.27; Wis 2.23–24; Creation 151–52; 2 En 30.11–12, 16–18), but many such passages do not allude to the Edenic inception of human mortality as clearly as scholarship has generally assumed. Ultimately, the notion that humans were created mortal is a widespread and underappreciated motif within the Judaism of this period.
- Subjects
JEWISH literature; MORTALITY; ADAM (Biblical figure); JEWISH scribes; DEAD Sea scrolls; SLAVONIC Book of Enoch; BIBLE. Apocrypha. Wisdom of Solomon; JEWISH theology
- Publication
Jewish Quarterly Review, 2022, Vol 112, Issue 4, p1
- ISSN
0021-6682
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1353/jqr.2022.0031