The Origin of Evil Spirits: The Reception of Genesis 6:1-4 in Early Jewish Literature, Revised Edition - Softcover

9781451490329: The Origin of Evil Spirits: The Reception of Genesis 6:1-4 in Early Jewish Literature, Revised Edition

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1451490321 ISBN 13: 9781451490329

Publisher: Fortress Press,U.S., 2015

How do we account for the explosion of demonic activity in the New Testament? Archie T. Wrights work traces the development of the concept of evil spirits from the Hebrew Bible through postbiblical Jewish literature. Wright is concerned with the reception history of Genesis 6:14 (the source of the Watchers traditions) in early Enochic and Philonic Judaism during the Second Temple Period. He suggests that the nonspecificity inherent in the biblical text of Genesis 6:14 opened the basis for the later emergence of an etiology of evil spirits as Jewish authors engaged with the text.

As a result, Genesis 6:14 played an important part in the development of demonology in Second Temple Judaism. Chapters examine 1 Enoch 136 (the Book of the Watchers) and the reception of the Watchers tradition in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Philo of Alexandria and draw conclusions about the background of the New Testament conceptions of demons and demon possession.

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About the Author

Archie T. Wright is an associate professor of biblical studies at Regent University in Virginia Beach, Virginia. He received his BA and MA from Oral Roberts University and his PhD from Durham University, UK. He has coedited Spirit and Scripture: Exploring a Pneumatic Hermeneutic (2012) and Early Jewish Literature: An Introduction and Reader (2015).

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