Are you interested in angels, demons, spirits, ghosts, and monsters? Are you curious about their origins, tales, and influence upon history and on the present day? If so, sit back, relax, and welcome to Southern Demonology, the podcast that explores all of this and more. Hello, all, and welcome back to Southern Demonology, Season 3, Episode 8. As always, I'm your host, JJ. I warn you now that this episode may be a little on the shorter side, and that is primarily because I have just not been in the right headspace or had the heart to write or record.
See, I had an episode planned for two weeks ago, but I had to delay it, as even though I had a really good outline prepared, I knew I wanted a little more research to firm up the details. Well, the more I researched, the more the scope kept expanding and expanding to the point where I had two whole episodes planned, one of which I have been meaning to record for the past couple of years, and a supplemental one to boot. So even though it killed my soul to do it, I released the news on social media that I needed one more week and that no episode would be forthcoming on April 24th, 2023.
That would surely be enough time to complete the initial script that I had set out to produce, right? Well, I hope you can smell the foreshadowing. You may remember a previous episode where I mentioned the place I work was about to conduct layoffs. Well, I began to hear rumors of that fateful day that was about to hit was going to be, in fact, Wednesday of last week. And dear lord, did it ever hit. We received an email that notices would be sent out at 10 a.m. that morning to a personal email. And if you got one, then your role had been eliminated.
And for several hours I sat in dread, trying to distract myself, all to no avail. And then 10 a.m. rolled around, and I didn't get anything. I was about to breathe a sigh of relief, but then I began to get text messages and notifications from friends and colleagues, people that I have grown to admire and respect, that they had received that unwelcome message. And I sat back in shock. Yes, I had survived, but so many of those that I rely upon and look forward to working with had not. And that hit me almost as hard.
The rest of that week passed by in a blur as I tried to just focus on work, but I was in shock that entire time. I didn't have an appetite, I slept horribly, and all of that resulted in not having the concentration or the heart to finish that planned episode, for which I apologize. I did get out some last weekend and spent some much-needed quality time with my wife, and that helped more than I can say.
In the meantime, and because we have covered Enoch in such detail in season three, episode three, I thought we'd touch upon one of my favorite passages in the Dead Sea's Groves, 4Q 5, 10, and 11, and its significance not just to the community that produced it, but what it means to much of Second Temple Judaism. And I thought, in turn, we could use this as a chance to have a refresher and kind of a deep dive into the scrolls themselves, mainly because of the fact that I don't think I have really touched them since my early episodes. So the Dead Sea Scrolls.
This corpus of work was discovered beginning in 1946 in Qumran and reflects the ideas of whom, based upon historical writings of Josephus, are widely believed to be the Essenes, a Jewish sect that existed alongside the two other sects of the time, the Pharisees and the Sadducees. These scrolls are one of the most vital archaeological finds, perhaps ever, for quite a few reasons. But let's look at a few here. First, before the scrolls, the oldest version of the Hebrew scriptures was from around the 10th century CE. Permit me a small aside here.
In case you don't know, CE refers to Common Era or what the Christian world calls AD or Ano Domini, i.e., in the year of our Lord. BCE is before the Common Era, a stand-in for BC. I prefer to be as inclusive as possible, which is why I prefer using BCE and CE over BC and AD. Okay, aside over. And if you think about it, from the 10th century CE is not very old at all. The scrolls gave us most of the Hebrew Bible that predates that version by at least a thousand years.
Second, the scrolls gave us a glimpse of what extra canonical books were considered to actually be in canon, namely first Enoch and Jubilees. This was suspected, but the scrolls gave us proof of that. Third, they provide such a window into the mindset of the Essenes. For example, they thought that the presence of the Romans, whom they referred to as the Katim, to be a sign of the end times. In fact, the war scroll tells that when a war with the Katim was to happen, the angels themselves would descend from heaven and fight alongside the Essenes.
In fact, a large part of the War Scroll was dedicated to preserving the holiness of the angels by dictating how far away latrines and lines should be constructed. This wasn't mere wishing on the author's part. They actually constructed doctrine to be able to stand beside these holy beings in this eschatological war. We also know that they believed in switching away from a lunar calendar to a solar one due to first Enoch. See, that book is divided into four parts, and one of them is a justification as to why a solar calendar is the correct one.
This will have a significance we will revisit shortly. As one can imagine, the scrolls also had a huge impact upon the academic world, but not quite in the way one might expect. When the scrolls were discovered, one group was put in charge of assembling the pieces and then translating them, which was eventually headed up by a man named John Strugnell from Harvard. And this access was very carefully doled out to trusted scholars. And in a way, this is a very natural instinct, right?
Those in charge of analyzing these scroll fragments and determining which pieces belong where wanted to ensure that only those qualified were able to then carry forth the textual analysis. Yet this controlled funnel had two very large impacts. First, the work performed by Strugnell and his team had an extensive backlog, which led to severe delays. The second is that it created a class system in academia of the haves and the have-nots, which roughly fell along the Ivy League and non-Ivy League school line.
And this persisted not just for a year or a few years, but for decades until 1993, in fact. I still remember professors reminiscing about attending conferences during this 42, 43-year period where people would show up, present research that took months, if not years, to develop, and then have that either ignored or completely contradicted by the new rock stars of the academic world, those who had access to these scrolls, who would then show up and present their brownbreaking reveals. However, this stranglehold on access was finally broken through two major events.
Yes, I know the number two keeps popping up. I apologize. The first was a disastrous interview that John Strugnell himself gave to Haaretz, the longest-running newspaper still in print in Israel. In 1990, in this interview, Strugnell said some pretty repugnant things about Judaism. I'm sorry, I don't really feel comfortable repeating them here, especially since those words would then be spoken in my voice. But with that, Strugnell became a pariah, which not even Harvard wanted anything to do with him officially. Before I move on, I do want to say something.
Strugnell apologized for that interview and said that it was the result of a combination of alcoholism and manic depression. And quite a few professors wrote on his behalf, including Dr. Emmanuel Tove, the first Israeli scholar who was brought into the inner sanctum, as it were. I also have some personal experience to add in here, but more on that in a second. Yet the damage was already done, and the cracks in the stringlehold were introduced. The second event finally broke the dam, however.
A group assembled every scroll that had been revealed in conferences over the last four decades plus, which by that point was a surprising amount. And that, combined with the loss of leadership of the inner sanctum and the general outrage in the academic community that had been brewing for 40 years, finally allowed the academic world to have unfettered access to the scrolls when publisher Brill released the images onto the world. And this is where my own insignificant experience comes into play. I started off my Hebraic studies in college when I was in this have not camp.
Yet right before my senior year of college, Brill released these images of the scrolls. And my classical Hebrew professor, Dr. Rogers, somehow was able to convince my school not only to purchase the CD-ROMs that Brill produced, but also an entirely new multimedia PC in the library that was dedicated for them. And somehow, us four students and him got the chance to offer the very first college-level class on Dead Sea Scroll Hebrew. The president of our school even went on a late-night TV program to talk about it.
I then somehow wound up at Harvard from my graduate program and got to see the world from the other side of the divide. We had a visiting scholar from Israel who was a part of that inner sanctum. And one fateful day, he invited John Strugnell to teach our class. Strugnell lived in a small apartment behind Harvard Divinity School, and I'm sad to say the time had not been kind to him. He was stooped over and had difficulty getting around.
Yet his eyes shone brightly about his time analyzing scroll fragments and reminiscing about waking up in the middle of the night with sudden insight and racing downstairs to rearrange a fragment. He really was a lovely British gentleman, and he couldn't help but feel affection for the man. Now, for what it's worth, my interactions with him were limited to that class and stopping to talk to him whenever I would see him on campus. But I am inclined to believe his apology.
If you would have ever told me that this very nice man was capable of saying the things that he did, then I would have flat out called you a liar. Those who have studied the scrolls will each have their own favorite one. And I am no different. I believe I've said it before, but my favorite one by and far is 4Q five ten and eleven for quite a few reasons. Here's a rough translation, i.e. it's my own. Forgive the hubris. And I, the my skill, the leader or instructor, am making a proclamation of his glorious splendor, i.e.
gods, in order to instill dread and to terrify all the spirits of the angels of destruction, the spirits of the bastards, demons, lilith, howlers, desert dwellers, and all those spirits who quickly strike in suddenness in order to lead astray and establish spirit and to charm hearts. There's a whole lot going on in this very small passage, but let's break it down a little. First, it follows in the tradition of Psalm 91 of listing all of these evil things. But while Psalm 91 does it through allusions, 4Q 5, 10, and 11 outright names these entities.
Psalm 91 lists probably the biggest of these in verses five and six. You will not fear the terror of the night, nor allow the arrow that flies by day, nor the pestilence that stalks in darkness, nor the destruction that wastes at noonday. 4Q 51011 does the same by putting the worst of the evil entities at the top of the list, namely the spirits of the angels of destruction, i.e. the watchers, and the spirits of the bastards, i.e. the Nephilim. It also hearkens back to Isaiah 34 in filling out the roster. Take a listen to verses eight through fourteen.
For the Lord has a day of vengeance, a year of recompense for the cause of Zion, and the streams of Edom will be turned into pitch, and her soil into brimstone, her land shall become burning pitch, night and day it shall not be quenched, its smoke shall go up forever, from generation to generation it shall lie waste, none shall pass through it forever and ever. But the hulk and the porcupine shall possess it, the owl and the raven shall dwell in it, he shall stretch the line of confusion over it, and the plummet of chaos over its nobles.
They shall name it no kingdom there, and all of its princes shall be nothing. Thorns shall grow over its strongholds, nettles and thistles and its fortresses, it shall be the haunt of jackals, then abode for ostriches and wild beasts, or desert dwellers shall meet with hyenas or howlers, the satyr or cry to his fellow, yea, there shall the night hag alight and find for herself a resting place. You see some of the same cast of characters. We have desert dwellers, howlers, demon, and Lilith. And yes, this is the night hag.
It's actually not a proper noun, but it is a noun, it is a classification. And if you go back and listen to my episode about Lilith, you'll know that this was a period in time where she had transitioned from a deity of Mesopotamia to an evil spirit of the wind. Yet, for good measure, the Mashkil or instructor names one more group, those spirits that can lead astray even the faithful. And this passage shows just how important first Enoch was to this community in can you guess it? Two key ways. The first of is obviously references to both the watchers and their offspring.
The second, if you remember what I was talking about previously, has to deal with that solar calendar. Due to the level of inaccuracy of the time, a solar calendar would equate to 364 days in a year. And that leads to four 90-day blocks with four days left over. And you can imagine these 90-day blocks were the sides of a rectangle, forming the walls of a temple that served to keep people safe. However, the corner where these sides would meet had one pesky day separating them. And these days spelled trouble as there was a gap in that protection.
And it was on these days that this litany of evil spirits would come crawling into the world and put everyone in danger, no matter how faithful or steadfast one happened to be. And that's what 4Q 5, 10, and 11 comes into play. It is a prayer of protection, just like Psalm 91, that the leader or Mashkil of the community would read aloud in order to shore up that community's protection from the unseen horrors just lurking and waiting for them out in the desert.
From this passage, we see not only the importance of a present-day non-canonical book, but we also have insight into the mindset of the time as well. I hope you enjoyed this brief rundown on the Dead Sea Scrolls. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me either via the contact form on Southerndemonology.com or on our Discord server. And I especially want to thank one of our members, Rob, whose questions inspired this particular episode itself. Stay safe out there. Thank you for listening to Southern Demonology. Find us online at Southern Demonology.
com where you can find all of our social and podcasting links. Also, if you have a moment, please feel free to rate this podcast and leave any encouraging feedbacks that you may have. As always, I am JJ, and it has been a pleasure getting to talk to you today.