Myth and Metaphysics in Hellenistic Judaism: The Case of Demonology

Jewish literature of the Hellenistic Period bears witness to a proliferation of angel/demonologies. The texts discovered at Qumran have not only confirmed a trend that was already well established, they have provided significant additional data for understanding this change in the religious imagination of Jewish writers from the Hellenistic Period. The data has also called into question the language that scholars have typically used to describe the phenomenon. In this paper I attempt to reconstruct a portion of the metaphysical world imagined by some Jewish writers from the Hellenistic period. I focus on the concept of “demons” and ask if it might reasonably represent the world they imagine and describe or if, instead, the Greek concept of demon has been filtered through later Christian usage and applied to a Jewish world in which it is anachronistic. I choose my test-cases from several adoptions and adaptations of the Watchers Myth in texts like 4Q510, 11QPsa, and 4Q177. I draw on important work that has already been performed on the demonologies of the Dead Sea Scrolls and suggest that we may yet sharpen our methodologies for studying the concepts of otherworldly beings within their native metaphysical landscape(s). The fields of Assyriology and Egyptology have already made some progress in this endeavor and I borrow from their insights to propose fruitful future avenues for research on the demonologies of Hellenistic Judaism.