Fallen Angels, the Watchers, and the Origins of Evil (4 page)

           
It should be noted that the books of Jubilees, Enoch, and Jasher present stories of “The Watchers,” a group of angels sent to earth to record and teach, but who fell by their own lust and pride into a demonic state.
 
Both Enoch and Jubilees refer to a solar-based calendar. This may show a conflict or transition at the time of their penning since Judaism now uses a lunar-based calendar.

           
Laws, rites, and functions are observed and noted in Jubilees.
 
Circumcision is emphasized in both humans and angels. Angelic observance of Sabbath laws as well as parts of Jewish religious laws are said to have been observed in heaven before they were revealed to Moses.

           
To the Qumran community, complete obedience to the Laws of Moses entailed observing a series of holy days and festivals at a particular time according to a specific calendar. The calendar described in Jubilees is one of 364 days, divided into four seasons of three months each with thirteen weeks to a season. Each month had 30 days with one day added at certain times for each of the four seasons. With 52 weeks in a year, the festival and holy days recur at the same point each year. This calendar became a hallmark of an orthodox Qumran community.

           
The adherence to a specific calendar is one of many ways the Book of Jubilees shows the devotion to religious law. The law had been placed at the pinnacle of importance in the lives of the community at Qumran. All aspects of life were driven by a seemingly obsessive compliance to every jot and tittle of the law. The Book Of Jubilees confirms what can only be inferred from the books of Ezra, Nehemiah, and Zechariah, that the law and those who carried it out were supreme.
           

           
As the law took hold, by its nature, it crystallized the society. Free expression died, smothered under a mantle of hyper-orthodoxy. Since free thought invited accusations of violations of the law or claims of heresy, prudence, a closed mind, and a silent voice prevailed. Free thought was limited to religious or apocryphal writings, which upheld the orthodox positions of the day. The silent period between Malachi and Mark may be a reflection of this stasis. Jubilees, Enoch, and other apocryphal books found in the Qumran caves are a triumph over the unimaginative mindset brought on by making religious law supreme and human expression contrary to the law and punishable by death. It may be an odd manifestation that such a burst of creativity was fueled by the very search for order that suppressed free thought in the first place.

           
The Book of Jubilees seems to be an attempt to answer and explain all questions left unanswered in the Book of Genesis as well as to bolster the position of the religious law. It attempts to trace the source of religious laws back to an ancient beginning thereby adding weight and sanction.

           
 
In the Book of Jubilees, we discover the origin of the wife of Cain. There is information offered about angels and the beginnings of the human race, how demons came into existence, and the place of Satan in the plans of God. Information is offered in an attempt to make perfect sense of the vagaries left in Genesis. For the defense of order and law and to maintain religious law as the center point of Jewish life, Jubilees was written as an answer to both pagan Greeks and liberal Jews.
 
From the divine placement of law and order to its explanation of times and events, Jubilees is a panorama of legalism.

           
The name “Jubilees” comes from the division of time into eras known as Jubilees. One Jubilee occurs after the equivalent of forty-nine years, or seven Sabbaths of weeks of years have passed. It is the numerical perfection of seven sevens.
 
In a balance and symmetry of years, the Jubilee occurs after seven cycles of seven or forty-nine years have been completed. Thus, the fiftieth year is a Jubilee year.
 
Time is told by referencing the number of Jubilees that have transpired from the time the festival was first kept. For example, Israel entered Canaan at the close of the fiftieth jubilee, which is about 2450 B.C.

           
The obsession with time, dates, and the strict observance of festivals are all evidence of legalism taken to the highest level.

           
Based on the approximate time of writing, Jubilees was created in the time of the Maccabees, in the high priesthood of Hyrcanus. In this period of time the appearance of the Messiah and the rise of the Messianic kingdom were viewed as imminent. Followers were preparing themselves for the arrival of the Messiah and the establishment of His eternal kingdom.

           
Judaism was in contact with the Greek culture at the time. The Greeks were known to be philosophers and were developing processes of critical thinking. One objective of Jubilees was to defend Judaism against the attacks of the Hellenists and to prove that the law was logical, consistent, and valid. Attacks against paganism and non-believers are embedded in the text along with defense of the law and its consistency through proclamations of the law being observed by the angels in heaven from the beginning of creation.

           
Moral lessons are taught by use of the juxtaposition of the
 
“satans” and their attempts to test and lead mankind into sin against the warning and advice of scriptural wisdom from Moses and his angels.

           
Mastema is mentioned only in The Book of Jubilees and in the Fragments of a Zadokite Work. Mastema is Satan. The name Mastema is derived from the Hebrew, “Mastim,” meaning “adversary.” The word occurs as singular and plural. The word is equivalent to Satan (adversary or accuser). This is similar to the chief Satan and his class of “satans” in 1 Enoch 40,7.

           
Mastema is subservient to God. His task is to tempt men to sin and if they do, he accuses them in the presence of the Throne of God. He and his minions lead men into sin but do not cause the sin. Once men have chosen to sin, they lead them from sin to destruction. Since man is given free will, sin is a choice, with Mastema simply encouraging and facilitating the decision. The choice, we can assume, is our own and the destruction that follows is “self-destruction.”

           
Beliar is also mentioned. Beliar is the Greek name for Belial / Beliaal. The name in its Hebrew equivalent means “without value.” This was a demon known by the Jews as the chief of all the devils. Belial is the leader of the Sons of Darkness. Belial and Mastema are mentioned in a Zadokite fragment saying that at the time of the Antichrist, Belial shall be let loose against Israel; as God spoke through Isaiah the prophet. Belial is sometimes presented as an agent of God’s punishment although he is considered a “Satan.”

           
It is important to mention that Judaism had no doctrine of original sin. The fall of Adam and Eve may have removed man from the perfect environment and the curses that followed may have shortened his lifespan, but propagation of sin through the bloodline was not considered. Sin seemed to affect only man and the animals he was given dominion over. Yet man continued to sin, and to increase in his capacity and modes of sin. The explanation offered for man’s inability to resist is the existence of fallen angels; spiritual, superhuman creatures whose task it was to teach us but who now tempted and misled men. In the end, the world declines and crumbles under the evil influence of the fallen angels turned demons called, “The Watchers.”

           
With the establishment of the covenant between Abraham and God, we are told that God had appointed spirits to “mislead” all the nations but would not assign a spirit to lead or mislead the children of Isaac as God himself would be leading them.

           
The angels converse in Hebrew as it is the heavenly tongue. The law is written by God using this alphabet thus the law is also holy. All men spoke Hebrew until the time of Babel when the Hebrew language was lost. However, when Abraham dedicated himself to God, his ears were opened and his tongue was sanctified and Hebrew was again spoken and understood.

 
          
 
Finally, the entire text is based on the numbers of forty-nine and fifty. Forty-nine represents the pinnacle of perfection, being made up of seven times seven. The number fifty, which is the number of the Jubilee, is the number of grace. In the year of Jubilee slaves were to be set free, debts were forgiven, and grace filled the land and people.

           
Drawing from the theology and myths at the time, the Book of Jubilees expands and embellishes on the creation story, the fall of Adam and Eve, and the fall of the angels. The expanded detail written into the text may have been one reason it was eventually rejected. However, the effects of the book can still be seen throughout the Judeo-Christian beliefs of today. The theology espoused in Jubilees can be seen in the angelology and demonology taught in the Christian churches of today and widely held by many Jews.

           
In an attempt to answer questions left unaddressed in Genesis the writer confronts the origin and identification of Cain’s wife. According to the Book Of Jubilees, Cain married his sister, as did all of the sons of Adam and Eve, except Abel, who was murdered. This seemed offensive to some, since it flies in the face of the very law it was written to defend. Yet this seemed to the writer to be the lesser of evils, given the problematic questions. Inbreeding was dismissed with the observation that the law was not fully given and understood then. The effects of the act were moot due to the purity of the newly created race.

           
The seeming discrepancy between the divine command of Adam’s death decree and the timing of his death is addressed. Seeing that Adam continued to live even after he ate the fruit, which was supposed to bring on his death, the writer set about to clarify God’s actions. The problem is explained away is a single sentence. Since a day in heaven is as a thousand years on earth and Adam died having lived less than a thousand years this meant he died in the same heavenly day. Dying within the same day of the crime was acceptable.

           
In an astonishing parallel to the Book of Enoch, written at about the same time as Jubilees, the Watchers, or sons of God mentioned in Genesis 6, fell from grace when they descended to earth and had sex with the daughters of men. In the Book of Enoch, the angels descended for the purpose of seducing the women of earth.

However, in The Book of Jubilees, the angels were sent to teach men, but after living on earth for a while, they were tempted by their own lust and fell from heaven. The offspring of this unholy union were bloodthirsty and cannibalistic giants.

The Book of Jubilees indicates that each of the offspring was somehow different. Because of this, they are divided into categories of the Nephilim (or Naphidim, depending on the transliteration), the Giants, and the Eljo. The Nephil are mentioned however this word is the singular of Nephilim. Therefore, we have these classifications or species living on the earth: Angels, also referred to as watchers; Nephilim; Eljo; Giants; and Human.

The Nephilim seem to be a being that contains an evil spirit much like their fathers. The giants, although coming from the same union of angel and woman, were carnal creatures. We have little information about the Eljo except they lived to kill men. They could be the “men of renown” mentioned in the Bible. These may have been the beings that brought about the myths of the violent and angry creatures such as the Cyclops or gods of war.
 

           
As sin spread throughout the world and the minds of men were turned toward evil, God saw no alternative but to cleanse the earth with a flood and establish a “new nature” in man that does not have to sin. It is this new nature that the Messiah will meet in mankind when He comes. As far as this author is aware, the re-creation of man’s nature is mentioned in no other book. This idea of human nature being altered as it existed before the flood is found nowhere else but in Jubilees.

           
The angelic narrator tells us there were times in Israel’s history when no evil existed and all men lived in accord. We are also told when and where the satans were allowed to attack and confound Israel. In this narrative, God uses his satans to harden the hearts of the Egyptians so they pursued Israel and were destroyed.

           
“The Apocalypse of Moses” also denotes the same work. This title seems to have been used for only a short period of time. It refers to the revelation given to Moses as the recipient of all the knowledge disclosed in the book. The term “Apocalypse” means to make known or to reveal.
 
Another title of Jubilees is “Little Genesis”. This refers to the lesser, non-canon status of the book. With the exception of minor differences picked up through translation and copying, the three titles represent the same text.