The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls: The ... - josephprestonkirk

52 QUMRAN AND THE ENOCH GROUPS
responsible for the sins they commit and can blame others (God or the
evil angels) for having exported “sin” into the world. “I have sworn unto
you, sinners: In the same manner that a mountain has never turned into
a servant, nor shall a hill (ever) become a maidservant of a woman; likewise,
neither has sin been exported into the world. It is the people who
have themselves invented it. And those who commit it shall come under
a great curse” (98:4).
The author of the Epistle of Enoch does not deny that evil has a superhuman
origin; yet he holds human beings responsible for the sinful
actions they commit. What the author aims to introduce is a clearer distinction
between evil, which is from the angels, and sin, which is from
humans, to show that the Enochic doctrine of evil does not contradict the
principle of human responsibility. Evil is a contamination that prepares a
fertile ground for sin (we might now use the term “temptation”), but it is
the individuals themselves who have “invented” sin and therefore are
responsible for their own deeds. The Qumran doctrine of individual predestination
is the target of the cutting remark of the Epistle.
This strong and uncompromising appeal to human freedom and
responsibility may seem surprising in a tradition, such as the Enochic, that
from its inception had consistently repeated the view that human beings
are victims of evil. However, it is much less revolutionary than it might
seem at first sight. Since its origins, the major concern of Enochic Judaism
was never to absolve human beings and angels from their sins. On the contrary,
the scope of the myth of the fallen angels was to absolve the merciful
God from being responsible for a world that the Enochians deemed evil
and corrupted. In the Enochic system of thought, the two contradictory
concepts of human responsibility and human victimization had to coexist
between the Scylla of an absolute determinism and the Charybdis of an
equally absolute anti-determinism. Accept either of these extremes, and the
entire Enochic system would collapse into the condemnation of God as the
source of evil or as the unjust scourge of innocent creatures.
The author of the Epistle also abandons the complex historical
determinism on which Jubilees, the proto-Epistle, and the Damascus
Document build their doctrines of election. The Epistle knows only the distinction
between “now” and “those days,” this world and the world to
come, the present and the future of the final judgment. The author of the
Epistle does not deny that already in this world there is a clear distinction
between the chosen and the wicked. He transfers this dualism, however,
onto the sociological level. The text identifies the chosen (the righteous
and the wise) and the wicked (the sinners and the foolish) respectively
with the poor (and powerless) and the rich (and powerful).