"This pioneering work is not for the fainthearted but will light the way for intrepid searchers for the truth, no matter how startling or shocking it may prove to be. There are occasional suggestions in the extant literature -- particularly in the more recently edited and published documents of the [Qumran] community -- about arcane lore and esoteric practices. The authors of the present new book on the Scrolls have made a special study of these less well known and much more obscure materials. They have probed more deeply than most into the sectarian works of a highly speculative kind ... these texts offer glimpses and clues, tantalizing hints about secret doctrines and restricted rites of a very startling nature ... The authors proceed chapter by chapter, step by step, to expose and expound the mysterious rituals of the Essenes until, at the end, the reader will be amazed and astounded." -- David Noel Freedman
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"Then I lifted up my eyes, and looked, and behold a certain man clothed in linen, whose loins were girded with fine gold of Uphaz: His body also was like the beryl, and his face as the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as lamps of fire, and his arms and his feet like in color to polished brass, and the voice of his words like the voice of a multitude." (Daniel, 10:5-6)
Angels speak to some gender confusion in Western cultures. In Assyrian art, for example, winged beings appear as male warriors or male lions. Greeks, on the other hand, represent their female goddesses as angels, such as the famous Winged Goddess of Victory of Samothrace. In the Egyptian Tomb of Harpies in Xanthos archaeologists found "a number of winged creatures, half-women, half-birds....which calls to mind the Egyptian soul-bird Ba"(18).(1) Then there are the Egyptian winged sphinxes -- their gender unknown. In early medieval European art, angels appear as young males; but by the time of the Renaissance, when classical Greek models resurface, we begin to find some female angels and baby angels -- cupid or eros, for example -- often with their little penises on display. Sometimes the angels are in pairs, usually "holding a medallion [or a mandorla] along with the Hand of God."(2) Angels are depicted with both feet always visible. This may be because angels perform a certain function; they are messengers and must be able to walk on earth as well as fly to and from heaven (see Rev. 14:6, for instance).
Since angels are depicted in the Bible and its companion literary works as heavenly,(3) it is interesting to note that they are always portrayed as youths, even boys. Sometimes they are not even recognized as heavenly beings (as in the Biblical story of Manoah's wife and the angel). Their importance then, lies in their service. Angels are so close to the realm of people that in Daniel, for example, they are periodically referred to as "man"; in fact, in that book they sometimes wear fine, priestly looking, linen clothes (Dan., 10:5; 12:7). The angels' heavenly connection is sometimes implied by their "strangeness," or otherworldly "handsomeness". Beauty here is more than skin deep.
The ambiguous world of the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha was full of angels, who were placed within a very elaborate hierarchy headed by archangels. Uriel (whose name designates light) was in charge of the underworld; Raphael, whose name is related to healing, was responsible for the spirits of humans; Michael is the angel who watches over Israel; Sariel's ("Prince of God" or "El is my ruler") duties are somewhat vague, whereas Gabriel (the root gbr is related to man, strength, sometimes in the sexual sense) ruled Paradise.(4) There are also the angels of Presence who play a role in punishing the fallen angels (1 Enoch 9:1; 10:1; 54:6). There are Guardian angels (sope samayim, "night watchers"); the Aramaic irin ("watchers") is used in the Genesis Apocryphon to refer to the angels' possible copulation with the wife of Lamech. Her husband believes these angels impregnated her with Noah, the very special son, so important to the sectarians. We should not neglect to mention the presence of evil angels, who, interestingly, in the aggadah (Jewish legends of the talmudic era) are expelled from heaven because they betrayed heavenly secrets (see Genesis Rabbah 50.13; 68.18). The Dead Sea fellowship was quite strict with those who divulged its secrets.(5)
In later developments, and especially in folklore, the Angel of Death confronts brides and bridegrooms on the night of their wedding and plots against them. The Book of Tobit (fragments of which were found at Qumran) is an elaborate legend which introduces the angel Raphael (in human form) as one who thwarts the evil designs of Asmodeus, who is in the habit of killing the heroine's grooms on the night of their wedding. Tobit (on the advice of Raphael, the healer) mixes a concoction which Asmodeus drinks and which renders him ineffective; so Sarah marries Tobit and they live happily ever after. In the Testament of Solomon (a document which dates from as early as the first century C.E.(6)) the demons are associated with the stars; they reside in constellations and have the capacity to fly, even to heaven, where they uncover plans for people's lives. They frequent desolate spots and haunt tombs (T. Sol. 4; 6; 17) and generally are involved in mischief. The Angel of Death sometimes carries a knife and is described as an old man holding a sword dripping with poison. (see Aboda Zara 20b)
Various angelic roles were played out at Qumran and not only because of an idealized view of the community. It seems to us that because of the very specific position that the tradition accorded angels, both the good and the bad, and because a whole host of legends developed around them, it was easier for the sectarians to adopt and transform them. Interestingly, the Angel of Death has been perceived to be the source of magical, medicinal knowledge. The book of Jubilees describes Noah as acquiring the art of medicine to cure "malignant spirits." (10:1-13)
Angels are essential characters in the wider mystical category. At Qumran, there are references to "seven paths" (4Q400 frag. 1, col. 2) representing "the rivers of joy" in heaven. There is an association with the imagery of the Garden of Eden and the later mystical association of the Garden with the Pardes (orchard), which one is forbidden from entering.(7) Later Jewish mysticism, in particular the merkavah literature of the splendid angel-drawn throne/chariot of God, abounds with angelogy.(8) Wings, also representative of the bird sign of the earliest Goddess and the hovering dove of the holy spirit, are literally necessary to accomplish this apocalyptic, mystical feat.(9)
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Go to Notes to Chapter Four