Reinventing Enoch in Sasanian Babylonia in Light of Zoroastrian and Manichaean Traditions

• In Event: Rabbinic Texts in Comparative Cultural Perspective

Abstract

The paper examines the reception of traditions pertaining to the figure of Enoch\Metatron in Sasanian Babylonia and particularly the emergence of Metatron speculation in the Babylonian Talmud and 3 Enoch, by positing a contextualized reading of these traditions in the light of Zoroastrian and Manichaean reports of the Iranian hero, Yima. It is posited that, in the course of the transmission of these traditions in Babylonia, the figure of Enoch/Metatron was reimagined by the Babylonian authors, so as to resemble local traditions pertaining to Yima. It is hypothesized that the process of translating and repackaging the figure of Enoch in the image of his Iranian counterpart was not merely a conscious act of comparison on the part of the Babylonian authors, but rather an expression of a more comprehensive discourse of cross-cultural identification.
The paper demonstrates that, very much like the reconstructed figure of Enoch\Metatron in the Jewish-Babylonian tradition, Yima is perceived in contemporaneous Zoroastrian and Manichaean sources as a mortal who was elevated to the divine realm and made lord of the entire creation. He receives from God majestic symbols and is seated on a throne in the seventh heaven, presiding over the entire earthy and celestial creation. He is ministered by myriads of kings, is addressed by the epithet Lord of the World, and shares the glory of God. Similarly to the fate of Metatron in the Jewish-Babylonian tradition, moreover, Yima was ultimately misled by his glorious and divine appearance to believe he was God and Creator, a sin for which he was severely punished.
Beyond these close parallels, the connections between Metatron speculation and the Zoroastrian and Manichean traditions relating to Yima are supported by an identification of Yima with the Son of Man implied in two Sogdian fragments of the Manichaean Book of Giants. It is suggested in this regard that the syncretic atmosphere that pervaded the Sasanian culture in general and the Manichaean identification of Yima with the Son of Man in particular facilitated the refiguring of Enoch\Metatron in the Babylonian Talmud and 3 Enoch in the image of local traditions pertaining to Yima.

author

• Yishai Kiel, Yale University