The Apocalypse of the Birds
1 Enoch and the Jewish Revolt against Rome
Identifies and contextualises a new work within the Animal Apocalypse, dated to the dawn of the First Jewish Revolt
- Identifies a new source for the study of the Jewish Revolt, establishing the high hopes of the revolutionaries before the ultimate collapse of the movement
- Pursues a unified and cross-disciplinary study of the apocalyptic and historiographic literature of Jews and Christians (or Jesus-followers) in the first-century CE
- Advances a methodology for the study of ancient fragments, such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, that privileges our extant material evidence in the construction of literary wholes
- Reimagines the Animal Apocalypse of Enoch as a lively literary tradition with multiple identifiable sites of growth: including the Vision of the Beasts, and the Apocalypse of the Birds
- Explores the potential and pitfalls of historical-apocalyptic texts in guiding methodological discussions of dating
This book identifies a new apocalyptic work—the Apocalypse of the Birds—contained in the Animal Apocalypse (1 Enoch 85-90), and argues that it is born of the chaotic Jewish-Christian world of the first-century CE. Through close analysis of texts and manuscripts in Ge’ez, Greek, Aramaic, and Hebrew, alongside historical and numismatic evidence, the book situates the Apocalypse of the Birds alongside literature and historiography of the first-century CE. It argues that the Apocalypse of the Birds belongs to the heady early days of the First Jewish Revolt, and represents crucial evidence for the early optimism of the revolutionaries, the dynamic and progressive evolution of the Animal Apocalyptic tradition, and the blurred and porous boundaries between Jew and Jesus-follower in the first-century CE.
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Absence of Evidence or Evidence of Absence?
1. On Subsidiary Works, Absent and Present from our Documents
2. The Nature of the Beast: Literary Evidence for Animal Apocalypse(s) of Enoch
3. Material Evidence for Animal Apocalypse(s) of Enoch
4. Dating the Animal Apocalypses
5. The Early Christian Readers of the Apocalypse of the Birds
6. The Apocalypse of the Birds and the First Jewish Revolt
7. On Animal Apocalypses in the First Century and Beyond
Appendix: An Annotated Apocalypse of the Birds (1 Enoch 89.59–90.42)
Bibliography
Index
This learned and ingenious monograph raises important methodological questions for the study of the Pseudepigrapha that will define the study of this corpus of ancient writings in the coming generation.
Dugan’s argument is rigorous, nuanced, judicious, and admirably reflexive throughout. Her breadth of expertise in different materials, languages, corpora, and periods make this a richly complex and original study. [...] This book should be required reading for scholars and advanced students of Jewish and Christian literature and will also be of interest to specialists in ancient textual practices, book history, and provincial responses to Roman imperialism. I look forward to the creative new conversations it will stimulate about textual transmission across the boundaries of periods, languages, and religious traditions.
