Good resources on ancient Jewish demonology?

Discussion about the Hebrew Bible, Septuagint, pseudepigrapha, Philo, Josephus, Talmud, Dead Sea Scrolls, archaeology, etc.
rgprice
Posts: 2058
Joined: Sun Sep 16, 2018 11:57 pm

Good resources on ancient Jewish demonology?

Post by rgprice »

Anyone have some good resources or recommendations on ancient Jewish demonology, angelology and magic?

I know a lot of it involved invoking the Lord using various names and codes. I know it was thought that the name of the Lord itself was powerful, but was forbidden from being spoken.

Also, any links with Greek God-fearers is of interest.
User avatar
ConfusedEnoch
Posts: 55
Joined: Sun Sep 13, 2020 11:39 am

Re: Good resources on ancient Jewish demonology?

Post by ConfusedEnoch »

As far as I know, "demons" are virtually non-existent in ancient Israelite religion. The oldest quasi-demon I know of is Beelzebub and that one has a complex and idiosyncratic story. Originally a Philistine equivalent of "Baal" with the name Baal-berit (Lord of the Covenant), his identity was distorted into that of an evil "Lord of Flies" (Zebub = Flies) to suit the Israelites' depiction of Philistines as "unworthy" of God.

I guess the Watchers of 1 Enoch could also be classified as "demons" since their purpose is ambiguous and the result of their mingling with mortals is negative, but I doubt they were ever seen as "evil" at all.

For more info about exilic and post-exilic Israelite demonology, check this article:

"Concepts of "Demons" in Ancient Israel"- Henrike Frey-Anthes
https://www.jstor.org/stable/25684138?seq=1
User avatar
DCHindley
Posts: 3411
Joined: Mon Oct 07, 2013 9:53 am
Location: Ohio, USA

Re: Good resources on ancient Jewish demonology?

Post by DCHindley »

rgprice wrote: Wed Mar 03, 2021 5:50 am Anyone have some good resources or recommendations on ancient Jewish demonology, angelology and magic?

I know a lot of it involved invoking the Lord using various names and codes. I know it was thought that the name of the Lord itself was powerful, but was forbidden from being spoken.

Also, any links with Greek God-fearers is of interest.
Belief that the world "works" due to semi-divine beings known as daimons, actually comes from Platonic and some earlier forms of ancient Greek Philosophy with some overlap with the Median concept of "jinn."

Basically, the world was imagined to be set up like an army or large household, where the ultimate divine principal gives orders and his worker bee daimones do his or her bidding. They technically were not good or bad in themselves but the ones that caused illnesses and troubles were feared. The Magi from Media believed that they had the power (through spells and incantations) to control them by pretending to be the lawful representatives of the king/god. In the Greek world, this kind of world view was very popular among a class of magicians called goetes. Tons of magical spells have been unearthed from ancient Egyptian garbage dumps of the 2nd-3rd-4th centuries CE.

From a 2018 post of mine:
Being handed over to a demon is a commonplace in ancient magical texts. The ones we have from Egypt date to around the 2nd century or later, but share a common "demonology." They portray a military-like hierarchy of all spiritual beings (daimones) who carried out elemental tasks, including control ailments, wind, sun, rain, etc., and some that promote good. They are treated much like soldiers and some are officers and some are grunts, even gold-bricks. Orders from the higher order demons are communicated down the chain of command, the receiver passing down those orders only if the proper passwords, salutes and "seals" (images) are presented.

The common magician can interfere with this chain of command by knowledge of the passwords, salutes and seals, essentially impersonating a soldier, and have the target elemental being stop or start their elemental work on a specific individual or class of people.

Now Paul does not seem to be interfering, but as a person with authority, maybe in consequence of his vision experience, essentially acting as an officer in the angelic/elemental army. This would correspond to the Persian Magus, who assumes an almost god-like authority about him, a high officer specially authorized by the most powerful gods. These could commandeer units of elementals for his immediate use for a special project.

(Smith, Morton) Jesus the Magician (1978)
(Betz, Hans Dieter, ed) The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation-Including the Demotic Spells (1986)
(Mirecki, Paul & Marvin Meyer) Magic and Ritual in the Ancient World (2002)

For an example of a thoroughly Jewish magical recipe book, where demons tend to be impartial soldiers carrying out elemental tasks, see:

(Morgan, Michael A, tr) Sepher Ha-Razim The Book of Mysteries (1983)

This book is very much in the model of the Greek/Demotic Magical papyri when it comes to angelology/demonology

The Judean Pseudepigrapha tended to group these elementals as good Angels and the others as bad Demons. I'm thinking that the elemental beings are simply assumed to be doing their jobs, impartial to who gives them orders. See R H Charles' various comments about Demonology and its parallels in the NT in his introductions to his translations of 1 Enoch and Jubilees, in:

(Charles, R H) Apocrypha & Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, volume 2 (1913).

Sometimes the whole command system is simply called Angelology, and when the concentration is on bad actors like the fallen angels and their offspring, it may be called Demonology. The sins of the Watcher Angels (1 Enoch, Book of Watchers) was not confined to disobedience to god, but also teaching their human wives how to manipulate the activities of the elemental beings that still go about their duties unaffected by the revolts among the angelic commanders.

You might also find of interest D C Duling's translation of the "Testament of Solomon" in:

(Charlesworth, James H, ed) The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol 2 (1985)

Solomon commandeers demons and puts them to work building his famous temple.

For an example of a thoroughly Jewish magical recipe book, where demons tend to be impartial soldiers carrying out elemental tasks, see:

(Morgan, Michael A, tr) Sepher Ha-Razim The Book of Mysteries (1983)

This book is very much in the model of the Greek/Demotic Magical papyri when it comes to angelology/demonology
Have fun.

DCH. You can see my guardian daimon watching over me in my icon.
User avatar
Ben C. Smith
Posts: 8994
Joined: Wed Apr 08, 2015 2:18 pm
Location: USA
Contact:

Re: Good resources on ancient Jewish demonology?

Post by Ben C. Smith »

DCHindley wrote: Tue Mar 09, 2021 10:51 amYou can see my guardian daimon watching over me in my icon.
Your guardian daemon looks like of grouchy....
rgprice
Posts: 2058
Joined: Sun Sep 16, 2018 11:57 pm

Re: Good resources on ancient Jewish demonology?

Post by rgprice »

Thanks DCH!

Certainly, the description of the activates in Acts of the Apostles strikes me as demonology. Casting out spirits by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus would seem to be an act of demonology.

What I find interesting, and I haven't read Morton Smith yet, but I've ordered his book, is that of course it would have been impossible to call on Yahweh. One could have called literally on the "Name" of the Lord, "Spirit come out in the Name of the Lord," but one could not say , "Spirit come out in the Name of the Lord Yahweh."

In Acts, the various actors cast out spirit and heal "in the name of Jesus."
Then Peter said, “Silver or gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.”
It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed.
“Aeneas,” Peter said to him, “Jesus Christ heals you. Get up and roll up your mat.” Immediately Aeneas got up.
Paul became so annoyed that he turned around and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!”
Some Jews who went around driving out evil spirits tried to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who were demon-possessed. They would say, “In the name of the Jesus whom Paul preaches, I command you to come out.”
The interesting thing about this is that the use of "the Name" of the Lord is related to the prohibition against saying the name of the Lord.

So, I was curious about practices of Jewish demonology that may have looked similar to what we see in Acts, but being done in the "Name" of Yahweh or other figures. Are there known parallels to these practices that employ, instead of "Jesus", Michael or other pronounceable names, i.e. “In the name of Michael I command you to come out!"

Were there known uses of simply, "In the Name of the Lord I command you to come out!"?

What ways were there, if any, of invoking Yahweh or the angel of Yahweh?
Ethan
Posts: 976
Joined: Tue Feb 13, 2018 1:15 pm
Location: England
Contact:

Re: Good resources on ancient Jewish demonology?

Post by Ethan »

Demons are personifications of spirit

Numbers 5:14 (רוח-קנאה)
The spirit of jealousy come upon him

The noun קנאה is homologue of φθόνος "envy, jealousy" also personified as Phthonus.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phthonus

Numbers 5:14 could then be read as "the influence of Phthonus come upon him'
StephenGoranson
Posts: 2310
Joined: Thu Apr 02, 2015 2:10 am

Re: Good resources on ancient Jewish demonology?

Post by StephenGoranson »

From <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www ... lOP3Q18Wjs$ >:
======================

ANCIENT JEW REVIEW

Book Note | Demons, Angels, and Writing in Ancient Judaism
by Amit Gvaryahu in Book Notes

Annette Yoshiko Reed,
Demons, Angels, and Writing in Ancient Judaism.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020.
DOI: 10.1017/9781139030847. x+353 pp.

They said about Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai, that he took up scripture
and Mishnah, halakha and aggada, minutiae of Torah and scribal
minutiae, arguments a fortiori and synkrisis pros ison, astronomy and
geometry, parables of launderers and parables of foxes, the speech of
palms and the speech of reeds, the speech of demons and the speech of
angels, a big matter and a little matter […] to uphold that which is
said (about Wisdom, Prov 8:21): Endowing with wealth those who love
me, and filling their treasuries. (b. Bab. Bat. 134a = b. Sot. 28a =
AdRN A 14, ed. Schechter 29a)

[....continued at the link above]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Amit Gvaryahu is a fellow at the Martin Buber Society of Fellows at
the Hebrew University In Jerusalem.
Last edited by StephenGoranson on Thu Dec 30, 2021 4:48 am, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
MrMacSon
Posts: 8798
Joined: Sat Oct 05, 2013 3:45 pm

Re: Good resources on ancient Jewish demonology?

Post by MrMacSon »


Although magic was forbidden by Levitical law in the Hebrew Bible, it was widely practised in the late Second Temple period, and particularly well documented in the period following the destruction of the temple ... Jewish and Samaritan magicians appear in the New Testament, Acts of the Apostles, and also in the works of Josephus, such as Atomos, a Jewish magician of Cyprus (Antiquities of the Jews 20:142).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_magical_papyri -

+/- The Greek Magical Papyri viewtopic.php?p=128926#p128926
Bruce.dee
Posts: 9
Joined: Sun Nov 21, 2021 9:09 pm

Re: Good resources on ancient Jewish demonology?

Post by Bruce.dee »

rgprice wrote: Wed Mar 03, 2021 5:50 am Anyone have some good resources or recommendations on ancient Jewish demonology, angelology and magic?

I know a lot of it involved invoking the Lord using various names and codes.
Hello and thank you for your interest. I would like to acknowledge stephenG for his contribution to your inquiry as well.

The most obvious place to look for a seeker is the Torah or Old Testament, scriptures in their current form. The Book of Solomon and the contents of the more gifted leaders, seers and practitioners of the branch of Abram. He too, became the recipient of many a great increase and due to his obedience of guidance and commands he had received the protection, blessings and gifts afforded him by the hosts of heaven in abundance. The Lesser Keys of Solomon, the greater Keys of Solomon, the Apocryphal records and the rituals of sacrifice are the tried and true way that priestly bodies of flesh and blood men could preform alms giving of which the various Elohim or angels or fallen ones or watchers or gods or demons or aechons, were not ungrateful.

The entire legacy of Israelite unity or purpose is based upon the promise made once upon a time to deliver unto them a land whereby the would posses it and live there forever as the lords of the Earth. That was the allure to remain in subordinate prostration as a family or a man when the prosperity of personal industry and diligence was verily enjoyed by the colorful peoples of the world all around from shore to shore.

All of the names and districts, personalities and minute of angels is painstakingly documented in many separate texts and it’s equally painstaking to comb over them. It is known now as of old that you must learn for yourself, or not. Choose these starting points for this journey, if you wish.


There is no more that can be offered you to afford yourself a source of the nature of the complex and diverse other worldly beings, of which the so called Jews have had been reproached far and wide for having such a close and constant relationship with.
User avatar
Thomas R
Posts: 41
Joined: Tue Nov 16, 2021 4:32 pm

Re: Good resources on ancient Jewish demonology?

Post by Thomas R »

Fallen Angels in Jewish, Christian and Mohammedan Literature: A Study in Comparative Folk-Lore
by Leo Jung

https://archive.org/details/JungFallenA ... 1/mode/2up

https://archive.org/download/JungFallen ... Angels.pdf
Post Reply