Review of "The Fire That Consumes" by Edward W. Fudge (Part 1)

Until now I have never touched the subject of hell on my blog or website, apart from one brief article on The Rich Man and Lazarus. Having recently been challenged by a close relative as to whether I agree with Catholic teaching on hell,1 though, I thought I ought to give a thoughtful response. Now, the traditional Christian doctrine of hell, which British philosopher Bertrand Russell famously described as "a doctrine of cruelty,"2 has been out of vogue in Western society for some time. This trend has not been confined to secular critics of Christianity; the doctrine has increasingly been rejected by (mainly Protestant) Christian theologians over the past few decades.3 Many of these theologians have agreed with Russell's view that the traditional doctrine is cruel and at odds with the love of God. However, their primary reason for rejecting the doctrine has been simply that they do not consider it to be biblical.

Most contemporary Christian theologians who reject the traditional doctrine of hell ("traditionalism" herein) have replaced it with the doctrine of annihilationism, which is usually part of a broader doctrinal framework called conditionalism. Traditionalism, annihilationism, and universalism are the three main views that have existed in church history concerning the final destiny of the wicked. Traditionalism, sometimes referred to as "eternal conscious torment," maintains that the wicked enter a state of separation from God in which they still exist perpetually and consciously. Annihilationism maintains that the ultimate punishment of the wicked is annihilation: the total and permanent termination of existence. Annihilationism is a sub-doctrine of conditionalism, which maintains (in contrast to the traditional doctrine of the "immortality of the soul") that human immortality is conditional rather than innate, and granted only to the redeemed. Universalism maintains that all divine punishment is remedial rather than retributive, and therefore all the wicked will eventually repent and be saved. The three views are conveniently summarised in the diagram below (developed by the conditionalist website RethinkingHell.com).

Now, a "must-read" book for anyone interested in conditionalism is The Fire That Consumes: A Biblical and Historical Study of the Doctrine of Final Punishment by the late Edward W. Fudge (3rd ed.; Eugene: Cascade, 2011; 593 pages.). The third edition of The Fire That Consumes contains a foreword from no less a biblical scholar than Richard Bauckham, who declares the book a "standard work" and "the fullest and most thorough exposition and defense of the view that the fate of the unsaved will be final destruction, not (as in the traditional doctrine of hell) eternal torment." The earlier editions received similarly glowing forewords from other eminent biblical scholars, F. F. Bruce and John Wenham. Therefore, I could think of no better way to wade into the traditional/conditionalism debate than to read and review The Fire That Consumes.

Edward Fudge (1944-2017) was a man of erudition and integrity who was apparently forced out of a career in ministry because of his non-traditional views on final punishment. Thereafter, he qualified as a lawyer and practiced law as a "day job" while continuing to pursue his theological vocation (his keen legal mind is evident in the cogent arguments in his writing). The Fire That Consumes may fairly be called Fudge's magnum opus, due to the great influence that its three editions had (and have) on the Evangelical world and beyond. Fudge's theological journey and writing testify to his good character. He changed his views on hell after carefully studying the biblical evidence, persevered in what he believed even when it cost dearly, and interacted with theological opponents without the polemical bitterness that so often accompanies theological argument. In The Fire That Consumes, Fudge is consistently charitable in his interactions with opponents, repeatedly calling them "Brother" and dismissing any notion that such unconventional forms of address might be unsuitable for a scholarly work. Brother Edward Fudge was undoubtedly a remarkable man, and it is unfortunate that I will not be able to interact with him in this life.

The Fire That Consumes consists of 36 chapters. In many of these chapters, the third edition has added an "Interaction" section at the end where Fudge briefly interacts with traditionalist responses to his earlier editions. In what follows I will give blow-by-blow observations on and interactions with Fudge's arguments. The first part of my review will discuss Fudge's first ten chapters, which cover his introductory material, some overarching doctrinal issues about humanity, death, and eternity, and his treatment of the Old Testament and ancient Jewish writings. The second part will discuss chapters 11 to 23, which cover his treatment of the New Testament. The third part will discuss chapters 24 to 36, which focus on the development of the Christian doctrine of hell after/outside the New Testament, and Fudge's theological findings.

Chapter 1: Rethinking Hell: Apostasy or New Reformation?
Chapter 2: Back to the Bible: The Protestant Principle  
Chapter 3: Souls: Immortal or Otherwise
Chapter 4: Aiōnios: Duration, Quality, or Both?
Chapter 5: Sheol/Hades: Gravedom?
Chapters 6 to 8: Divine Justice (When?; Historical Examples; Messiah and the End)
Chapters 9 and 10: Diversity (Apocrypha and Dead Sea Scrolls; Pseudepigrapha)
  4 Ezra  
  Jubilees  
  1 Enoch  

Chapter 1: Rethinking Hell: Apostasy or New Reformation?

In Chapter 1, Fudge comments on the disappearance of hell from preaching and public discourse, and intimates that "a deeper, widespread problem with the traditional interpretation of hell" could be the cause. (One wonders, though, whether sermons on the horrors of eschatological punishment are any more in vogue in annihilationist congregations than traditionalist ones.) Noting a recent pattern of rethinking the traditional doctrine of hell in Evangelical circles, Fudge sets out to undertake his own inquiry into the matter. He is transparent about his own presuppositions: he is "a theist, a Christian and an evangelical, persuaded that Scripture is the very Word of God written...without error in anything that it teaches" (p. 26). This high view of Scripture is shared by the Catholic Church.

Chapter 2: Back to the Bible: The Protestant Principle

In Chapter 2, Fudge sets out his epistemology, which is avowedly Protestant: the Bible is our only source of special divine revelation, and Rome's claims of authority are "false" (p. 39). He and I must already part ways at this point since, as a Catholic, I uphold Sacred Tradition as a source of revelation on equal footing with Sacred Scripture, and defer to the Church's Magisterium (ultimately vesting in the Roman Pontiff) as the final interpretative authority. He and I are also not working with the same biblical canon, which is significant since Fudge affirms that at least one book in the Catholic canon, Judith, teaches a traditionalist view of hell.4 Nevertheless, since we share the same high view of Sacred Scripture, have 66 biblical books in common, and both presuppose that divine revelation is concordant with human reason, his "biblical and historical study" can still provide a Catholic like myself with much food for thought and dialogue.

Chapter 3: Souls: Immortal or Otherwise

In Chapter 3, "Souls: Immortal or Otherwise," Fudge tackles the subject of theological anthropology, which is closely related to the doctrine of hell. If human souls are innately immortal—created to exist perpetually by default—then annihilationism can ipso facto be ruled out. All human souls will spend eternity somewhere, not cease to exist. Fudge argues, however, that the doctrine of the immortality of the soul (DIS herein) is a Platonic idea foreign to biblical anthropology that was smuggled into the early church. He thus sets out and briefly defends the doctrine of conditional immortality (conditionalism), as a jumping-off point for his defense of annihilationism. As a Catholic, I reject conditionalism and uphold DIS,5 albeit not within a Platonic dualism that denigrates the body as a prison for the soul but within a "holistic dualism"6 that regards embodiment as good and necessary for the fullness of human life. I will not delve into the anthropological debate here in detail, since it is a massive subject and not essential to the traditionalism/annihilationism debate.7

However, I do want to comment on some important semantic issues. Unlike Fudge's traditionalist interlocutor Robert A. Peterson, I do not deny that the early Church Fathers were influenced by Platonic dualism. The Fathers and Doctors of the Church drew on the resources of Greek philosophy (both Platonic and Aristotelian) to refine the doctrine of the human person.8 Furthermore, the term "immortality of the soul" is taken from the philosophical discourse and not from the Bible. Therefore, biblical texts about humans receiving immortality conditionally do not disprove DIS, because "immortality" in these biblical texts does not mean what it means in DIS. The one is intrinsically positive and entails embodied life (i.e., enjoyment of God's blessings in a body that is forever impervious to death), while the other is intrinsically neutral, entailing only continued existence (particularly disembodied existence). Certain biblical texts presuppose that humans exist between death and resurrection in a disembodied intermediate state (as I have argued at length elsewhere), but in biblical parlance, persons in the intermediate state are not "immortal" nor even fully "alive"—they may legitimately be called dead.9

Similarly, biblical texts about the "soul" dying do not disprove DIS, because the word translated "soul" in such passages does not mean what "soul" means in DIS (i.e., an immaterial component or aspect of a human being). Matthew J. Suriano writes that "The meaning of [népeš] in the Hebrew Bible is complicated…a history of the term emerges from the sources that suggests that the concept of selfhood began with the nuance ‘life’ (in an individualized sense) and encompassed ‘corpse,’ which extended to ‘tomb’ and ‘cenotaph,’ and ultimately the external ‘soul’ (in the modern sense)."10 Moreover, while the Hebrew term népeš is certainly not identical with the later Christian concept of an immortal soul, biblical scholar Richard C. Steiner has recently argued that "ideas about disembodied souls and their punishment in the afterlife were current among the Israelites far earlier than generally assumed" and that the Hebrew Bible presupposes that the népeš can exist in a disembodied state.11 The Hebrew word népeš is most commonly translated with the Greek ψυχή (psuchē) in the Septuagint, which in turn influences the meaning of the latter word in the New Testament. The BDAG lexicon notes concerning psuchē that "It is often impossible to draw hard and fast lines in the use of this multivalent word."12 Since the Hebrew and Greek words often translated "soul" in the Bible are generally not technical terms meaning what theologians mean when they speak of an immortal soul, it is no surprise to the traditionalist to find texts speaking of "souls" dying. Now, the conditionalist may triumphantly declare, "We use biblical words with their biblical meanings and you use biblical words with non-biblical meanings." Point taken,13 but this does not mean that DIS is false or unbiblical; it only means that it is not aptly named. Perhaps we should rather speak of "the doctrine of the unannihilability of the immaterial aspect of human nature," but unless this term catches on—unlikely—we will be forced to continue using the prevailing expression "immortality of the soul," appropriately nuanced. The upshot is that I have no quarrel with most of what Fudge writes in this chapter about the meaning of the biblical words usually translated "immortality" and "soul." However, I think Fudge has underestimated the biblical evidence for anthropological dualism, which consists primarily not of word studies of anthropological terms but rather of texts presupposing an intermediate state.

Chapter 4: Aiōnios: Duration, Quality, or Both?

In Chapter 4, Fudge attends to another important biblical word, the adjective aiōnios, which modifies "fire" and "punishment" in Matthew 25:41, 46 and other important texts about final punishment. The adjective is typically translated "eternal" or "everlasting," and is seen by many traditionalists as a slam dunk: clearly the fire/punishment is going to last forever. Not so fast, says Fudge. Aiōnios, biblically, "can describe either character (quality) or duration (quantity), or both" (p. 73). It can mean something like "pertaining to the age to come" (qualitative) or in some sense unending (p. 74). Fudge notes biblical references to "eternal sin" (Mark 3:29) and "eternal judgment" (Heb. 6:2) and points out that these texts do not imply an unending act of sinning or judging, but an act of sinning or judging with age-to-come and unending consequences. Thus, he understands "eternal fire" and "eternal punishment" to refer to fire/punishment of the age to come that has permanent, eternal consequences. I think Fudge's argument in this chapter is balanced and reasonable. It is semantically possible that Matthew intended aiōnios to convey that the fire or act of punishment would itself last forever, but it is not semantically necessary. The word aiōnios itself does not settle the question.

One area that I think Fudge could have explored further, here or elsewhere, is that of philosophy of time. Fudge seems to assume throughout that in the age to come, time will pass, and be experienced as passing, in the same or a similar manner as now. However, there are various philosophical-theological theories of time and God's relation to time, each with their own eschatological implications.14 For example, if one conceives of "the age to come" as an endless interval of time-as-we-know-it, the idea of eternal torment conjures up a rather different (and perhaps more sinister) image than if one conceives of "the age to come" as a timeless state, or a reality where the passage and experience of time are fundamentally different. One could not expect Fudge to have ventured too far into philosophical debates about time and spacetime in a "biblical and historical" study, but he might have acknowledged that such debates exist and have implications for our understanding of all things "eternal."

Chapter 5: Sheol/Hades: Gravedom?

In Chapter 5, Fudge considers the biblical view of the state of the dead, particularly as captured in the Hebrew word sheol and the Greek word hades. He argues that "There is simply no basis for making Sheol an exclusive place of punishment for the wicked" (p. 85). This is true enough: the basic sense of Sheol in Scripture is that of the underworld. However, biblical scholar Philip S. Johnston points out that "Sheol cannot be identified simply as the Hebrew term for the underworld which awaits all. It is almost exclusively reserved for those under divine judgment, whether the wicked, the afflicted righteous, or all sinners."15 Fudge also doubts that the Hebrew Bible attributes any real existence to the dead in Sheol. One can certainly agree with Fudge that the Sheol of the Hebrew Bible is not the "hell" of later theology, but Sheol in the Hebrew Bible might be more accurately described as a place of "pale half existence" than non-existence.16 Moreover, Steiner finds very ancient evidence for a differentiation of postmortem fates in the opposing biblical idioms "brought in to his people" (ויאסף אל־עמיו, e.g., Gen. 25:8) and "cut off from his people" (ונכרתה הנפש ההוא מעמיה, e.g., Gen. 17:14).17

Chapters 6 to 8: Divine Justice (When?; Historical Examples; Messiah and the End)

In Chapters 6 to 8, Fudge works through the (Protestant) Old Testament, seeking to answer the question, "What data does the Old Testament contain about the end of the wicked?" (p. 95). In Chapter 6, Fudge summarises various Old Testament descriptions of the end of the wicked (mainly from the Psalms) as follows: "The godless will come to nothing. They will perish, will disappear, will not be found. Their place will be empty. They will no longer exist" (p. 102). By contrast, he observes that the OT passages considered "say nothing of conscious unending torment...They do not envision the presence of the wicked forever...Rather, they picture a time and a world where the wicked will not be" (p. 102). In Chapter 7, he reviews historical examples of divine judgment from the Hebrew Bible, such as the Flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, and prophetic judgment oracles, pointing out that the punishment consistently entailed ending the earthly existence of the wicked. From the standpoint of grammatical-historical interpretation, I suspect that most exegetes, traditionalists included, would say "Amen" to most of Fudge's commentary in these chapters. However, Fudge seems to think that these texts' grammatical-historical meaning dominates or even exhausts their theological meaning, and it is here that traditionalists would disagree with him. A major problem with Fudge's theological inferences from grammatical-historical meaning in the Hebrew Bible is that, from a grammatical-historical standpoint, most scholars agree that the Hebrew Bible has little to say about the afterlife in general.18 Mark T. Finney matter-of-factly observes, "Hell, as a place of eternal suffering and punishment, does not exist in the Hebrew Bible. Early Israelite thought on death simply assumed that it marked, for all people, the end of worthwhile existence."19 In the Second Temple Period, influenced by Maccabean martyrdom and other horrific this-worldly experiences, an apocalyptic-eschatological worldview developed that included the expectation of resurrection to a beatific afterlife. However, if belief in a beatific afterlife for the righteous developed, notwithstanding the lack of expressions of such belief in earlier strata of the Hebrew Bible, surely beliefs about the future of the wicked might also have developed. This is one reason why Fudge's evidence in chapters 6-7 is not compelling. The other reason is that, in line with such developments, apocalyptically-minded Second Temple Jews and early Christians did not limit themselves to grammatical-historical meaning when reading their Bibles. They interpreted the texts through apocalyptic lenses, giving them typological and other non-literal meanings. This tendency is exemplified by Jesus himself, who in Mark 12:26-27 infers a doctrine of resurrection from Ex. 3:6, a text that, from a grammatical-historical standpoint, obviously has nothing to do with resurrection.

In Chapter 8, Fudge reviews a number of texts that, in his view, speak directly about eschatological punishment. Some of these, from a grammatical-historical standpoint, arguably are not expressions of apocalyptic eschatology, and so the same hermeneutical problem highlighted above would apply. Of special importance are Isaiah 66:24 (due to its citation in Mark 9:48 in connection with Gehenna) and Daniel 12:2-3 (which clearly does refer to eschatological fates). Isaiah 66:23-24, in the book's closing description of the New Jerusalem, states:

23 From new moon to new moon, and from sabbath to sabbath, All flesh shall come to worship before me, says the Lord. 24 They shall go out and see the corpses of the people who rebelled against me; For their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be extinguished; and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh. (NABRE)

Fudge is quick to point out that v. 24 "contains not one hint of conscious torment"; he instead describes it as a "simple narrative" providing "a final view of dead bodies being consumed by maggots and by fire until nothing finally remains" (pp. 126-27). He further opines that the fire in view here is an "unquenchable" one, but that this "does not mean ever-burning, but irresistible"; in Fudge's view this fire "eventually goes out, when it has consumed its fuel." I would remark that Fudge is again too concerned with demonstrating that this text, in its original, grammatical-historical sense, did not proclaim a traditionalist hell (which it did not),20 and too little concerned with how this text, read through apocalyptic Jewish lenses, might have contributed to the development of ideas about eschatological punishment.21 This text is important because it locates the eschatological punishment in the Valley of Hinnom (anticipating the New Testament term "Gehenna"),22 and because, pace Fudge, it depicts a supernaturally unending fire.23 The only ingredient missing for this to be a picture of the traditionalist hell is the consciousness of the punished persons. Daniel 12:2 supplies this ingredient (consciousness of the punished persons) without the other two (fire and location): "Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake; Some to everlasting life, others to reproach and everlasting disgrace" (NABRE). This text is ambiguous about what the "everlasting disgrace" entails,24 but situates it after the eschatological resurrection. If we combine these two texts, as ancient Jewish exegetes likely would have,25 we have a picture of the wicked dead rising to face "everlasting disgrace" including a punishment that does not terminate with physical death but continues unceasingly. Although the two texts make no reference to the victims' ongoing consciousness, this picture is otherwise remarkably similar to the traditionalist hell. Thus, I believe Fudge has underestimated the Old Testament support for traditionalism.

Chapters 9 and 10: Diversity (Apocrypha and Dead Sea Scrolls; Pseudepigrapha)

In Chapters 9 and 10, Fudge turns his attention to Second Temple Jewish literature. Concerning the "Apocrypha," Fudge concedes (as already mentioned) that Judith 16:17 teaches a traditionalist view of hell. For Catholics, however, Judith is not "Apocrypha" but a book of the Old Testament and thus authoritative. Of Judith 16:17's use of Isaiah 66:24, Fudge states: "Judith is not drawing on Isaiah's conviction; she is denying it. She is not following Isaiah. She is reversing Isaiah" (p. 145). Besides adopting a polemical tone toward an ancient text (rather poor historical method, regardless of questions of canonicity), this statement reflects Fudge's minimalistic reading of Isaiah 66:24 noted above. Isaiah already depicted unending fiery punishment; Judith only adds a detail, namely that these corpses are still conscious and so "weep and suffer forever." Weeping is, of course, also a characteristic of the punishment of Gehenna according to Matthew's Jesus (8:12, 13:42; etc.) Would Fudge contend that Matthew (or Jesus himself) is also "denying" or "reversing" Isaiah? Surely not—which makes his comments about Judith rather unfair.

Fudge's main aim in chapters 9 and 10 is to establish that intertestamental literature attests to diverse views about the fate of the wicked, and therefore to counter the claim that "By the time Jesus was born...the idea of unending conscious torment had become 'the Jewish view'" (p. 140). His counterclaim reads thus:

This diversity [in Second Temple Jewish ideas about final punishment] means that we cannot presume, based on some supposedly uniform ‘Jewish view,’ that Jesus believed in everlasting torment. We must consider Jesus’ own words and allow him to speak for himself. (p. 140)

Fudge's point is a valid one; any claim that "unending conscious torment" represents a default position (much less universally held position) within Second Temple Judaism is untenable. However, my sense is that Fudge's interest in the Second Temple texts he discusses is largely defensive. He seems to want to demonstrate their theological diversity and so rule them inadmissible as evidence. He does not seem to appreciate that this literature represents a treasure trove of historical data showing how Old Testament punishment passages were being reread apocalyptically and thus providing contextual background for interpreting New Testament passages about final punishment.

Concerning the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS), Fudge restricts his attention to those scrolls that had been made available to non-scholars at the time of his first edition (1982). He adds in a footnote that in preparing the third edition, he read an English translation of the DSS in its entirety, and that while some ambiguities need to be acknowledged, his original opinion stands unchanged, namely, that "So far as the authors of these ancient scrolls give any indication, the community whose views they record anticipated a day when the wicked would be thoroughly destroyed and be no more" (p. 152).26 While we should allow for the possibility of diverse views within the Qumran community itself, there are certainly DSS texts that appear to speak of the eschatological annihilation or termination of the wicked. However, the picture is not always as simple as the wicked being thoroughly destroyed in a day.27 A number of passages describe prolonged suffering in a transcendent place of misery that finally terminates with annihilation.

The judgment 12 of all who walk in such ways will be multiple afflictions at the hands of all the angels of perdition, everlasting damnation in the wrath of God's furious vengeance, never-ending terror and reproach 13 for all eternity, with a shameful extinction in the fire of Hell's outer darkness. For all their eras, generation by generation, they will know doleful sorrow, bitter evil and dark happenstance, until 14 their utter destruction with neither remnant nor rescue. (1QS 4.12-14, part of an originally independent text known as the Treatise of the Two Spirits)

Although the torment in this passage appears to finally terminate with annihilation ("extinction"; "until their utter destruction"), it is nonetheless a torment of very prolonged duration ("never-ending terror...for all eternity...all their eras, generation by generation").28 Other texts even appear (depending on the translation)29 to depict the suffering as unending:30

7 May you be damned without mercy in return for your dark deeds, an object of wrath 8 licked by eternal flame, surrounded by utter darkness. May God have no mercy upon you when you cry out, nor forgive so as to atone for your sins. 9 May He lift up His furious countenance upon you for vengeance. May you never find peace through the appeal of any intercessor. (1QS 2.7-9)31

The differences of the above translation from that quoted by Fudge32 are rather stark. Although praising the fairly recent DSS translation edited by Martinez and Tigchelaar,33 Fudge's third edition did not update his quotations, which are all taken from the very early translation of Géza Vermes (1st ed. 1961), which was not a direct translation of the Hebrew but a translation of André Dupont-Sommer's French translation of the Hebrew.34 This translation-of-a-translation does not reflect the wealth of DSS scholarship of the intervening five decades, including publication of many scrolls that were not available to Dupont-Sommer or Vermes in 1961. It thus appears that, at very least, the notions of final punishment that emerges from the DSS are rather more complex than Fudge allows.

Coming to the pseudepigrapha, Fudge agrees "that the intertestamental literature can sometimes provide important background and context for interpreting the New Testament" (pp. 159-60), and that the New Testament writers are not "limited to the original meaning of Old Testament languages" (p. 160). Nevertheless, Fudge does not seem particularly interested in identifying parallels between, or tracing traditional trajectories from, pseudepigraphical literature to the New Testament. Instead, his focus is again squarely on diversity: showing that a range of opinions (including what are now called traditionalist and conditionalist views of eschatological punishment) existed in the Second Temple period. He is again out to debunk the illusion of a monolithic Jewish view of hell in Jesus' day, and he debunks it successfully. In terms of canonical authority, he is right to describe the Old Testament Scriptures as "towering over" the Apocrypha (apart from those seven books that are part of the traditional Old Testament), the Pseudepigrapha, and the Dead Sea Scrolls. However, as we shall see in Part 2 of this review, the New Testament uses language for final punishment that is not drawn directly from the Old Testament but reflects traditional ideas found in other Second Temple Jewish literature. For the correct interpretation of such texts, non-canonical background information is of crucial importance.

Fudge discusses twelve individual texts in this chapter, of which he classifies four as unambiguously annihilationist (Sibylline Oracles Books 3 and 4, Damascus Document [which should have been discussed with the DSS], Psalms of Solomon, and 4 Ezra), three as ambiguous (Assumption of Moses, Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, Life of Adam and Eve), three as containing "mixed testimony" (Book of Jubilees, 1 Enoch, 2 Baruch), and two as unambiguously teaching "unending conscious torment" (2 Enoch, 4 Maccabees). I would first note that for a scholarly work, Fudge's interaction with the secondary literature is very disappointing. His quotations are all from Robert Henry Charles Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament (originally published 1913), and he cites very few studies or commentaries concerning the origin or exegesis of these texts. Moreover, while some of the texts that he discusses do (having not studied them closely) appear straightforwardly to presuppose annihilation of the wicked, I would like to take a closer look at three of the texts on which Fudge comments in some detail: 4 Ezra, Jubilees, and 1 Enoch.

  4 Ezra

Fudge includes 4 Ezra (a Jewish apocalypse from c. the late first century C.E.) among those pseudepigrapha that unambiguously teach that "The Wicked Will Totally Pass Away." In discussing this massive and important apocalypse, Fudge offers just one citation from a scholarly source—a Bible dictionary entry35—despite that a major English-language commentary on 4 Ezra appeared between the first and second editions of The Fire That Consumes.36 Fudge quotes 4 Ezra 7:61 without comment as self-evidently conclusive evidence of the book's annihilationism (p. 163). This text reads as follows:

60 So also will be the judgment which I have promised: for I will rejoice over the few who shall be saved, because it is they who have made my glory to prevail now, and through them my name has now been honored. 61 And I will not grieve over the multitude of those who perish; for it is they who are now like a mist, and are similar to a flame and smoke—they are set on fire and burn hotly and are extinguished. (4 Ezra 7.60-61)37

Clearly, this text emphasises the transience of the many wicked in contrast to the righteous few. However, it may not even be discussing the fire of final punishment, and must be interpreted in context of the book's wider eschatological teachings.38 Fudge concedes that 4 Ezra anticipates that the souls of the wicked enter into torments after death while they await a final punishment. In 4 Ezra 7.78-86 the writer describes seven ways in which the souls of the wicked deceased shall be "ever grieving and sad." These include consideration of "the torment laid up for themselves in the last times," i.e. "the torments coming upon them from now on." Notably, v. 87 states that these souls "shall utterly waste away in confusion and be consumed with shame, and shall wither with fear...before whom they are to be judged in the last times."39 The text uses characteristic annihilation language (including the verb used in Fudge's book title, "consume") to describe something that is clearly not annihilation. Elsewhere in the apocalypse, the writer uses terms such as "perish," "death," "destruction," and "perdition"—often assumed by annihilationists to refer uniformly to annihilation in the New Testament—for a fate that entails more than physical death.40 4 Ezra thus provides important evidence that language of perishing, destruction, and death in the New Testament cannot be assumed, prima facie, to refer to absolute annihilation of all existence.

Describing the final, post-resurrection punishment, 4 Ezra is not as explicit as we might like about its duration but definitely describes it as a place of torment:

36 Then the pit of torment shall appear, and opposite it shall be the place of rest; and the furnace of Gehenna shall be disclosed, and opposite it the paradise of delight. 37 Then the Most High will say to the nations that have been raised, ‘Look and understand whom you have denied, whom you have not served, whose commandments you have despised! 38 Look opposite you: here are delight and rest, and there are fire and torments!’ Thus he will speak to them on the day of judgment. (4 Ezra 7.36-38)41

The text does not explicitly describe either the "delight and rest" or the "fire and torments" as unending, and we cannot rule out the possibility that the author envisioned the torments as eventually ending in annihilation. However, given that we know the author believed in transcendent torments of the soul in the intermediate state, and that the text does not say the post-resurrection torments will end, it seems more plausible to conclude that the author believed Gehenna to be a place of unending fire and torments.42

  Jubilees

Update (2022-01-19): When this article was originally written, I did not have access to James C. VanderKam's commentary on the Book of Jubilees, and therefore provided translations from O. S. Wintermute in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. Now that I have access to VanderKam's translation, I have added these in footnotes for each quoted passage for the reader's benefit.

The Book of Jubilees is a retelling of Genesis and part of Exodus composed in the second century B.C.E. Fudge spends several pages discussing it but again cites no scholarly literature other than an entry in the Interpreter's Bible Dictionary. In what follows I will provide translations from O.S. Wintermute in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (ed. James H. Charlesworth), which were available to Fudge well ahead of his second edition.

Fudge declares, "Again and again Jubilees stresses that the wicked will be utterly destroyed and perish from the earth" (p. 166). This is true, but most of the passages in the book about divine punishment concern temporal judgments in history (e.g., Jubilees 21.22, 26.34, 31.16-17) and not transcendent punishments executed after the final judgment. Jubilees 15.34 foretells that the children of Israel will someday neglect to circumcise their sons, with the result that "great wrath from the LORD will be upon the sons of Israel because they have left his covenant and have turned aside from his words… And there is therefore for them no forgiveness or pardon so that they might be pardoned and forgiven from all of the sins of this eternal error."43 We have here the notion of an eternal sin but no description of the punishment other than "great wrath." In Jubilees 22.22, Abraham describes to Jacob the fate of the idolatrous. Fudge quotes Charles' translation as a proof text for annihilation, but Wintermute's more recent translation suggests postmortem punishment.44 Jubilees 24.30-32 speaks of "the day of the wrath of judgment" whereupon an "eternal curse" will befall the Philistines. The punishment still seems to be envisioned as historical rather than transcendent, although the text states that "if they go down to Sheol, even there their judgment will multiply, and also there will be no peace for them there".45

Jubilees has surprisingly little to say about a postmortem or eschatological fate. In chapter 10, the book describes how demons begin to lead Noah's children astray, causing Noah to pray to God to "Shut [these spirits] up and take them to the place of judgment" (Jubilees 10.5).46 God answers Noah's prayer by commanding the demons to be bound, but their chief, Mastema, comes and petitions God to leave some of them as his servants, "because if some of them are not left for me, I will not be able to exercise the authority of my will among the children of men because they are (intended) to corrupt and lead astray before my judgment because the evil of the sons of men is great" (Jubilees 10.7-8). God then declares, "Let a tenth of them remain before him, but let nine parts go down into the place of judgment" (Jubilees 10.9). Thus we have a place of judgment where demons may be confined (indefinitely, it seems),47 and we have the prince of evil spirits anticipating "my judgment" (either a judgment that he will inflict or that will be inflicted on him). This passage, not mentioned by Fudge, certainly presupposes transcendent punishment of demons; and we have already seen that Jubilees 22.22 uses the same term, "place of judgment," for the destiny of idolaters. Could it be that, as later expressed in Matthew 25:41, the place where suprahuman and human beings are punished is the same?

The only other passage in Jubilees that appears to refer to a postmortem fate is 36.9-10. Here Isaac, giving final advice to Jacob and Esau, warns of the fate that awaits the one who seeks evil against his brother.48 The first part of the description sounds like temporal punishment by fire, but verse 10 speaks of being written in a book "which will be destroyed and will pass on to eternal execration so that their judgment will always be renewed with eternal reproach and execration and wrath and torment and indignation and plagues and sickness." It is not clear, at least in translation, whether it is the wicked person or the book that "will pass on to eternal execration." In any case, the "always...renewed...torment" appears to refer to unending conscious torment, unless this is a temporal punishment that will always be renewed upon his descendants (admittedly a possibility).49

To summarise, Jubilees says little about eschatological judgment, or at least appears to envision eschatological judgment as taking place within never-ending human history rather than a transcendent world to come. However, the book does refer to "the place of judgment," identified with Sheol, where demons are confined and where idolatrous humans also "walk" after their death. There is no reference to the annihilation of this place of judgment or its inhabitants.

  1 Enoch

The last pseudepigraphical work that I will discuss in some detail is 1 Enoch. This book is divided into five major parts with distinct origins (as Fudge notes), and so it should not surprise us if these source materials contain differences in eschatological outlook. Like Jubilees, 1 Enoch predates Jesus and the New Testament and is thus an important source of background information on the Jewish apocalyptic milieu from which the Jesus movement emerged.50

Fudge states that "At times 1 Enoch has sinners finally exterminated; at other times he has them enduring conscious pain forever" (p. 170). This assessment may be fair,51 but I take issue with the number of passages from 1 Enoch that Fudge assigns to each of these views. Fudge cites about eight passages from the Book of Parables as teaching that sinners are "exterminated forever," together with one text from the Astronomical Book, chapters 72-82 (1 Enoch 81.7-8), one text from the Dream Visions, chapters 83-90 (1 Enoch 90.25-27), and numerous texts from the Epistle of Enoch, chapters 91-108.52 In support of "unending conscious torment," Fudge adduces one text from the Book of the Watchers, chapters 1-36 (1 Enoch 27.1-3), one text from the Parables of Enoch (1 Enoch 67.4-13), and one from the Epistle of Enoch (1 Enoch 108.3-6), but his comments suggest that he finds all three texts ambiguous. It is therefore not clear whether Fudge actually concedes for any individual text that 1 Enoch "has [sinners] enduring conscious pain forever."

Again, despite spending several pages on 1 Enoch, Fudge cites very little scholarly literature in his discussion.53 Today we have the advantage of George W. E. Nickelsburg's masterful two-volume Hermeneia commentary on 1 Enoch. The first volume, which covers chapters 1-36 and 83-108 (Book of the Watchers, Dream Visions, and Epistle of Enoch) was published in 2001, well in time to be considered for the third edition of Fudge's book, but the second volume, which covers chapters 37-82 (Book of Parables and Astronomical Book) appeared in 2012, only after Fudge's third edition. Even so, Fudge could have had recourse to the editions and translations of Michael Knibb (1978) and Matthew Black (1985) as well as E. Isaac's translation (1983) from Old Testament Pseudepigrapha. It is disappointing that Fudge's exegesis of this very important ancient Jewish source is largely limited to his musings on Charles's dated translation.

Nickelsburg describes "The Coming Judgment" as the focal point of the entire Enochic corpus.54 However, he cautions that "1 Enoch's religious thought lacks consistency and defies systematization" and that this is "perhaps nowhere as evident as in the corpus's descriptions of and statements about the great judgment."55 The Book of the Watchers, the earliest part of the Enochic corpus, describes the fall of the watcher angels (cf. Gen. 6:1-4) and then their punishment, which entails the watchers being bound in dark valleys until the day of judgment, whereupon "they will be led away to the fiery abyss, and to the torture, and to the prison where they will be confined forever."56 It appears that wicked humans will undergo the same punishment as the watchers, though the humans' punishment may be for a finite period.57 In chapters 13-14, the watchers ask Enoch to intercede with God on their behalf; he does so, but their petition is denied and they are told that "it has been decreed to bind you in bonds in the earth for all the days of eternity" (1 Enoch 14.5).58 This petition-and-denial motif underscores the unending duration of the punishment. In chapters 18 and 21, Enoch is shown respectively the prison of the stars (understood as celestial beings) and of the angels. The stars are to be bound only "until the time of the consummation of their sins—ten thousand years" (1 Enoch 18.16) whereas the angels "will be confined forever" (1 Enoch 21.10).59 In chapter 22, Enoch is shown the Mountain of the Dead and receives more detailed information about the fate of righteous and wicked humans. The mountain contains hollow places "that the spirits of the souls of the dead might be gathered into them" and "pits for the place of their confinement...until the time of the day of the end of the great judgment" (1 Enoch 22.3-4).60 Concerning the wicked, Enoch is told, "Here their spirits are separated for this great torment, until the great day of judgment, of scourges and tortures of the cursed forever, that there might be a recompense for their spirits. There he will bind them forever" (1 Enoch 22.11).61 In chapters 23-24, Enoch sees "a fire that ran and did not rest or quit its course day and night...mountains of fire that burned day and night" (1 Enoch 23.1-24.1).62 In chapters 26-27, Enoch views a transcendent Jerusalem at the centre of the earth, and near it the place of punishment, the accursed valley (which scholars identify as the Valley of Hinnom).63

Within the Dream Visions (1 Enoch 83-90) is an Animal Apocalypse (chapters 85-90) in which Israel's history is recounted and the last things foretold through an allegorical vision. The watchers, represented by stars, are to be bound and thrown into "an abyss...narrow and deep and desolate and dark" (1 Enoch 88.1).64 The shepherds (representing bad human leaders) are also cast into the fiery abyss with the stars,65 while the blinded sheep (representing the sinners of Israel) are separately thrown into another abyss that is identifiable as the Valley of Hinnom, where they burn.66 Since this vision is allegorical, it is not clear whether the burning of the sheep is intended to convey merely a fiery execution of people or a fiery transcendent punishment. The Epistle of Enoch (chapters 91-105) contains numerous pictures of consummate divine judgments, but the nature and duration of the punishments are ambiguous. For instance, in 1 Enoch 99.11-16, the wicked are warned that they "will be brought to an end" and be destroyed "with the sword," but also that they "will have no peace" and "will have no rest."67 In 1 Enoch 100.9, the unrighteous are warned that "in the heat of a blazing fire you will burn."68 The above may sound like annihilation, but a remark made by sinners about the righteous dead suggests that the author regards perishing as distinct from the afterlife of the soul.69 A warning in 1 Enoch 103.7-8 appears to confirm that the writer envisions unending torment for the souls of the unrighteous.70 A similar picture emerges in 1 Enoch 108 (not part of the Epistle of Enoch but described by Nickelsburg as "another Book of Enoch"), where "evildoers are brought to an end" and "their seed will perish forever" and yet this does not entail annihilation but transcendent torment.71

Finally, let us consider the Book of Parables (1 Enoch 37-71), which Fudge construes as teaching that sinners are "exterminated forever" and which he singles out as particularly "relevant to New Testament doctrine." Nickelsburg acknowledges that the Parables "lack overall uniformity" on the subject of eternal punishment, since "The Parables' statements that the kings and the mighty will be driven (or will perish) from the face of the earth (38:1) is not compatible with their punishment in a deep valley at earth's perimeter [52:9; 53:2]."72 The first part of the book is ambiguous about the ultimate fate of sinners.73 It is in chapters 62-63 that the unending, conscious nature of final punishment becomes clear. Here, after the Lord of Spirits seats the Son of Man "upon the throne of his glory" (1 Enoch 62.2), the Son of Man "will press [the kings and the mighty], so that they will hasten to depart from his presence, and their faces will be filled with shame, and the darkness will grow deeper on their faces. And he will deliver them to the angels for punishment, so that they may exact retribution from them" (62.10-11).74 That this punishment is not annihilation is clear from chapter 63, in which the kings and the mighty beg the angels of punishment for a little respite, since "darkness is [their] dwelling forever and ever" and they are in "the flame of the torment of Sheol." Their petition is denied.75

The above discussion of three major Second Temple Jewish texts is important, not only because Fudge may have underestimated their evidence for belief in unending conscious torment for the wicked, but also for information they provide that can help us to correctly interpret the New Testament. Three insights in particular are noteworthy. (1) These texts use terms like "perish," "destroy," and "end," which might otherwise be assumed to connote annihilation, in the context of clear statements about transcendent, unending torment. This means that we cannot assume a priori that such terminology connotes annihilation when used in the New Testament. (2) The passages in the above texts that speak, or appear to speak, of unending torment for the wicked are the very passages containing some of the closest parallels to judgment sayings of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels. They speak of departing, being thrown, being cursed, being punished together with angels, weeping, fire, darkness, etc. (3) Second Temple Jewish texts that presuppose some notion of unending torment for the wicked do so while unmistakably drawing on major Old Testament judgment texts, such as Isa. 66:24, Dan. 12:2, the historical examples of Noah's Flood and Sodom and Gomorrah, etc. This underscores that, when the New Testament also draws judgment language and imagery from these texts, we cannot assume a priori that the New Testament writers have only the grammatical-historical meaning of the Old Testament in mind.

Summing up thus far, I would say that Fudge handles the evidence of the Hebrew Bible capably, although the hermeneutical question of whether the grammatical-historical meaning of judgment texts in the Hebrew Bible exhausts their significance for the Church remains. One major sticking point is that, while Fudge and I agree that Judith 16:17 presupposes a traditionalist concept of hell, Fudge dismisses this text as apocryphal whereas I, as a Catholic (and following a tradition that goes back to the first century), regard it as part of the Old Testament. Where Fudge's book disappoints is in its treatment of non-canonical Second Temple literature. The lack of attention to detail and lack of engagement with academic literature in his exegesis of several important Second Temple texts, such as 4 Ezra, Jubilees, and 1 Enoch, leaves him vulnerable to interpreting New Testament language about final punishment with an inadequate understanding of its religio-historical context. In the second part of this review we will consider Fudge's treatment of the New Testament, and in the third part, his treatment of Christian beliefs about hell down through Church history and his theological conclusions.

Footnotes

• 1 For an overview of this teaching, see paragraphs 1033-1035 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
• 2 In his 1927 lecture/essay Why I Am Not a Christian.
• 3 Dissent from the traditional Christian doctrine of hell has existed throughout the post-Reformation period. See, for example, Philip C. Almond, Heaven and Hell in Enlightenment England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). There has also been pushback against a traditional view of hell from Catholic theologians, but such theologians, such as Karl Rahner and Hans Urs von Balthasar, have not challenged the traditional doctrine of hell directly. Rather, they have suggested that Christians may legitimately hope that hell turns out to be empty.
• 4 Fudge writes concerning Judith 16:17, "This language is unmistakable. It describes the traditionalist hell" (p. 144). Note that, as I have discussed elsewhere, Judith was considered part of "sacred Scripture" in the Roman church at least as early as the late first century, as is evident from 1 Clement.
• 5 "The Church teaches that every spiritual soul is created immediately by God - it is not "produced" by the parents - and also that it is immortal: it does not perish when it separates from the body at death, and it will be reunited with the body at the final Resurrection." (Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 366).
• 6 This term is borrowed from Reformed theologian John W. Cooper, who has written an excellent book on the intermediate state and theological anthropology (Body, Soul, and Life Everlasting: Biblical Anthropology and the Monism-Dualism Debate [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989]).
• 7 Even without "immortal souls," traditionalism would still possible if, for instance, all persons receive unannihilable bodies at the resurrection.
• 8 The Catholic Church has always regarded philosophy as a good, a resource to assist our human reason in understanding and articulating divine revelation; and all of us engage in philosophy, and are influenced in our thinking by classical Greek philosophy, whether we like to admit it or not. For a broader defence of the use of Greek philosophy in the early church, see here.
• 9 See, e.g., Luke 16:31, where Lazarus in Abraham's bosom is nonetheless among "the dead."
• 10 Matthew J. Suriano, “Breaking Bread with the Dead: Katumuwa’s Stele, Hosea 9:4, and the Early History of the Soul,” Journal of the American Oriental Society, 134(3) (2014): 389-90.
• 11 Richard C. Steiner, The Nefesh in Israel and Kindred Spirits in the Ancient Near East, With an Appendix on the Katumuwa Inscription (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2015), 126.
• 12 BDAG 1098.
• 13 Note that limiting our theological discourse to biblical words does not ensure a sound hermeneutic—to the contrary, it precludes it. The very word "hermeneutic" is not in the Bible, but few would dispute its usefulness in theological discourse.
• 14 The two basic views of time is that past/present/future are objectively distinct [view A, "presentism"] or "purely mind-dependent: things in time are no more objectively 'now' than things in space are objectively 'here' [view B, "eternalism"]" (William Lane Craig, "Time, Eternity, and Eschatology," in J. L. Walls (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Eschatology [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008], 596). Craig remarks that "Weighty arguments can be brought to bear" for both views, and "the controversy shows no sign of abating" ("Time, Eternity, and Eschatology," 598). He further notes that philosophers and theologians debate "whether God’s eternity is to be construed as a state of timelessness or of infinite, omnitemporal duration" ("Time, Eternity, and Eschatology," 598). Which view one takes on these respective philosophy-of-time questions clearly affects how one would interpret eschatological realities such as "eternal life," "eternal punishment," "eternal destruction," etc.
• 15 Philip S. Johnston, Shades of Sheol: Death and Afterlife in the Old Testament (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2002), 83.
• 16 Alan E. Bernstein, The Formation of Hell: Death and Retribution in the Ancient and Early Christian Worlds (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993), 196.
• 17 Steiner, Disembodied Souls, 99-100.
• 18 John J. Collins writes that "Daniel 12:2-3 is the only clear attestation of a belief in resurrection in the Hebrew Bible. The standard view in ancient Israel was that the dead had a shadowy afterlife in Sheol, where they could not even praise the Lord" (A Commentary on the Book of Daniel [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993], 394).
• 19 "Afterlives of the Afterlife: The Development of Hell in its Jewish and Christian Contexts," Biblical Reception 2 (2013): 150-51.
• 20 As John Goldingay rightly states, this passage "refers hyperbolically to an enhanced version of what regularly happens in ordinary life, when bodies either rot or are burned in order to anticipate that rotting, and not to something corresponding to the later idea of heaven and hell" (Isaiah 56-66: A Critical and Exegetical Commentary [London: Bloomsbury, 2014], 523).
• 21 As Joseph Blenkinsopp states, "A reading of Isa 66:24, together with texts from Jeremiah that identify the Valley of Hinnom as a place of punishment for the wicked (7:30-34; 19:6-7), contributed to the idea of eternal punishment involving fire and worms (Sir 7:17, Greek text; Jdt 16:17) and to the transformation of the Valley of Hinnom (gê hinnôm) into Gehenna, familiar from the Gospel sayings of Jesus (Matt 5:22, 29-30; Mark 9:43-48, where the influence of Isa 66:24 is apparent)." (Isaiah 56-66: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary [New York: Doubleday: 2003], 317).
• 22 "As the prophecy refers to the literal Jerusalem, so it refers to the literal Hinnom Canyon outside the city" (Goldingay, Isaiah 56-66, 523); "The scene is no doubt the Valley of Hinnom" (Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 56-66, 317).
• 23 "Their fire shall not be extinguished" cannot merely refer to an "irresistible" fire that burns "until nothing finally remains" and then "goes out," as Fudge suggests. Isaiah's picture explicitly has "all flesh" viewing the burning, maggot-infested corpses month after month and week after week, i.e. long after an ordinary, natural fire would have burned itself out and maggots would have run out of food. As Bernstein states, "a new continuator of Isaiah called Trito-Isaiah transfers the interminability of the reward to the punishment when he imagines another fire – one that would not end...Whatever the precise associations, the condition will not end. The fire will burn and the worms will gnaw those carcasses unceasingly. It would be an exaggeration to claim this image as a synthesis of the two types of punishment: destruction and long-lasting suffering. The poetic device leaves a paradox that is not explained. The fire and the worm do not destroy, or else the burning and the gnawing would cease. Yet, since these are cadavers, the ‘persons’ involved cannot suffer. To interpret this passage further would be to 'theologize' and to insist on a more systematic statement than actually exists" (The Formation of Hell, 171-72). Nevertheless, Isaiah 66:24 "extends the punishment of the wicked beyond their death" and "states that the torments applied to the bodies of the dead will not end" (The Formation of Hell, 172).
• 24 Collins writes, "The term used by Daniel, 'will awake,' does not require that the sinners are raised from Sheol. In 1En 22:13 one of the groups of the dead awaiting judgment consists of sinners who 'will not be killed on the day of judgment, nor will they rise from there.' In 1 QS 2:4-9; 4:11-14, sinners are damned in the shadowy place of everlasting fire. Daniel does not elaborate on the punishment of the damned and makes no mention of a fiery hell, but he does seem to go beyond Isaiah 66 in having the sinners restored to life to experience their disgrace" (Commentary on Daniel, 393).
• 25 As David Instone Brewer notes, an ancient rule of Jewish exegesis called gezerah shavah entailed interpreting two passages jointly when they share an important phrase (Techniques and Assumptions in Jewish Exegesis before 70 CE (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1992), pp. 17-18). Isaiah 66:24 and Daniel 12:2 are the only two places in the Hebrew Bible where the word דראון  ("abhorrence") occurs, which together with their other similarities would have made them prime candidates for gezerah shavah.
• 26 The footnote referred to is pp. 155-56, n. 42.
• 27 Immediate and total annihilation of the wicked in the eschatological battle seems to be in view in the best-preserved War Scroll (1QM). Straightforward annihilation also seems to be in view in the Damascus Document.
• 28 For another DSS that appear to describe the annihilation of the wicked after a prolonged period of punishment, see 4Q286 7ii.5-6.
• 29 DSS translations herein are from Emanuel Tov (ed.), The Dead Sea Scrolls Reader, 6 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 2003-2004), unless otherwise indicated.
• 30 Another text that, although fragmentary, may describe the eschatological misery of the wicked as unending is 11Q11 IV.4-12; V.8-11. A variant form of the War Scroll (4Q491 8-10i.14-16) states, "[Let] the light of Your majesty [shine forever...upon god]s and men, 15  [...as a fire bur]ning in the dark places of the damned. Let it bu[rn] the damned of Sheol, [as an eternal burning among the tra]nsgressors 16 [...] in all the appointed times of eternity."
• 31 This is not part of the Treatise of the Two Spirits and is thus originally an independent text from 4.12-14 quoted above.
• 32 "Be cursed in all the works of your guilty ungodliness! May God make you an object of dread by the hand of the Avengers of vengeance! May he hurl extermination after you by the hand of all the Executioners of punishment! Be cursed without mercy, according to the darkness of your deeds! Be damned in the night of eternal fire!"
• 33 Florentino Garcia Martinez and Eibert J. C. Tigchelaar (eds.), The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition (2 vols.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999).
• 34 André Dupont-Sommer, The Essene writings from Qumran (trans. Géza Vermes; Oxford: Blackwell, 1961)
• 35 Fudge cites Turner, "Esdras, Books of," 2:140-42, from the Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible.
• 36 Michael Edward Stone, A Commentary on the Book of Fourth Ezra (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990).
• 37 Trans. Stone, Fourth Ezra, 225.
• 38 Stone comments, "The use of the image [of vapor] to stress the impermanence of humans has biblical origins...Smoke serves the same end in Ps 37:20, while the burning of fire symbolizes impermanence in Isa 43:17 and Ps 118:12...Arabic1, Arabic2, and Armenian seem to construe the fire as hell fire" (4 Ezra, 232 n. 39). This comment on the Arabic and Armenian versions suggests that the original text did not construe this fire as hell fire. Rather, "The wicked are likened to mist or vapor, fire and smoke, all evanescent phenomena. These images are commonplace and may be found in the Hebrew Bible as well as in 4 Ezra and other apocryphal literature" (Stone, 4 Ezra, 232).
• 39 "78 Now, concerning death, the teaching is: When the decisive decree has gone forth from the Most High that a man shall die, as the soul leaves the body to return again to him who gave it, first of all it adores the glory of the Most High. 79 And if it is one of those who have shown scorn and have not kept the ways of the Most High, and who have despised his law, and who have hated those who fear God—80 such souls shall not enter into treasuries, but shall immediately wander about in torments, ever grieving and sad in seven ways. 81 The first way, because they have scorned the law of the Most High. 82 The second way, because they cannot now repent and do good that they may live. 83 The third way, that they shall see the reward laid up for those who have trusted the injunctions of the Most High. 84 The fourth way, that they shall consider the torment laid up for themselves in the last times. 85 The fifth way, that they shall see the treasuries of the other souls guarded by angels in profound quiet. 86 The sixth way, that they shall see the torments coming upon them from now on. 87 The seventh way, which surpasses all the ways that have been mentioned, because they shall utterly waste away in confusion and be consumed with shame, and shall wither with fear since they see the glory of the Most High before whom they sinned now while they were alive, and before whom they are to be judged in the last times." (4 Ezra 7.78-86, trans. Stone, 4 Ezra, 235-36).
• 40 For instance, 4 Ezra 8.55-59 speaks concerning "the multitude of those who perish" of "the thirst and torment which are prepared" for them (trans. Stone, 4 Ezra, 277). Stone offers an excursus on "The Concept of Death in 4 Ezra" in which he states that "4 Ezra uses the language of death in two major fashions. The first is of physical death...The second major use of this notion is more general, less precisely defined. In it death appears as the equivalent of perdition or damnation and in opposition not just to life but to eternal life...in 8:31 death is simply the equivalent of eternal punishment" (Stone, 4 Ezra, 65-67). Concerning references to "destruction" and "perdition" in 4 Ezra 10.10, Stone writes, "‘Destruction’ here may go back to Greek ἀπωλεία and Hebrew אבדין, a technical term for the underworld, parallel to ‘Sheol’ and ‘Mawet’ in the Hebrew Bible. Note, therefore, the parallelism of ‘corruption’/’ways of death’/’paths of perdition’ in 7:48. Consequently, the term ‘perdition’ does not necessarily imply annihilation but death, which is regarded in 4 Ezra either negatively or neutrally" (Stone, 4 Ezra, 322).
• 41 Trans. Stone, 4 Ezra, 203.
• 42 Commenting on 4 Ezra 7.36-38, Stone states, "The term 'appear' may be thought to imply that paradise and Gehenna are already in existence...The two parallel bicola of which the verse is composed gives us two terms for the place of reward and two for the place of punishment. 'Torment' is a word often used in 4 Ezra for eschatological punishment or for the intermediate state of the wicked souls. 'Pit' is a common term for the underworld in the Bible (see, e.g., Ezek 31:16 and Ps 28:1); so the expression 'pit of torment' indicates the transformation of Sheol to the place of punishment of the wicked. The 'furnace of Gehenna' is of course related to the idea that Gehenna will be a fiery place. The place of fire in the punishment of the wicked is preeminent from early times. One verse that had great influence in later times in this connection was Isa 66:24" (4 Ezra, 221). See also 4 Ezra 7:119-126, in which the wicked ask questions concerning the world to come such as, "For what good is it to us...that the faces of those who practiced self-control shall shine more than the stars, but ours shall be blacker than darkness? For while we lived and committed iniquity we did not consider what we should suffer after our death" (trans. Stone, 4 Ezra, 253).
• 43 Trans. Wintermute, OTP 2:87. James C. VanderKam translates as follows: "Then there will be great anger from the Lord against the Israelites because they abandoned his covenant, departed from his word, provoked, and blasphemed in that they did not perform the ordinance of this sign. For they have made themselves like the nations so as to be removed and uprooted from the earth. They will no longer have forgiveness or pardon so that they should be pardoned and forgiven for every sin, for (their) violation of this eternal ordinance." (A Commentary on the Book of Jubilees Chapters 1-50 [2 vols; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2018], 1:509).
• 44 "And for all of those who worship idols and for the hated ones, there is no hope in the land of the living; because they will go down into Sheol. And in the place of judgment they will walk, and they will have no memory upon the earth. Just as the sons of Sodom were taken from the earth, so (too) all of those who worship idols shall be taken away" (Trans. Wintermute, OTP 2:98). VanderKam translates, "There is no hope in the land of the living for all who worship idols and for those who are odious. For they will descend to Sheol and will go to the place of judgment. There will be no memory of them on the earth. As the people of Sodom were taken from the earth, so all who worship idols will be destroyed." (Commentary on the Book of Jubilees, 2:648).
• 45 "30 And no remnant will be left to them, nor one who escapes on the day of the wrath of judgment; because all of the Philistine seed is (destined) for destruction and uprooting and removal from the earth. And, therefore, there will not be any name or seed which remains upon the earth for any of the Caphtorim. 31 Because if they go up to heaven, from there they will fall; and if they are set firm in the earth, from there they will be torn out; and if they are hidden among the nations, from there they will be uprooted; and if they go down to Sheol, even there their judgment will multiply, and also there will be no peace for them there. 32 And if they go into captivity by the hand of those who seek their life, they will kill them along the way. And neither name nor seed will be left for them in all the earth, because they shall walk in an eternal curse" (Wintermute, OTP 2:104). VanderKam translates, "30 They will have no one left or anyone who is rescued on the day of judgmental anger, for all the descendants of the Philistines (are meant) for destruction, eradication, and removal from the earth. All of Caphtor will no longer have either name or descendants left upon the earth. 31 For even if he should go up to the sky, from there he would come down; even if he should become powerful on the earth, from there he will be torn out. Even if he should hide himself among the nations, from there he will be uprooted; even if he should go down to Sheol, there his punishment will increase. There he will have no peace. 32 Even if he should go into captivity through the power of those who seek his life, they will kill him along the way. There will remain for him neither name nor descendants on the entire earth, because he is going to an eternal curse" (Commentary on the Book of Jubilees, 2:709).
• 46 Trans. Wintermute, OTP 2:76. VanderKam translates, "As for these spirits who have remained alive, shut them up and hold them captive in the place of judgment... because if none of them is left for me I shall not be able to exercise the authority of my will among humanity. For they are meant for (the purposes of) destroying and misleading before my punishment because the evil of humanity is great. 9 Then he said that a tenth of them should be left before him, while he would make nine parts descend to the place of judgment" (Commentary on the Book of Jubilees, 1:394).
• 47 It is apparent from the language of "binding" that the place of judgment is a place of confinement, not annihilation.
• 48 "9 And if either of you seeks evil against his brother, know that hereafter each one who seeks evil against his brother will fall into his hands and be uprooted from the land of the living and his seed will be destroyed from under heaven. 10 And on the day of turmoil and execration and indignation and wrath, (then) with devouring burning fire just as he burned Sodom so too will he burn up his land and his city and everything which will be his. And he will be wiped out from the book of the discipline of mankind, and he will not be written (on high) in The Book of Life for (he is written) in the one which will be destroyed and pass on to eternal execration so that their judgment will always be renewed with eternal reproach and execration and wrath and torment and indignation and plagues and sickness" (trans. Wintermute, OTP 2:124). VanderKam translates, "9 If one of you desires harm for his brother, be aware from now on that anyone who desires harm for his fellow will fall into his control and will be uprooted from the land of the living, while his descendants will be destroyed from beneath the sky. 10 On the day of anger with raging wrath and fury—with a blazing fire that devours—he will burn his land, his cities, and everything that belongs to him just as he burned Sodom. He will be erased from the disciplinary book of humanity. He will not be entered in the book of life but is one who will be destroyed. He will pass over to an eternal curse so that their punishment may always be renewed with denunciation and curse, with anger, pain, and wrath, and with blows and eternal sickness." (Commentary on the Book of Jubilees, 2:953).
• 49 Fudge admits that these words "sound much like the unending conscious torment of the traditional hell," but suggests that "always renewed" means only that the punishment is "not exhausted in this life, it extends into the age to come" (p. 168). I think that, noting the contrast between the singular "he will not be written" and the plural "their judgment" in the preceding clauses, an argument for a temporal punishment that is always renewed on the wicked person's descendants is a more promising alternative to unending conscious torment of one person. VanderKam appears to concur, commenting that "rather than speaking of a universal eschatological judgment, this verse may be speaking only about the punishment of Esau and his offspring. That judgment shares traits with other instances in which the Lord punished peoples, but each of them seems to have its own date with destiny" (Commentary on the Book of Jubilees, 2:962).
• 50 There is some debate about the date of the Parables of Enoch since it is the only part of 1 Enoch not represented in fragments from Qumran, but as I have written previously, a broad consensus among specialists now dates the Parables to around the reign of Herod the Great (late first century B.C.E. or early first century C.E.)
• 51 The reference to 1 Enoch's author as "he" raises the question of whether Fudge is aware that the book as we have it was composed and compiled by numerous authors and redactors over several centuries.
• 52 George W. E. Nickelsburg restricts the Epistle of Enoch to chapters 91-105 and considers chapters 106-107 and 108 as two separate books (The Birth of Noah and Another Book of Enoch respectively) (1 Enoch 1: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch Chapters 1-36, 81-108 [Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001], 7).
• 53 Fudge once again cites an Interpreter's Bible Dictionary entry; he further cites R. H. Charles's century-old edition of the pseudepigrapha and an article by F. F. Bruce ("A Reappraisal of Jewish Apocalyptic Literature, Review and Expositor 72 [1975]: 305-15).
• 54 1 Enoch 1, 37.
• 55 He continues: "What is important and central is that God does act as judge to set the world right. The Enochic authors are not theologians but religious teachers and preachers who assert in many different ways and forms their belief in the faithfulness and justice of God, the vindicator and savior of the righteous" (1 Enoch 1, 49).
• 56 "4 To Raphael he said, ‘Go, Raphael, and bind Asael hand and foot, and cast him into the darkness; And make an opening in the wilderness that is in Doudael. 5 There cast him, and lay beneath him sharp stones and jagged stones. And cover him with darkness, and let him dwell there forever. Cover up his face, and let him not see the light. 6 And on the day of the great judgment, he will be led away to the burning conflagration" (1 Enoch 10.4-6, trans. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 215); "11 And to Michael he said, ‘Go, Michael, bind Shemihazah and the others with him, who have united themselves with the daughters of men, so that they were defiled by them in their uncleanness. 12 And when their sons perish and they see the destruction of their beloved ones, bind them for seventy generations in the valleys of the earth, until the day of their judgment and consummation, until the eternal judgment is consummated. 13 Then they will be led away to the fiery abyss, and to the torture, and to the prison where they will be confined forever. 14 And everyone who is condemned and destroyed henceforth will be bound together with them until the consummation of their generation. <And at the time of the judgment, which I shall judge, they will perish for all generations.> (1 Enoch 10.11-14, trans. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 215).
• 57 On v. 14, Nickelsburg comments, "According to the first sentence, the place of wicked humanity’s confinement is the same as the watchers’ temporary prison. This may suggest that both watchers and people will have the same place of final punishment, but this is by no means certain. Only such late texts as Matt 25:41 and Rev 20:10, 15 (cf. 19:20) speak of a single such place of final punishment. Both 1 Enoch 21:7-10 and 27:2-3||90:24-27 distinguish two places, identifying the place of humanity’s punishment with the Valley of Hinnom (see comm. on 27:2-3)" (1 Enoch 1, 225).
• 58 Trans. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 251.
• 59 Trans. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 276, 297).
• 60 Trans. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 300).
• 61 Trans. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 300.
• 62 Trans. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 310.
• 63 1 Then I said, ‘Why is this land blessed and all filled with trees, but this valley is cursed?’ 2 Then answered <Sariel>, one of the holy angels who was with me, and said to me, ‘This cursed valley is for those who are cursed forever. Here will be gathered all the cursed, who utter with their mouth an improper word against the Lord and speak hard things against his glory. Here they will be gathered, and here will be (their) habitation 3 at the last times, in the days of righteous judgment in the presence of the righteous for all time. Here the godless will bless the Lord of glory, the King of eternity. 4 In the days of their judgment they will bless in mercy accordance with how he has apportioned to them.’ (1 Enoch 27.1-4, trans. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 317).
• 64 Trans. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 364.
• 65 "24 And judgment was exacted first on the stars, and they were judged and found to be sinners. And they went to the place of judgment, and they threw them into an abyss; and it was full of fire, and it was burning and was full of pillars of fire. 25 And those seventy shepherds were judged and found to be sinners, and they were thrown into that fiery abyss." (1 Enoch 90.24-25, trans. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 402). Nickelsburg comments that the seventy shepherds are "consigned to the same fiery abyss as the watchers" (1 Enoch 1, 404).
• 66 "26 And I saw at that time that an abyss like it was opened in the middle of the earth, which was full of fire. And they brought those blinded sheep, and they were all judged and found to be sinners. And they were thrown into that fiery abyss, and they burned. And that abyss was to the south of that house. 27 And I saw those sheep burning and their bones burning." (1 Enoch 90.26-27, trans. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 402). "The final part of the judgment (vv 26-27) is introduced as a separate event, ‘And I saw…’ With an allusion to the idea in chaps. 26-27, the pit of the Valley of Hinnom is opened up ‘in the center of the earth’ (90:26; cf. 26:1). On the significance of this place as the locus of eschatological punishment, see comm. on 27:2-3a" (Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 403-404).
• 67 Trans. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 495.
• 68 Trans. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 503.
• 69 "When you die, then sinners say about you, 'The pious have died according to fate...And they perished and became as those who are not, and their souls descended with pain into Sheol'" (1 Enoch 102.6, 11, trans. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 511).
• 70 "7 Know that down to Sheol they will lead your souls; and there they will be in great distress, 8 and in darkness and in a snare and in a flaming fire. Into great judgment your souls will enter, and the great judgment will be for all the generations of eternity. Woe to you, you will have no peace." (1 Enoch 103.7-8, trans. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 511).
• 71 "3 ...their spirits will be slaughtered, and they will cry out and groan in a desolate, unseen place, and in fire they will burn, for there is no earth there. 4 ...And flames of fire I saw burning gloriously, and something like glorious mountains were turning over and quaking to and fro. 5 And I asked one of the holy angels who were with me, 'What is this glorious (place), for there is no heaven, but only flames of fire that are burning and the sound of weeping and crying and groaning and severe pain.' 6 And he said to me, 'The place that you see—here are thrown the spirits of the sinners and blasphemers and those who do evil and those who alter everything that the Lord has said by the mouth of the prophets (about) the things that will be done...' 14 And the righteous, as they shine, will see those who were born in darkness cast into darkness; 15 and the sinners will cry out and see them shining; and they, for their part, will depart to where the days and times are written for them." (1 Enoch 108.3-6, 14-15, trans. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 551). Nickelsburg comments that "The final tristich of v 3 looks beyond the removal of sinners to their punishment in the fiery pit," and that the sinners appear to be punished in the prison of the stars mentioned in chapters 18 and 21, implying "a single place of punishment for angels and sinners" as had already been indicated in 10.13-14 (1 Enoch 1, 555).
• 72 George W. E. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 2: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch, Chapters 37-82 (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2012), 51.
• 73 Sinners will be "driven from the presence of the righteous and chosen...and they will not be able to look at the face of the holy" (1 Enoch 38.4), while "the kings and the mighty will perish...and from then on, no one will seek mercy for them from the Lord of Spirits, for their life will be at an end" (1 Enoch 38.5-6, trans. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 2, 95). The remark that no one will seek mercy for them suggests that they still exist after they "perish." Again, in the second parable (1 Enoch 45), the sinners are said to be "kept thus for the day of affliction and tribulation. On that day...their souls will be <distressed> within them, when they see my chosen ones... the judgment of the sinners has drawn near to me, that I may destroy them from the face of the earth" (1 Enoch 45.2-3, 6, trans. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 2, 148.) 1 Enoch 46.6 further states that "The face of the strong he will turn aside, and he will fill them with shame. Darkness will be their dwelling, and worms will be their couch. And they will have no hope to rise from their couches..." (trans. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 2, 153). In 1 Enoch 53.2-5, both the sinners and the kings and the mighty are said to "perish." However, there is a text-critical problem affecting the meaning of the verb translated "perish": "Depending on whether one reads the verb ‘perish,’ with its one-letter negative adverbial prefix... or without it as two mss. do, the last line of the verse refers either to the sinners’ being eternally punished (and thus not perishing) or to their annihilation" (Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 2, 196). That the instruments being prepared by the angels of punishment "for the kings and the mighty of the earth, that they may perish thereby" (1 Enoch 53.5) are undoubtedly the "iron chains" mentioned in 1 Enoch 54.3 (so Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 2, 196) suggests that this "perishing" consists of eternal imprisonment and not annihilation, since chains are instruments of confinement and not execution.
• 74 Trans. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 2, 254.
• 75 "6 Now we desire a little respite and do not find it, we pursue it and do not lay hold of it. And light has vanished from our presence, and darkness is our dwelling forever and ever. 7 For in his presence we did not make confession, nor did we glorify the name of the Lord of the kings. Our hope was on the sceptre of our kingdom and <throne of> our glory. 8 But on the day of our affliction and tribulation it does not save us, nor do we find respite to make confession, that our Lord is faithful in all his deeds and his judgment and his justice, and his judgments have no respect for persons. 9 And we vanish from his presence because of our deeds, and all our sins are reckoned in righteousness.’ 10 Now they will say to themselves, ‘Our souls are full of ill-gotten wealth, but it does not prevent us from descending into the flame of the torment of Sheol.’ 11 And after that their faces will be filled with darkness and shame in the presence of that Son of Man; and from his presence they will be driven, and a sword will abide before him in their midst." (1 Enoch 63.6-11, trans. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 2, 255).

Almsgiving in Tobit, Sirach, and the Sermon on the Mount

One of the main themes of the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) is personal righteousness. Jesus warns the crowds that "Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 5:20). While some Protestant readers may be inclined to read "righteousness" here through a Pauline-Lutheran lens as something imputed on the basis of faith (i.e. belief) alone, the context suggests otherwise. 1 After offering the great Antitheses (Matt. 5:21-48), themselves full of moral profundity, Jesus returns explicitly to the theme of "your righteousness" (tēn dikaiosunēn humōn) in 6:1. In the following section of the discourse (6:2-18), Jesus' main point is that personal righteousness is only rewarded by the Father when practiced discreetly, not when practiced openly to gain the respect of other people. The structure of the section shows that Jesus understands "your righteousness" to subdivide into three categories: alms (eleēmosunē, 6:2-4), prayer (proseuchē, 6:5-15), and fasting (nēsteia, 6:16-18). Notably, the way Jesus introduces each category assumes that his audience shares his belief that this threefold division captures the essence of personal righteousness: "When you do alms...when you pray...when you fast". At issue is not whether righteousness consists of these deeds—this is simply assumed. At issue is only how these deeds ought to be practiced (i.e., whether openly or secretly).

The word eleēmosunē (usually translated "alms" and from which the English word "alms" derives) occurs ten times in the New Testament outside of Matt. 6:2-4, all of them in Luke-Acts. In Luke 11:41, having scolded the Pharisees for their superficial notion of purity, Jesus advises them, "But as to what is within, give alms, and behold, everything will be clean for you." In Luke 12:33, Jesus commands his "little flock" to "Sell your belongings and give alms" and thereby "Provide money bags for yourselves that do not wear out, an inexhaustible treasure in heaven that no thief can reach nor moth destroy." The importance of alms is further underscored in several accounts in Acts, most notably in Acts 10, where an angel tells Cornelius in a vision, "Your prayers and almsgiving have ascended as a memorial before God" (10:4; cf. Acts 3:2-10; 9:36-42; 24:17). Among early Christian texts outside the New Testament, eleēmosunē is mentioned prominently in the Didache (1.6; 15.4) and 2 Clement (16.4). Evidently, almsgiving played an important role in early Christian piety, following on the teachings of the Master. However, this observation leaves unanswered the question of how Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, was able to assume his audience's familiarity with the concept of "alms" as a central aspect of personal righteousness.

Conceptually, of course, the notion of concern and care for the poor and needy pervades the entire Old Testament. The specific term "alms," however, seldom appears. The Hebrew equivalent of the Greek eleēmosunē is tzedakah (צדקה). This word occurs over 150 times in the Hebrew Bible, but usually in the general sense of "righteousness" rather than specifically "alms" (i.e., charitable acts directed toward the needy). For instance, in the psalms tzedakah is an attribute of God (e.g., Ps. 11:7; 31:1). In a couple of passages in Proverbs, however, a more specifically "economic" sense of tzedakah seems to be in view. These include Prov. 10:2 (where tzedakah contrasts with "ill-gotten gains"), and 11:4 (where tzedakah contrasts with "riches"). The Septuagint translator(s) of Proverbs translated tzedakah with eleēmosunē in 21:21. In Daniel's oracle to King Nebuchadnezzar foretelling that he would become like a beast, Daniel counsels the king to "break off your sins by practicing righteousness (tzedakah), and your iniquities by showing mercy to the oppressed" (Dan. 4:27). Here too, the Greek translation of Daniel (Theodotion) translated tzedakah with eleēmosunē; and the sense of tzedakah seems to anticipate the technical sense of "almsgiving" that the word would take on in rabbinic Judaism.

Despite the above evidence, the usage of tzedakah in the Hebrew Bible (and eleēmosunē in its ancient Greek translations) is not pervasive or developed enough to explain how Jesus could assume that his first-century Jewish audience shared with him a concept of "almsgiving" that was as fundamental to piety as prayer was. Whence then this development? Two of the deuterocanonical books—those considered Scripture by the patristic church (and still by Catholic and Orthodox Christians) but not by Protestants—are helpful here. These books are Tobit and Sirach, both written in the second century B.C. Together, they account for 28 instances of the word eleēmosunē—more than the rest of the Septuagint combined. Surviving Hebrew fragments of Sirach and Tobit demonstrate that eleēmosunē in the Greek versions typically translate tzedakah (e.g., Sir. 3:14, 3:30, 7:10, Tob. 4:8-9 [4Q200 2[bc]:9], etc.).

Sirach and Tobit share in common the bold teaching that almsgiving atones for sins and saves one from evil or death (Sir. 3:30; Tob. 12:8-9).2 This idea is echoed in early Christian literature. The mid-second century Christian text 2 Clement teaches that "charitable giving (eleēmosunē) relieves the burden of sin" (2 Clem. 16.4), while the Didache, a first-century Christian text, declares, "If you earned something by working with your hands, you shall give a ransom for your sins" (Did. 4.6; cf. Barnabas 19.10).

Both Sirach and Tobit also conceive of almsgiving as storing up treasure (Sir. 29:8-12; Tob. 4:7-11), a metaphor also used by Jesus at the conclusion of the section of the Sermon on the Mount that discussed almsgiving, prayer, and fasting (Matt. 6:19-21), and a metaphor directly linked with almsgiving by Jesus in Luke 12:33. As we have already seen, the redemptive power of alms is highlighted also in the story of Cornelius' conversion in Acts 10. A recent study by Anthony Giambrone notes how there developed in early Christianity the tendency to refer to almsgiving as the commandment par excellence, thus giving "forceful expression to its archetypal status."3 According to Giambrone, the roots of this expression are found in Sirach ("Because of the commandment, help the poor," 29:9) and further development is seen in the Didache (1.5; 13.4-7).

The early church, following Jesus, understood almsgiving to have a very prominent—indeed, redemptive—role in the divine economy. This coheres well with the notion of the "treasury of merit" in Catholic theology. However, it is difficult to reconcile with a Protestant sola fide doctrine in which almsgiving has no redemptive role whatsoever (indeed, to teach otherwise is considered by many Protestants to subvert the doctrine of salvation by grace). Regrettably, the portions of the Old Testament that are most helpful for filling in the Jewish context of the early Christian teaching on almsgiving—Sirach and Tobit—were removed from the biblical canon by the Reformers.

To make these points is not merely to revive a tired, sixteenth-century doctrinal debate. Consider the current controversy among American Evangelicals over "the social gospel." A statement authored by John MacArthur and other prominent Evangelicals asserts that "the obligation to live justly in the world" is an implication and application of the gospel but not a "definitional component...of the gospel." Almsgiving is an archetypal way of living justly in the world, and for Jesus and the early church it absolutely was definitive. In the Great Commission (Matt. 28:19-20), Jesus ordered the apostles to "Go and make disciples of all nations". The subordinate clauses specify how disciples are to be made: "baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit," and "teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you." Almsgiving is one of the primary observances commanded by Jesus; it is as central to the mission of the Church as prayer is.

Footnotes

• 1 Of course, a comprehensive doctrine of righteousness and of salvation requires us to systematise these teachings of Jesus with those of Paul concerning salvation by grace through faith. This cannot detain us here, but such a systematisation can be found in the Catholic response to the Reformers' doctrines in the canons of the Council of Trent.
• 2 Indeed, the whole of the Book of Tobit could be described as a theodicy of prayer and almsgiving. After Tobit suffers blindness despite having lived a life of almsgiving, his wife (in like fashion to Job's wife) taunts him, "Where are your charitable deeds (eleēmosunai) now?" (Tob. 2:14) Tobit nonetheless instructs his son on the virtue of almsgiving (Tob. 4:7-11), and is eventually vindicated when God heals his blindness.
• 3 Anthony Giambrone, "‘According to the Commandment’ (Did. 1.5): Lexical Reflections on Almsgiving as ‘The Commandment’", New Testament Studies 60 (2014): 448-465.

Why the Trinity Just Doesn’t Make Sense to Christadelphians

Guest Article by Matthew J. Farrar

Introduction

The denial of the Trinity doctrine is arguably one of the strongest identity markers of Christadelphians.1   Christadelphian arguments against the Trinity typically follow one of three lines:2

1. Jesus is not the Father and is therefore not God.
2. Jesus is a man and is therefore not God.
3. The Trinity is inconsistent with the Scriptures' absolute insistence on monotheism.

The first objection is actually based on an erroneous conflation of Modalism3—a doctrine holding that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three modes of operation of a single divine person—with the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity, which holds that there are three distinct, eternal persons who share a Divine nature. The second objection similarly conflates the doctrine of Christ’s Divinity with a denial of His humanity, whereas orthodox Christology emphatically affirms Christ’s humanity.4

However, in conversations with Christadelphians—and indeed my own experience as a former Christadelphian—by far the most compelling arguments against the Trinity are based on the third issue of monotheism. Undoubtedly, the Scriptures insist on an uncompromising monotheism.5 It therefore appears that the Trinity doctrine is a violation of basic common sense: if God is one, then God cannot be three, and if He is three, He cannot be one. An answer in The Christadelphian Advocate's Question Box feature succinctly exemplifies this objection:

The Bible is so clear on this matter it is a puzzle as to how anyone can conclude anything about a godhead consisting of three beings, acting independently of each other yet still together, as one single being. The idea that the three were co-existent as well as co-equal and each a part of the Supreme Being destroys the beauty of the Father/Son relationship that is so emphatically detailed in the Scriptures.

The objection is clear enough: to say that three beings are actually one being is a contradiction, and a rather obvious one at that. So why is it that orthodox Christians hold to this doctrine when it seems to be at odds with basic common sense?

An Important Assumption

What is tacitly assumed but not acknowledged in the Christadelphian line of reasoning is that the God of the Bible is rightly understood to be a being. That is to say, there are many beings (e.g. angels, humans, animals), and God is regarded as another being, albeit a unique and supreme Being who exceeds all other beings in power, knowledge, wisdom, goodness, etc. It is precisely under this assumption that the Christadelphian argument against the Trinity are so compelling: 

1. A "being" is the broadest classification possible.
2. Therefore, distinct persons are beings.
3. "God" is a being.
4. Therefore "God" is either one person and one being or three persons and three beings. He cannot be three persons but one being.
5. Since the Scriptures affirm that God is One (being), the Trinity is false.

So how is it that the Church came to affirm the Trinity doctrine despite this glaring problem? The answer lies in that the Church does not consider God to be a being, but rather, being itself.

Nominalism: The Roots of a Theological Revolution

Believe it or not, the roots of this issue go back to the 14th century, a time prior to but very influential on the Reformation. This era ushered in a new philosophical position known as nominalism, a philosophy that is widely held—though seldom explicitly recognized—today. At its core, nominalism denies the real existence of universals. To understand what a universal is, consider the drawing below.

We would all quickly identify this drawing as a triangle, but on what basis? There are two basic answers to this question. The first is that there is a universal triangle, of which this particular triangle is a manifestation or instantiation. In other words, something is a triangle in the measure that it conforms to the universal triangle. The second answer—that of nominalism—is that there are simply a collection of objects which we call “triangles”, and this happens to be one of them. However, nominalists would claim that this classification is more or less one of convenience and therefore there is no such thing as the essential nature of a triangle.

To see the impact of this thinking in our own day, consider two hot-button issues: marriage and gender. Those who believe that universals are real—called realists—hold that heterosexual marriage and gender (male and female) are real universals. As such, a particular marriage is an actual marriage in the measure that it conforms to this universal and is a particular instantiation of it. Similarly, realists hold that a man is a man on the basis that he is an instantiation of a particular universal, namely, a male nature (and similarly for a woman).

In contrast, the nominalist perspective asserts that there are merely a collection of relationships called “marriages.” Therefore, to redefine marriage beyond monogamous heterosexual marriage is simply to broaden the usage of the word “marriage”. Similarly, “man” and “woman” are mere labels applied to groups of persons, and so the labels can be applied differently or new labels may be created as needed.

Now since nominalists deny the existence of universals, and natures are universals, it follows that nominalists deny the existence of natures. Thus, under this rubric there is no universal human nature (i.e. humanity) of which all human beings are instantiations; there are simply a collection of beings that we call “humans” just as there are three-sided objects that we call triangles. More to the point, if there is no such real thing as a nature, then there is also no such thing as a real divine nature: only a being we call “God,”6 and the phrase “the divine nature” simply becomes a shorthand for His personal attributes. Consequently, to acknowledge three divine persons is necessarily to acknowledge three divine beings, since “divine” and “persons” are again merely labels and “being” is simply the least restrictive classification possible.

Since Christadelphians—like most of the Western World—tend to be involuntary nominalists with respect to their conception of God,7 8 the Trinity doctrine appears to present an insurmountable contradiction. Nominalist Trinitarians attempt to circumvent a contradiction by false appeals to the mystery of the doctrine,9 while Christadelphians deny the mystery of the doctrine by appeals to the contradiction.

But what if we reject nominalism in the first place?

God is Being itself, not one being among many

Since nominalism was an innovation of the 14th century, it follows that the formulators of the Trinity doctrine in the first five centuries of the Church were not and could not have been nominalists. For example, the Nicene Creed states that Jesus is “one in substance/essence/nature with the Father.” Of course, this formulation necessarily assumes that natures are real! Even the Arians of the 4th Century—those opposing the divinity of Christ at the First Council of Nicea—did not dispute the real existence of natures, but instead argued that Christ was of a different, inferior nature from that of the Father. Semi-Arianism, a subsequent attempt at a compromise position, declared the Son to be of “like nature” (homoiousios) to the Father rather than of the same nature (homoousios) as the Nicene Creed affirmed.10 Thus, opponents of Christ's true divinity in the fourth century were not raising the so-called “common sense” objections outlined above.

Moreover, if nominalism is rejected, then we may also reasonably deny that God is one being among other beings.11 Instead, following the revelation of the divine name, “I AM” (Exodus 3:14), the Church teaches that God is "the act of to be" itself.12 Thus, while I am a being, God is being itself. If this sounds unfathomable, perhaps we have not taken God’s transcendence seriously enough. God is not merely greater than us by degree but is utterly beyond us, of a different order. If the notion that “God is being itself” seems too abstract to grasp, consider by analogy the assertion that “God is love” (1 John 4:16). The Biblical claim is not merely that “God is extremely loving” or “God has a lot of love”; love is not merely an abstract attribute that exists apart from God and that God has more of than anyone else. Love is essential to God’s nature, and does not exist apart from God. We are capable of love only because God has shared his love with us (1 John 4:19). The same is true of being, of existence. God is not merely a supreme being, i.e. one who has the attribute of existence (and other dependent attributes such as power, wisdom and love) in greater quality or quantity than others. Rather, God is existence; nothing exists except from him and through him and for him (Rom. 11:36; Heb. 2:10).

Given this understanding of God, the “common sense” rejection of the Trinity no longer holds for the following reasons. 

First, monotheism is actually a consequence of this understanding, not a condition imposed upon it. While we cannot truly comprehend what it means for God to be “to be itself”, it’s simply impossible to have more than one sheer act of being itself. Thus, it is rigorously consistent with Scriptural affirmations of monotheism.

Second, the key tenets of the Trinity doctrine—that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are co-eternal and co-equal in nature—also follow directly from this understanding of God. It would be a contradiction in terms to say, for example, that the Son is the sheer act of being but not co-eternal with the Father, who is also the sheer act of being. Nor would it be possible to say that the Son is co-eternal with the Father but not the sheer act of being, since that would mean that a being exists always with being itself, which is also a contradiction. Thus, the doctrine that God is “to be itself” and the joint doctrines of consubstantiality (i.e. the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have the same nature) and co-eternality are logical consequences, not additionally imposed doctrines.

Finally—and most importantly for the present discussion—the existence of distinct divine persons is no longer equated with the existence of distinct divine beings. Rather, within the divine nature (i.e. the sheer act of to be) we can discern three distinct persons, but at no point are there any beings involved, only the act of to be itself. Do we really comprehend what that means? No, and that is why the doctrine is truly and properly called a mystery. However, the contradiction suggested by the original argument is dissolved.

Concluding Remarks

The philosophical system of nominalism developed in the late Middle Ages, long after the creedal statements surrounding the Trinity doctrine were constructed, but its popularity—especially amongst the Reformers—was widespread. Not surprisingly then, Christadelphian objections to the Trinity doctrine on the basis of “common sense” appeals to Scriptural statements of absolute monotheism tacitly—if not unwittingly—assume an underlying nominalist philosophy, namely that God is one being amongst many other beings. This is an important observation since some Christadelphians (perhaps relying on Col. 2:8)13 view “philosophy” as a by-word, a distraction to be avoided. What this article has shown, however, is that all of us—Christadelphians included—engage in philosophy and what we may prefer to call “common sense” actually rests on our own philosophical presuppositions. My hope is that a greater awareness of this philosophical framework will open channels of future discourse.

• 1 Though not entirely unique. Biblical Unitarians essentially agree entirely with Christadelphians on this point, while Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, and Oneness Pentecostals share in the denial of the Trinity doctrine but do not share in Christadelphian theology and/or Christology. The Christadelphian doctrine of God underwent considerable evolution in the early period of the movement. The founder of the sect, Dr. John Thomas, held a somewhat ineffable doctrine of God that he thought was captured by the Greek word phanerōsis. While Dr. Thomas's ideas still have currency with some Christadelphians, the main stream of the movement has long since moved toward something closer to Socinianism or (biblical) Unitarianism—doctrines that Dr. Thomas emphatically repudiated!
• 2 For example, see here.
• 3 This view is also known as Sabellianism because it was taught by Sabellius, a 3rd-century priest. He was excommunicated for his teaching by Pope Callixtus I.
• 4 Refer to the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed defined at the fourth-century ecumenical councils of Nicea and Constantinople, and the Christological Definition reached at the fifth-century Council of Chalcedon.
• 5 Historians of religion debate exactly when monotheism developed in Israelite religion; some earlier texts may suggest a belief closer to henotheism (allegiance to only one God, without necessarily denying the existence of others—see, e.g., Psalm 95:3). In any case, strong exclusive claims about “one God” that are synonymous with monotheism are present in Second Temple Jewish texts and in the New Testament (e.g., Mark 12:32).
• 6 Granted, a very impressive being, even a Supreme Being. However, this being differs from us only in degree (e.g. we have limited power, while God has unlimited power) not by nature, since nominalists deny the existence of natures.
• 7 As evidenced by the quotation above which starts from the use of the word “beings.”
• 8 I wish to be clear that I do not mean this disparagingly. My point is merely that certain philosophical presuppositions are present in all arguments.
• 9 This was blatantly the case in the writings of William of Ockham.
• 10 Semi-Arianism was condemned at the First Council of Constantinople in 381 A.D., but by that time the three Cappadocian Fathers (St. Basil the Great, St. Gregory Nazianzus, and St. Gregory of Nyssa) had succeeded through theological dialogue in persuading most of the Semi-Arians to return to the catholic faith.
• 11 To be precise, while other beings have a real nature, we rightly say that God is His nature. In other words, I, as a human being, am a particular instantiation of a human nature. God, on the other hand, is not an instantiation of a divine nature, but rather, He is the divine nature.
• 12 Ipsum esse subsistens, in the Latin of St. Thomas Aquinas.
• 13 Of course, Paul does not here condemn philosophy itself, but only philosophy that is contrary to Christ and therefore false. Paul’s own willingness to enter into philosophical discourse is on vivid display in the account of his speech at the Areopagus (Acts 17). For a defense of the use of Greek philosophy by the early Church, see here.

A Tale of Two Cities: The Bride and the Whore in the Book of Revelation

The Apocalypse of John contains some of the most striking feminine imagery in the Bible and indeed in all of ancient literature. Two female figures, in particular, stand out as dualistic counterparts: the Bride and the Whore. This article explores these two figures against their biblical and early Christian background, with a view to correctly interpreting them.

The Bride

On the one hand, we have "the Bride, the wife of the Lamb." This woman appears in the latter visions of the book (chs. 19 and 20-21), where the bridal imagery is part of a broader picture of the consummation of all things as the Lamb's marriage feast. She is also identified as a city, "the holy city, new Jerusalem" (21:2, 9-10).1 The people of God have already been depicted as a woman in Revelation 12, using imagery that draws heavily on Genesis 3 ("the seed of the woman"). The metaphor of the Church as the betrothed or the bride of Christ is found elsewhere in the New Testament, in the "great mystery" expounded in Ephesians 5:22-32 (cf. 2 Corinthians 11:2). Such imagery is undoubtedly rooted in the language of the Hebrew prophets, who depict Yahweh as a bridegroom or husband and Israel as his bride or wife.2 The New Testament's recasting of Jesus in the role of bridegroom, possibly based on Jesus' own words,3 has profound Christological implications, but our focus in this article is on the bride. Besides using feminine imagery for Israel as a whole, the Hebrew Bible also uses feminine imagery for cities. In Ezekiel 16 and 23, for instance, the cities of Jerusalem, Samaria, and Sodom are depicted as sisters whose misdeeds bring shame on their family.4 The holy city of Jerusalem is frequently referred to in the prophets as the "daughter of Zion" or "daughter of Jerusalem,"5 and this name for the city is echoed in the Gospels (Matthew 21:5; John 12:15). Meanwhile, the identification of the Church with a transcendent Jerusalem is also found elsewhere in the New Testament.6 Thus, when the author of Revelation depicted the Church both as a woman and as a transcendent city, he built on rich biblical foundations, and was not the only New Testament writer to use such imagery.

The Whore

The other woman in the Apocalypse is the "Great Whore," who is described in a lurid vision in Revelation 17:1-6. A whore or prostitute is of course a radically different image from a bride. The Bride is clothed in "fine linen, bright and pure," symbolising "the righteous deeds of the saints" (Rev. 19:8), the Whore also wears "fine linen," but of a different colour, "purple and scarlet," which undoubtedly correspond to her "abominations and impurities" (Rev. 17:4), her violence and sensuous luxury. The Whore holds in her hand a "golden cup" full of abominations. While Revelation does not explicitly associate the Bride with a cup, the Eucharistic connotations of the "marriage supper of the Lamb" for which the Bride has prepared herself are obvious.7 Furthermore, the Whore, like the Bride, is identified with a city, namely "Babylon," "the great city that has dominion over the kings of the earth"(Rev. 17:5, 18). Earlier in the book, "the great city" is said to have "the symbolic names 'Sodom' and 'Egypt'" and is identified with the place "where their Lord was crucified," i.e. Jerusalem (Rev. 11:8). The Whore Babylon is mentioned briefly in Rev. 14:8 and 16:19, described in lurid detail in chapter 17, and is the subject of a judgment woe in chapter 18. As with the Bride, much of the language used for the Whore draws on the biblical prophets. The antithesis between Jerusalem and Babylon is exemplified by the imprecations of Psalm 137. The exact name "Babylon the Great" (Greek: Babulōn hē megalē) used in Revelation 17:5 is taken verbatim from Nebuchadnezzar's boast in Daniel 4:30 LXX. The phrase "the/this great city" in the prophets is used of Nineveh (Jonah 3:2-3) and of ungodly Jerusalem (Jeremiah 22:8). The phrase "Fallen, fallen is Babylon!" (Revelation 14:8; 18:2) is taken from Isaiah 21:9. Much of the imagery used of the Whore in Revelation 17-18 is borrowed from oracles against Babylon in Isaiah 13-14 and Jeremiah 25 and 50-51. The Hebrew Bible never explicitly calls Babylon a whore or prostitute, but the oracle of Isaiah 47 implicitly does. There, the "virgin daughter of Babylon," "daughter of the Chaldeans," is told, "Your nakedness shall be uncovered, and your disgrace shall be seen...you shall no more be called the mistress of the kingdoms" (Isa. 47:3-5). This same oracle accuses Babylon of "sorceries" (Isa. 47:9, 12), a charge that is leveled at the Whore in Revelation 18:23. The metaphor of a prostitute is applied explicitly to Nineveh in Nahum 3:4-78 and to Tyre in Isaiah 23:16-18.9 Israel and Judah, Samaria and Jerusalem are also frequently labelled as a whore in the Hebrew prophets.10 The Bride in Revelation is an aggregation of biblical prophetic language about the people of God and the holy city Jerusalem, while the Whore in Revelation is an aggregation of biblical prophetic language about various ungodly nations and cities, both Gentile and Israelite. The Whore is thus a composite figure,11 which militates against interpreting her as corresponding to any one historical city or entity.

The Bride and the Whore as an instance of the Two Cities Motif

Although Revelation never mentions the Bride and the Whore together, there is clearly an implicit comparison between the two, an apocalyptic subplot that we might call, in Dickensian fashion, "a tale of two cities." These two entities share much in common: they are both women with symbolic apparel and cities with symbolic names. The Whore is the Bride's evil antithesis, her ugly stepsister. The Bride is the wife of the Lamb, the singular King of Kings who receives authority from God (Rev. 2:27), who loves the Bride and ransomed her with his blood (Rev. 5:9). The Whore sits astride a Beast (who receives authority from the Dragon, Satan; Rev. 13:2-4) whose many heads and horns represent numerous kings. She fornicates with these kings and dominates them, but they and the Beast hate her and make her desolate (Rev. 17:2, 16, 18).

This ecclesiological antithesis between two women or two cities is not unique to Revelation in early Christian literature. It is found in Paul's allegorical interpretation of Sarah and Hagar in Galatians 4:22-31, where the apostle contrasts "the present Jerusalem" who is "in slavery with her children" with "the Jerusalem above" who "is free, and...is our mother." The two Jerusalems recur in the Letter to the Hebrews, where the author describes "the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God...a better country, that is, a heavenly one" (Hebrews 11:10, 16). The readers are told that they have "come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem" (12:22). Subsequently, referring to the earthly Jerusalem (specifically "outside the gate" where Jesus suffered), he emphasises, "For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come" (13:14). This "two cities" contrast appears again in The Shepherd of Hermas, a second-century apocalypse that is surely relevant to the interpretation of Revelation inasmuch as it is "the other major work of early Christian prophecy which has survived."12 The Similitudes or Parables portion of the book contains the following passage:

1 He said to me, 'You know that you slaves of God are living in a foreign land. For your own city is a long way from this one. If then,' he said, 'you know your own city, where you are about to live, why are you preparing fields, expensive furnishings, buildings, and pointless rooms for yourselves here? 2 Anyone who prepares these things in this city, therefore, cannot return to his own city. 3. You foolish, double-minded, and miserable person! do you now understand that all these things belong to another and are under someone else's control? For the ruler of this city will say, 'I do not want you living in my city; leave it, because you are not living by my laws.' 4. And so, you who have fields and houses and many other possessions—when he casts you out, what will you do with your field and house and whatever else you have prepared for yourself? For the ruler of this country rightly says to you, 'Either live by my laws or leave my country.' 5. And so what will you do, you who have a law from your own city? Will you completely renounce your own law for the sake of your fields and whatever else you own, and follow the law of the city you are in now? Take care, because renouncing your law may be against your own interests. For if you want to return to your own city, you will not be welcomed, because you have renounced its law; and you will be shut out of it. 6. And so take care. Since you are living in a foreign land, fix nothing up for yourself except what is absolutely necessary; and be ready, so that when the master of this city wants to banish you for not adhering to his law, you can leave his city and go to your own, and live according to your own law gladly, suffering no mistreatment. 7. Take care, then, you who are enslaved to the Lord and have him in your heart. Do the works of God, remembering his commandments and the promises he made; and trust in him, because he will do these things, if his commandments are guarded. 8. Instead of fields, then, purchase souls that have been afflicted, insofar as you can, and take care of widows and orphans and do not neglect them; spend your wealth and all your furnishings for such fields and houses as you have received from God. 9. For this is why the Master made you rich, that you may carry out these ministries for him. It is much better to purchase the fields, goods, and houses you find in your own city when you return to it...' (Hermas, Similitudes 1.1-9)13

The parallels between this parable and the New Testament texts we have mentioned are impressive. Hermas's two cities correspond to two laws, just as Paul's two Jerusalems correspond to two covenants (Gal. 4:24-26). Hermas emphasises detachment from the goods of the present city in favour of the goods of the future city, just as Hebrews does (11:9-16; 13:12-14). Hermas teaches that failure to obey God's commandments will result in exclusion from the future city, just as Revelation does (21:27; 22:14-15). Also, Hermas notes that the respective cities have rulers (God and the Devil),14 just as Revelation identifies one city as that of God and the Lamb, and the other as that of the Beast (who is empowered by the Dragon, i.e. the Devil).

Noting that both Hebrews and Hermas use "city" interchangeably with "country," and contrast the two cities temporally as present and future, we may be justified in linking the "two cities" motif with the "two worlds" or "two ages" motif that is a prominent feature of Second Temple Jewish and early Christian literature.15

The foregoing parallels represent, in this writer's view, compelling evidence that the Bride and the Whore in Revelation correspond to the two cities motif found elsewhere in early Christian literature, which basically contrasts the moral, spiritual, and economic life of those who belong to God (the Church) and those who do not, together with the conflict between the two communities and their diverging eternal destinies.

Interpreting the Bride and the Whore in Revelation

The Bride is the easier symbol to interpret, both in the original literary-historical context and for today: the Bride is the Church who, speaking together with the Spirit, ever awaits Jesus' promised coming (Rev. 22:17). The majority of biblical scholars identify the Whore of Revelation with ancient Rome; a minority interpretation identifies the Whore instead with Jerusalem.16 The reference to the woman sitting on seven mountains (Rev. 17:9) and her description as "the great city that has dominion over the kings of the earth" (Rev. 17:18) both point to Rome, the city of seven hills. "Babylon" is used as a cipher for Rome in other post-70 A.D. Jewish literature (and probably also in 1 Peter 5:13), probably because Rome had, like ancient Babylon, sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple.17 However, "whore" imagery in the prophets is most commonly linked with Judah and Jerusalem, and "the great city" is described in Rev. 11:8 as "where their Lord was crucified." The apocalyptic Babylon thus cannot be limited to the physical city of Rome. It is a composite reality that transcends any particular earthly city,18 which was exemplified in John's day by Rome. To interpret the symbol for today, we need to look for the locus of moral, spiritual, and economic corruption in today's world. That locus cannot be identified with any one contemporary city or system. Babylon's footprint can be seen wherever idolatry, greed, injustice, sexual immorality and other abominations flourish. This is not to deny the possibility that a more concrete manifestation of Babylon (like imperial Rome) could occur before the Lord's Second Coming. However, we should exercise the same hermeneutical restraint as Rev. Dietrich Bonhoeffer who, in a sermon of 1935 (at the height of Nazi pomp) preached the following:

Who is Babylon? Was it Rome? Where is it today? Today, we dare not yet say–not because we fear the world! Rather because the Christian community does not know yet–but we see terrible things and revelations drawing near.

Footnotes

• 1 See also Rev. 3:12; 11:1-2; 14:1.
• 2 See, e.g., Isaiah 54:5-6; 62:5; Jeremiah 2:2, 32; 3:20; Ezekiel 16; Hosea 2:16-20.
• 3 See Mark 2:19-20; Matthew 25:1-13; cf. John 3:29.
• 4 See also Isaiah 1:21; Lamenations 1:1ff.
• 5 See, e.g., 2 Kings 19:21; Psalm 9:14; Isaiah 10:32; 62:11; Jeremiah 4:31; Lamentations 2:13-15; Micah 4:8-10; Zephaniah 3:14; Zechariah 9:9.
• 6 See, e.g., Matthew 5:14 (cp. v. 35); Galatians 4:26; Hebrews 11:10, 16; 12:22; 13:14.
• 7 The Lord's Supper in early Christianity is where the cup of blessing, the cup of the Lord's blood, is drunk (1 Cor. 10:16; 11:20-25). The psalmist declares that his response to the Lord's goodness is to "raise the cup of salvation" (Ps. 116:13). St. Athansius of Alexandria, in his Festal Letters 5.3, interprets the "cup of salvation" to refer to the Eucharistic cup. Two earlier writers, Origen (Exhortation to Martyrdom 28-29) and St. Cyprian of Carthage (Epistles 76.4), take the cup of salvation to refer to martyrdom, probably in light of Ps. 116:15 and the metaphor of martyrdom as a "cup" in the Gospels (cf. Mark 10:38-39; 14:36). Elsewhere in Revelation, the "cup" functions as a metaphor for God's wrath, directed at Babylon the Great (Rev. 16:19; 18:6; cf. 14:10). In Rev. 18:6, "repay her double for her deeds; mix a double portion for her in the cup she mixed" suggests that the punishment she inflicted on others will be inflicted on her, so probably the "abominations" in the Whore's golden cup in 17:4 include the blood of the martyrs, with which she is "drunk" (17:6).
• 8 Nineveh is also described in unflattering feminine terms in Zephaniah 2:13-15, which closely parallels oracles against Babylon in Isaiah 13 and 47.
• 9 Language from the same oracle against Tyre (Isa. 23:8) is borrowed in Rev. 18:23. Tyre is also depicted as a female figure in Ezekiel 26:17.
• 10 See, e.g., Isaiah 1:21; Jeremiah 3:1-8; Ezekiel 16; Ezekiel 23; Hosea 2-4; 9:1.
• 11 "the Babylon of Revelation 17-18 combines in itself the evils of the two great evil cities of the Old Testament prophetic oracles: Babylon and Tyre. Of the two, Babylon is the city whose name John uses as a cipher for Rome" (Richard Bauckham, The Climax of Prophecy: Studies on the Book of Revelation [London: T&T Clark, 1993], 345).
• 12 Richard Bauckham, The Theology of the Book of Revelation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 144.
• 13 Trans. Bart D. Ehrman, The Apostolic Fathers, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003), 2:307, 309).
• 14 The identity of the ruler of this city is discussed in note 42 of my forthcoming study The Intimate and Ultimate Adversary: Satanology in Early Second-Century Christian Literature.
• 15 For the writer of Hebrews, "the city that is to come" (13:14) is also "the world to come" (2:5) and "the age to come" (6:5). The Pauline letters contrast "this present time," "the present life," "this present darkness, "this present age," "this present world," which is "passing away," with "the glory that is to be revealed," "the life to come," the age to come (Rom. 8:18; Eph. 1:21; 6:12; 1 Tim. 6:17; 1 Tim. 4:8; 2 Tim. 4:10; 1 Cor. 7:31). The Synoptic Gospels likewise contrast "this age" with "the age to come" (e.g., Mark 10:30; Matt. 12:32; Luke 20:34-35). Similar antitheses are probably presupposed in statements about the/this world in the Gospel and Letters of John (see, e.g., John 12:25-31; 18:36; 1 John 2:15-17) and in James 4:4. The temporal contrast is also present in Revelation: the Whore is presently active (as is evident from 17:9-10), while the vision of the Bride is first mentioned (19:7) only after the vision of the Whore's judgment concludes.
• 16 "Most commentators agree that ‘Babylon’ in the Apocalypse is a symbolic name for Rome" (Adela Yarbro Collins, Crisis and Catharsis: The Power of the Apocalypse [Philadelphia: Westminster John Knox, 1984], 57). Commenting on "the great city" in Rev. 17:18, George Elton Ladd wrote, "In the first century, this stood for Rome; but in the end time, it will stand for eschatological Babylon" (George Eldon Ladd, A Commentary on the Revelation of John [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1972], 234). "The identity of this woman leaves no room for doubt: v. 5 gives her name; it is Babylon, about which we know since Rev 14:8 that the name designates with veiled language, but without ambiguity, Rome, the capital of the empire" (Pierre Prigent, Commentary on the Apocalypse of St. John, trans. Wendy Pradels [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004], 485). A detailed argument for the Jerusalem interpretation is offered by D. Ragan Ewing, The Identification Of Babylon The Harlot In The Book Of Revelation (Th.M Dissertation, Dallas Theological Seminary, 2002). Further discussion and a refutation of the Jerusalem view can be found in G. Biguzzi, "Is the Babylon of Revelation Rome or Jerusalem?" Biblica 87 (2006): 371-386. See also the summary of arguments for the Babylon and Jerusalem interpretations respectively in A. J. Beagley, “Babylon,” in Dictionary of the Later New Testament and Its Development (ed. Ralph P. Martin and Peter H. Davids; Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1997), 111-12.
• 17 "Just as Babylon destroyed the first temple and sent Israel into exile, so Rome came to be called ‘Babylon’ in some sectors of Judaism because it also destroyed the temple in Jerusalem and exiled Israel (so Midr. Rab. Num. 7.10; Midr. Pss. 137.1, 8; cf. Targ. Lam. 1:19)" (G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999], 755). "Most of the occurrences of Babylon as a symbolic name for Rome in Jewish literature are in the Apocalypse of Ezra (4 Ezra = 2 Esdras 3-14), the Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch (2 Apoc. Bar.), and the fifth book of the Sibylline Oracles. In each case where it occurs in these three works, the context makes it abundantly clear why the name Babylon was chosen. Rome is called Babylon because her forces, like those of Babylon at an earlier time, destroyed the temple and Jerusalem. It is probable that John learned this symbolic name from his fellow Jews and that it quickly became traditional" (Collins, Crisis and Catharsis, 57-58).
• 18 "As a symbol, Babylon embraces more than the empire, city, and culture of Rome. It is the sphere of idolatry and worldliness under the temporary control of Satan, a worldliness in opposition to the people and work of God, a worldliness epitomized first by Babylon and then by Rome. Babylon as the mother of harlots and abominations in opposition to God (17:5) is the antithesis of the Church as the Bride of Christ, the New Jerusalem, and the Kingdom of God" (Duane F. Watson, “Babylon,” in Anchor Bible Dictionary, 1:566). Beale refers to the city of Revelation 11:8, which he identifies with Babylon, as "the ungodly world-city" (The Book of Revelation, 593). Later, he avers, "The ungodly social, political, and economic system dominated by the Roman Empire placed believers in the same position as Israel was in under Babylon...Therefore, here in the Apocalypse Rome and all wicked world systems take on the symbolic name ‘Babylon the Great’ (op. cit., 755). He summarises his view: "‘The great city’ has been identified as Jerusalem, Rome, or the ungodly world system, which would include Jerusalem, Rome, and all other wicked people groups. The third view is preferable" (op. cit., 843). "Any institution or facet of culture that is characterized by pride (see on v 5), economic overabundance, persecution, and idolatry is part of Babylon" (op. cit., 856).