Universalism vs. Particularism:
וְדַע שֶׁהַדְּבָרִים שֶׁאוֹמְרָם בְּאֵלּוּ הַפְּרָקִים, וּבַמָּה שֶׁיָּבֹא מִן הַפֵּירוּשׁ אֵינָם עִנְיָנִים בְּדִיתִים אֲנִי מֵעַצְמִי, וְלֹא פֵּירוּשִׁים שֶׁחִדַּשְׁתִּים, וְאׇמְנָם הֵם עִנְיָנִים לִקַּטְתִּים מִדִּבְרֵי הַחֲכָמִים בַּמִּדְרָשׁוֹת וּבַתַּלְמוּד וְזוּלָתוֹ מֵחִבּוּרֵיהֶם, וּמִדִּבְרֵי הַפִּילוֹסוֹפִים גַּם כֵּן הַקְּדוּמִים וְהַחֲדָשִׁים, וּמֵחִבּוּרִים הַרְבֵּה מִבְּנֵי אָדָם, וְשָׁמַע הָאֱמֶת מִמִּי שֶׁאָמְרוּ
Know, however, that the ideas presented in these chapters and in the following commentary are not of my own invention; neither did I think out the explanations contained therein, but I have gleaned them from the words of the wise occurring in the Midrashim, in the Talmud, and in other of their works, as well as from the words of the philosophers, ancient and recent, and also from the works of various authors, as one should accept the truth from whatever source it proceeds.
Ramban, Commentary on Genesis:
Everything that was transmitted to Moses our teacher through the forty-nine gates of understanding was written in the Torah explicitly or by implication in words, in the numerical value of the letters or in the form of the letters, that is, whether written normally or with some change in form such as bent or crooked letters and other deviations, or in the tips of the letters and their crownlets. . . .
In the Midrash Shir ha-Shirim Rabbah, they [the Sages] have also said: “It is written, ‘And He declared unto you His covenant,’ which means: He declared unto you the Book of Genesis, which relates the beginning of His creation; ‘which He commanded you to perform even the ten words,’ meaning the ten commandments, ten for Scripture and ten for Talmud. For from what source did Elihu the son of Barachel the Buzite come and reveal to Israel the secrets of the behemoth and the leviathan? And from what source did Ezekiel come and reveal to them the mysteries of the Divine Chariot? It is this which Scripture says, ‘The King hath brought me into his chambers,’ meaning that everything can be learned from the Torah. King Solomon, peace be upon him, whom God had given wisdom and knowledge, derived it from the Torah, and from it he studied until he knew the secret of all things created even of the forces and characteristics of plants, so that he wrote about them even a Book of Medicine, as it is written, ‘And he spoke of trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall.’ ”
Universalist:
Background on Ben Sira:
Ben Sira (in Hebrew, בן סירא), also known as Sirach (from the Greek Σιραχ) or Ecclesiasticus (not to be confused with Ecclesiastes, which is Kohelet), is a book of wisdom literature and proverbs originally written in Hebrew sometime between 200 and 175 BCE.
Despite not having been made an official part of the Tanach, it was well-known and influential all over the Jewish world of the Second Temple era, and was quoted in the Talmud and referenced in the New Testament.
(כא) פְּלָאוֹת מִמְּךָ אַל תִּדְרוֹשׁ, וּמְכֻסֶּה מִמְּךָ אַל תַּחְקוֹר.
(כב) בַּמֶּה שֶׁהוּרְשֵׁיתָ הִתְבּוֹנֵן, וְאֵין לְךָ עֵסֶק בְּנִסְתָּרוֹת.
(כג) בְּיוֹתֵר מִמְּךָ אַל תַּמֵּר, כִּי רַב מִמְּךָ הָרְאֵיתָ.
(כד) כִּי רַבִּים עֶשְׁתּוֹנֵי בְּנֵי אָדָם, וְדִמְיוֹנוֹת רָעוֹת מַתְעוֹת.
(21) Do not look for things that you cannot understand, and do not investigate what is hidden from you.
(22) Think about the things that are permitted to you, for you have no business with what is hidden.
(23) Do not wander into what is too great for you, for you have been shown what is too great for you.
(24) For many are the conceits of the sons of men, and the imaginations of thoughts that make them err.
Questions on Ben Sira:
1) What do you think motivates Ben Sira to reject knowledge that one "cannot understand" or that is "hidden"? Would he feel that it is worthwhile to try to understand these things at least a little bit, even if full understanding is impossible?
2) This passage doesn't explicitly identify what the author means by things that are permitted or not permitted. What does he seem to be referring to? Arcane mysteries of the Divine, or more mundane things that are, however, incredibly difficult to understand (like astrophysics)? Or perhaps both, or something else entirely?
3) How do you interpret the vaguely phrased verse 23? What have we been shown that is too great for us, when were we shown it, and who showed it to us?
Background on Philo:
Philo (also known as Philo Judaeus, or Yedidyah Hakohen (ידידיה הכהן)) was an Alexandrian Jewish philosopher in the first century CE, and the first to marry a Jewish worldview to Greek philosophy. He likely knew relatively little Hebrew; like many Alexandrian Jews, he chiefly read Tanach via the Greek Septuagint. His intimate involvement in Hellenistic culture (common to Alexandrian Jews) likely influenced his ideas, moving him in a more Universalist direction than his Rabbinic contemporaries.
Philo, On Abraham 13:60-61
Abraham then, filled with zeal for piety, the highest and greatest of virtues, was eager to follow God and to be obedient to his commands; understanding by commands not only those conveyed in speech and writing but also those made manifest by nature with clearer signs, and apprehended by the sense which is the most truthful of all and superior to hearing, on which no certain reliance can be placed. For anyone who contemplates the order in nature and the consitution enjoyed by the world-city (cosmo-polis) whose excellence no words can describe, needs no speaker to teach him to practice a law abiding and peaceful life and to aim at assimilitating himself to its beauties.
Particularist:
Background on Enoch:
Enoch is a book alternatively categorized as part of the apocrypha (i.e., religiously influential works in the biblical style that were not widely accepted as part of biblical canon), or the pseudepigrapha (works that claimed to be written by Biblical figures, like Enoch, or the Testaments of the Patriarchs).
It was likely originally written in Hebrew, Aramaic, or a mixture of the two; however, our only fully extant copies of it (outside fragments among the Dead Sea Scrolls and elsewhere) are in Ge'ez, which is an African Semitic language used by the Ethiopian Church.
The individual parts of the Book of Enoch were written between 300-100 BCE, placing its authorship squarely in the Second Temple Era.
It is told from the perspective of Enoch (known in Hebrew as חנוך (Chanokh)), whom Genesis describes as the great-grandfather of Noah, who was taken to Heaven while still alive, and shown divine mysteries by the "sons of God".
The book of Enoch primarily concerns itself with the revelation of Divine mysteries to "the chosen ones", establishing an "us-vs.-them" mentality that strongly appealed to the Dead Sea Scroll sect, and whose influence can be felt even now in the Kabbalistic tradition.
Topics covered include the Fallen Angels, the mysteries of Astronomy and the Calendrical system, and the End of Days, when the chosen elect will be raised up above the wicked under God's Kingship.
Enoch 72-82:
1. The book of the courses of the luminaries of the heaven, the relations of each, according to their classes, their dominion and their seasons, according to their names and places of origin, and according to their months, which Uriel, the holy angel, who was with me, who is their guide, showed me; and he showed me all their laws exactly as they are, and how it is with regard to all the years of the world and unto eternity, till the new creation is accomplished which dureth till eternity...
Enoch 41:1-2
1. And after this, I saw all the secrets of Heaven, and how the Kingdom is divided, and how the deeds of men are weighed in the Balance.
2. There I saw the Dwelling of the Chosen, and the Resting Places of the Holy; and my eyes saw there all the sinners who deny the name of the Lord of Spirits being driven from there. And they dragged them off, and they were not able to remain, because of the punishment that went out from the Lord of Spirits.
Enoch 5:6-8
6. In those days, you will transform your name into an eternal curse to all the righteous. And they will curse you sinners forever.
7. For the chosen; there will be light, joy, and peace, and they will inherit the earth. But for you, the impious, there will be a curse.
8. When wisdom is given to the chosen they will all live, and will not again do wrong, either through forgetfulness, or through pride. But those who possess wisdom will be humble.
Questions on Enoch:
1) Do Enoch's "chosen" seem to be people who have earned the right to their special status by their righteousness and philosophical inquiry, and who are then rewarded with Divine revelation, or do they seem to be people chosen by God without necessarily having earned it on their own?
2) What is Enoch's position on those who have not obtained Divinely revealed wisdom? Can they compensate with scientific inquiry and philosophical contemplation, or are they doomed to sin and punishment simply because they don't know any better?
3) Why would the author(s) of Enoch place such heavy emphasis on astronomical knowledge, and the Jewish calendar, as opposed to other forms of knowledge which the angel might have imparted?
4) What might the author(s) of Enoch say if confronted with advanced astronomical observations that contradicted his Divinely granted knowledge of the movements of the planets?
Background on The Dead Sea Scrolls:
The Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of documents which were written by members of the Qumran sect, which was a radical, mystical, and militaristic sect of Jews in the late Second Temple Era. In addition to copies (or fragments) of Biblical texts, they also contained various Apocryphal works (such as Enoch) and original documents, like "The War of the Sons of Light Against the Sons of Darkness", which was a war manual intended to be used in an apocalyptic final battle between good and evil.
This passage relates what one who joins the sect must do in order to be inducted; the "sons of Zadok" are the leaders of the sect, and the name references a certain esteemed family of Kohanim mentioned in Tanach.
1QS 5:7-12
Whoever enters the council of the Community enters the Covenant of God in the presence of all who freely volunteer. He shall swear with a binding oath to turn to the Law of Moses according to all that he commanded with whole heart and whole soul, in compliance with all that has been revealed of it to the sons of Zadok, the priests who keep the covenant and interpret his will and to the multitude of the men of their convenant who freely volunteer together for this truth and to walk according to his will. He should swear by the covenant to be segregated from all the men of injustice who walk along the path of wickedness. For they are not included in his covenant since they have neither sought nor examined his decrees in order to know the hidden matters in which they err, by their own fault and because they treated revealed matters with disrespect.
Questions on The Dead Sea Scrolls:
1) What does the tone of this passage imply about the exclusivity of the Qumran sect, and how does that relate to the exclusivity of the bestowal of Divine wisdom to the elect? Would a member of the Qumran sect be interested in proselytizing his views to others, or would he keep them secret and hold others in suspicion?
2) How would the members of the Qumran sect look at more mainstream Jews of the time? How would they think of non-Jews? Would they think differently of non-Qumran Jews and of non-Jews?
3) Whatever your thoughts on questions 1 and 2, consider: Why would these views develop in the first place? What sort of sociopolitical circumstances would incubate a sectarian movement like this one?
Dialectical:
Philo, Allegorical Interpreations 1:92-95
A command indeed is given to man, but not to the man created according to the image and idea of God; for that being is possessed of virtue without any need of exhortation, by his own instinctive nature, but this other would not have wisdom if it had not been taught to him: (93) and these three things are different, command, prohibition, and recommendation. For prohibition is conversant about errors, and is directed to bad men, but command is conversant about things rightly done; recommendation again is addressed to men of intermediate character, neither bad nor good. For such a one does not sin so that any one has any need to direct prohibition to him, nor does he do right in every case in accordance with the injunction of right reason. But he is in need of recommendation, which teaches him to abstain from what is evil, and exhorts him to aim at what is good. (94) Therefore there is no need of addressing either command, or prohibition, or recommendation to the man who is perfect, and made according to the image of God; For the perfect man requires none of these things; but there is a necessity of addressing both command and prohibition to the wicked man, and recommendation and instruction to the ignorant man. Just as the perfect grammarian or perfect musician has need of no instruction in the matters which belong to his art, but the man whose theories on such subjects are imperfect stands in need of certain rules, as it were, which contain in themselves commands and prohibitions, and he who is only learning the art requires instruction. (95) Very naturally, therefore, does God at present address commands and recommendations to the earthly mind, which is neither bad nor good, but of an intermediate character.
Questions on Philo:
1) Does Philo advocate predestination; i.e. the idea that some people are simply born good, others bad, and one cannot change one's Fate? Does he think that some people are created according to the "image and idea of God", and thus naturally predisposed to do the right thing, while others must struggle?
2) Isn't everyone made according to the image of God?
3) Philo says it is natural for God to tell ordinary people what to do, but the allegory of the inexperienced artist implies that the ordinary person can, with practice, achieve mastery of virtue become like one "created according to the image and idea of God."
4) It can often be difficult to classify philosophers into specific "boxes", like Universalist or Particularist. Do you feel that the two passages from Philo (this one, and the one quoted in the Universalist section) are consistent with each other? Do you agree with the classification of Philo as a Universalist (as the passage on Abraham might suggest), or does he tread more into Particularist positions in the Allegorical Interpretation passage? Or is he perhaps somewhere in the middle?
Given that, what is Philo's position on the need for divinely granted wisdom vs. human logic and discovery? Do we always need God's guiding wisdom, or can we, at least at some point, figure things out for ourselves?
Biblical Verses: