The Heavenly Book Motif
Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism, Volume 152
What did the ancient world imagine was written in heaven?
Across the apocalyptic literature of early Judaism and Christianity, an image recurs: a book kept in heaven — a record of deeds, a register of the living, a scroll of what is to come. In The Heavenly Book Motif in Judeo-Christian Apocalypses 200 BCE–200 CE, Leslie Baynes traces that image across the texts in which it appears, from 1 Enoch to the Book of Revelation to noncanonical texts like the Shepherd of Hermas and the Odes of Solomon.
What scholars are saying
“Baynes succeeds convincingly in demonstrating the significance of the heavenly book motif in Jewish and Christian apocalyptic literature. The images of heavenly books express highly important theological truths — for example, the “blotting out” of sins from the “book of deeds” speaks of the possibility of repentance open to humanity, of the absence of irreversibility and final predestination. ”Veronika Androsova St. Tikhon’s University Review, Series I, 42 (2012): 118–123
“This is a well written, clearly presented, and cogent analysis of the heavenly book motif. … Baynes’ work is an important contribution to the study of ancient Jewish and Christian apocalyptic literature, and deserves the careful attention of anyone whose interests fall within this field. ”Jody A. Barnard Journal for the Study of Judaism 44 (2013): 386–387
“The work is highly useful in its examination of the meaning attached to the motif of heavenly tablets in ancient Judaism and Christianity. … The typology established is both illuminating and fruitful, and the proposed survey is instructive. ”Christian Grappe Revue d’histoire et de philosophie religieuses 93, no. 3 (2013): 445
The book kept in heaven
Leslie Baynes’s first book is the work that established her in the field of ancient apocalyptic literature. Published by Brill in 2012, it takes up one of the most evocative images in early Jewish and Christian writing: the heavenly book.
A record of deeds, a register of the living, a scroll of destiny — written in heaven, opened in judgment.
The study follows the motif across the apocalypses of the period from 200 BCE to 200 CE, the centuries in which the form flourished. It engages the literature in which heavenly books loom largest — among them 1 Enoch and the Book of Revelation — texts that remain at the center of Baynes’s scholarship to this day.
What’s inside
- Introduction: State of the Question
- “But if Not, Blot Me Out of the Book”: Earthly and Heavenly Books in the Hebrew Scriptures up to Daniel
- “Everyone Who Is Found Written in the Book”: The Heavenly Book of Life in Daniel, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Other Second Temple Literature
- “And Books Were Opened”: The Heavenly Book of Deeds in Daniel and Other Second Temple Literature
- “It Has Been Written and Ordained”: Heavenly Tablets and the Book of Fate in Jubilees, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and Other Second Temple Literature
- “Who Is Worthy to Open the Scroll?”: The Adaptation of the Motif in the New Testament
- “But Not Like the Books of This World”: The Heavenly Book in Christian Literature of the Second Century
- Conclusion
