Babylonian Scribalism and the Production of Apocalypses and Related Early Jewish Texts

This article takes stock of the burgeoning body of research that seeks to locate elements of early Jewish apocalyptic texts as originating within a Babylonian scribal milieu. The only truly convincing claims of this nature involve those elements of apocalyptic and related works that exhibit esoteric, technical knowledge – e.g. astronomical, metrological – that can be traced to a Babylonian scribal curriculum. The highly technical aspects of such specialized instruction should not be taken as evidence of a scribal-pedagogical strain within apocalyptic literature that relates it intimately to wisdom literature. Rather, any emphasis on a “scribal character” of both apocalyptic and wisdom texts misconstrues the nature of ancient scribal practice, which is distinctive of no particular type of literature.