מבול ביער הלבנון: שרידים מיתולוגיים מן הלבנט במגילות מדבר יהודה

Jewish apocalyptic literature, especially in Aramaic, includes traditions that are not exclusively Jewish. Many of these traditions were shared by other participants in the cultural hybrid of the early Hellenistic Levant, encompassing Mesopotamian and Greek lore alongside local indigenous material. The Enochic books of Watchers and Giants exemplify this hybrid, and as I show here, it is also attested in the Dead Sea Scrolls, both in Aramaic and in Hebrew. Several traditions recount a story about two stelae that preserve ancient wisdom, constructed to survive floods of both water and fire. This story reflects acquaintance with multiple ancient monuments—mostly carrying cuneiform script and Mesopotamian iconography—dispersed in theLevant, and especially in Lebanon. The Nebuchadnezzar monuments at Brisa are a prime example. This environment is also the origin for the apocalyptic motif of a grove or forest that also preserves ancient wisdom, which will be destroyed in the coming flood. This grove is tended by semi-divine gardeners, the Watchers, who tend the plants but also bring destruction upon them. This tradition is reflected in the Aramaic Book of Giants, whose readings and significance is discussed here. Special attention is given to the motif of writing and its obliteration. Finally, the same tradition is traced in the Hodayot (1QHa column 16). While this famous hymn incorporates biblical motifs and vocabulary from Ezekiel and Ben Sira, it is fundamentally based on the mythic pattern of the Lebanon forest and its obliteration in the flood. The Hodayot convey a somewhat tame manifestation of this mythological tradition, which originated in the Aramaic apocalypses. A motif from the area of Syria–Lebanon thus found its way to the heart of Jewish apocalypticism.