12 Dimensions of Baptism
Likewise, Sib. Or. 3.54 describes how 'the fiery cataract flows from
heaven'.^9 When the fiery stream reaches the earth, it forms a river which
causes destruction and death.^10
The idea is developed especially in Sib. Or. 2.196-205, where a great
river of burning fire flows down from heaven and consumes every place. A
few lines further on the writer states:
And then all will pass through the blazing river
and the unquenchable flame. All the righteous
will be saved, but the impious will then be destroyed (2.252-54).nThis particular section of the Oracles has been subject to Christian influ-
ence and it is therefore hard to date the ideas contained in it, but they do
bear witness to a particular strand of thought in the widespread and well-
attested expectation that the final judgment would be associated with fire.^12
Of particular interest, however, are the Dead Sea Scrolls with their un-
doubtedly pre-Christian contents. Here also the description of the terrors
of the end of the world includes the idea of a river of fire destroying all it
touches:
Then the torrents of Belial will overflow their high banks like a fire which
devours all those drawing water (?) destroying every tree, green or dry,
from its canals. He revolves like flames of fire until none of those who
drink are left. He consumes the foundations of clay and the tract of dry
land; the bases of the mountains does he burn and converts the roots of flint
rock into streams of lava. It consumes right to the great deep. The torrents
of Belial burst into Abaddon (1QH 11.29-32).^13- JJ. Collins, in OTP, I, p. 363. Cf. Sib. Or. 3.84-86,689-92; 5.274,377-78; cf. 1
En. 102.1; 2 En. 10.2. - It is not a far cry from the notion of a river to that of an actual lake of fire such
as we have in the description of the final judgment in Rev. 19.20; 20.10,14 and 21.8. - See further Sib. Or. 2.286; 8.411.
- For further references see F. Lang, TDNT, VI, pp. 937-38. Cf. E. Schweizer,
TDNT, VI, p. 398 n. 417; G. Stahlin, TDNT, V, p. 436 n. 381; SB III, p. 773; G. Del-
ling, 'BATTTIIMA BATTTII0HNAI',^ovr2 (1958), pp. 92-117, esp. pp. 105-107.
Cf. Pss. Sol. 15.4; 2 Apoc. Bar. 48.39. - Cited from F.G. Martinez, The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated (Leiden: E. J. Brill;
Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996). This text is 1QH 3.29-32 on the older system of refer-
ence. In 1QH 11.13-18 the judgment is likened to the plight of sailors in a boat in a
storm which is engulfed so that they go down to the abyss. The metaphor of a flood or
stream of water can also be used of judgment and destruction (4Q163 frags. 2-3, citing
Isa. 8.7-8; Martinez, Dead Sea Scrolls, p. 187). It is interesting that, as in Gen. 7.11,
both the heavens pour out water from above and the abyss wells up water from below
in the flood (4Q370 1.4-5; Martinez, Dead Sea Scrolls, p. 224); cf. 1 En. 89.2-4.