Warding Off Evil: Apotropaic Tradition in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Synoptic Gospels

Ancient responses to demonic evil were not limited to exorcism after an affliction had begun. Jewish texts from the Second Temple period also preserve prayers, psalms, invocations, and other practices intended to avert or restrain harm. This preventative category is commonly described as apotropaism.

Warding Off Evil studies that distinction across early Jewish material, especially the Dead Sea Scrolls, before returning to Matthew, Mark, and Luke. The comparison brings less obvious passages into view, including Jesus’s scriptural responses in the temptation narratives, Satan’s use of Psalm 91, and petitions for deliverance in the Lord’s Prayer.

The monograph provides the deepest scholarly foundation for Michael’s public work on protective prayer, demonology, sacred language, and authority. Its argument also clarifies why familiar passages such as the temptation narratives and the Lord’s Prayer look different when read against early Jewish traditions of protection from evil.