The Early Enoch Literature

The Early Enoch Literature

Supplements to the

Journal for the Study of Judaism Editor

John J. Collins The Divinity School, Yale University Associate Editors

Florentino García Martínez Qumran Institute, University of Groningen

Hindy Najman Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations, University of Toronto Advisory Board

j. duhaime – a. hilhorst – p. w. van der horst a. klostergaard petersen – m. a. knibb j. t. a. g. m. van ruiten – j. sievers – g. stemberger e. j. c. tigchelaar – j. tromp

VOLUME 121

The Early Enoch Literature Edited by

Gabriele Boccaccini and John J. Collins

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2007

This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress

ISSN 1384-2161 ISBN 978 90 04 16154 2 Copyright 2007 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands

CONTENTS Introduction: The Contemporary Renaissance of Enoch Studies and the Enoch Seminar .............................................. Gabriele Boccaccini Mapping Second Temple Judaism .............................................. James C. VanderKam

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1

The Book of Enoch or Books of Enoch? The Textual Evidence for 1 Enoch .............................................................. Michael A. Knibb

21

The Early Traditions Related to 1 Enoch from the Dead Sea Scrolls: An Overview and Assessment .................................... Loren T. Stuckenbruck

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The Place of the Torah in the Early Enoch Literature ............... Andreas Bedenbender

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Enochic Wisdom and Its Relationship to the Mosaic Torah ...... George W. E. Nickelsburg

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Measuring Time among the Jews: The Zadokite Priesthood, Enochism, and the Lay Tendencies of the Maccabean Period Paolo Sacchi

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The Astral Laws as the Basis of Time, Universal History, and the Eschatological Turn in the Astronomical Book and the Animal Apocalypse of 1 Enoch ........................ 119 Klaus Koch Cosmic Laws and Cosmic Imbalance: Wisdom, Myth and Apocalyptic in Early Enochic Writings ................................... 139 Helge S. Kvanvig

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contents

1 Enoch and Ben Sira: Wisdom and Apocalypticism in Relationship ............................................................................ 159 Benjamin G. Wright III Wisdom and Counter-Wisdom in 4QInstruction, Mysteries and 1 Enoch ............................................................................ 177 Eibert Tigchelaar Temples and the Temple in the Early Enoch tradition: Memory, Vision, and Expectation .......................................................... 195 David W. Suter Temple and Priests in the Book of the Watchers, the Animal Apocalypse and the Apocalypse of Weeks .............................. 219 Martha Himmelfarb The Sociological Settings of the Components of 1 Enoch ......... 237 Patrick Tiller “Sitting by the Waters of Dan, or The “Tricky Business” of Tracing the Social Prole of the Communities that Produced the Earliest Enochic Texts ....................................... 257 Pierluigi Piovanelli “Enochic Judaism” and the Sect of the Dead Sea Scrolls .......... 283 John J. Collins Enochians, Urban Essenes, Qumranites: Three Social Groups, One Intellectual Movement .................................................... 301 Gabriele Boccaccini Conclusion: Mapping the Threads ............................................. 329 Florentino García Martínez Enoch and the Enoch Tradition: A Bibliography, 2000–Present James Waddell

337

Index ........................................................................................... 349

INTRODUCTION: THE CONTEMPORARY RENAISSANCE OF ENOCH STUDIES, AND THE ENOCH SEMINAR In the winter 2000, a group of specialists in Enoch literature began corresponding via e-mail and decided to meet the following year in Florence, Italy (many of them for the very rst time, face to face) not to present papers but to discuss in a seminar format the results of their research. George Nickelsburg had just completed the manuscript of the rst volume of his monumental commentary on 1 Enoch (1 Enoch 1: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch, Chapters 1–36; 81–108, Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001). Several other specialists, in the United States, Europe, and Israel, were studying the same material as evidence for a distinct stream of apocalyptic thought in Second Temple Judaism. Working autonomously these scholars had opened new, convergent paths in the understanding of the Enoch literature. The time was ripe for them to share their experiences. It took the technological innovation of the electronic mail, however, to make it possible for them to communicate and organize a meeting in just a few months. By the summer 2000, the Enoch Seminar was ofcially born. The Experience of the First Enoch Seminars The rst meeting of the Enoch Seminar was held in Sesto Fiorentino, Florence, Italy (19–23 June 2001) at the Villa Corsi-Salviati, home of the University of Michigan in Italy, and focused on “The Origins of Enochic Judaism”. The meeting promoted the “rediscovery” of Enochic Judaism and the study of ancient Enoch literature as evidence for an ancient movement of dissent within Second Temple Judaism. Thirty-ve international specialists were in attendance. The second Enoch Seminar convened in Venice, Italy (1–4 July 2003) and was devoted to “Enoch and Qumran Origins.” The fty-three participants explored the complex and largely neglected relationship between the Qumran community and the Jewish group(s) behind the Enoch literature. The meeting was followed by a conference on Jewish and Christian messianism in collaboration with the Italian Biblical Association (BIBLIA).

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The third Enoch Seminar met at the Monastery of Camaldoli, in the mountains near Florence, Italy (6–10 June 2005) and was devoted to the study of the Book of the Parables (or Similitudes) of Enoch and to the problem of the Messiah “Son of Man.” In the summer of 2007 a fourth meeting is scheduled, once again at Camaldoli, and will focus on the merging on Enochic and Mosaic traditions in the Book of Jubilees. While dealing with a highly specialized topic (the Enoch literature), we soon realized that in the process we were accomplishing much more than expected. Since its rst gathering the Enoch Seminar has evolved into a sort of informal yet regular biennial meeting for scholars who around the world are interested in the study of Second Temple Judaism and Christian Origins. In a scholarship that is still largely divided according to canonical boundaries, the study of Enoch has given us the opportunity to break out of the “canons” of our specializations and the boundaries of our methodologies and has forced us to listen attentively to other specializations and other approaches. Enoch has proven to be an effective tool for tearing down long-standing walls of segregation. He is in fact an inter-canonical, inter-disciplinary character par excellence and as such requires an inter-canonical, inter-disciplinary approach by specialists of both Judaic and Christian Studies. The presence of Enoch texts among the Dead Sea Scrolls, the literary and ideological connections with Old and New Testament documents, and the countless ramications of Enochic ideas for the diverse Judaisms of the Second Temple period, including the Jesus movement, and later on in both Christianity and Rabbinic Judaism, make the study of Enoch literature a signicant concern for any specialist in ancient Judaism and Christian origins. It is this “spirit” of sharing and dialogue that has made the experience of the Enoch Seminars so intriguing and keeps us looking forward to many more sessions to come, and to a vast range of topics to cover, from “Enoch and Lady Wisdom” to “Enoch and Christian Origins” and “Enoch and First Century Apocalypticism.” The Present Volume While the Enoch Seminar provides some opportunity for meeting and discussion, its success has been prompted by the growth, in these last years, of a renewed interest in Enoch literature that has materialized in the writing of numerous books, articles, reviews and dissertations.

introduction

ix

Recently, two new English translations of 1 Enoch have been published: Daniel Olson, Enoch: A New Translation (N. Richland Hills: BIBAL, 2004) and George Nickelsburg and James VanderKam, The Book of Enoch (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2004). The publication of the second volume of George Nickelsburg’s commentary, which in collaboration with James VanderKam will cover the Astronomical Book and the Similitudes of Enoch, will soon provide the most complete and detailed scholarly commentary to date on the Book of Enoch since its “rediscovery” in the eighteenth century. A major commentary on 1 Enoch 91–108 is also in preparation by Loren Stuckenbruck. The Enoch Seminar itself has produced four collections of published essays with more on the way. The rst, The Origins of Enochic Judaism (ed. G. Boccaccini, Turin: Zamorani, 2002 = Henoch 14.1–2, 2002), includes the contributions of twenty-three specialists who explore the intellectual and sociological origins of Enochic Judaism as well as the early theology of the movement and its relationship to the Zadokite priesthood and the wisdom tradition. The volume Enoch and Qumran Origins: New Light on a Forgotten Connection (ed. G. Boccaccini, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), the second major publication of the Enoch Seminar, contains an additional forty-seven contributions of Enoch specialists who attended the 2003 Venice conference. A third volume, Il Messia tra memoria e attesa (ed. G. Boccaccini, Brescia: Morcelliana, 2005), resulted from the Proceedings of the 2003 BIBLIA conference in Venice. Finally, a fourth major publication project, Enoch and the Messiah Son of Man: Revisiting the Book of Parables (ed. G. Boccaccini, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007) has been recently completed with thirty-four contributions, all of them dealing specically with the theology and sociology of the latest part of 1 Enoch. At the Venice meeting in 2003, a group of participants, namely John Collins, Florentino García Martínez, Michael Knibb, George Nickelsburg, James VanderKam, and myself, decided to plan an additional collection of essays on “The Early Enoch Literature.” The intent was to summarize and intensify the results of the rst two Enoch Seminars. Sixteen specialists, all veterans of the Enoch Seminar, agreed to contribute. As Florentino García Martínez emphasizes in a concluding statement, the decision was made to address the most important aspects of the research in the earliest parts of 1 Enoch (text, law, wisdom, calendar, etc.), while fully recognizing the complexity of the issues as well as the presence of different approaches. This book was then planned neither

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as a celebration, nor as the vehicle of an unlikely compromise, but as an open forum where contrasting views could meet and enter in dialogue with one another. The results of our common efforts and discussions, of our disagreements no less than of our consensuses, are here presented to the attention and consideration of international readers. I would like to thank Pierpaolo Bertalotto and Ronald Ruark for assistance in preparing the manuscript. Gabriele Boccaccini University of Michigan Ann Arbor, MI, United States 28 December 2006 P. S. The editing of this volume was initially entrusted to Gabriele Boccaccini alone. Boccaccini, however, did not nd it possible to complete the editing or attend to the proofs, and so John Collins took over the editing in its later stages. Hence the joint editorship.

MAPPING SECOND TEMPLE JUDAISM James C. VanderKam University of Notre Dame Several scholars have attempted to trace a few dominant streams of tradition and thought in Second Temple Jewish texts and to connect them with particular groups.1 Earlier in the modern period, especially in the Protestant world, it was possible to prescind from such efforts because a large swath of the period was denigrated as 400 years of silence, stretching from Malachi to John the Baptist or Jesus. With the rise of critical scholarship on the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament, the situation changed. Scholars began positing the presence of later sections in earlier books (Maccabean Psalms, for instance) or lowering the dates of entire books (e.g., Daniel) into the former era of silence. In this way the vacant area began to be populated. An additional factor encouraging the new situation was a growing interest in the extra-canonical Jewish literature of the period. As additional texts became available, it became more feasible to study the development of Jewish thought between the Testaments. In 1914 Robert Henry Charles wrote: Old Testament criticism has, therefore, narrowed down the so-called “period of silence” to something under two centuries. But recent research has shown that no such period ever existed. In fact, we are now in a position to prove that these two centuries were in many respects centuries of greater spiritual progress than any two that had preceded them in Israel. The materials for such a proof are to be found in a minor degree in the Apocrypha . . . but mainly in the Pseudepigrapha—that not inconsiderable body of literature which was written between 180 BC and AD 100 and issued pseudonymously, i.e. under assumed names, which are always the names of various ancient worthies in Israel anterior to the time of Ezra. Owing to the efforts of Ezra and his spiritual successors the Law came to be regarded as the complete and the last word of God to men. When this view of the law became dominant it is obvious that no man,

1 I wish to thank John Collins and Michael Knibb for reading an earlier draft of this paper and for offering valuable comments on it.

2

james c. vanderkam however keenly he felt himself to be the bearer of a divine message to his countrymen, could expect a hearing. Hence with a view to gain a hearing such men published a series of books—only a portion of which has been preserved—under the names of Ezra, Baruch, Jeremiah, Isaiah, Moses, Enoch, etc.2

Charles, rightly renowned as a master of the two bodies of literature he mentioned, envisaged an era in which the law dominated Jewish life and thought, leaving other voices to pass along their differing ideas under the guise of ancient heroes of faith. It was within this framework that Charles understood “apocalyptic,” which he related very closely to prophecy. On his view, while prophecy and “apocalyptic” dealt with the same subjects and employed the same methods, the scope of the latter was much larger in space and time: Moreover, inasmuch as prophecy had died long before the Christian era, and its place had been taken by apocalyptic, it was from the apocalyptic side of Judaism that Christianity was born—and in that region of Palestine where apocalyptic and not legalism held its seat—even in Galilee from whence, as we know, came our Lord and eleven of His disciples. The existence of two forms of Pharisaism in pre-Christian Judaism, i.e. the apocalyptic and the legalistic, which were the historical forerunners respectively of Christianity and Talmudic Judaism, demands here further notice.3

Both of Charles’s kinds of Pharisaism were based on the law; a work such as the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs proved for him that this was the case for the apocalyptic form of Pharisaism as well as for the legalistic type. At some point, however, apparently by a natural development, “apocalyptic” abandoned the law while the legalistic form all the more earnestly embraced it. Thus “apocalyptic” passed over into Christianity where the law was jettisoned. The picture presented by Charles is of the law as the dominant factor for all Jews. While most Jews focused on it, an apocalyptic tradition came to emphasize it to a lesser degree. True to his theory about different kinds of Pharisees, Charles attributed several of the Pseudepigrapha to Pharisaic authors.

2 R. H. Charles, “Introduction,” Religious Development Between the Old and the New Testaments (Home University Library of Modern Knowledge, 88; New York: Henry Holt; London: Williams and Norgate, 1914) 8–9. 3 Charles, “Prophecy and Apocalyptic,” Religious Development, 32–33.

mapping second temple judaism

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Charles has been cited here as an example—a towering gure from an earlier era who found two major traditions in second temple Judaism and attributed them to two related but distinguishable groups. As the period has moved more and more into the light of day, scholars have continued to propose ways to map the religious currents of the time. That is, through careful study of the many texts, they have attempted to discern the main lines of thinking during the nearly 600 years of the second temple or large (especially earlier) parts of it. All must admit in the end that the sources are too sparse and/or difcult to be highly condent of the results, but, using the evidence we have, they have felt justied in advancing their hypotheses. Like Charles before them, several contemporary scholars have also found two basic kinds of Judaism during the period. A few of the published “maps” of second temple thought are summarized in the next section.4 Otto Plöger, Theokratie und Eschatologie (Neukirchen: Neukirchener, 1959; 2nd ed., 1962) = Theocracy and Eschatology (Richmond: John Knox, 1968).5 Plöger’s aim was to “investigate a historical problem and suggest a possible fresh solution.”6 On his view, the period of the prophets came to an end after the second temple was built. Their successors “retreated into anonymity, and only later additions and supplements to the writings of their great predecessors inform us of their existence.”7 Some 300 years later when, under the decrees of Antiochus IV, the Jews revolted and tried to rebuild a kingdom, among the various kinds of participants in the movement were the Pious whose spirit may be expressed by the book of Daniel. The origin of these Hasidim is a key issue for Plöger. His study is concerned primarily with the period from the fth to the second century. During that time, he thought, there were two principal strands of thought articulated in the Jewish texts.

4 Naturally, each of the scholars whose work is surveyed built upon the research of predecessors, but for the sake of brevity the debt which they owe to others is usually not noted in the pages below. 5 Plöger (“Preface to the English Edition,” Theocracy and Eschatology) wrote that “apart from minor corrections there were no alterations to the rst edition of 1959.” (vi) The English translation is from the second German edition. 6 Ibid., vii. 7 Ibid., vii.

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The rst is the institutionally based approach expressed in the Priestly source. According to it, history culminated in Moses’s time with the establishment of the cult and the law; no further development was to be expected. Chronicles-Ezra-Nehemiah evidence the same non-historical stance. For Chronicles, the prophets had done their work in setting up the theocracy which, once it was in place, was not subject to historical change. The goal of earlier eschatological hopes had been realized in the community centered on the cult and law. Later, when they assumed control, the Hasmoneans adopted this point of view. Their stale, changeless world view led to a kind of secularization, leaving some prominent priests on the lookout for something new such as Hellenism. Quite opposed to the static, theocratic stance, more eschatologically inclined conventicles formed in Israel. They were convinced of the contemporary validity of the prophetic word; it is understandable that these circles should have felt it necessary to band together in a conventicle type of association on the lines of the community at Jerusalem with which they were familiar. Such an “internal” separation need not have led to outward division as long as no particular occasion arose. But if, as a result of the non-eschatological and increasingly aimless attitude of the leading priestly aristocracy, we should take into account a tendency to give way to foreign inuences, especially Hellenistic, then it is understandable that the circles of this secret isolationism received fresh encouragement because on their view the model of the true Israel was more fully embodied in their own ranks.8

The conventicles which embraced a more eschatological approach and whose developing thought would, with sharper denition, lead to apocalyptic eschatology were peripheral groups and thus somehow more open to foreign ideas such as Iranian dualism.9 They used these ideas to articulate more clearly the distinction between themselves and others. They imposed their dualistic worldview onto their own situation marked by opposition to the ofcial community.10 After sketching the two movements in Jewish society in the land, Plöger next adduced traces of this evolving worldview in three late units of prophetic literature: Isaiah 24–27, Zechariah 12–14, and Joel. In Isaiah 24–27 Plöger distinguished two units—26–26 and 27. In the earlier chapters one sees a division between two Israelite groups:

8 9 10

Plöger, Theocracy and Eschatology, 45. Ibid., 47. Ibid., 48.

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the righteous and the godless (e.g., 26:7–18); the contours of the two, however, are still uid. The righteous here are those who accept the eschatological insight (including a belief in resurrection) that history is hastening to its end, although there was disagreement among the eschatological groups regarding what constituted the events of the latter days. The godless are the ones who fail to acknowledge this insight. That is, there was an internal Jewish schism between those with and without eschatological faith.11 Plöger dated chaps. 24–26 in the latter part of the Ptolemaic period; chap. 27, which speaks of the reunication of Israel, he considered much older (from approximately the time of Ezra and Nehemiah). In Zechariah 12–14 the eschatological emphasis is much greater than in chaps. 9–11. Jerusalem, that is, the eschatological people of God, is central here. The section retains the idea that Israel occupies an exceptional position, founded as it was on the cult and law. To that concept it adds the idea of the remnant. That is, the expectations of the prophets had not yet been realized in the present community. Plöger locates Zechariah 12–14 in the rst decades of the third century (thus earlier than Isaiah 24–26), since the relationship of the eschatological group to the ofcial community is closer than in later texts. Joel is his third source. The rst two chapters of the prophetic book demonstrate that the writer was not opposed to cultic piety; rather, as chaps. 3 and 4 show, the eschatological hope was what lent signicance to the cult.12 Hopes for restoration made sense only if they related to an Israel committed to an eschatological faith. Plöger, who dates chaps. 1, 2, and 4 to the last century of Persian rule, thought that chap. 3 expressed some restrictions on chap. 4. Plöger, as a result, sketches a line of development, a series of sign posts along the way leading from older stages of restoration eschatology to the dualistic, apocalyptic eschatology of Daniel. The three prophetic units belong in this chronological order: Joel Zechariah 12–14 Isaiah 24–26 (27 is fth century)

11 12

Ibid., 76. Ibid., 101.

late Persian period early Ptolemaic period late Ptolemaic period

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The crucial tension (he recognizes this is something of a simplication) in Jewish thought was between the static, theocratic understanding according to which the prophets were gures of the past with no contemporary relevance and the eschatologically minded conventicles for whom the prophets’ oracles served as means to prepare them for and inform them about an approaching future.13 In the exilic and early postexilic periods large parts of the community hoped for Israel’s renewal and restoration, but some did not interpret the resulting theocratic, cultic community as the anticipated restoration of which the prophets had spoken. Tensions therefore developed between the theocratic leaders and these more eschatologically driven people. The internal division might have remained only that if external problems had not come along. Such problems did in fact arise with the end of Persian dominion, the expansion of Hellenism, and the Samaritan schism. Chronicles buttressed the static, cultic concept, but Zechariah 12–14 express the protests of eschatological circles against this non-eschatological view. These chapters declare that there will be painful tribulations before the Lord comes to exercise his eschatological rule in Zion. Plöger thought that a split in Jewish society was avoided during the rst century of Greek rule. There eventually were some conventicles that broke away; they were the ones who transformed restoration eschatology into an apocalyptic eschatology that included the idea of a personal resurrection (rst found in Isa 26:11–12 and later in Daniel 12). According to Daniel 12 (which echoes the theology of the Hasidim), the fate of Jewish opponents will be worse than that of non-Jews. The dissenting Jews would be raised to everlasting shame, while the gentiles would not be raised at all. Among the factors leading to this radical division in the second century were the Hellenizing of the ruling circles and the shameful handling of the high priesthood (as in the case of Onias III). The eschatological groups were parts of the opposition (along with the Hasmoneans), but they, believing revolution would come from the Lord, did not play a leading role in it. Daniel was associated with the Hasidim, and this stream was responsible for collecting a closed prophetic canon, supplemented by the Torah.14 Developing within this

13

Ibid., 109–10. This is not the place to elaborate the point, but Plöger’s proposal that the Hasidim had a much longer history than previously thought, possibly going back to the late Persian period, proved inuential. Martin Hengel wrote at length about “The Hasidim 14

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stream was also the view later to be associated with the Pharisees: the prophets were the tradents and interpreters of the Torah. This was opposed by others such as the Sadducees. Paul Hanson, The Dawn of Apocalyptic: The Historical and Sociological Roots of Jewish Apocalyptic Eschatology (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975; rev. ed. 1979).15 In some important respects Hanson’s hypothesis proceeds along lines similar to those drawn by Plöger, but he does insist, contrary to Plöger, that the eschatological vision ought not to be associated with just one party. He explains that his study focuses on one strand which can be seen running at the heart of many of the so-called apocalyptic works, the strand of apocalyptic eschatology. It seeks to demonstrate that the rise of apocalyptic eschatology is neither sudden nor anomalous, but follows the pattern of an unbroken development from pre-exilic and exilic prophecy. Outside inuences (e.g., Persian dualism and Hellenism) upon this apocalyptic eschatology appear to be late, coming only after its essential character was fully developed. They are thereby limited in their inuence to peripheral embellishments.16

For Hanson, three primary factors explain the development of apocalyptic eschatology: (1) the self-identication of the protagonists with the classical prophetic tradition (2) their appropriation of archaic league and royal mythopoeic material which they began interpreting literally

and the First Climax of Jewish Apocalyptic”. He understood the varied references to Hasidim in the Psalms and in other texts to refer to the same group and made them responsible for the apocalyptic literature of the second century BCE (Daniel, the Apocalypse of Weeks, the Animal Apocalypse). See M. Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism: Studies in their Encounter in Palestine during the Early Hellenistic Period (2 vols.; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1974) 1.175–218. From another angle, Frank M. Cross argued that the Essenes and Pharisees were descendants of the Hasidim, with the Essenes developing the more apocalyptic side of their thinking. See F. M. Cross, The Ancient Library of Qumran and Modern Biblical Studies (Garden City: Doubleday, 1958) 99–101, 107, 116, 147–48. 15 The revised edition differs from the rst in including an appendix “An Overview of Early Jewish and Christian Apocalypticism” (427–44). Otherwise the text and pagination of the two are the same. See also P. Hanson, “Israelite Religion in the Early Postexilic Period,” in P. Miller, P. Hanson, and S. D. McBride (eds.), Ancient Israelite Religion: Essays in Honor of Frank Moore Cross (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1987) 485–508. 16 Hanson, The Dawn of Apocalyptic, 7–8.

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(3) “a setting in a crisis-ridden post-exilic community struggling to adjust to the loss of nationhood and tremulous under a new threat to the unity of the community in the form of a growing schism between two factions, one visionary, the other hierocratic.”17 So, the prophetic tradition was transformed into apocalyptic eschatology when it was transferred into the new context. The post-exilic tension between vision and reality led to the development of apocalyptic eschatology. In order to avoid Plöger’s problem of identifying apocalyptic eschatology with one group, Hanson opts for more Weberian categories: he wants to deal with the relations of groups to persons and positions of power in the nation and cult. The visionary impulse giving rise to apocalyptic eschatology tends to be strongest among those embracing the prophetic promise of Yahweh’s restoration of the faithful but at the same time witnessing the political and social structures of their nation falling into the hands of adversaries, thereby vitiating the possibility of fulllment within the existing order of things. The pragmatic or realistic impulse tends to be strongest among those exercising control over political and religious structures; they often actively opposed the visionaries, viewing them as a threat to their positions of leadership.18

In Isaiah 56–66 one can isolate the two impulses and recognize their relations to power structures. Second Isaiah had reintroduced the cosmic vision into prophecy, taking it from ancient myth and liturgical material serving the royal cult. The result was a blend of cosmic vision and mundane, historical reality. But the grand and optimistic vision of prophetic eschatology ran into the bleak realities of the post-exilic community. 2 Isaiah’s followers, far from becoming the priests of a splendid nation, suffered oppression. Apocalyptic eschatology arose as their vision failed to be realized in this world; fulllment migrated to a cosmic level, with myth enjoying a resurgence but not tied to history. Abandonment of history was, however, never to be total. Hanson sketches a gradual history of apocalyptic eschatology in these sources.

17 18

Ibid., 9–10. Ibid., 21.

mapping second temple judaism Proto-apocalyptic work: Early apocalyptic works: Full-blown apocalyptic work:

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2 Isaiah (sixth century) 3 Isaiah, Zechariah 9–10; Isaiah 24–27 (late sixth–early fth centuries) Zechariah 11–14 (end of the sixth to ca. 425)

The conict between hierocratic (Zadokite) and visionary elements was, then, the matrix in which this line of thought developed. He devotes a large amount of space to an attempt at tracing the conict in the texts, using what he calls a contextual-typological method—one that involves much concern with the traditions to which a passage belongs, its poetic structure, meter, and literary type. He begins with various units in 3 Isaiah (including the restoration program in 60–62), and surveys the contrasting hierocratic texts such as Ezekiel 40–48, which found prophetic legitimation in Haggai and Zechariah. The apocalyptic thrust of this tradition ended in 515 BCE with completion of the second temple. “It can therefore be maintained that the hierocratic party entered the last two decades of the sixth century as the dominant power in the Jewish community largely due to the infusion of the prophetic spirit into their languishing cause by the prophets Haggai and Zechariah.”19 These prophets tied eschatological hopes to a particular program and set of leaders who were in place and used apocalyptic themes to buttress the establishment within this world. The disenfranchised grew more bitter as they were excluded and looked to an entirely new order in which their vision would be realized. Polemics between the two sides became harsher and their positions more xed. There were points, however, at which conciliation was attempted. For example, the Chronicler presents a dyarchy of priests (both Zadokites [= Eleazarites] and Ithamarites) and a king. The conict continued, as one can read in Zechariah 9–14, where it is also evident that the followers of 2 Isaiah as well as disenfranchised Levites still belonged to this trend as they had in the immediate postexilic period. Apparently the hierocratic policy of cooperation with the Persians, who had authorized the second temple, and the presence of corrupt leaders in the Jewish community supplied fuel to iname the dissidents. But their most serious criticism “was the virtual indifference of the hierocratic party toward eschatology and their tendency

19

Ibid., 246.

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to regard as eternal, absolute, and immune to judgment a temple and priesthood, supported by a foreign alliance, in which the opponents were able to recognize nothing of what they believed were the signs of the eschaton.”20 There was now a sharp division within Israel between the true people of God and the others. Divine warrior traditions became more popular among them, with a cosmic battle to precede the dawning of a new era. Gabriele Boccaccini, Roots of Rabbinic Judaism: An Intellectual History, from Ezekiel to Daniel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002). While Plöger and Hanson conned their attention largely to late prophetic works in the Hebrew Scriptures or to Daniel (in Plöger’s case), Boccaccini has attempted to chart major movements over a much larger range of literature. In the following paragraphs the relevant contributions from his latest book in particular will be surveyed.21 Boccaccini conducts what he calls “systemic analysis” which he denes as an interdisciplinary enterprise, aiming at a comprehensive assessment of the ideological relations among ancient sources. By borrowing criteria commonly used in the study of intellectual history (or history of philosophy), systemic analysis offers a reliable methodology both to deconstruct the traditional corpora and reconstruct the original relations among documents. By taking into consideration the complexity of literary, sociological, historical, and ideological factors, it establishes a continuum among groups of related writings, thus identifying a variety of synchronic “chains of documents” or “communities of texts” that correspond to different varieties of ancient Judaism.22

The circumscribed number of texts that have survived and the state in which they are extant set limits on the results. Boccaccini sets out the contours of his hypothesis in a chart. For him, unlike Plöger and Hanson, the “chains of documents” evidence three major streams of tradition, not just two.23

20

Ibid., 284–85. See also his earliest works: G. Boccaccini, Middle Judaism: Jewish Thought, 300 BCE to 200 CE (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991); Beyond the Essene Hypothesis: The Parting of the Ways between Qumran and Enochic Judaism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998). 22 Boccaccini, Roots of Rabbinic Judaism, 31. 23 It is not clear from Roots of Rabbinic Judaism how the late prophetic literature that is crucial for Plöger and Hanson ts into the trajectories traced by Boccaccini. 21

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(1) Zadokite Judaism can be traced from Ezekiel through Ezra-Nehemiah, P, and Chronicles (2) Sapiential Judaism is attested by Ahiqar and later by Proverbs, Job, Jonah, and Qoheleth (3) Originating somewhat later than the other two, Enochic Judaism nds expression in the Book of the Watchers, Aramaic Levi, and the Astronomical Book of Enoch. Boccaccini denes the rst kind in this way: “Zadokite Judaism was a society that unceasingly and persistently dened the boundaries of cosmic and societal structure; rules and regulations were enforced to restrict or control interaction and avoid trespassing.”24 The Genesis 1 creation account set forth the boundaries in the world, while in a corresponding way the purity system articulated a scale of graded holiness. In society atop the ladder “are the Zadokite high priests, followed by the Aaronite priests, the levites, male Jews, female Jews, Gentiles, clean and unclean animals. Such a division makes each class of living beings subject to different purity laws and denes their mutual relations as well as their cultic responsibilities toward God.”25 Spatially, the temple was at the center with the highest degree of holiness, followed by Jerusalem, Judah, and the remaining places. In time a sabbatical calendar of 364 days regulated sacred periods. Violation of the divinely instituted boundaries could lead to disastrous consequences. But even serious violations and resulting punishment would end in restoration. “God is perfectly capable of controlling and suppressing any rebellion without destroying the work of creation. There is no room in the Zadokite worldview for extreme measures that would lead to the end of times and a new creation. Despite any odds, this world is and remains the good and orderly universe created by God, and there is no reason God should destroy God’s most perfect accomplishment.”26 At some point a priestly opposition group developed—the advocates of Enochic Judaism. “The catalyst of Enochic Judaism was a unique concept of the origin of evil that made the ‘fallen angels’ (the ‘sons of God’ also recorded in Gen 6:1–4) as ultimately responsible for the spread of evil and impurity on earth. According to the Book of the Watchers, despite God’s reaction and the subsequent Flood, the divine

24 25 26

Ibid., 73. Ibid., 74. Ibid., 76.

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order of creation was not restored. The cosmos did not return to what it was.”27 Boccaccini thinks this stance is in radical opposition to that of Zadokite Judaism. Where Zadokite Judaism saw the present as stable and orderly, the Enochians believed the divine order had been replaced by disorder. Humans are victims of a great primeval evil and have no chance against it. Where Zadokite Judaism stressed a stable order, the Enochic opposition “introduced the concept of the ‘end of days’ as the time of nal judgment and vindication beyond death and history”28—a new creation would follow this one. “The concept of a new creation implies that something went wrong in the rst creation—a disturbing and quite embarrassing idea that the Zadokites could not accept without denying the very foundations of their theology and power.”29 Yet another challenge from the Enochians was to the priesthood itself: “The attribution to Enoch of priestly characteristics as the intercessor in heaven between God and the fallen angels as well as the warnings of Aramaic Levi about his apostate descendants assume the existence of a purer pre-Aaronite priesthood and disrupt the Sinaitic foundations of the Zadokite structure of power as a later degeneration. When transferred within the Enochian worldview, the Zadokite claim of being the faithful keepers of the cosmic order sounds like the grotesque and guilty pretentiousness of evil usurpers.”30 The Enochians also questioned whether the cultic calendar corresponded with the structure of the cosmos. These Enochians emerged in the fourth century BCE as a priestly opposition. “Enochic Judaism was not the reaction of outsiders against the Zadokite order, but rather was the cry of insiders who (after a brief period of order) had seen denied (lost) (what they claimed were) their rights within the divine order. In the priestly worldview, the exclusion of legitimate priests from the earthly sanctuary could only mean that a ‘rebellion in heaven’ had occurred; humans had now to cope with ‘the collapse of the order of creation, with pugnacious forces unleashed in a vicious process of degeneration and decay.’ ”31 At rst the Enochians did not separate from other Jews but the Maccabean revolt transformed Enochic Judaism into Essenism.

27 28 29 30 31

Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid., Ibid.,

90–91. 91. 92. 92. 99–100.

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While the Enochians were supplying opposition from within the priesthood, the Zadokites also experienced conict with a lay movement—Sapiential Judaism whose roots of course went well back into the monarchic period. “The most striking feature of Sapiential Judaism is the absence of any reference to the Mosaic covenant and, more generally, to the priesthood. The authority on which Sapiential Judaism relies is that of the accumulated knowledge of teachers and parents (both father and mother), attentive observation of everyday experience, moral consensus, and, above all, deference to tradition.”32 Although the advocates of Sapiential Judaism, like the Enochians, shared much with the Zadokites, they became more of an opposing force or rather one that was indifferent to the cultic establishment. “The problem of Sapiential Judaism is that it does not see any correspondence between the order of the universe as revealed by God through creation and the order of the universe as supposedly revealed on Sinai and interpreted by the priests. Since the effects of the covenant are not conrmed by experience, the wise cannot help denying that retribution is regulated through obedience to the Zadokite Torah. This is not the way things are. The rules of partnership between God and humans as established by the Mosaic covenant simply do not work.”33 These three kinds of Judaism existed side by side for some time, but during the Ptolemaic period there was a “rapprochement” between Zadokite and Sapiential Judaism. Boccaccini thinks that with the arrival of Hellenism came a change in administration such that the civil and religious power was split; the division “gave to Sapiential Judaism new strength and an unprecedented freedom from the Jerusalem priesthood. It was in this climate that the book of Qoheleth or Ecclesiastes was composed, in Ptolemaic Jerusalem, in the rst half of the third century.”34 The author dealt sarcastically with the covenant theology of the Zadokites but scattered his venom farther by mocking the Enochians with their claims to special revelations through visions and dreams. Yet the bitterness of Qoheleth toward the Zadokites was followed by a change later in the century. A key cause seems to have been the union of the high-priestly family through marriage with the Tobiads. “The Zadokites were now among those rich people against whom one

32 33 34

Ibid., 103–104. Ibid., 108. Ibid., 120.

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could not even whisper. The process of rapprochement between Zadokite and Sapiential Judaism, fully recognized by scholars with regard to the book of Sirach, is rst evidenced a few decades before the end of the 3rd century, during the late Ptolemaic period, with the book of Tobit.”35 It turns out that this book is connected somehow with the Tobiad family in more than name. However, soon conditions changed when Antiochus III granted the high priest “the authority to collect not only the tithes for the temple but also the tributes and taxes owed to the king and to retain part of them.”36 The high priest was again politically supreme so that in the early Seleucid period we witness a golden age for the Zadokite priesthood. Ben Sira gives ardent voice to the conditions in this period. He is “more than a witness of Zadokite power; he is an apologist against their opponents.”37 Among those he opposes are the Enochians, particularly their pre-Aaronic priesthood and their assertion to have revelations about heavenly secrets. Creation is ordered, not disrupted by a rebellious power. There is no retribution after this life. The synthesis of Zadokite and Sapiential Judaism comes to expression in ben Sira’s claim that the Mosaic Torah is the embodiment of wisdom (146–47). The crisis in Maccabean times, with the end of the Zadokite power (though their ideology survived), shattered this synthesis. Around that time arose what Boccaccini considers a third way between Zadokite and Enochic Judaism—a way represented by the book of Daniel. The Aaronite Hasmoneans presented themselves as defenders of Zadokite tradition but as replacements for that house of priests. Enochic works such as the Book of Dream Visions continued to picture history as a process of increasing evil with no possibilities for humans to change it. This movement promised its own “not only a militant perspective of battle at the end of this period . . . but also a time of vindication for the martyrs in the world to come. The end of the Zadokite priesthood gave condence to the group, while the harshness of the struggle seemed to conrm the soundness of their ideas about the spread of evil and the degeneration of history. What was before a minority movement of a few priestly families, during

35

Ibid., 125. Ibid., 133. As a matter of fact, Antiochus never mentions the high priest in his grant. 37 Ibid., 136. 36

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the Maccabean crisis spread and won adherents and became a larger popular movement.”38 Daniel, quite unlike Enoch, was a hero who received special wisdom because of his obedience to Moses’s law. The book accepts revelation through various forms, including the ones popular in the Enochic booklets, but insists that all is obscure unless God explains it to a suitable person. As one can see from Daniel 7 and 9, the writer “shares the apocalyptic worldview and accepts the Enochic idea that history is condemned to inexorable degeneration—an idea that is indeed in sharp contrast with Zadokite Judaism. Yet, in spite of any similarities, a fundamental difference makes Daniel representative of yet a different party. Daniel opposes the Enochic doctrine of superhuman origin of evil, and strenuously defends the tenets of Zadokite covenantal theology.”39 Daniel’s determinism is for only a short part of history, not all of it as in Enoch; and the problem did not result from angelic sin but from violation of the covenant. The book also, unlike Enochic Judaism, recognized the legitimacy of the second temple. In Beyond the Essene Hypothesis, Boccaccini had made a case that the Qumran community as we know it from its texts was a group that broke away from the Enochians, that is, the Essenes as described by Philo and Josephus. The Qumranians were characterized by a radical dualism and a denial of angelic and human freedom. The works of Plöger, Hanson, and Boccaccini are a few of the attempts to sketch the lines of Jewish thought in various parts of the second temple period, but they are useful examples, each in its own way, of the kinds of results to which scholars have come. There is inadequate space here to address the many issues that arise from their hypotheses, but a few general comments are in order. 1. While such ambitious attempts are admirable and helpful to a certain extent, they encounter daunting problems. Obvious ones are the relatively small number of texts that have survived from especially the earlier centuries of the second temple period and the difculty of interpreting the ones that are available. Too often the few texts that underlie the analyses are so obscure and/or lacking in historical references that it is exceedingly difcult if not impossible to align them in an ordered progression. The texts used by Plöger and Hanson are cases in

38 39

Ibid., 168. Ibid., 183.

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point: Plöger favors later dates for Zechariah 12–14 and Isaiah 24–26 while Hanson places them centuries earlier. The problems of dating coupled with the difculty of the contents render attempts to draw sociological inferences perilous indeed. Here it is appropriate to mention Plöger’s claim that there were conventicles of eschatologically inclined people, perhaps even in the Persian period. At rst they functioned as an internal opposition but more and more they became estranged from the theocratic establishment which they criticized enthusiastically. Granted, it is possible there were such conventicles, but where in the sources are they mentioned?40 2. The number two has proved popular among the scholars who have mapped Jewish thought in the early second temple. Plöger and Hanson found two major trends, while Boccaccini’s three-category thesis differs from theirs in that he includes wisdom literature and they do not. But is the evidence sufciently clear to be this precise and are the categories properly dened? Or, to put it differently, are the classications neater than what is being classied? It has become more common in recent decades to speak of Judaisms rather than Judaism, at least for the later parts of our period, with the plural form being coined to designate several, not just two distinguishable kinds of Judaism. The three scholars surveyed do, I think, assume that the surviving texts allow us to reconstruct unbroken lines of development over fairly long periods in that one text builds on an earlier one (or several) and then serves as a base for the next development. Robert Carroll, in his long response to The Dawn of Apocalyptic, wrote about the difference between a gradualist approach (Hanson’s) and one positing discontinuous jumps.41 There may have been more of these jumps than the rather linear models sketched above suggest or at least the great gaps in our evidence make this a safer assumption. 3. None of the three pays much attention to literature produced in the diaspora. Are we to imagine that these texts fell into the same categories or were the traditions and trends different outside the land?

1 Macc 2:42 does mention a “company of Hasideans (   ,” but this (whatever  means here) is evidence only for the 160s BCE, not for the preceding centuries. At a still later time (rst century BCE) the Psalms of Solomon speak in the plural of    (17:16). 41 R. Carroll, “Twilight of Prophecy or Dawn of Apocalyptic?,” JSOT 14 (1979) 3–15, esp. 30. 40

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4. There are serious problems with the categories proposed by the three scholars. (a) First, all three agree there was a priestly or Zadokite establishment that centered on the temple and played signicant roles in Jewish society. There is no problem with this; it is documented in the sources. But, supposing we assume they have correctly identied the sources for the hierocratic viewpoint, what do they permit us to say about the adherents of this position? The only texts our scholars ascribe to this group are in the Hebrew Bible (Ezekiel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Chronicles); apparently the theocratic class, perhaps some of the few literate individuals in their society, wrote nothing after this (until the synthesizing works Tobit and Sirach, according to Boccaccini). What emerges from these texts, if they are regarded as expressing the views of the Zadokite establishment? Here one encounters serious difculties with categories because it is difcult to read the texts as expressing one viewpoint. If the scholars’ categories are correct, there must have been a lot of good will within the groups such that they could embrace people who held diametrically opposed views. The point was made by Odil Steck, who, partially in response to Theokratie und Eschatologie, highlighted important differences between the theology of the Chronicler himself and that of the prayers of confession in Nehemiah 1, 9 and Ezra 9.42 For the Chronicler, the time of the exile was decisive and lay in the past; now Israel’s sins nd atonement through the Jerusalem cult. Jews in the diaspora were to adhere to this Jerusalem temple community, with no return needed or expected. In this age, God ruled through the Persian king, and there was no anticipation of a future, eschatological event of salvation. In the prayers in Ezra and Nehemiah, though, the situation is vastly different. The catastrophes of 722 and 587 form part of a history of disobedience which continued into the post-exilic period as shown, for example, by the dispersion and foreign rule. So, there was a continuity of guilt with pre-exilic Israel that justied the continuing divine judgment. The Jerusalem temple cult did not offer a way out of this situation. One had to continue repenting until the time came when God would forgive Israel. Only then would there be a restoration, with the people playing no signicant role. In

42 O. H. Steck, “Das Problem theologischer Strömungen in nachexilischer Zeit,” EvT 28 (1968) 445–58. Steck, with many others, sees Chronicles, Ezra, and Nehemiah as a literary unit, but the point has been vigorously debated.

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these prayers one also nds a hope for restoration of the twelve tribes to the land; that is, the North was an integral part of this scenario. Foreign rule was not viewed positively. Consequently the post-exilic community, far from having realized its salvation, was in a proleptic condition, decidedly short of the expected salvation when God would curse the foreign ruler. If Steck’s analysis is correct, what should we say was the theology of the Zadokite establishment? It seems as if even some Zadokites adopted an eschatology that remained unrealized. Much more could be said about the portrait of the priestly/Zadokite position which tends to be negative, not to say caricatured, in the surveys sketched above. If the Priestly source expresses their viewpoint, then order in creation and society with a concern for issues of purity were important; that seems obvious enough. But that there was no room in such a view for an Enochic understanding of postdiluvian evil or for varied kinds of eschatological hopes seems much less transparent. The Enochians, too, were much concerned about order and human violation of it. (b) All three scholars posit groups with eschatological concerns, but here too difculties arise and it is not at all clear that there was a movement or group that specialized in such subjects. It is encouraging that Boccaccini makes an important place for what he calls Enochic Judaism, but the way in which he characterizes it gives one pause. He follows those scholars who nd a polemic against the Jerusalem priesthood in the Book of the Watchers and thinks the so-called Enochians were a priestly breakaway group; but that there was such a group consisting of priests seems dubious or at least far from demonstrated. His Enochic Judaism, which supposedly centered on the story of the angels who sinned, is a ne example of a exible category. It appears that two of the three authors who are supposed to have written books expressing this viewpoint (the writers of the Astronomical Book and Aramaic Levi) did not get the word about how central this story was supposed to be for them, as neither mentions it.43

43 Among the remains of Aramaic Levi is a broken line (4Q213 4 2) in which, according to the reading of Milik (The Books of Enoch: Aramaic Fragments of Qumrân Cave 4 [Oxford: Clarendon, 1976]), the writer asks: “Did not Enoch accuse [. . .]?” (23). In the equally obscure lines 6–7 “there was certainly an allusion to the accusations made by the patriarch against the Watchers . . .” (24). The editors of the fragment in DJD, however, thought the relevant traces of letters in line 2 did not t those of Enoch’s name and rendered the passage as “ ] did [they] not receive.” See M. Stone and J. Greeneld,

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There are references to groups in later Enochic booklets, but we do not know whether a social entity involving more than one person stands behind the Astronomical Book or whether the authors of the different units in the Book of the Watchers felt themselves to be part of a community with the astronomical writer. Perhaps they did, but it remains true that the sources say nothing about this. At least for the early centuries of the second temple it may be wiser to admit that we have very little to guide our attempts at mapping developments in Jewish thought. There may have been texts that have perished but in their time were inuential; if we had them, the picture might look rather different. It is not until the second century that we gain somewhat clearer indications of groupings; prior to that time the extant texts seem inadequate for isolating ideological divisions. We are, to state the obvious, at the mercy of our meager sources. We are able to read what they say and attempt, however poorly, to interpret them; we cannot read what they fail to say and thus are unable to ascertain what their writers thought about the subjects they did not address. Certain kinds of literature are more likely to handle certain topics (e.g., a priestly work is more likely to discuss purity issues) and to ignore others (a priestly work may be less likely to deal with eschatological matters). This does not entail that their authors objected to other teachings, only that they did not consider them in the surviving contexts. We should also make due allowance for the possible role of a common religious tradition expressed in a shared literary heritage. Different thinkers presumably preferred certain sources, and perhaps not everyone agreed on which literature was authoritative. But shared views there were. So, the Astronomical Book of Enoch, possibly the earliest writing associated with the seventh patriarch, drew upon Genesis for its hero but also for the creation of the luminaries, while it used Isa 30:26 to clarify the relationship between sun and moon. Or the Book

“213. 4QLevia ar,” in J. C. VanderKam (ed.), Qumran Cave 4 XVII Parabiblical Texts, Part 3 (DJD 22; Oxford: Clarendon, 1996) 21–22. Even if Milik’s reading were correct, we would not know the objects or subjects of his complaints. Boccaccini’s hypothesis produces other oddities. His category of Sapiential Judaism, a type which did not rest on revelation but on observation, includes the book of Jonah which makes several direct and positive appeals to divine disclosures to the prophet. Or, Sirach effected a compromise between or fusion of Zadokite and Sapiential Judaism, but this allegedly enthusiastic proponent of Zadokite Judaism forgot to name Zadok in his list of heroes in chaps. 44–50. It is also difcult to accept the idea that the book of Tobit shares much more than its name with the famous family of the Tobiad romance.

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of the Watchers interpreted Gen 6:1–4 and other passages but also drew upon prophetic literature such as Mic 1:3–4 and on the Book of Deuteronomy. Both works emphasize the order in God’s creation, while the Book of the Watchers shows concern about some purity issues. Neither book criticizes the Jerusalem temple or the priests in it (although several scholars think parts of the Book of the Watchers do precisely that).44 Then, too, even the earliest segments of 1 Enoch reect sapiential traditions in their concern for the order of reality and other subjects.45 These points support the thesis that the separation into different types of Judaism, the highlighting of oppositions, is too rigid if it does not allow space for the many examples of cross-fertilization attested in the sources. As we might expect, writers throughout the period appear to have drawn on varied traditions within their shared heritage, without restricting themselves to one type.

44

See the different defenses of the position in D. W. Suter, “Fallen Angel, Fallen Priest: The Problem of Family Purity in 1 Enoch 6–16,” HUCA 50 (1979) 115–35; and G. Nickelsburg, “Enoch, Levi, and Peter: Recipients of Revelation in Upper Galilee,” JBL 100 (1981) 575–600. 45 See, for instance, G. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch, Chapters 1–36; 81–108 (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001) 58–61.

THE BOOK OF ENOCH OR BOOKS OF ENOCH? THE TEXTUAL EVIDENCE FOR 1 ENOCH Michael A. Knibb King’s College London, United Kingdom I The Aramaic text of the Astronomical Book began, so far as is known, with a calendar of the phases of the moon in which the movements of the moon are synchronized with those of the sun.1 The calendar is attested by the fragments of two of the four manuscripts of the Astronomical Book (4Q208, 4Q209 [4QEnastra ar, 4QEnastrb ar]), but whereas the fragments of 4Q208 belong only to the Synchronistic Calendar, some of the fragments of 4Q209 correspond to parts of chapters 76–79 and 82 of the Ethiopic version. The Synchronistic Calendar does not appear in the Ethiopic, although it is perhaps summarized in 73:4–8 and 74:3–9,2 but on the other hand, the fragments of 4Q208 and 4Q209 do not contain any material that might have formed an introduction to the Synchronistic Calendar. Józef Milik suggested that the oldest form of the Astronomical Book might be represented by 4Q208, which dates from the end of the third or the beginning of the second century BCE, and might have consisted only of a broad introduction, approximately equivalent to chapter 72 of the Ethiopic, and of the Synchronistic Calendar.3 But, in the light of the evidence of 4Q208, it might further be wondered whether the Synchronistic Calendar originally had any connection at all with the

1 I draw in this article on a number of studies that I have published previously, in particular: M. A. Knibb, “Christian Adoption and Transmission of Jewish Pseudepigrapha: The Case of 1 Enoch,” JSJ 32 (2001) 396–415; “Interpreting the Book of Enoch. Reections on a Recently Published Commentary,” JSJ 33 (2002) 437–450. 2 Cf. J. T. Milik, The Books of Enoch: Aramaic Fragments of Qumrân Cave 4 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1976) 275; M. A. Knibb, “Which Parts of 1 Enoch Were Known to Jubilees? A Note on the Interpretation of Jubilees 4:16–25,” in J. C. Exum and H. G. M. Williamson (eds.), Reading from Right to Left: Essays on the Hebrew Bible in Honour of David J. A. Clines ( JSOTSup 373; London and New York: Shefeld, 2003) 254–62, esp. 256. 3 Milik, Books of Enoch, 273.

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gure of Enoch and with the Enochic corpus.4 Be these speculations as they may, it is clear that the differences between the Ethiopic version of the Astronomical Book and the original Aramaic text cannot, at least in respect of the Synchronistic Calendar, be explained as the outcome of the kind of changes that occur when texts are translated, but rather are the result of the activity of an editor; the Ethiopic version of this material—and presumably the Greek underlying it—represents a new edition, not just a translation.5 There are other passages in the Book of Enoch where in a similar way it appears that the relationship between the Ethiopic and the Aramaic cannot be explained as the outcome of changes that might naturally have occurred through the translation of the text from Aramaic to Greek, and from Greek to Ethiopic, or of changes that might have occurred during the transmission of the text(s). For example, although the Aramaic text of 92:1 has only survived in fragmentary form in 4Q212 (4QEng ar) 1 ii 22–5, it is clear that the Ethiopic is quite different.6 Again, it is widely recognized that the nal part of the Apocalypse of Weeks (91:11–17) was displaced in the Ethiopic version for editorial reasons. In consequence the Ethiopic version of 91:11 has been expanded in comparison with 4Q212 1 iv 14 to smooth over the juxtaposition in the Ethiopic of 91:1–10 and 91:11–17.7 To mention one other example in the Epistle, the long series of rhetorical questions that, on the evidence of 4Q212 1 v, originally stood in the Aramaic text before the equivalent of chapter 94 has been reduced to almost a third in the Ethiopic version (93:11–14).8 The Book of the Watchers provides a further example of a passage in which the relationship between the Ethiopic and the Aramaic is hardly to be explained simply as the outcome of the translation and 4 The Synchronistic Calendar is so different in character from the other material in the Astronomical Book that this in itself raises the question of the nature of the relationship between the Calendar and the rest of the Astronomical Book. In addition the name of Enoch does not appear in any of the fragments of the Calendar, although this could be simply the result of chance. 5 Cf. A.-M. Denis et collaborateurs avec le concours de J.-C. Haelewyck, Introduction à la littérature religieuse judéo-hellénistique. Tome 1: Pseudépigraphes de l’Anicen Testament (Turnhout: Brepols, 2000) 83. 6 Milik, Books of Enoch, 261. 7 See M. A. Knibb, The Ethiopic Book of Enoch. A New Edition in the Light of the Aramaic Dead Sea Fragments (2 vols; Oxford: Clarendon, 1978) 2.218; G. W. E. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1. A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch, Chapters 1–36; 81–108 (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001) 436. 8 Milik, Books of Enoch, 247, 270.

the book of enoch or books of enoch?

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subsequent transmission of the text, namely in 8:3. The text of this passage occurs in the three forms represented by the Aramaic (4Q201 [4QEna] 1 iv; 4Q202 [4QEnb ] 1 iii), by the Greek text known from the extracts in the Chronography of Syncellus, and by the Greek text known from the Akhmim manuscript to which the Ethiopic version largely corresponds. The passage describes the teaching given by the angels and in the Aramaic is structured in a set pattern:9 Shemihazah taught the casting of spells [and the cutting of roots Hermoni taught the loosing of spells,] magic, sorcery, and skill; [Baraqxel taught the signs of the lightning ashes; Kokabxel taught] the signs of the stars; Zeqxel [taught the signs of the shooting-stars; Ar{taqoph taught the signs of the earth]; Shamshi’el taught the signs of the sun; [Sahriel taught the signs of ] the moon. [And they all began to reveal] secrets to their wives.

Despite some changes, the text of Syncellus is, as Milik observes, relatively close to the Aramaic original:10 And their chief Semiazas taught them to be objects of wrath against reason, and the roots of plants of the earth. The eleventh, Pharmaros, taught the use of potions, spells, lore, and the remedies for spells. The ninth taught them the study of the stars. The fourth taught astrology. The eighth taught divination by observing the heavens. The third taught the signs of the earth. The seventh taught the signs of the sun. The twentieth taught the signs of the moon. All of them began to reveal mysteries to their wives and offspring.11

But the text of the Akhmim manuscript, apart from other changes, is much shorter than the Aramaic, and the Ethiopic, which is based on a Greek Vorlage comparable to the Akhmim text, has been subject to further change. The Akhmim text may be translated as follows:

9 The following translation is based on a conation of the evidence of 4Q201 1 iv 1–5 and 4Q202 1 iii 1–5 and largely follows Milik’s translation of 4Q201 1 iv (Books of Enoch, 158). 10 Milik, Books of Enoch, 160; Knibb, Ethiopic Book of Enoch, 2.19, 81–2. 11 Translation from W. Adler and P. Tufn, The Chronography of George Symkellos: a Byzantine Chronicle of Universal History from the Creation (Oxford: Oxford University, 2002) 17.

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michael a. knibb Semiazas taught spells and the cutting of roots; Armaros the release of spells; Baraqiel astrology; Kok[ab]iel portents; Sathiel astrology; Seriel the course of the moon.

It seems difcult to explain the differences between the Aramaic text of this passage and the Greek text of the Akhmim manuscript, with which the Ethiopic is allied, entirely as the outcome of the kind of changes that naturally occur when texts are translated and copied; the differences point at least in part to editorial intervention. The recent publication of a hitherto unknown papyrus fragment of the Aramaic text of Enoch (XQpapEnoch) appears to cast further light on this point. The fragment covers 8:4–9:3, where there are substantial differences of a redactional kind between the text of Syncellus and that of the Akhmim manuscript and the Ethiopic. At the beginning of 9:1 there is a signicant agreement between Syncellus and the Aramaic, and in the view of the editors, despite its corruptions, the Greek text cited by Syncellus in 8:4–9:3 “is the closest to the Aramaic source.”12 There are, in addition to these very obvious examples, numerous passages throughout the Book of Enoch where there are differences between the text of the Aramaic fragments on the one hand and the text known from the Greek and the Ethiopic on the other. Milik drew attention in his edition of the Aramaic to many such passages, as, for example, in his comments on the material in 4Q210 (4QEnastrc ar) 1 ii corresponding to 76:4 (“E is shorter and inverts the order of the phrase”), 76:5 (“E seems to have expanded the beginning of this verse”), and 76:6 (“The description . . . is abridged in E”),13 or in his comments on the material in 4Q209 23 corresponding to 77:2 (“This verse is much shorter in E”) and 77:3 (This verse has been drastically shortened in the Ethiopic version.”14 Similarly, in their edition of 4Q209

12 Esther Eshel and Hanan Eshel, “New Fragments from Qumran: 4QGenf, 4QIsab, 4Q226, 8QGen, and XQpapEnoch,” DSD 12 (2005) 134–57, here 157. See also the discussion by Loren Stuckenbruck in this volume. 13 Milik, Books of Enoch, 286–7; Knibb, Ethiopic Book of Enoch, 2.176, 177. 14 Milik, Books of Enoch, 291; Knibb, Ethiopic Book of Enoch, 2.180. The evidence of 4Q211 (4QEnastrd) has conrmed the view that the nal part of the Astronomical Book is lacking in the Ethiopic version. In this case it cannot entirely be excluded that the loss of the material was accidental, but it too may at least in part be the result of editorial intervention.

the book of enoch or books of enoch?

25

26, which corresponds to 79:3–5; 78:17–79:2, Eibert Tigchelaar and Florentino García Martínez commented: “The Ethiopic text is related to, but different from, [the] Aramaic text. One may assume that the Greek translator rephrased and rearranged the Aramaic text.”15 It was no doubt the existence of passages like these that led Milik to introduce his edition of the Aramaic fragments of the latter part of the Astronomical Book with the statement: “Several fragments of Enastrb and Enastrc [4Q209, 210] correspond in an approximate fashion16 to certain passages of En 76–9 and 82.”17 However, there are passages throughout the other sections of 1 Enoch where similar differences between the Aramaic and the Ethiopic, or between the Aramaic and the Greek and Ethiopic, can be observed.18 To take a nal example, in this case from the Book of Dream Visions, there are clearly differences between 4Q206 (4QEne ar) 4 i 16–17 and the Ethiopic of 89:2; on these Milik commented: “One certainly gets the impression that the original text, as we can see it in Ene, was reworked following the outline of a more consistent symbolism.”19 In individual cases it may not always be possible to determine whether the differences between the different forms of the text were introduced deliberately or are the result of chance, but cumulatively these differences reinforce the view that the Greek text of Enoch, so far as it is known, and even more the Ethiopic cannot simply be regarded as translations of the original Aramaic text known from the Dead Sea fragments. The Ethiopic version of the Book of Enoch represents the most developed form of the Enochic corpus that we possess, and notwithstanding the fact that it is a composite document and contains numerous literary seams and abrupt transitions, it does possess an overall literary structure that serves to bind the different parts of the book together.20 This text is a translation of a Greek text, and it is very probable that

15

E. J. C. Tigchelaar and F. García Martínez, “4QAstronomical Enocha–b ar: Introduction,” and “4QAstronomical Enochb ar (Pls. V–VII),” in S. J. Pfann et al., Qumran Cave 4.XXVI: Cryptic Texts and Miscellanea, Part 1 (DJD 36; Oxford: Clarendon, 2000) 95–103, 132–71, here 163–4. 16 My italics (M.A.K.). 17 Milik, Books of Enoch, 284. 18 See, for example, Milik, Books of Enoch, 147 (on 2:2 and 2:3), 149 (on 5:2–3; see also Knibb, Ethiopic Book of Enoch, 2.65), 157 (on 7:5 and 7:6), 196 (on 13:8), 206 (on 89:35), 240 (on 89:4 and 89:5). 19 Milik, Books of Enoch, 239; Knibb, Ethiopic Book of Enoch, 2.199. 20 M. A. Knibb, “The Case of 1 Enoch,” 411.

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this Greek version already had the pentateuchal form familiar from the Ethiopic (see further below). In turn, the Greek is a translation of an Aramaic text21 or is an edited collection of translations of Aramaic texts. But if in broad outline all this seems clear, beyond this it is difcult to reconstruct in precise detail the steps that led from the Aramaic Enochic corpus known from the Dead Sea fragments to the Ethiopic Book of Enoch. (1) The earliest clear evidence that we possess for a collection of Enochic writings in Aramaic, for an Enochic corpus, is provided by 4Q204 (4QEnc ar), the fragments of which belong to the Book of the Watchers, the Book of Dream Visions, and the Epistle of Enoch. This manuscript dates from the last third of the rst century BCE, but was copied from an exemplar dating from approximately 100 BCE.22 This suggests that the formation of the collection goes back to at least this time if not to the latter part of the second century. We do not, however, know quite at what stage the three sections of the corpus were brought together. Further, because of the limited and fragmentary character of the Aramaic evidence, we do not know whether the three sections of the corpus had been redacted into a whole, or whether at this stage they formed merely a loose collection of Enochic writings. (2) Milik believed that this manuscript (4Q204) also contained as the second element the Enochic Book of Giants; the fragments in question have the siglum 4Q203 (4QEnGiantsa ar). As is well known, the Astronomical Book was treated as a separate Enochic writing at Qumran, and manuscripts of the Aramaic Astronomical Book (4Q208, 209, 210, 211) contain only this writing. It was on the combined evidence of 4Q203–4Q204 and of the manuscripts of the Astronomical Book that Milik based his view that “about the year 100 BCE there existed an Enochic Pentateuch in two volumes, the rst containing the Astronomical Book, and the second consisting of four other pseudepigraphical works [Book of the Watchers, Book of Giants, Book of Dream Visions, the Epistle of Enoch].”23 However, the evidence for the view

21 It is possible that the Book of Parables was composed in Hebrew; see further below. 22 Milik, Books of Enoch, 178–83. 23 Milik, Books of Enoch, 181–4, here 183. The quotation continues: “The compiler of this Pentateuch was quite conscious of its analogy with the Mosaic Pentatech.” To avoid misunderstanding, it should be made clear that I use the word “pentateuch” in this article simply to refer to a volume consisting of ve books or sections, and not with any suggestion of an analogy with the Mosaic Pentateuch.

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27

that the fragments of 4Q203 belong to the same manuscript as those of 4Q204 is by no means conclusive, and it seems more likely that the fragments, although copied by the same scribe, belong to a different manuscript.24 If this is right, the idea that there existed a two-volume Enochic pentateuch in Aramaic at Qumran falls to the ground. (3) It is not clear whether the Book of Parables was composed in Aramaic or in Hebrew, but at some point, perhaps at the same time, perhaps in two stages, the Book of Parables and the Astronomical Book were inserted into a collection of Enochic writings like the one represented by 4Q204 to produce a book in vefold form similar to the book known from the Ethiopic. It cannot absolutely be excluded that an Enochic pentateuch like the one known from the Ethiopic already existed in Aramaic (or Aramaic and Hebrew), but we do not have any evidence to suggest that it did so. (4) We have no precise information about the circumstances in which the Enochic writings were translated into Greek, nor do we know whether each section of the corpus was translated separately, or whether, say, the three sections grouped together in 4Q204 were translated at the same time. The uncertainties are compounded by the fact that, with minor exception, it is only the Greek text of the Book of the Watchers and of part of the Epistle of Enoch that has survived. It is, however, perhaps reasonable to assume that the Book of Parables would have been translated at a later stage because their composition followed some time after the composition of the other four parts of the corpus. James Barr, on the basis of his study of the Greek translation of the Book of the Watchers and of the Epistle of Enoch in comparison with the Aramaic original, has suggested that the translation “belonged to the same general stage and stratum of translation as the LXX translation of Daniel,” and this would obviously make sense in view of the apocalyptic form and content of the two writings.25 But if so, this would suggest that the translation of at least these two sections of 1 Enoch was made in the second century BCE.26

24 L. Stuckenbruck, “4QEnoch Giantsa ar (Pls. I–II),” in Qumran Cave 4.XXVI (DJD 36) 8–41, esp., 9–10. See also his contribution to the present volume and Knibb, “The Case of 1 Enoch”, 405–7, 415. 25 J. Barr, “Aramaic-Greek Notes on the Book of Enoch,” Journal of Semitic Studies 23 (1978) 184–98; 24 (1979) 179–92, here 191. 26 For the suggestion that some tiny papyrus fragments found in Qumran Cave 7 belong to a Greek translation of the Epistle of Enoch, see below.

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(5) Whether or not an Enochic pentateuch comparable to the Book of Enoch known from the Ethiopic ever existed in Aramaic (or Aramaic and Hebrew), it seems virtually certain that such a pentateuch existed in Greek (and served as the Vorlage of the Ethiopic), and it may very well be that the composition of the pentateuch is to be attributed to the Greek stage. (The composition of such a pentateuch in an Ethiopian context, whether during the fth–sixth century, the period during which the Ethiopic translation was probably made, or during some subsequent period of Ethiopian history, seems quite unlikely.) But the actual date of the creation of the Enochic pentateuch can only be determined within approximate limits. The latest part of the complete book, the Book of Parables, has been dated to around the turn of the era by George Nickelsburg,27 and to the end of the rst century CE by the present author;28 in either case this would place the composition of the Enochic pentateuch in the rst century CE at the earliest. The translation of the complete book from Greek into Ethiopic in the fth-sixth century provides a rm terminus ad quem. But in practice it seems to me unlikely that the formation of the Enochic pentateuch, whether it is to be attributed to Jews or Christians, should be placed much later than the early decades of the second century CE. It is reasonable to assume that it was at the time of the composition of the complete work that the Astronomical Book was shortened and edited to produce the text now known from the Ethiopic version. (6) The translation of the Book of Enoch into Ethiopic was no doubt undertaken as part of the translation of the scriptures as a whole into Ethiopic. It is possible that this began in the mid-fourth century soon after the adoption of Christianity by Ezana as the ofcial religion of the Axumite kingdom, but the bulk of the translation is probably to be attributed to the fth or sixth century.29 It is in any case unlikely that the Book of Enoch would have been one of the earliest texts to be translated. The oldest accessible form of this text that we possess dates back to the fteenth century, and it is on this text that we are dependent for a large part of our knowledge of the book.

27 G. W. E. Nickelsburg, Jewish Literature between the Bible and the Mishnah (Second edition; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005) esp. 254–6. 28 M. A. Knibb, “The Date of the Parables of Enoch: A Critical Review,” NTS 25 (1978/79) 345–59. 29 M. A. Knibb, Translating the Bible: The Ethiopic Version of the Old Testament (The Schweich Lectures of the British Academy 1995; Oxford: Oxford University Press for the British Academy, 1999) esp. 12–13.

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In summary, the Ethiopic translation of the Book of Enoch cannot simply be regarded as a translation of a Greek version of the Aramaic text known from the Dead Sea fragments, nor even as a translation of a Greek version of a text like that represented by 4Q204 into which the texts of the Book of Parables and of the Astronomical Book had been inserted. It represents rather a new edition of the text, a translation of a Greek text—of which we have only partial knowledge—that dates back at the earliest to the rst century CE. The Ethiopic reects not only the kind of changes that occur when texts are translated from Aramaic into Greek, and from Greek into Ethiopic, and the kind of changes that occur when texts are copied over a long period of time, but also evidence of editorial intervention. It has furthermore passed from being a Jewish text to being a text that was both transmitted in Greek and translated into Ethiopic in a Christian context.30 This is not to say that the Greek and Ethiopic texts of the Book of Enoch are completely different from the Aramaic, but they do belong in different literary and historical contexts from the Aramaic. Thus the relationship between the Ethiopic and Greek on the one hand and the Aramaic on the other is not that of straight translation, but is rather comparable to that between the Hebrew of the Massoretic Text of Jeremiah and the Hebrew text that served as the Vorlage of the Old Greek of Jeremiah. In the light of these general considerations I would like, in the remainder of this article, to discuss in turn the Aramaic, the Greek, and the Ethiopic texts of the Book of Enoch. II As already indicated, the manuscripts of the Aramaic Book of Enoch found amongst the Dead Sea Scrolls fall into two groups, those that contain fragments of one or more of the three writings, the Book of the Watchers, the Book of Dream Visions, and the Epistle of Enoch, and those that contain fragments of the Astronomical Book only.31 The manuscripts are as follows:32 30

For a discussion of the issues involved, see Knibb, “The Case of 1 Enoch”, 396–415. 31 Most of the fragments were published by Milik, Books of Enoch. 32 For details, see Milik, Books of Enoch, 139–297; Knibb, Ethiopic Book of Enoch, 2.8–15. XQpapEnoch, which covers 8:4–9:3 and can be dated approximately to the Hasmoneans or the early Herodian era (50–25 BCE), should now also be included I this list; see above, note 12.

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4Q201 (4QEna ar).33 This manuscript dates from the rst half of the second century BCE, but was copied from a much older exemplar. The fragments belong only to the Book of the Watchers, and Milik believes that this manuscript, and also 4Q202, contained only this section of the Book of Enoch.34 This view is, however, disputed by Nickelsburg, as being based merely on an argument from silence.35 4Q202 (4QEnb ar). This manuscript dates from the middle of the second century BCE, and the fragments belong only to the Book of the Watchers (see above).36 4Q204 (4QEnc ar). This manuscript dates from the early Herodian period (the last third of the rst century BCE), but was copied from an old manuscript dating from approximately the last quarter of the second century.37 The fragments belong to the Book of the Watchers, the Book of Dream Visions, and the Epistle of Enoch, but, as already noted, Milik believed that the manuscript also contained as the second element the Enochic Book of Giants (the relevant fragments have the siglum 4Q203).38 4Q205 (4QEnd ar). This manuscript dates from the last third of the rst century BCE and seems to have been copied from 4Q204. The few fragments of the manuscript that have survived belong to the Book of the Watchers and the Book of Dream Visions, but Milik argued that this manuscript, like 4Q203–4Q204, contained in addition the Book of Giants in second place and the Epistle of Enoch at the end.39 4Q206 (4QEne ar). The writing in this manuscript dates from the Hasmonaean period, probably from the rst half of the rst century BCE.40 The fragments that survive belong to the Book of the Watchers and the Book of Dream Visions, but Milik again argued that the manuscript, like 4Q203–4Q204, contained in addition the Book of Giants in second place and the Epistle of Enoch at the end. Milik believed

33

For the text of a few small fragments of this manuscript (4Q201 2–8) that Milik did not include in his edition, see L. Stuckenbruck, “4QEnocha (Pl. I),” in Qumran Cave 4.XXVI (DJD 36) 1–7. 34 Milik, Books of Enoch, 140–1. 35 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 25; but see Knibb, “Interpreting the Book of Enoch,” 442. 36 Milik, Books of Enoch, 164–5. 37 Ibidem, 178, 183. 38 Ibidem, 181–4, esp. 183. 39 Ibidem, 217. 40 Ibidem, 225.

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that two small fragments, which he labelled 4QEne 2 and 3, did belong to the Book of Giants,41 but the attribution of these two fragments to 4Q206 (4QEne) has properly been queried by Stuckenbruck42 and denied by Émile Puech.43 4Q207 (4QEnf ar). The one fragment of this manuscript that has survived belongs to the Book of Dream Visions. The writing is attributed by Milik to the early Hasmonaean period (150–125 BCE).44 4Q212 (4QEng ar). This manuscript is dated by Milik to the middle of the rst century BCE. The fragments all belong to the Epistle of Enoch, and Milik believes it probable that the scroll only contained this writing. However, as in the case of 4Q201–202 and the Book of the Watchers, this is disputed by Nickelsburg.45 4Q208 (4QEnastra ar). The fragments of this manuscript belong only to the Synchronistic Calendar. The manuscript was dated by Milik to the end of the third or the beginning of the second century BCE, and this palaeographical dating broadly agrees with the radiocarbon dating.46 4Q209 (4QEnastrb ar). The fragments belong partly to the Synchronistic Calendar and partly to chapters 76–9 and 82. The manuscript was copied in Herodian script and dates from the turn of the era.47 4Q210 (4QEnastrc ar). This manuscript dates from the middle of the rst century BCE, and the fragments belong only to chapters 76–78.48

41

Ibidem, 227, 236–8. L. Stuckenbruck, “4QEnoch Giantsf ar (Pl. II),” in Qumran Cave 4.XXVI (DJD 36) 42–48, esp. 42–3; see his re-edition of the fragments, here identied as 4Q206 2–3 (44–8). 43 É. Puech, “4Q Livre des Géantse ar (Pl. VI),” in É. Puech, Qumrân Grotte 4.XXII. Textes araméens, Première partie 4Q529–549 (DJD 31; Oxford: Clarendon, 2001) 105–15, esp. 111–3; Puech identies the fragments as 4Q206a 1–2. 44 Milik, Books of Enoch, 244. 45 According to Nickelsburg (1 Enoch 1, 25), “similarly . . . it is unlikely that 4QEng, or at least its archetype, began with 91:1.” But see Knibb, “Interpreting the Book of Enoch,” 442. 46 For the text, see E. J. C. Tigchelaar and F. García Martínez, “4QAstronomical Enocha ar (Pls. III–IV),” in Qumran Cave 4.XXVI (DJD 36) 104–131, esp. 106 for the date; Milik, Books of Enoch, 273. 47 For the text, see Tigchelaar and García Martínez, “4QAstronomical Enochb ar (Pls. V–VII),” in Qumran Cave 4.XXVI (DJD 36) 132–71; Milik, Books of Enoch, 273–84, 287–91, 293–6 (for the date, see p. 273). 48 Milik, Books of Enoch, 274; the fragments are published on pp. 284–8, 292–3. 42

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4Q211 (4QEnastrd ar). The fragments have no parallel in the Ethiopic version and appear to belong to the nal part of the Astronomical Book; the manuscript dates from the second half of the rst century BCE. The Ethiopic version of the Astronomical Book ends abruptly with a description of spring and summer (82:15–20), and after this we expect a description of autumn and winter; 4Q211 1 i provides just such a description of winter. But 4Q211 1 ii–iii deal with the movement of the stars and apparently belongs to the conclusion of the Astronomical Book.49 It cannot entirely be excluded that the loss of this material in the Ethiopic was accidental, but it may, at least in part, be the result of deliberate abbreviation. The importance of the Aramaic fragments for the interpretation of the Book of Enoch cannot be overestimated. Quite apart from the signicance of the fragments for the study of the Aramaic language, Aramaic orthography, and scribal practice, they are in the present context of fundamental importance for three main reasons. Firstly, it is the Aramaic fragments alone that provide us with evidence for the Enochic corpus that is unequivocally Jewish and dates for the most part from the pre-Christian period. Secondly, the palaeographical dating and codicological analysis of the fragments casts an important light on the literary genesis of the Enochic corpus in its earliest phases. Thirdly, the manuscripts contain some textual variants in addition to orthographic variants, and these shed light on the development of the text. But while the Aramaic is extremely important, it remains the case that the Aramaic evidence that his survived is quite limited. Most of the fragments are quite small, in no case do we have a complete column of text, and mostly not even a complete line, but rather a few words or even only a few letters—as a glance at the photographs of the fragments makes abundantly clear. A rather different impression of the extent of the Aramaic was given by Milik in his edition of the Aramaic fragments: If we compare the sections represented by our fragments of 4QEn (including the restored text) with the Ethiopic text, the balance appears fairly satisfactory. For the rst book of Enoch, the Book of the Watchers, we can calculate that exactly 50 per cent of the text is covered by the Aramaic; for the third, the Astronomical Book, 30 per cent; for the

49

Ibidem, 274, 297; the fragments are published on pp. 296–7.

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fourth, the Book of Dreams, 26 per cent; for the fth, the Epistle of Enoch, 18 per cent.50

The key words in this quotation are “including the restored text”, for without the extensive restorations that Milik has provided, the gures make no sense. But restorations, however plausible, remain hypothetical,51 and important as the Aramaic is, we remain dependent on the Greek translation, insofar as it survives, and the Ethiopic version for our knowledge of the bulk of the text of the book. III The main Greek witnesses of the Book of Enoch are the Akhmim manuscript, the extracts in the Chronography of Syncellus, the ChesterBeatty-Michigan papyrus, and a fragment in a Vatican codex. In addition, there are a number of quotations and allusions in early Christian writings, including the quotation of 1:9 in Jude 14–15, but these do not add signicantly to our knowledge of the Greek text of Enoch. It has been claimed that some small papyrus fragments (some from Oxyrhyncus, some from Qurman) also contain bits of the Greek text, but the identication of some of these as fragments of 1 Enoch is uncertain. In total the witnesses provide a Greek text of approximately one third of the book as it is known from the Ethiopic, but the sources are scattered.52 The Book of the Watchers. This is the only section of the book where the Greek text survives in two clearly different forms. (1) The Akhmim manuscript. This manuscript, which was found in a grave at Akhmim (ancient Panopolis) in Egypt in the winter of 1886/7 and is now in Cairo, contains a Greek text of 1:1–32:6 preceded by a duplicate version of 19:3–21:9; it also includes extracts from the Gospel of Peter and the Apocalypse of Peter.

50

Ibidem, 5. See the salutary and instructive comments of Barr in his review of Milik’s book in JTS (N.S.) 29 (1978) 517–30. 52 For a recent survey of all the Greek evidence, see Denis, Introduction, 104–21. For an edition of all the Greek evidence known at the time, see M. Black, Apocalypsis Henochi Graece (Pseudepigrapha Veteris Testamenti Graece 3; Leiden: Brill, 1970); but there are mistakes in the edition. See Knibb, Ethiopic Book of Enoch, 2.15–21; “The Case of 1 Enoch,” 401–3. 51

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The manuscript dates from the sixth or perhaps the end of the fth century. (2) Syncellus. Brief extracts covering 6:1–9:4; 8:4–10:14; 15:8–16:7 are preserved in the Chronography, dating from the early ninth century, of the Byzantine historian Syncellus.53 He derived these quotations via Anianus from Panodorus, both of whom ourished in the early fth century. (A fourth extract attributed by Syncellus to “the First Book of Enoch concerning the Watchers”54 does not belong to the Book of the Watchers, but was probably taken from the Book of Giants.)55 The Astronomical Book. Milik has claimed that fragment 3 of Oxyrhyncus Papyrus 2069 belongs to a Greek translation of the Astronomical Book; in his view fr. 3v = 77:7–78:1, fr. 3r = 78:8.56 While this identication seems possible, the fragment is too small for much to be made of it. The Book of Dream Visions. (1) Codex Vaticanus Gr. 1809. A brief extract in tachygraphic script is preserved in the margin of an eleventh century manuscript in the Vatican Library. The extract, which covers 89:42–9, was not taken directly from a copy of the Book of Enoch, but from a (now lost) collection of extracts from the book. (2) P. Oxy. 2069, frs. 1 and 2. Milik has identied these fragments as part of a Greek translation of the Book of Dream Visions (fr. 1r + 2r = 85:10–86:2; fr. 1v + 2v = 87:1–3), and in this case the identication seems plausible.57 It should be observed, however, that Milik argues that fragments 1 and 2 do not belong to the same manuscript as fragment 3 (for which, see above).

53 For the text of these passages, see A. A. Mosshammer, Georgii Syncelli Ecloga Chronographica (Biblioteca Tevbneriana; Leipzig: Teubner Verlagsgesellschaft, 1984) 11–3, 24–6; for a translation, see Adler and Tufn, The Chronography of George Symkellos, 16–8, 33–5. 54 Mosshammer, Georgii Syncelli Ecloga Chronographica, 26–7; Adler and Tufn, The Chronography of George Symkellos, 35–6. 55 Milik, Books of Enoch, 317–20. 56 Milik, Books of Enoch, 19; “Fragments grecs du livre d’Hénoch (P. Oxy. XVII 2069),” Chronique d’Égypte 92 (1971) 321–43, esp. 333–41. 57 Milik, Books of Enoch, 42, 75, 245; “Fragments grecs du livre d’Hénoch,” 323–32.

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The Epistle of Enoch. (1) Chester Beatty-Michigan Papyrus. The leaves of this papyrus codex, which dates from the fourth century, were acquired partly by the University of Michigan and partly by A. Chester Beatty. In its present condition the manuscript contains a Greek version of 97:6–107:3, an almost complete text of Melito’s Homily on the Passion, and a few fragments of an Apocryphon of Ezekiel.58 It seems very likely that of the Book of Enoch, the codex only contained the Epistle (chaps. 91–107). It should be noted that the codex does not have either chapter 105 or chapter 108. (2) 7Q4, 8, 11–14 (7QpapEn gr). A number of tiny papyrus fragments that were found in Qumran Cave 7 have been identied as fragments of the Greek text of the Epistle (7Q11 = 100:12; 7Q4 1 + 7Q12 + 7Q14 = 103:3–4; 7Q8 = 103:7–8; 7Q13 = 103:15; 7Q4 2 = 105:1).59 While in some cases the identication seems plausible, in others the fragments are too small for certain identication to be possible.60 However, although none of the fragments is of any size, they are potentially important as providing Jewish evidence of the existence of a Greek translation of the Epistle. The sources surveyed above conrm the existence of Greek translations of the Book of the Watchers, the Astronomical Book (although the textual evidence is extremely limited), the Book of Dream Visions, and the Epistle of Enoch, and there is no doubt that a Greek translation of the Book of Parables also existed. Further, the Akhmim manuscript and the Chester Beatty-Michigan papyrus show that for several centuries the Book of the Watchers and the Epistle of Enoch continued to circulate in Greek as separate writings independently of the remaining parts of the Enochic corpus—or at least, even if they were taken from an Enochic corpus, continued to be treated as independent entities—just

58 C. Bonner, The Last Chapters of Enoch in Greek (Studies and Documents 8; London: Christophers, 1937) 9–12; Milik, Books of Enoch, 75–6; Denis, Introduction, 109–11. 59 See É. Puech, “Notes sur les fragments grecs du manuscrit 7Q4 = 1 Hénoch 103 et 105,” RB 103 (1996) 592–600; “Sept fragments grecs de la Lettre d’Hénoch (1 Hén 100, 103 et 105) dans la grotte 7 de Qumrân,” RQ 18 (1997) 313–23. See also Knibb, “The Case of 1 Enoch,” 401, and the references there. 60 Cf. T. H. Lim, “The Qumran Scrolls, Multilingualism, and Biblical Interpretation,” in J. J. Collins and R. A. Kugler (eds), Religion in the Dead Sea Scrolls (Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Related Literature; Grand Rapids and Cambridge: Eerdmans, 2000) 57–73, esp. 69.

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as they apparently were at Qumran. What the Greek witnesses do not provide is clear evidence of the existence of an Enochic pentateuch with a text broadly comparable to that known from the Ethiopic version. But that such a pentateuch, based on an extensive redaction of the text represented by the Aramaic, did come into existence at a relatively early stage seems extremely probable. As we have already seen, Milik was of the opinion that an Enochic penateuch in Aramaic in two volumes, the rst containing the Astronomical Book, the second containing the Book of the Watchers, the Book of Giants, the Book of Dream Visions, and the Epistle of Enoch, was already in existence at Qumran. He further argued that a twovolume Greek pentateuch with the same contents—particularly a long version of the Astronomical Book like that known from the Aramaic, and the Book of Giants in second place in the second volume—survived as late as the fth or sixth century. But the evidence for this seems unconvincing.61 The text of the extracts from the Book of the Watchers preserved by Syncellus differs signicantly in a number of passages from that in the Akhmim manuscript, and while it seems clear that the text of the extracts in Syncellus has suffered through the process of transmission, the Aramaic evidence has shown that in places Syncellus has a better text than that of the Akhmim manuscript,62 and that the text of the Akhmim manuscript has been subject to editorial revision (see above, section I). It appears that two different forms of the Greek text of Enoch continued in existence for several centuries, one that at least in places remained relatively close to the Aramaic and was still available to Panodorus, from whom the extracts in Syncellus ultimately derive, in the early fth century, and one that was subject to editorial revision and is now reected in the Akhmim manuscript and in the Ethiopic. Brief extracts from the Book of Enoch in Latin, Coptic, and Syriac are also extant,63 but these are of secondary importance for our knowledge of the text of the book.

61 See Milik, Books of Enoch, 19–20, 57, 76–7, 275, 296–7, 318–20. For a summary and critique of Milik’s argument, see Knibb, “The Case of 1 Enoch,” 407–8, 409–11; cf. “The Date of the Parables of Enoch,” 346–7. 62 See Denis, Introduction, 111–2; S. Uhlig, Das Äthiopische Henochbuch ( JSHRZ V.6; Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn, 1984) 486. 63 For brief details, see Knibb, Ethiopic Book of Enoch, 2.21; Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 14–15.

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IV The Ethiopic version of the Book of Enoch represents the most developed—and only complete—form of the book that we possess, but the Ethiopic witnesses, both manuscripts and quotations in theological and homiletic writings, are all of comparatively recent date. There are at least fty manuscripts in existence, and the large number is a reection of the authority and popularity that the book enjoyed within the Ethiopian Orthodox Church. The manuscripts can be divided into two groups, representative of an older and a younger type of text.64 The former group consists of a quite small number of manuscripts, which range in date from the fteenth to the eighteenth century: Lake Tana 9 (fteenth century); Paris Abbadianus 55 (fteenth–sixteenth century); Ethiopian Manuscript Microlm Library (EMML) 2080 (fteenth–sixteenth century); British Library Orient. 485 (sixteenth century); Berlin, Petermann II, Nachtrag 29 (sixteenth century); EMML 1768 (sixteenth century); EMML 6281 (not seen; seventeenth century); Paris Abbadianus 35 (late seventeenth century); British Library Orient. 491 (eighteenth century).65 There are numerous corruptions and omissions in the manuscripts of this group, and frequently the manuscripts attest different readings; but in broad terms the text represented by this group corresponds to the Greek text known from the Akhmim manuscript, the Vatican fragment, and the Chester Beatty-Michigan papyrus. Despite the lack of uniformity in the readings attested by the manuscripts, sub-groups of manuscripts can be identied. The oldest manuscript, Lake Tana 9, offers a text that differs signicantly in a number of passages from that of the other manuscripts and represents a distinct type of text within the older group of manuscripts. The remainder of the manuscripts, which range in date from the seventeenth to the twentieth century, all attest a younger type of text. In all these manuscripts the text has been revised and “improved” so that it reads more smoothly. The manuscripts of this group are much more uniform in character than those of the group with the older type of text, but there are some manuscripts that do reveal some interesting

64 In recent years lists of manuscripts of 1 Enoch have been provided by Knibb, Ethiopic Book of Enoch, 2.23–7; Uhlig, Das Äthiopische Henochbuch, 473–6; Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 16–17. 65 For the dating of Ethiopian manuscripts, see Uhlig, Äthiopische Paläographie (Äthiopistische Forschungen 22; Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1988).

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variants (for example, British Library Orient. 492 and the Ullendorff manuscript, both of the eighteenth century). It should be emphasised that the distinction between the older and the younger group of manuscripts is not absolute, and in particular Cambridge Add. 1570, which is dated to the year 1588/89, although belonging amongst the manuscripts of the younger group, has a number of readings that correspond to those of the older group. The Book of Enoch was translated into Ethiopic as part of the translation of the Old Testament scriptures as a whole, and the history of the Ethiopic version of Enoch may be compared with that of the Ethiopic version of the other books of the Old Testament,66 although it differs from that in a number of respects.67 Manuscripts of the Ethiopic Old Testament are commonly divided into three groups representative of three stages in the development of the text: the Old Ethiopic, the vulgar recension, and the academic or Hebraising recension. The oldest recoverable form of the text, the so-called Old Ethiopic, represents the text as it existed towards the end of the Zagwe period, that is about the middle of the thirteenth century. The very few manuscripts that belong to this group date from the fourteenth century and contain the text in an unrevised form that, despite many mistakes, corruptions and omissions, represents the closest approximation that we possess to the original translation made from the Greek. No manuscript of Enoch is as old as the fourteenth century, but Lake Tana 9 from the fteenth century, contains a number of readings that are characteristic of this stage in the history of the Ethiopic Old Testament. In a number of passages Lake Tana 9 alone of the manuscripts of the older group preserves the oldest accessible form of the Ethiopic text. But this manuscript is also full of corruptions and omissions. The so-called vulgar recension of the Ethiopic Old Testament is primarily contained in manuscripts dating from the fteenth and sixteenth century. The text in manuscripts of this type reects a process of revision whose origins can be placed during a period of literary revival that began in the reign of Amda Sion (1314–1344). In some cases the revision can be seen to presuppose a correction of the text on the basis of a Syro-Arabic text, but in other cases the changes that were

66

Cf. Uhlig, Das Äthiopische Henochbuch, 488–91. For the history of the Ethiopic version of the Old Testament, see Knibb, Translating the Bible, 40–6. 67

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made in comparison with the Old Ethioopic are the kind of changes and improvements that are made spontaneously when manuscripts are copied. The older group of manuscripts of Enoch reect an equivalent stage of development, but it is not clear that the revision in this case was textually based. The academic recension is attested by manuscripts that date from the seventeenth century onwards and reects a process of revision that most probably began in the latter part of the sixteenth century. The primary aim of this revision seems to have been to produce a grammatically correct and smooth Ethiopic text that corresponded more closely than existing texts to the Hebrew, and revision of the Ethiopic on the basis of the Massoretic Text is clearly evident. The younger group of manuscripts of Enoch appear to correspond to manuscripts of the Ethiopic Old Testament with this type of text, but in the case of the Book of Enoch there is no evidence at this stage of revision on the basis of a Semitic Vorlage. There are a fair number of quotations from Enoch in Ethiopian homiletic and theological writings of the medieval period, and the hope has sometime been expressed that these might provide evidence of an earlier form of the Ethiopic text than that attested by the older group of manuscripts; Milik provided a provisional list of such quotations, which he culled from printed editions.68 In practice the quotations tend to be taken from a limited number of passages that could be used for Christian homiletic and theological purposes, and thus, for example, extensive passages from the Book of Parables are frequently quoted because they readily lent themselves for purposes of Christological controversy. But the quotations provide scant evidence of a text different from that already known from the older group of manuscripts. Rather they provide further support for readings already attested by the older group of manuscripts, including, in some cases, readings attested otherwise only by Lake Tana 9.69

68

Milik, Books of Enoch, 85–7. For more details, see M. A. Knibb, “The Text-Critical Value of the Quotations from 1 Enoch in Ethiopic Writings,” in F. García Martínez and M. Vervenne (eds.), Interpreting Translation: Studies on the LXX and Ezekiel in Honour of Johan Lust (BETL 192; Leuven: Leuven University Press—Peeters, 2005) 225–35. 69

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My aim in this study has been to show that the Aramaic text of the Book of Enoch known from the Dead Sea fragments, the Greek translation, and the Ethiopic version cannot simply be equated, but represent different stages in the development of a text that underwent an extended process of evolution. This process of evolution is reected already in the Aramaic Dead Sea manuscripts, and indeed it may be asked whether the title “the Book of Enoch” can properly be applied at the Aramaic stage to the writings that eventually formed the Enochic corpus. The Greek translation, of which we have only partial knowledge, and even more the Ethiopic version represent further stages in the evolution of this text. The changes evident in the Greek and the Ethiopic are not simply the kind of changes that naturally occur when texts are translated and copied over many centuries, but reect a process of redaction, and the Ethiopic Book of Enoch represents at the oldest a fth-sixth century translation of a Greek text that came into existence in the rst century CE; they represent (a) new edition(s) of the original Aramaic.70 This is not to say that the Greek and the Ethiopic are totally different from the Aramaic, quite the contrary; but the Greek and the Ethiopic belong in different literary and historical contexts from the original Aramaic Enochic texts, and in some places they clearly were quite different. The Book of Enoch remains one of the most important sources we posess for our knowledge of Judaism in the late Second Temple period, but in discussing its signicance for the Judaism of this period it is important that we keep in mind the precise textual status, and time of origin, of the passages on which we rely.

70 Cf. Uhlig, Das Äthiopische Henochbuch, 487–8: “Es handelt sich nicht um eine freie Übertragung bei Gr und Aeth, sondern um eine eng am Wortlaut des zu erschliessenden Originals orientierte targumähnliche Übersetzung, die eine neue literarische Fassung darstellt.”

THE EARLY TRADITIONS RELATED TO 1 ENOCH FROM THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS: AN OVERVIEW AND ASSESSMENT Loren T. Stuckenbruck Durham University, United Kingdom Introduction The purpose of the discussion to follow shall be to summarise and assess the evidence for the early Enochic traditions in Aramaic amongst the Dead Sea materials. As is well known, this tradition, commonly associated with a document that in modern times has been designated as “1 Enoch” or “Ethiopic Enoch”, is preserved in its fullest form in Ethiopic manuscripts, the earliest of which go only as far back as the fourteenth century CE.1 As such, 1 Enoch consists of seven main parts which, in turn, are comprised by a number of further compositions or independently composed units: (1) the Book of the Watchers (chs. 1–36), (2) Book of Parables (chs. 37–71), (3) the Astronomical Book (chs. 72–82), (4) the Book of Dream Visions (chs. 83–90, including the Animal Apocalypse at 85–90), (5) the Epistle of Enoch (chs. 91–105, including the Exhortation in 91:1–10 and the Apocalypse of Weeks in 93:1–10 and 91:11–17), (6) the Birth of Noah (chs. 106–107), and (7) Another Book that Enoch Wrote, a description of eschatological judgement and reward, respectively, on the wicked and the righteous (ch. 108). Working backwards, we nd that the 1 Enoch traditions are also attested in a number of Greek fragmentary materials, all of which predate the earliest Ethiopic manuscript witnesses.2 These include

1 For overviews of the Ethiopic manuscripts, see M. A. Knibb, The Ethiopic Book of Enoch. A New Edition in the Light of the Aramaic Dead Sea Fragments (2 vols; Oxford: Clarendon, 1978) 2.1–6, 21–37; S. Uhlig, Das äthiopische Henochbuch ( JSHRZ 5/6; Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1984) 470–91; and now G. W. E. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1 (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001) 15–7. 2 See generally M. Black, Apocalypsis Henochi graece. Fragmenta pseudepigraphorum quae supersunt graeca una cum historicorum et auctorum judaeorum hellinistarum fragmentis collegit et ordinarit A-M Denis (PVTG 3; Leiden: Brill, 1970). Concerning the problem of the Greek materials as translations from a Semitic Vorlage, see now E. W. Larson, The Translation of Enoch into Greek (PhD diss., New York University, 1995).

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the following: (1) the Codex Panopolitanus from Akhmim (fth-sixth century), which preserves a running text of the Book of the Watchers from 1:1–32:6a;3 (2) the Chronography of George Syncellus (early ninth century), which in three passages cites portions from the Book of the Watchers corresponding to 6:1–11:4, 8:4–10:14, and 15:8–16:1;4 (3) two fragments of Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 2069 (fourth century) which relate to 77:7–78:1 and 78:8 (Astronomical Book), on the one hand, and correspond to 85:10–86:2 and 87:1–3 (Book of Dream Visions), on the other;5 (4) Codex Vaticanus Gr. 1809 (eleventh century), a tachygraph that contains a text corresponding to the Animal Apocalypse in the Book of Dream Visions at 89:42–49;6 (5) a papyrus manuscript (fourth century) preserved in the Chester Beatty collection (four leaves) and at the University of Michigan (two leaves), preserving text from 97:6–107:3, that is, from Epistle of Enoch and Birth of Noah;7 and

3 U. Bouriant, “Fragments grecs du livre d’Énoch,” Mémoires publiés par les members de la Mission archéologique française au Caire (9/1; Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1892) 91–147; published with the plates and some corrections by A. Lods, “L’Évangile et l’Apocalypse de Pierre, publiés pour la 1re fois, d’après les photographes de Gizéh, avec un appendice sur les rectications à apporter au texte grec du Livre d’Énoch ( publié par M. Bouriant),” Mémoires publiés par les members de la Mission archéologique française au Caire (9/3; Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1893) 217–35 + Pls. XI–XXXIII. 4 There is, in addition, a fourth passage in which the citation has no parallels to any known part of 1 Enoch. As is well known, J. T. Milik, The Books of Enoch. Aramaic Fragments from Qumrân Cave 4 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1976) 317–8, surmised that this may have been a Greek fragment from the Book of Giants. For more presentations of the texts, see A. A. Mosshammer, Georgii Syncelli Ecloga Chronographica ( Leipzig: Teubner, 1984) and W. Adler and P. Tufn, The Chronography of George Synkellos: A Byzantine Chronicle of Universal History from the Creation, Translated with Introduction and Notes (Oxford: Oxford University, 2002). 5 These fragments, located at the Sackler Library in Oxford, need to be restudied in light of Józef Milik’s claim that they did not originally belong to the same codex; see J. T. Milik, “Fragments grecs du livre d’Hénoch (P. Oxy. Xvii 2069),” Chronique d’Égypte 46 (1971) 321–43. If it were to turn out that they share a codicological context, then this would constitute evidence for the copying of the Astronomical Book and the Book of Dream Visions together in the Greek tradition. For the publication, see A. S. Hunt, “2069. Apocalyptic Fragment,” in The Oxyrhynchus Papyri. Part 17 (London: Egypt Exploration Society, 1927) 6–8. 6 For an edition with the photograph, see M. Gitlbauer, Die Überreste griechischer Tachygraphie im Codex Vaticanus Graecus 1809, (Denkschriften der Kaiserlichen Akademie der Wissenschaften philosophisch-historische Klasse 28/2; Wien: Gerold, 1878) 16, 32, 55–7, 92–3 + pl. XI. 7 See the edition, with plates, by C. Bonner and H. C. Youtie, The Last Chapters of Enoch in Greek (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1968, repr. from 1937), with signicant comparative notes by G. W. E. Nickelsburg, “Enoch 97–104: A Study of the Greek and Ethiopic Texts,” in M. E. Stone (ed.), Armenian and Biblical Studies ( Jerusalem: St. James, 1976) 90–156.

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(6) it is possible, though inconclusive, that seven Dead Sea fragments from Cave 7 (ca. turn of the Common Era) derive from various parts of Epistle of Enoch (7Q4 1–103:3–4; 7Q2–98:11 or 105:1,8 with even more debateable suggestions made for 7Q8 (103:7–8), 7Q11 (100:12), 7Q12 (103:4) and 7Q13 (103:15).9 Against this background, the complexity of the Dead Sea fragments should not be overlooked. This is true for several reasons. Firstly, an evaluation of these materials is not simply a matter of “tting in” the fragments into this or that part of 1 Enoch 1–108. As we shall see below, the fragments, mostly in Aramaic, sometimes contain Enochic material that does not immediately or even directly correspond to later versions preserved in the other languages (e.g. 4Q201 2–8 and several of the Astronomical Book manuscripts). Secondly, there is a question about the extent and nature of the corpus during the time the manuscripts were being copied. For example, while no part of the Book of Parables is extant from the Dead Sea caves, a number of fragmentary manuscripts belonging to the Book of Giants have been identied; we shall explore whether or not one of these manuscripts (i.e. 4Q203) is, as Milik has argued, codicologically related to another (i.e. 4Q204) that contains Book of the Watchers, Animal Apocalypse, Epistle of Enoch, and Birth of Noah. Finally, despite the great strides forward since 1992, we are still not in a position to say that all the Enochic materials in question have been ofcially published—that is, with photographic plates and critical readings.10

8 See G.-W. Nebe, “Möglichkeit und Grenze einer Identikation,” RQ 13 (1988) 629–33; É. Puech, “Notes sur les fragments grecs du manuscript 7Q4 1 = 1 Henoch 103 et 105,” RB 103 (1996) 592–600; “Sept fragments de la Lettre d’Hénoch (I Hén 100, 103 et 105) dans la grotte 7 de Qumrân (= 7QHén gr),” RQ 19 (1997–1998) 313–23. 9 In addition to Puech and Nebe’s publications ( previous n.), see E. A. Muro, “The Greek Fragments of Enoch from Qumrân Cave 7 (7Q4, 7Q8 & 7Q12 = 7QEn gr = Enoch 103:3–4, 7–8),” RQ 70 (1997) 307–12. George W. E. Nickelsburg casts doubt on all the Enochic identications from Cave 7 in “The Greek Fragments of 1 Enoch from Qumran Cave 7: An Unproven Identication”, RQ 21 (2004) 631–4. 10 This holds true for some fragments not included by Milik, The Books of Enoch, in particular now a few fragments from 4QEnochc (= 4Q204, on Rockefeller 189), while only recently the papyrus designated XQpapEnoch which, however, received preliminary publication with a photograph by Esther and Hanan Eshel, “New Fragments from Qumran: 4QGenb, 4QIsab, 4Q226, 8QGen and XpapEnoch,” DSD 12 (2005) 134–157. We are informed through the Israel Antiquities Authority that Erik Larson is preparing a contribution on the unpublished Enochic materials for DJD 41. Though Larson has conrmed this assignment, his communication to me that his work is to cover the materials “not included in Milik’s book” is not specic enough to be certain about what to expect.

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The discussion below shall review each of the manuscripts in turn, focusing on basic issues of codicology and their general content. Following this, a brief summary shall state what this evidence means about the extent and nature of the Enochic writings during the Second Temple period. 4Q201 (4QEnocha) This manuscript, which is dated palaeographically to the rst half of the second century BCE,11 is numbered as 4QEnocha 1 through 8. Milik labelled a group of fragments (designated with small letters a through p) as all belonging to 4QEnocha 1 which he published in full.12 Milik was able to assign these materials to six columns of the manuscript that correspond to parts of the rst 12 chapters of the Book of the Watchers.13 Milik did not publish 4QEnocha 2–8, merely referring instead to their existence as “seven little unidentied fragments.”14 Thus, in total, 4Q201 is preserved through 23 fragments.15 If one accepts Milik’s view of 4QEnocha 1, then it would seem reasonable to suppose that this manuscript simply contained the Book of the Watchers, as preserved more fully in the Greek Panopolitanus and Ethiopic versions. However, any inferences regarding the manuscript need to take two things into account. First, we do not know the entirety of what 4Q201 contained. On this point there has been a difference of opinion. On the one hand, Milik has asserted that the manuscript circumscribed the equivalent to 1 Enoch 1–36.16 On the other hand, stating that Milik’s view is “only an argument from silence,” George Nickelsburg has ventured the possibility that chapters 1–5, extant in 4QEnocha and the last part of the Book of the Watchers to be

11 On the basis of the manuscript’s consonantal orthography and a misconstrual of the Vorlage’s pe as a yod, Milik (The Books of Enoch, 141) argues, however, that the manuscript was copied from an older archetype, which would thus have dated “the third century at the very least”. 12 Milik, The Books of Enoch, 139–63 + Pls. I–V. 13 Specically, to text from 1:1–6 (col. i); 2:1–5:6 (col. ii); 6:4–8:1 (col. iii); 8:3–9:3, 6–8 (col. iv); 10:3–4 (col. v); 10:21–11:1; 12:4–6 (col. vi). 14 Milik, The Books of Enoch, 141. 15 Note the inconsistency in the numerical designations used by Milik: on the one hand, “1” is made to refer to 16 fragments or groupings of fragments, while “2”, “3”, “4” etc. each designates one fragment. 16 Milik, The Books of Enoch, 141.

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composed, may presuppose the existence (within this manuscript and 4Q202 = 4QEnochb?) of additional material connected with it, that is, texts found in testamentary passages such as 81:1–82:3; 91:1–10; 94:1–5; and 104:1–105:2.17 It is impossible to side with either alternative with any condence; however, since Nickelsburg’s suggestion requires one to adopt, from almost the very beginning, a testamentary framework for the development, growth, and augmentation of the early Enochic corpus, it rests on an even greater argumentum ex silentio than the one attributed to Milik.18 If it may be established that at least the extant fragments all belong to the Book of the Watchers, then what seems to be rather meagre evidence amongst fragments 4Q201 2–8 may turn out to be signicant.19 While none of these fragments as a whole contains a text that straightforwardly corresponds to what we have in any of the recensions to chapters 1–36, two of them have words that may relate to 1 Enoch 10:16 (no. 2, l. 3) and 13:8 (no. 6). In the former instance, the correspondence of words in line 3 to 10:16 is, where the text is preserved, exact;20 since none of the other versions to the Book of the Watchers contains text for these words (“together with all the works of ”), their identication with 10:16 seems probable.21 However, the visible words on the previous line (l. 2: “leaders and chiefs of ”)22 do not have any precise equivalent. At the same time, as the previous verse (10:15) mentions the “watchers,” the terms may offer an equivalent reference to them, thus reecting a textual tradition different from the later versions, at least at this point of the Book of the Watchers. We are thus reminded that one should not be too quick to assume what exact text the Aramaic stage of the

17

Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 25. For critical reviews of Nickelsburg’s hypothesis, see L. Stuckenbruck in RBL 01/2005 (see http://www.bookreviews.org/pdf/1837_3514.pdf ) and A. Yoshiko Reed, “The Textual Identity, Literary History, and Social Setting of 1 Enoch: Reections on George Nickelsburg’s Commentary on 1 Enoch 1–36; 81–108,” ARG 5 (2003) 279–96. 19 For their publication, see L. Stuckenbruck, “4Q201 2–8. 4QEnocha (Pl. I),” in S. J. Pfann et alii (eds.), Cryptic Texts and Miscellanea, Part 1. Qumran Cave 4, XXVI (DJD 36; Oxford: Clarendon, 2000) 3–7. 20 That is, the phrase “together with the works of all” ( ] ydb[ lk [[ ) corresponds to the same in 1 En 10:16a: “Destroy all wickedness from the earth, together with all works of evil”. 21 Codicologically, the placement of this fragment at the bottom left of 4Q201’s column v is likely; see Stuckenbruck, “4Q201 2–8,” 3–4. 22 The text: ynbr ˆybç ˆ[ (l. 2). 18

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early Enoch tradition contained.23 The other fragment contains only a few letters, which are likely to be read as “of anger”. As any term for “anger” in the versions is rare, only being found within the Book of the Watchers at 13:8 (and certainly not amongst chapters 1–12), the placement of the fragment is possible, though by no means certain. If the text does stem from 13:8, then we have evidence for the text outside the rst twelve chapters, which would be more than what was known when Milik’s publication of 4Q201 1. We may be certain, then, that 4Q201 contained at least chapters 1–16 (chs. 11–16 having formed a literary unit). Moreover, if chapters 1–5 were composed last, at least as an introduction to the rest of the book, then, without going as far as Nickelsburg, we may afrm the likelihood that this manuscript encompassed at least the received entirety of the Book of Watchers in chapters 1–36. One nal point on 4Q201 should be made. Milik, in noting that the back of the parchment was used as a “school-exercise,”24 implied that the manuscript had fallen into disuse as one that was being read for its Enochic text. By inference, this would yield the impression that the manuscript was no longer regarded as important. The existence of XQpapEnoch (see below), the text and orthography of which adheres closely to those of 4Q201 (with one possible exception), suggests that, while the manuscript itself may have fallen into disuse, the precise text that it preserves did not.25

23 While this is a truism, see Milik’s own reconstruction of 10:16, based on his own retroversion from the Greek and Ethiopic versions. 24 The back, or verso, of 4Q201 cols. i–iii is now dealt with under siglum 4Q338 (= 4QGenealogical List?): see E. Tov, “4Q338. 4QGenealogical List? (Pl. XIX),” in Qumran Cave 4.XXVI (DJD 36) 290. Milik mentions this writing (The Books of Enoch, 139, 7): 4Q201 “was withdrawn from use, perhaps a century after the copy was made . . . This might have been a school-exercise, as the surface of the verso is badly blotted with ink”. Tov (“4Q338,” 290) rightly comments that “[t]here is no evidence in favour of this suggestion.” Indeed, if Tov is correct that the content is genealogical, inferred from the possible double occurrence of dylwh (once with only the last three letters visible), then his further suggestion that the verso text is related to that on the recto, which is strongly related to the genealogical contents of Gen 5:18–6:4, strengthens the ongoing importance of the text of 4Q201. 25 In addition, note the comment by Milik that 4Q202 (see below) was corrected by its scribe against another manuscript, possibly one like 4Q201; see Milik, The Books of Enoch, 164–5.

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4Q202 (4QEnochb) Milik numbered the fragments or groups of fragments of 4Q202 with the letters a through i´, yielding a total of 35.26 This manuscript is very fragmentary, with some of the pieces extremely small and therefore very difcult to place. Nevertheless, the preserved fragments may be condently assigned to the Book of the Watchers at portions of chapters 5–10 and 14. Copied, according to Milik, around the middle of the 2nd century BCE,27 4Q202 may have contained the same range of text as 4Q201, though by contrast presents the text with a fuller orthography for internal long vowels and more consistent use of aleph to denote the emphatic state of substantives. With respect to the extent of content, the tentative conclusions given for 4Q201 above also apply here. 4Q204 (4QEnochc) Milik published altogether 24 fragments, designated a through n (Book of the Watchers), a (Animal Apocalypse), and a through i (Epistle of Enoch and Birth of Noah).28 With respect to content, this early Herodian manuscript is of particular interest for several reasons. Firstly, it not only preserves portions of the Book of the Watchers (including material from its later chapters), but also has the Book of Dream Visions (i.e. the Animal Apocalypse), the Epistle of Enoch (including the Apocalypse of Weeks), and the Birth of Noah as well. As such, this is the most wideranging or “full” Enochic manuscript amongst the Dead Sea fragments. At least to this extent, then, this copy provides evidence that some of the Enochic works were being gathered or collected at this time. Secondly,

26

Milik, The Books of Enoch, 164–78 + pls. VI–IX. Milik, The Books of Enoch, 164: “archaic, probably dating from the early Hasmonaean period . . . doubtless goes back to the rst half of the second century, or perhaps more exactly to the middle of the century.” 28 For his treatment of the manuscript, see Milik, The Books of Enoch, 178–217 + pls. IX–XV. It is not clear that Milik thus published all pieces associated with the manuscript. On one Rockefeller plate (Inventory No. 189) at the scrollery, 4 of 12 small fragments with readings on them are not treated anywhere in Milik’s edition. These may belong to either 4Q204 or to 4Q203, as the top left fragment could be restored as a reference to Enoch as a “scribe of] interpretation/discernment” ( ]açrp[ rps; see esp. 4Q203 8.4 and 4Q530 2 ii + 6–7 i + 8–12.14). 27

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outside the Astronomical Book (see below), 4Q204 is palaeographically the latest of the copies of the early Enochic traditions and so attests to their continuing importance amongst those who copied them, perhaps—depending on where the manuscript was produced—even those in the community at Qumran. Thirdly, the manuscript has attracted some debate in relation to its contents, a problem which, in turn, raises the question of its extent. Before reecting on this question, it is appropriate to review the discussions thus far. The importance of 4Q204 for Milik’s codicological interpretation concerning the shape of the early Enochic traditions cannot be overestimated. Probably more than any other single manuscript, it provided a basis for his hypothesis that, already in the Dead Sea scrolls, Enochic traditions were being collected into a kind of “Pentateuch”, this and the other manuscripts preserving material from each of the main portions of the later 1 Enoch (i.e. Book of the Watchers, Astronomical Book, Book of Dream Visions, and Epistle of Enoch). The main exception was, of course, the Book of Parables, from which no materials outside the Ethiopic evidence are preserved. For Milik, as is well known, the remaining fth Enochic book was the Book of Giants which, for reasons of its importance for the Manichaeans, was dropped from the collection and substituted by the Book of Parables. It is not our purpose here to explore whether, as Milik supposed, the Book of Parables was a Christian composition of the 3rd century CE, or a non-Christian Jewish composition from the latter half of the 1st century BCE until the late 1st century CE.29 However, the attestation of the Book of Giants amongst the Dead Sea materials is of particular importance, especially as one of the manuscripts thereof, 4Q204 (= 4QEnGiantsa), looks very much as though it was copied by the same hand as 4Q203. Indeed, Milik argues that it is “quite certain that 4QEnGiantsa formed part of the same scroll as that of Enc,” which would have contained the Book of the Watchers, Book of Giants, Book of Dream Visions, and Epistle of Enoch.30 In addition to the script, Milik draws on similarities in orthography, state of preservation of the fragments, and parallel “arrangement of the text” in support of this view. To date, no one has questioned the correspondence between the scribal hand(s) in 4Q203–204. What, however, about Milik’s view that

29 30

Milik’s general views are discussed in Milik, The Books of Enoch, 4–7. See especially Milik, The Books of Enoch, 22, 178–79, here 310.

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these sigla, in fact, refer to different parts of the same manuscript, that is, that their contents furnish evidence for the existence of a collection of Enochic writings that included the Book of Giants? Several considerations show a complexity that does not support such a thesis in a straightforward way. Firstly, with respect to the textual arrangement, in 4Q204 the scribe opens new sections by indenting lines, leaving ends of lines blank, the use of a vacat within lines, and by leaving a line blank.31 4Q203, by contrast, seems to have been even more liberal in its use of space; amongst the very fragmentary remains, there are a number of occasions in which entire blank lines are used to mark shifts between sections.32 This may suggest that if 4Q203 and 4Q204 were copied by the same scribe, that scribe’s respective arrangements of his texts may be explained by different codicological contexts determined, for instance, by the amount of parchment the scribe knew to be available. Secondly, there is the question of genre. Milik assumed that the Book of Giants was a pseudepigraphical book “attributed to Enoch.”33 The Book of Giants, however, is cast in a third person narrative that refers not only to Enoch’s role in divine judgment against the watchers and giants but also, and especially, to how this is perceived by the giants themselves.34 It would be wrong, therefore, to infer that in its form, the Book of Giants would have been well suited to being collected alongside the more strictly pseudepigraphal works of Enoch.35 Thirdly, there is now the problem of the length of the manuscript required by Milik. According to his estimation, the length of 4QEnochc would have been approximately 4.5 meters, with the 14 columns of the Book of the Watchers coming to 1.75 meters (including margins).36 This gure, however, does not include the Book of Giants which he argued was the second work to have been copied in the manuscript, following

31 Regarding these features, see, respectively, Milik, The Books of Enoch, Pls XII (frg. g lines 7 and 9), XI (frg. g col. i line 3), XIII (frg. n col. i line 3), XIV (frg. a col. i line 6). 32 There are at least six clear instances: frg.’s 2.3; 4.2; 7A line 4 from bottom, 7B line 4 from bottom; 8.2; and 12.2. 33 Milik, The Books of Enoch, 57. 34 See L. Stuckenbruck, The Book of Giants from Qumran (TSAJ 63; Tübingen: MohrSiebeck, 1997) 25–7. 35 So D. Dimant, “The Biography of Enoch and the Books of Enoch,” VT 33 (1983) 14–29, esp. 16 n. 8; see also, J. Reeves, Jewish Lore in Manichaean Cosmogony. Studies in the Book of Giants Traditions (Monographs of the Hebrew Union College 14; Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College Press, 1992) 55; Stuckenbruck, The Book of Giants, 25–6. 36 Milik, The Books of Enoch, 182.

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the Book of the Watchers; Milik’s claim about codicology would thus mean that the manuscript was considerably longer. Allowing for the likelihood that the Book of Giants was at least as long as the Book of the Watchers,37 we may imagine that Milik’s manuscript, comprised of 4Q203–204, would at a minimum have been 6.25 meters long. As such, it would have been among the longer manuscripts preserved from the Qumran scrolls.38 This sort of length, though coming within the range of attested possibilities within the Dead Sea materials, would nevertheless be unusual. Fourthly, as noted above, Milik’s claims go even further: the conservative orthography of 4QEnochc betrays that it is a copy derived from a Vorlage “belonging to the last quarter of the second century BC (date of 1QIsa and 1QS).”39 This antecedent, he

37 Concerning the structure of the work, see L. Stuckenbruck, “The Sequencing of Fragments in the Qumran Book of Giants: An Inquiry into the Structure and Signicance of an Early Jewish Composition,” JSP 16 (1997) 3–24; The Book of Giants, 20–24. Signicantly, amongst the Dead Sea manuscript fragments, there is very little overlapping material; Émile Puech (“Les fragments 1 à 3 du Livre des Géants de la grotte 6 ( pap 6Q8),” RQ 19/2 (1999) 227–38), argues plausibly that 6Q8 frg. 2 provides a missing portion of Hahyah’s dream in 4Q530 frg.’s 2 ii + 6–7 col. i + 8–12, though an overlap cannot be veried from the readings; see also É. Puech, “4Q530 1. 4QLivre des Géantsb ar (Pl. I–I),” in É. Puech (ed.), Qumrân Grotte 4 XXII. Textes Araméens, Première Partie 4Q529–549 (DJD, 31; Oxford: Clarendon, 2001) 19–47, esp. 28, 33–4). A work of considerable length seems probable, if the Book of Giants contained an elaborate description of pre-diluvian events, two series of dreams, two trips by Mahaway to Enoch, and two “tablets” announcing judgment. Manuscript reconstruction cannot carried through on any of the Book of Giants fragments, except for 4Q530 2 ii + 6–7 i + 8–12, on which the intervals between damage points at the top of the column make it possible to infer that the scroll could only have contained two further columns, but tells us nothing about the length of the scroll as a whole (i.e. about how many preceding columns there would have been). 38 That is, a manuscript of 6.25 meters in length would have been longer than 11QPsa (5 m), though shorter than the longest extant scrolls, namely 1QIsaa (7.34 m) and the Temple Scroll (8.148 m, though at least 8.75 m originally); see H. Stegemann, “Methods for the Reconstruction of Scrolls from Scattered Fragments,” in L. H. Schiffman (ed.), Archaeology and History in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The New York University Conference in Memory of Yigael Yadin ( JSPSup 8; Shefeld: JSOT Press, 1990) 189–220, esp. 198–9, 215, notes 93–100. With all this, however, it should be remembered that several of the scrolls may well have been much longer, especially if the larger biblical books and paraphrases thereof (e.g. 1QapGen) are taken into account; see E. Tov, “The Dimensions of the Qumran Scrolls,” DSD 5 (1998) 69–91. 39 Milik, The Books of Enoch, 183. The orthographic features of 4Q204 to which Milik refers ( pp. 181–82) are (a) the frequent use of aleph to denote vocalic use of yod and waw in the nal position (as happens in 1QS and 1QIsaa); (b) the occasional use of he for the emphatic state of a masculine substantive (as in the earlier mss. 4QEnocha,b); and (c) a use of samek in place of etymological uin (as in 4QEnocha). Of these, 4QEnGiantsa = 4Q203 only shares (a), while nothing corresponding to (b) and (c) occurs.

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thinks, must then have contained the same four works and, therefore, have been of comparable length. Since 4Q203 shares only a small portion of the conservative orthographic features of 4Q204,40 the positive evidence that the scribe was drawing on a Vorlage containing the other Enochic works is slight. In sum, while these points do not decisively overturn Milik’s claim about 4Q203–204’s role as an early “Enochic Pentateuch”, they are sufcient to warn against taking his view for granted. It may be at least as likely that 4Q203 is a copy of the Book of Giants on a different scroll. If anything, the inclusion of the Birth of Noah after the section containing the Epistle of Enoch, reveals how much the notion of “ve” collected works can become a convenient, rather than a descriptive, way of locating the early Enochic works in relation to other Jewish (Mosaic) tradition.41 4Q205 (= 4QEnochd) The eight fragments published from this early Herodian manuscript preserve text from chapters 22–27 (Book of the Watchers, a through d ) and chapter 89 (Animal Apocalypse, a through d ).42 Milik again appeals to orthographical features of the manuscript (shared with 4Q203)43 to argue, as he does for 4Q203, that the scribe copied from a manuscript that contained the same four works encompassed by 4Q203–204. Even more so than 4Q203, there is very little to substantiate such a view. 4Q206 (= 4QEnoche) Seventeen fragments from this late Hasmonaean manuscript, seven (a through g) from the Book of the Watchers and six (a through f ) from the Animal Apocalypse in the Book of Dream Visions, were published by Milik.44 As in the case of 4Q204 and 4Q205, Milik contended

40

See information in the previous note. Milik (The Books of Enoch, 57) is thus constrained to argue that the Birth of Noah was an appendix, “not to the Epistle itself, but very probably to the whole Enochic corpus”. 42 See Milik, The Books of Enoch, 217–25 + Pls. XVI–XVII. 43 On the use of aleph to lend vocalic value to yod and waw and for the vowel sound within a word, see Milik, The Books of Enoch, 217. 44 Milik, The Books of Enoch, 225–44 + Pls. XVIII–XXI, 4Q206a on Pl. XIX. 41

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that 4Q206 probably contained the Book of Giants, of which two fragments that he attributes to the same scribe are preserved under the siglum 4Q206a (= Milik’s “4Q206 2 and 3”).45 In addition, Milik claimed that, as 4Q204 and 4Q205, 4QEnoche “probably” included the Epistle of Enoch.46 Though this in itself is more evidence than what exists for 4Q205, Milik’s supposition that 4Q206a was copied by the scribe who was copying the same scroll as 4Q206 is even less clear than the codicological association of 4Q203–4Q204.47 How problematic this is may be illustrated if the approximate calculations applied to 4Q204 (and 4Q203) above are carried over to 4Q206 (and 4Q206a). Based on Milik’s estimate that the Book of the Watchers required 28 columns in 4Q206 and on an average column width of 9.25 cm with .75 cm margins, the length of the scroll for the Book of the Watchers alone would have been 2.8 m. If the Book of Giants is not taken into account, the length of the scroll would have come to about 7.0 m. If the Book of Giants is then added to the equation, the length would again make the scroll one of the longer ones amongst the Dead Sea materials.48 4Q207 (= 4QEnochf) This manuscript is only extant through a single piece, copied in an early Hasmonaean script, from the Animal Apocalypse in the Book of Dream Visions.49 Nothing can be inferred regarding whether or not the manuscript contained any of the other Enochic works.

45 Milik, The Books of Enoch, 236–8. Milik, followed by others, argued that there was an overlap between 4Q206a 1 with 4Q533 4 (4Q533 having been previously listed as 4Q556 in inventory catalogues). This, however, has been questioned by É. Puech, “4Q533 1. 4QLivre des Géantse ar (Pl. VI),” in Qumrân Grotte 4 XXII. (DJD 31) 105–115, here pp. 111–12. Because of the variations between the overlaps, Puech suggests that 4Q206a 1 and 4Q533 4 more likely preserve texts from different passages in the Book of Giants. Signicantly, the identity of 4Q206a 2 as belonging to the Book of Giants seems now assured, given Puech’s suggestion that the extant wording of 4Q206a 2 seems to resonate with the text of 4Q530 frg.’s 2 ii + 6–7 col. i + 8–12, lines 14–16 (at line 2) and line 19 (at line 3). 46 Milik, The Books of Enoch, 57. 47 See Dimant, “The Biography of Enoch,” 17 and n. 9. 48 See information referred to in n. 38 above, though it is very likely that a number of biblical scrolls and paraphrases would have been much longer. 49 Milik, The Books of Enoch, 244–5 + Pl. XXI.

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4Q212 (= 4QEnochg) The manuscript is written in a transitional semi-cursive script from the second half of the 1st century BCE Its ve surviving fragments (a through e), which Milik assigned to columns i through v, relate to the Epistle of Enoch and include the Apocalypse of Weeks.50 As there are no further surviving fragments of 4Q212 from other Enochic traditions, there is no reason to think this copy contained anything outside the Epistle of Enoch. Milik does refer to the scribe’s inconsistent adherence to the Vorlage’s more conservative orthography,51 but makes no attempt—as he has done elsewhere in the volume—to speculate whether this has any implications for how much the text behind 4Q212 may (or may not) have contained. The signicance of 4QEnochg consists mainly in the sort of text it preserves for the place of the Apocalypse of Weeks in the Epistle of Enoch. As is well known, the sequence of ten weeks in the Apocalypse is both broken and out of order throughout the Ethiopic tradition: descriptions of weeks eight through ten occur rst (91:12–17) before the events associated with weeks one through seven are described (91:3–10). Thus on the basis of the Ethiopic alone, scholars were easily able to reconstruct an original order, according to which 91:3–10 was immediately followed by 91:12–17. Thus the original order of the text of Epistle of Enoch, including the Apocalypse of Weeks, may be postulated as follows: 91:1–10, 18–19; 92:1–93:10; 91:11–17; and 93:11–14. Milik’s placement of the fragments from 4Q212 reects this order, though he acknowledges that the placement of fragment a, column ii of which preserves text from 91:10, 18–19 and 92:1–2, requires that the Aramaic version beginning at 91:1 would have had a text that is longer than what survives in the Ethiopic tradition.52 Daniel Olson has questioned Milik’s reconstruction by placing fragment a in another position, that is, above column iii of fragment c.53 Olson’s arrangement, which assigns all the fragments to three (instead of to Milik’s ve) columns, results in a different postulated order for the Aramaic of the manuscript: 91:1–10;

50

Milik, The Books of Enoch, 245–72 + Pl. XXI–XXIV. Milik, The Books of Enoch, 246. 52 Milik, The Books of Enoch, 247–8. 53 D. C. Olson, “Recovering the Original Sequence of 1 Enoch 91–93,” JSP 11 (1993) 69–94. 51

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92:3–93:10; 91:11–92:2; and 93:11–14. Olson’s order regards 91:1–10 as the beginning of the Epistle of Enoch, so that the Apocalypse of Weeks ensues (i.e. 92:3–93:10 and 91:11–17), followed by 91:18–92:1 and, nally, by a section in which 92:2 introduces 93:11–14. For Olson there is only one explanation for how such an original order was lost: a scribe at a very early stage of the Ethiopic tradition copied a leaf ’s worth of text 91:11–92:2 between 93:10 and 92:3, thus disrupting the sequence. Whatever problems there are in positing such an accidental displacement within the transmission of the text,54 is there any physical evidence that could adjudicate Olson’s placement of fragment a? A microscopic analysis of fragments a and c reveals that the directions of their hair follicles on the skin are incompatible with the placement Olson has assigned them in relation to one another:55 whereas at the top of fragment c the follicles move diagonally from lower right towards the upper left, the follicles at the lower part of fragment a move from the lower right to the upper left, precisely where one would expect the follicles to be more vertical than on fragment c.56 Olson’s suggestion is, therefore, highly improbable, and Milik’s placement of fragment a on columns i and ii, while not thereby conrmed, is more plausible. XQpapEnoch This papyrus fragment, which only came to the general attention of the scholarly world in 2005, has been published with a photograph by Hanan and Esther Eshel.57 It is the only papyrus preserving any part of 1 Enoch (except, perhaps for 6Q8, the fragments of which belong

54 See the perceptive evaluation of Olson’s reconstruction by Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 414–5. 55 For Olson’s arrangement of these fragments see Olson, “Recovering the Original Sequence,” 94 (Figure 2). 56 I am grateful to Stephen Pfann, University of the Holy Land, for introducing me to the analysis of hair follicles and for his assistance in analysing these fragments. For a description of the method, see S. J. Pfann, “4Q298. 4Qcrypt A Words of the Maskil to All Sons of Dawn (Pls. I–II),” in T. Elgvin et al., Qumran Cave 4 XV: Sapiential Texts, Part I (DJD 20; Oxford: Clarendon, 1997) 1–30. 57 Along with several other only recently available fragments, XQpapEnoch has been published in DSD 12 (2005), see above n. 10. I am grateful to the Eshels and to James Charlesworth for correspondence regarding this fragment even before its publication.

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to the Book of Giants). Since it is so new and may have a bearing on our understanding of the text of 4Q201, it is appropriate here to offer a few observations. The scribal hand is early Herodian and, therefore, dateable to sometime during the period of 50–20 BCE. The fragment is, at a maximum, 4.6 cm wide and 6.33 cm high. Its text corresponds to the Book of the Watchers at 1 Enoch 8:4b-9:3a and may be read (with minimal reconstruction) as follows: 1— 2— 3— 4— 5— 6—

traces of two letters

lakym ]qyda ˆyda9:1 hymçl [ qls…8:4 ygs d] wzjw a[ra l[ hymç y[çdq ˆm hyl[ ]aylyfq yd hsmjw h[ç[r tylmta ] hq[zw hlq [y]d ˆhymdq[ wrmaw . . .9:2 hymç y]çydql [w]rmaw9:3 hy[m]ç[ y[rt

With respect to orthography, the emphatic state is represented by both he (hymç, ll. 2–3, 6; h[ç[r, l.4; hsmjw, l.4) and aleph (a[ra, l.3; aylyfq, l.4), much like the variation that occurs in 4QEnocha. Notes on the text: (a) Line 2: it is possible that the preposition in hymçl [ qls is a variant for what Milik reads and reconstructions for 4QEnocha 1 iv fragment f line 6: d]q qls. (b) Line 4: Milik’s reading of 4QEnocha (fragment g line 4) after yd of fragment h is hyl[ yfj[ja; here, however, the text is aylyfq yd, a reading which, in turn, may be the basis for correcting Milik’s reading for 4QEnocha. Indeed, Milik’s reading of yfj[ is problematic: what he transcribes as a heth is barely visible and certainly not identiable, so that nothing excludes reading qoph (which, in the same way as heth, also has an upper left tick which is visible on the fragment. As for what the reading hyl[: fragment g, which is a grouping of three smaller pieces, may be readjusted in the lower middle piece, which could be moved further to the right. The result is that there is no room for an intervening ‘ayin, thus making it possible to read the lamed immediately after yod. Finally, what Milik has restored as he at the end of the word he has reconstructed (hyl[) in fact looks much more like an aleph given the shape of the visible (upper) part of the letter. As a result, we may suggest that 4QEnocha probably contains the same term and form as that found in XQpapEnoch: aylyfq. The word itself does not appear within the Book of the Watchers in either the Greek or Ethiopic versions to 9:3. Milik, however, in commenting on the text of 4QEnoche in 22:5, noted the occurrence of the same term, in the absolute state, in the Book of Giants at 4Q530 1.4: ˆq[zmw ˆwhylfq l[ ˆlbq ˆyl[yfq tçpn. The text, now published by

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Puech,58 comes close to that of the Greek Codex Panopolitanus to 1 Enoch 9:10:          (where ‘killed ones’ takes the denite article). 1Q19 (= 1QBook of Noah) and 1Q19bis When Milik published the 21 small fragments of this manuscript in 1955, he assigned them as a whole to a lost “Livre de Noé.”59 His view was based primarily on the content of fragment 3, the content of which at lines 4–5 corresponds to that of 1 Enoch 106:10 and 12 (though in reverse order) and on fragment 8, in which the name “Methuselah” can be reconstructed (cf. 106:1, 4, 8). Similarly, fragment 1—the phrases “they became great on the earth” (l. 2) and “had corrupted] its way upon the earth” (l. 3; cf. Gen. 6:12)—is reminiscent of 1 Enoch 106:15 (see also 9:1–2 and Jubilees 5:2), and therefore could be linked with Noahic tradition. However, fragment 2 (= 1Q19bis) contains a list of the angels followed by an intercessory prayer to God (ll. 2 and 4–5, respectively); this closely resembles the narrative sequence of the Book of the Watchers at 1 Enoch 9:1, 3–4; cf. 4QEnochb iii, ll. 13–14). Milik’s conclusion, without incorporating 1Q19bis into account, was that 1Q19 preserves remnants of a work about Noah that may have been taken up in the later Birth of Noah in 1 Enoch 106–107.60 Klaus Beyer, on the other hand, has construed these fragments differently, assigning them to a Hebrew version of 1 Enoch, a view he has continued to maintain since his initial discussion in 1984.61 He has thus incorporated his readings of the 1Q19 fragments into his synthetic text of the

58 Puech, “4Q530 1. 4QLivre des Géantsb ar”, 23–4, Pl. I. See also Stuckenbruck, The Book of Giants from Qumran, 135–7. 59 J. T. Milik, “1Q19. ‘Livre de Noé’ (Pl. XVI),” “1Q20. ‘Apocalypse de Lamech’ (Pl. XVII),” and “1Q19 bis. ‘Livre de Noé’,” in D. Barthélemy and J. T. Milik (eds.), Qumran Cave 1 (DJD 1; Oxford: Clarendon, 1955) 84–6, 152. 60 J. T. Milik, “Ecrits préesseniens de Qumrân: d’Hénoch à Amram,” in M. Delcor (ed.), Qumrân. Sa piété, sa théologie et son milieu (BETL 46; Paris: Duculot, 1978) 91–106, esp. 94–5, a view followed by F. García Martínez, “4QMess Ar and the Book of Noah,” Qumran and Apocalyptic: Studies on the Aramaic Texts from Qumran (STDJ 9; Leiden: Brill, 1992) 1–44, esp. 42. Milik (The Book of Enoch, 59–60) considers the possibility that 1Q19 might be a Hebrew translation relating to 1 En 6–11. 61 K. Beyer, Die aramäischen Texte vom Toten Meer (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1984) 229, n. 1; Die aramäischen Texte vom Toten Meer. Ergänzungsband (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1994, rev. edition 2004) 153 (rev. edition pp. are followed here and below).

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Aramaic 4QEnoch materials. The possibility of a Hebrew version of Enoch cannot be discounted. Barring any knowledge about the original extent of the work contained in 1Q19, we may say, at least, that the Enochic tradition was circulating in Hebrew and that this could take a form that corresponds to content preserved through the Book of the Watchers and Birth of Noah. However, it remains impossible to know whether this was a tradition that existed prior to the Aramaic 4QEnoch materials62 or whether it reects their inuence.63 The Astronomical Book Manuscripts (4Q208–211 = 4QEnastra–d) In his treatment of the Aramaic materials relating to 1 Enoch 72–82, Milik published 4Q210 and 4Q211 in full (including photographs).64 However, he only provided text and photographs for some of the fragments of 4Q20965 while neither text nor photographs were presented for 4Q208.66 This incomplete state of affairs is rectied by Eibert Tigchelaar and Florentino García Martínez who, building on the work of Milik, have published 4Q208 and 4Q209 in DJD 36.67 The combined publications of the material yield the following palaeographical information and fragment numeration of the manuscripts: (a) 4Q208 (37 fragments)—though sharing similarities with Hasmonaean semi-formal script from 175–125 BCE, Milik argues that it is to be dated to the end of the 3rd or early 2nd century BCE since, for example, the scribe never made use of nal forms of letters.68 No part of this

62

So the view of Knibb, The Ethiopic Book of Enoch, 2.7 n. 2. As expressed by Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 77. 64 Milik, The Books of Enoch, 274, 287–8, 292 + Pls. XXIII and XXX (4QEnastrc), 274, 296–7 + Pl. XXIX (4QEnastrd). 65 That is, a very large fragment covering three columns (frg. 7, Pls. XXV–XXVI), plus four medium-sized fragments (no.’s 6, 23, and 25–26, Pls. XXVII); Milik, The Books of Enoch, 274, 287–9, 293–6. 66 He discusses 4QEnastra mostly in Milik, The Books of Enoch, 274. 67 E. J. C. Tigchelaar and F. García Martínez, “4Q208–209. 4QAstronomical Enocha–b ar: Introduction,” “4Q208. 4QAstronomical Enocha ar (Pls. III–IV),” and “4Q209. 4QAstronomical Enochb ar (Pls. V–VII),” in Qumran Cave 4. XXVI (DJD 36) 95–103, 104–131, 132–71; see bibliographical details of the volume in n. 18 above. 68 Milik, The Books of Enoch, 273. Regarding the radiocarbon dating (the decadal calibration of 1997) carried out on 4Q208, see G. Doudna, “Dating the Scrolls on the Basis of Radiocarbon Analysis,” in P. W. Flint and J. C. VanderKam (eds.), The Dead Sea Scrolls After Fifty Years (2 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 1998–1999) 1.430–71, esp. 470: 167–153 BCE. 63

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scroll directly corresponds to anything in 1 Enoch 72–82. Instead, it exclusively contains text from a lengthy “Synchronistic Calendar” which in its original form describes the movements of the sun and moon through the sky during the course of a three-year cycle, with most of the detail given to the rst year. Milik notes material found in the Ethiopic 1 Enoch 73:1–74:9 or perhaps only in 74:3–9.69 Nevertheless, taken on their own, the fragments of this manuscript yield nothing that is specically Enochic in character. However, its inclusion among the materials is merited by its overlaps in subject matter with 4Q209 which not only contains portions from the calendar but also text that corresponds to the Astronomical Book of 1 Enoch. (b) 4Q209 (41 fragments)—this is the most extensive of the four manuscripts, copied in “the same beautiful Herodian script as 1QIsb, 1QM, 1QGenAp, and the original hand of 1QH”70 and thus may be dated to around the turn of the Common Era. In addition to the calendrical contents, the manuscript preserves text relating to 1 Enoch 74(?),71 76–79 and to 82. The text does not always follow the sequence of text as found in the Ethiopic version.72 Until the relationship with 4Q208 was established, 4Q209 had been designated 4QEnastra, but now goes by 4QEnastrb. (c) 4Q210 (5 fragments)—written in a late Hasmonaean hand, the fragments cover material corresponding to 1 Enoch 76–78. (c) 4Q211 (1 fragment)—consists of a long thin strip covering the bottom lines of three columns, copied in an early Herodian script from the last half of the 1st century BCE The text preserved is from near the end of the work, as it contains material missing from the incomplete Ethiopic version, that is, from after 1 Enoch 82:20. The relationship between the Aramaic fragments of these manuscripts and the later Ethiopic version is not straightforward. Although none of the fragments of 4Q208–211 contains anything that directly corresponds to 1 Enoch 72–75, Milik established early on that the Aramaic version was as a whole much more detailed than the later Ethiopic textual tradition, so much so that the length of the Astronomical Book could not be contained in a single scroll that included a collection of

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Milik, The Books of Enoch, 274–5. Milik, The Books of Enoch, 274. 71 On this possibility, see Tigchelaar and Martínez, “4Q208–209. Introduction,” 162–3. 72 So frg. 26 (according to Tigchelaar and Martínez’ fragment numeration); see Tigchelaar and Martínez , “4Q209,” 163–64. 70

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the other Enochic works. Milik estimates, for example, that for 4Q209 alone, the synchronistic calendar, given the thoroughness of its recording of the moon and sun’s movements for an entire twelve months, took up “at least twenty-seven columns.”73 For Milik, in other words, Astronomical Book constituted the fth part of the Aramaic “Enochic Pentateuch.”74 The Book of Giants Milik’s work drew attention to the existence of the Book of Giants amongst the Dead Sea documents.75 It had already been known as a book revered in the Manichaean tradition and, indeed, since the early part of the 20th century, Iranian fragments of this work from Turfan have been published and discussed.76 The identication of overlaps in themes and details between the Qumran and Manichaean materials has thus sparked interest among scholarship in both Manichaean and Dead Sea scrolls studies. As far as the book amongst the Qumran documents is concerned, research since Milik’s work has progressed in a series of stages, each point of which has offered further insight as

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Milik, The Books of Enoch, 274. Milik was not the rst to make this claim; see e.g. G. H. Dix, “The Enochic Pentateuch”, JTS 27 (1925–1926) 29–42. In all this, it should be remembered that only the correspondences between 4Q209–211 and 1 Enoch 76–79 and 82 make an association with Enochic tradition possible. Nothing from the manuscripts 4Q208–211 themselves actually make any reference to Enoch the visionary at all. For excellent critical evaluations of the “Enochic Pentateuch” hypothesis, see J. C. Greeneld and M. E. Stone, “The Enochic Pentateuch and the Date of the Similitudes,” Harvard Theological Review 70 (1977) 51–65 and Dimant, “The Biography of Enoch,” (bibliography in n. 35 above). 75 See Stuckenbruck, The Book of Giants, 4, 6–7, 57–8, 230, 236–8, 298–339. 76 More signicant are the following: W. B. Henning, “Ein manichäisches Henochbuch,” Sitzungsberichte der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften in Berlin, Phil.-Hist. Klasse (Berlin: Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1934) 3–11; “Neue Materialien zur Geschichte des Manichäismus,” ZDMG 90 (1936) 1–18; “The Book of Giants,” BSOAS 11 (1943– 1946) 52–74; see further, W. Sundermann, Mittelpersische und partische kosmogonische und Parabeltexte der Manichäer (Berliner Turfantexte 4; Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1973) 76–8; “Ein weiteres Fragment aus Manis Gigantenbuch,” in Orientalia J. Duchesne-Guillemin emerito oblate (Acta Iranica 23/Second Series 9; Leiden: Brill, 1984) 491–505; O. Skjaervø, “Iranian Epic and the Manichean Book of Giants. Irano-Manichaica III,” Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 48 (1995) 187–223; J. Wilkens, “Neue Fragmente aus Manis Gigantenbuch,” ZDMG 150 (2000) 133–76. After Milik, John Reeves contributed with his own assessment of the Qumran materials (based on Milik’s work, with a number of the fragments still unpublished) focusing in particular on the Jewish work’s reception in Manichaean circles; see Reeves, Jewish Lore in Manichaean Cosmogony. 74

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older notions, readings, and interpretations are conrmed or called into question.77 As the discussion above will already have made clear, any consideration of the shape and content of Enochic tradition cannot now bypass the Book of Giants as attested by the fragmentary Qumran evidence. Before drawing attention to the more important of this work’s distinguishing features, we list the manuscripts that (a) more certainly and (b) less certainly may be ascribed to it: (a) One may be condent that the following manuscripts belonged to the Book of Giants:78 • 1Q23 (= 1QEnochGiantsa ar), 31 fragments79 • 2Q26 (= 2QEnochGiants ar), 1 fragment80 • 4Q203 (= 4QEnochGiantsa ar), 13 fragments81 • 4Q206a (formerly 4Q206 2–3), 2 fragments82 • 4Q530 (= 4QEnochGiantsb ar), 20 fragments83 • 4Q531 (= 4QEnochGiantsc ar), 47 fragments84 • 4Q532 (= 4QEnochGiantsd ar), 2 fragments85

77 The stages of research reect the state of publication of the fragments, (a) whether based solely on inferences taken from Milik’s work (García Martínez, Reeves, Beyer), on readings of increasingly available photographs during the 1990’s (Beyer, Stuckenbruck), and on publications that derived from work on the fragments themselves (Stuckenbruck, and esp. Puech). See, in chronological order, Beyer, Die aramäischen Texte, 258–68; F. García Martínez, “The Book of Giants,” in Qumran and Apocalyptic, 97–115; Reeves, Jewish Lore in Manichaean Cosmogony; Beyer, Die aramäischen Texte vom Toten Meer. Ergänzungsband, 155–62; Stuckenbruck, The Book of Giants from Qumran; “The Sequencing of Fragments;” Puech, “Les fragments 1 à 3:” L. Stuckenbruck, “4Q203. 4QEnoch Giantsa ar (Pls. I–II),” “4Q206 2–3. 4QEnochf ar (Pl. II),” “1Q23. 1QEnochGiantsa ar (Re-edition),” “1Q24. 1QEnochGiantsb? ar (Re-edition),” “2Q26. 2QEnochGiants ar (Re-edition)” and “6Q8. 6QpapGiants ar (Re-edition),” in Qumran Cave 4. XXVI (DJD 36) 8–94; É. Puech, “4Q530–533, 203 1. 4QLivre des Geants a ar: Introduction,” “4Q203 1. 4QLivre des Geants ar (PL. I),” “4Q530 1,” “531 1. 4QLivre des Geants c ar (PL. III–V),” “4Q532 1. 4QLivre des Geants d ar (PL. VI)” and “4Q533 1. 4QLivre des Geants e ar (PL. VI),” in Qumrân Grotte 4. XXII (DJD 31) 9–115. 78 Note that the fragment numbers given below designate fragments or groupings of fragments, i.e. not necessarily individual pieces. 79 Originally published by Milik, “1Q23–24. Deux apocryphes en araméen (Pls. XIX–XX),” in Qumran Cave I (DJD 1) 97–8; see now Stuckenbruck, “1Q23.” 80 Originally published by M. Baillet, “Fragment de Rituel (?) (Pl. XVII),” in M. Baillet, J. T. Milik, and R. de Vaux (eds.), Les ‘petites grottes’ de Qumran: exploration de la falaise, les grottes 2Q , 3Q , 5Q , 6Q , 7Q à 10Q , le rouleau de cuivre (DJD 3; Oxford: Clarendon, 1962) 90–1; now Stuckenbruck, “2Q26,” 73–75. 81 Milik, The Books of Enoch, 311–17 + Pls. XXX–XXXII; Stuckenbruck, “4Q203;” Puech, “4Q203 1.” 82 Milik, The Books of Enoch, 235–37; Stuckenbruck, “4Q206. 2–3;” Puech, “4Q530– 533, 203 1. 4QLivre des Geants a ar: Introduction,” 10–1; “4Q533 1,” 110–3. 83 Puech, “4Q530 1.” 84 Puech, “4Q531 1.” 85 Puech, “4Q532 1.”

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• 4Q533 (= 4QEnochGiantse ar), 8 fragments86 • 6Q8 (= 6QpapGiants ar), 33 fragments87 (b) In addition the following manuscripts have been associated with the Book of Giants, with this identication being impossible to verify: • 1Q24 (= 1QEnochGiantsb ar (?)), 8 fragments88 • 6Q14 (= 6QApocalypse ar), 2 fragments89 • Other materials (i.e. 1Q19 frg.’s 11, 13, and 15;90 4Q534 7 and 4Q536;91 4Q537;92 and 4Q489–490.93

The very fragmentary evidence allows us to identify several distinguishing features of the book, features which invite comparison with the remaining 1 Enoch materials. Firstly, in contrast to the Book of the Watchers with which it shares a number of common themes and motifs,94 the Book of Giants has several distinguishing features. First and foremost, it focused on the activities and punishment of the fallen Watchers and their gigantic offspring from the giants’ point of view, whereas the Book of the Watchers focuses on how the fallen angels learn of their judgement. This perspective is reinforced by the fact that the story probably contained two pairs of dream visions relating to divine punishment given to giants, the giants are actually given names,95 and one of the giants acts as a mediator between the other

86 Puech, “4Q533 1.” On the prior confusion between this manuscript and siglum 4Q556, see pp. 10 and 105. 87 M. Baillet, “Un apocryphe de la Genèse (Pl. XXIV),” in Les ‘petites grottes’ de Qumran, (DJD 3) 191–92; Stuckenbruck, “6Q8,” in Qumran Cave 4. XXVI (DJD 36) 76–94; and Puech, “Les fragments 1 à 3” (bibliography in n. 77 above). 88 Milik, “1Q23–24,” 99 + Pl. XX; Stuckenbruck, “1Q24,” 67–72. 89 M. Baillet, “Texte apocalyptique (Pl. XXVI),” in Les ‘petites grottes’ de Qumran, (DJD 3) 127–8. Beyer (Die aramäischen Texte, 268) has and continues to argue for its inclusion. 90 See Milik, The Books of Enoch, 55–8, 309; Beyer, Die aramäischen Texte, 229 n. 1, 259. 91 As suggested for consideration by Beyer, Die aramäischen Texte, 162, 164–5. 92 Only on the basis of one fragment (from the now published twenty-ve), Reeves argued for an identication with the Book of Giants; see Reeves, Jewish Lore in Manichaean Cosmogony, 79, 110. Puech’s publication of the remaining fragments, which have very little to do with anything in the Book of Giants, shows that Reeves’ suggestion is to be discarded; see É. Puech, “4Q537. 4QTestament de Jacob? ar (Pl. XI),” in Qumrân Grotte 4. XXII (DJD 31) 171–90, esp. 173 n. 7. 93 See Puech, Qumrân Grotte 4. XXII, 11, n. 9. 94 On this see Stuckenbruck, The Book of Giants from Qumran, 24–5. 95 See L. Stuckenbruck, “Giant Mythology and Demonology: From the Ancient Near East to the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in A. Lange, H. Lichtenberger, and K. F. D. Römheld, Die Dämonen—Demons. Die Dämonologie der israelitisch-jüdischen und frühchristlichen Literatur im Kontext ihrer Umwelt (Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2002) 318–38.

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giants and Enoch.96 Secondly, the activities and plight of the giants are described in unprecedented detail. Thirdly, the role of Enoch in the story does not support Milik’s assumption that Book of Giants was an Enochic pseudepigraphon. Though 4Q203 9 and 10 may contain a prayer attributed to Enoch, the work as a whole is in the framework of a narrative of events in the third person told primarily from the giants’ perspectives. For its non-pseudepigraphical form, the Book of Giants seems indebted to the narrative in the Book of the Watchers at 1 Enoch 6–11 (see also chs. 12–13 and 15–16). Research on the Book of Giants is anything but at an end. The relationship between the early Jewish materials and the later Manichaean traditions will require ongoing analysis as further Manichaean materials come to light. Moreover, it is possible that some, albeit very limited, material reconstruction in relation to the fragments of 4Q530 (cf. n. 37 under discussion of 4Q203 above) and 4Q531 may offer further clues about the relative length and scope of the book.97 Finally, with increased attention drawn their way, the Dead Sea fragments from the Book of Giants may, in turn, begin to throw some light on the larger corpus of 1 Enoch, especially in cases where overlaps in wording or motifs can be detected.98

96 On these points, see generally Stuckenbruck, “The Sequencing of Fragments” and, with some differences in the interpretation of fragments, Puech, “Les fragments 1 & 3” (bibliography of both articles in n. 77 above). 97 For a summary of suggested textual overlaps between Book of Giants fragments from different manuscripts, see Puech, Qumrân Grotte 4. XXII, 11–12. 98 An example may briey be noted. Nickelsburg (1 Enoch 1, 24, 352–53) maintains that no part of the rst dream in the Book of Dream Visions (i.e. 1 En 83–84) is preserved among the Dead Sea fragments. From this he draws the conclusion that these chapters were later additions that presuppose not only material from the Book of the Watchers (generally the ood-eschatological judgement typology in ch. 10 and specically 1:6–7, 2:1–2) but also perhaps even later parts of the corpus (an archetype of chs. 106–107 and of ch. 65). Nickelsburg would thus be obliged to argue that 4QEnochc (= 4Q204) could not have contained any part of chapters 83–84 ( p. 24). However, Nickelsburg follows Milik in the view that the fragments of 4Q203 and 204 were copied by the same scribe and that, indeed (beyond what we have argued above), they belonged to the same manuscript. If Nickelsburg’s view be accepted, then it would be signicant that 4QEnGiantsa has two fragments (no.’s 9 and 10) which overlap in content with Enoch’s prayer in 1 En 84:2–4; the similarities are such that Knibb (The Ethiopic Book of Enoch, 1.10, 193–5), has raised the possibility that the 4Q203 fragments may in fact relate directly to 84:2–4. Though Knibb’s view is in itself not entirely convincing, it cannot at the same time, be summarily dismissed. At the very least, the close resemblance between 4Q203 9 and 10 and 1 En 84:2–4 illustrates how the analysis of 1 Enoch can no longer disregard the Book of Giants evidence.

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Conclusion The early Enochic traditions preserved amongst the Dead Sea materials are very fragmentary and pose signicant and complex issues for interpretation. Taken together, they may reect a text for some parts of 1 Enoch that is longer than what is extant from the later versions of 1 Enoch (so esp. 4Q208–209 for the Astronomical Book; possibly 4Q201 2–8 and 4Q212 to 91:1–10). Moreover, they provide evidence for a different text or perhaps even recensions of books which do not strictly correspond to the later Greek and Ethiopic recensions (so e.g. 4Q201–202; XQpapEnoch; 1Q19 and 1Q19bis). Moreover, the precise relation between 1 Enoch and the Book of Giants or other prior-existing material such as a Book of Noah, remains unclear. While the jury is still out for the association of 4Q203 and 4Q204 within the same manuscript, it is far from certain that the Book of Giants was collected alongside other Enochic works, especially in the case of 4Q205 and 4Q206. Even were this the case, any notion of an “Enochic Pentateuch” would have to require that the Astronomical Book, none of the extant manuscripts of which are copied by the same hand as any of the other Enochic works, belonged to the corpus as well. Thus, while showing how much scholars will continue to be indebted to Milik’s groundbreaking work on the Enoch Dead Sea fragments, the discussion above may illustrate to some degree how much some of his views on matters of codicology and the shape of the early Enochic traditions should not be uncritically received.

THE PLACE OF THE TORAH IN THE EARLY ENOCH LITERATURE Andreas Bedenbender Dortmund, Germany 1. 1 Enoch and the Torah: Parallels and Contradictions A careful comparison of 1 Enoch and the Torah may lead to a puzzling impression: – There is in 1 Enoch a vast number of allusions to and quotations from the Torah (and the Prophets).1 But at the same time this relationship is never made explicit.2 – There is a vast overlap of content between the Book of the Watchers and Gen 1–11. But the pieces are put together to form completely different, if not opposite, systems. – There are, in the form of the Animal Apocalypse and the Apocalypse of Weeks, even two longer retellings of the biblical Heilsgeschichte (including the historical content of the Torah). But judged from a biblical point of view, both sets of events are full of strange twists and irritating gaps. For example, neither the Animal Apocalypse nor the Apocalypse of Weeks seems to be aware of the covenant of Sinai. The same holds true for the rest of the corpus: “covenant is not a major category in 1 Enoch.”3 – Finally, “one looks in vain in 1 Enoch for formal parallels to the specic laws and commandments found in the Mosaic Pentateuch and the Book of Jubilees.”4 How is the riddle to be solved? 1 See the following examples chosen from the rst chapter of 1 Enoch. In 1 En 1:1, the text starts with an allusion to Deut 33:1. 1 En 1:3f. is based on Mic 1:3; 1 En 1:5 on Jer 41:5; and 1 En 1:9 on Deut 33:2 (cf. the version of the LXX). See also, with a much longer list, L. Hartman, Asking for a Meaning : A Study of 1 Enoch 1–5 (Lund: Gleerup, 1979) 22–6; and G. W. E. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch, Chapters 1–36; 81–108 (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001) ad loc. 2 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 57. 3 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 50. 4 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 51.

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andreas bedenbender 2. Preliminary Considerations

First of all, the Enochic texts should be read diachronically. Even the focus on “the early Enoch tradition,” which holds together the present volume, is not sufcient. At least, there should be a subdivision into “really old” and “not quite so old” Enochic traditions, i.e., traditions stemming from the fourth and third centuries BCE (with roots probably even in the fth century BCE) and traditions from about 200 BCE onwards. To the rst group belong (a) the older parts of the Book of the Watchers, which are collected in 1 En 6–36,5 and (b) the bulk of the materials gathered in the Astronomical Book (1 En 72–82).6 The second group contains (a) 1 En 1–5 (written as an introduction to the Book of the Watchers, or maybe to a combination of the Book of the Watchers and other passages of 1 Enoch),7 (b) the Book of Dream Visions (1 En 83–91) including the Animal Apocalypse (1 En 93:1–10; 91:11–17), (c) the Epistle of Enoch (1 En 92–105) including the Apocalypse of Weeks (1 En 85–90), and maybe (d) later additions to the Astronomical Book.8 Attempts to be more precise in dating, be it in absolute or in relative terms, are often problematic. In all probability 1 En 1–5 is later than 1 En 6–11, and so is the Animal Apocalypse. But whether 1 En 1–5 is

5

Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 7, 25. The composition of the Astronomical Book may be of a later ( post-Maccabean) date. As the Aramaic fragments found in Qumran indicate, it could be also an excerpt of a longer text. Candidates for later additions are 80:2–7 (see A. Bedenbender, Der Gott der Welt tritt auf den Sinai. Entstehung, Entwicklung und Funktionsweise der frühjüdischen Apokalyptik (Berlin: Institut Kirche und Judentum, 2000) 155) and 81:1–82:4 (see Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 26). Since these chapters will not be here discussed, the question of their date can be left open. 7 George Nickelsburg suggests a date before the middle of third century BCE (see above, n. 5), but I don’t see sufcient reasons for so early a date. See the literature given below, n. 43. 8 See above, n. 6. 6

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earlier than the Animal Apocalypse, or vice versa, is a matter of dispute. Even within the framework of a diachronically oriented analysis it seems advisable to abstain from taking sides in these debates. Only one additional assumption will be made (with reasons given below): along with the Animal Apocalypse, the Apocalypse of Weeks was composed after 167 BCE. Second, the Enochic traditions started to take shape in Persian and early Hellenistic times—a period when the Mosaic Torah was still incomplete. Therefore, in order to understand the correspondences as well as the differences between both corpora it is not sufcient to concentrate on Enoch alone. We need, rather, an historical model that can explain the formation and transmission of both the Enochic scriptures and the Torah. In this respect, Gabriele Boccaccini has developed so convincing an hypothesis that the following presentation will adopt his conclusions virtually unchanged.9 3.

The Earliest Traditions: The Astronomical Book and 1 En 6–36

Generally, the Astronomical Book stands far apart from the Torah; save the fact that Gen 1:14–16 is dealing also, though in a different manner, with the “lights of heaven” (1 En 72:1). Much more fruitful is a comparison of 1 En 6–36 and the Torah, especially Gen 1–11. Both texts focus on primeval history and are heavily interested in connecting the “sin of the created beings” to “divine punishment.” Like Genesis, the Book of the Watchers knows about – – – –

the tree with the forbidden fruit (1 En 32:6); the death of Abel (compare 1 En 22:5–7 and Gen 4:10); the person of Enoch (of course); the intermingling of the “sons of God” (in the Book of the Watchers: “Watchers”) with the “daughters of man”; and – the ood. But two important differences should be noted. First, the mythological focus: Genesis concentrates on the human side—Adam’s fall, the

9 G. Boccaccini, Roots of Rabbinic Judaism: an Intellectual History, from Ezekiel to Daniel (Grand Rapids, MI/Cambridge, U.K.: Eerdmans, 2002).

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bloodshed of Cain, the evil doings of all humankind (Gen 6:5), the tower of Babel—and mentions the sin of the “sons of God” in 6:1–4 rather casually. The Book of the Watchers takes exactly the opposite viewpoint. Second, according to Genesis the creation is essentially good not only in the beginning (Gen 1:31 etc.), but even in later times when God is able to control the evil (Gen 6).10 Primeval history offers some paradigms of sin, it proves “that any attempt to cross the border between humanity and the divine always results in disaster.”11 But the text of Genesis is based on the idea of human freedom. Whoever wants to avoid sin is able to do so. According to the Book of the Watchers, on the other hand, evil appears as an autonomous reality, which has seriously corrupted the world and especially, humankind. Since the fall of the Watchers the world is in a state of disorder, and the many cases of human sin appear as a mere consequence of the proton pseudos, the sin of the Watchers. A reversal will be brought only by the “end of days,” for which the text is hoping. Unlike in Gen 1, in the Book of the Watchers the way is not from primordial chaos to ( present) order, but from divine order to ( present) chaos.12 What may appear as a further peculiarity of 1 Enoch 6–36, the absence of strict parallels to Mosaic laws, is easily to be explained by reference to the nature and scope of the text.13 In Genesis 1–11 there are very few commandments, as well.

10 See G. Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis: the Parting of the Ways Between Qumran and Enochic Judaism (Grand Rapids, MI/Cambridge, U.K.: Eerdmans, 1998) 71; Roots of Rabbinic Judaism, 76. 11 Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis, 71. 12 Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis, 73. 13 K. C. Bautch (A Study of the Geography of 1 Enoch 17–19: No one has seen what I have seen [ Leiden: Brill, 2003] 296) notes in the Book of the Watchers “references to improper sexual relations, to purity concerns and to dietary issues,” which might “provide allusions to Mosaic law that are in this context recalled obliquely.” This cannot (and shall not) be excluded. But whether the food and purity regulations to which the Book of the Watchers refers are really in all details parallel to the respective commandments of Mosaic Torah cannot be said. In any case, the Torah of Sinai never deals with sexual relations between human (or Israelite) women and angels. (In Gen 6:1–4 we have only a narrative account of an historical case of misconduct. The text sees no reason to state a law for all future times.)

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4. An Historical Model Explaining the Correspondences and Differences between the Earliest Enochic Traditions and the Torah To understand the relationship between both corpora, one has to step back into the time of the rst Temple—a period when the “ ‘chief priests’ who likely were royal appointees” were “not necessarily related by blood and with no right to hereditary succession.”14 Only with the erection of the second Temple does the picture change. From the Persian period until the beginning of the second century BCE, the members of one family, the “sons of Zadok,” ruled the Temple.15 The new order meant a disempowerment of the priests of old, the “sons of Levi”—a disempowerment they were not willing to accept without resistance. The Zadokites fought to keep their freshly gained position. In the end they were forced to concede at least some privileges to the whole body of the now degraded Levites, and still some more to certain Levitical families. The result was a tripartite system of Levites (lower cult personnel), an inner circle of Aaronites (Levites who were accepted as priests) and, in the center, Zadokites (the only ones entitled to serve as high priests). In this form, the historical compromise found, by retrojection, entrance into the legislation of the Torah and into the accounts of Israel’s past as well. (The Zadokites traced themselves back to Phinehas, one of the grandsons of Aaron.) At the same time, not all Levites were content with the new situation. The story of the Levite Korah who, together with his followers, challenged the supremacy of the Aaronites and met a terrible end (see

14 The Jewish tradition preserves the memory of several “chief priests,” notably Abiathar and Ira the Jairite under King David (2 Sam 20:26), Jehoiada under King Jehoash (2 Kgs 11–12), and Uriah under King Ahaz (2 Kgs 16:10–16; Isa 8:2), who ruled over the Jerusalem Temple before the exile but are not reckoned among the descendants of Phinehas-Zadok (Chr 6:1–15 [Heb 5:27–41]). See Boccaccini, Roots of Rabbinic Judaism, 65–66; L. L. Grabbe, Priests, Prophets, Diviners, Sages: A Socio-Historical Study of Religious Specialists in Ancient Israel (Valley Forge, Trinity, 1995), 60–62; J. R. Bartlett, “Zadok and His Successors at Jerusalem,” JTS n.s. 19 (1968) 1–18. 15 The history of the Jewish priesthood in the Second Temple period involves complex problems that go beyond the scope of this essay and only recently have began to be addressed in studies such as J. Blenkinsopp, Sage, Priest, Prophet: Religious and Intellectual Leadership in Ancient Israel (Louisville: Westminster Knox, 1995); Grabbe, Priests, Prophets, Diviners, Sages; D. W. Rooke, Zadok’s Heirs: The Role and Development of the High Priesthood in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Oxford University, 2000); J. Schaper, Priester und Leviten in achämenidischen Juda (FAT 31; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000); and J. C. VanderKam, From Joshua to Caiaphas: High Priests after the Exile (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2004).

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Num 16), was certainly more than an ancient myth. Aramaic Levi is a document that assumes an anti-Zadokite stance by endorsing “a preZadokite ideal priesthood,” and there are strong reasons to suppose that early Enochic literature was similarly produced under the inuence of “a nonconformist priestly tradition.”16 In a veiled form, the Book of the Watchers seems to criticize the priests of Jerusalem (the “fallen angels”) for their misconduct, while the holiness of the place remains accepted: Mount Zion is a “holy mountain” and Jerusalem “the center of the earth” (1 En 26:1f.).17 This can lead to the conclusion that the Book of the Watchers (as well as the Astronomical Book) is mirroring the position of “an opposition party within the Jerusalem aristocracy, not (of ) a group of separatists.”18 On the other hand, the Book of the Watchers emphasizes the sacredness of Mount Hermon in no lesser degree.19 We should probably avoid drawing too precise a picture of the circles behind early Enochic literature, their place in society and their intentions. 1 En 6–36 has a long and complex Redaktionsgeschichte; different parts may have been composed at different places and may show different attitudes towards the Temple.20 The Book of the Watchers was chained to the Temple (once a heaven, now a place of godless rebellion) by a love-hate-relationship, and by a similar mixture of feelings it was chained to the Torah. In the glorious past the Torah had been the stronghold of the Levites; it was supposed that Moses himself had come from their ranks. But then the Torah fell into the clutches of the Zadokites, who transformed it into their mouthpiece. So it was still possible to take up the venerated traditions, but not in the form which was spread with the authority of the Temple. For this reason, it is completely inappropriate to take the

16

Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis, 71, 74. See D. W. Suter, “Fallen Angel, Fallen Priest: The Problem of Family Purity in 1 Enoch,” HUCA.50, 115–35. 18 Boccaccini, Roots of Rabbinic Judaism, 102. See also Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 67. M. Himmelfarb (“The Book of the Watchers and the Priests of Jerusalem,” in G. Boccaccini (ed.), The Origins of Enochic Judaism: Proceedings of the First Enoch Seminar University of Michigan, Sesto Fiorentino, Italy June 19—23, 2001 (Grand Rapids, MI/Cambridge, U.K.: Eerdmans, 2002) 133, emphasizes that “some of the Watchers remain in heaven at their stations even as their brothers descend to earth… If Watchers are here to be understood as priests, this nuanced view of the priestly establishment—some have gone astray, but not all—certainly does not reect the us/them worldview typical of sects.” 19 As Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 54, points out, the heavenly temple “is located in polar relationship not to Mount Zion (cf. Isaiah 6) but to Mount Hermon.” 20 1 En 6–16 might stem from the Galilee; see Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 65. 17

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Book of the Watchers as an example of rewritten Torah—as long as we understand by “Torah” its present (i.e., Zadokite) version. 21 Rather, Nickelsburg should be followed in claiming “that the Enochic authors presented their material as revealed Wisdom that provided an alternative or rival to the Mosaic Torah.”22 On the other hand, Nickelsburg is also right when he states that “there is no evidence that the Enochic authors disregarded the content of the Pentateuchal laws.”23 This tension may be resolved by suggesting that the authors of the Book of the Watchers did not quarrel with the Torah about the main body of the Mosaic commandments, but about the symbolic universe the Zadokites had created by reshaping the Torah. Having been deprived of their inherited status as priests, the early adherents of Enoch found themselves in a world of chaos. Because the Temple and the strict observance of the cultic rituals had to bear the heavy burden of securing the stability of the world, a violation of the cultic order put into question the welfare, nay, the very existence of the whole creation. The Zadokites, believing in the validity of their own Temple service, had to believe ipso facto in an intact and ordered world. And the Enochians, distrusting the present situation, but not the fundamental meaning of the cult, took by necessity the opposite position.24 The worldview of both parties was built partly with the same bricks. Ezekiel especially served as a common ancestor, and there was also a common stock of older mythological stories and themes—a stock fed jointly by Canaanite traditions and by Babylonian lore.25 One example of that kind is the story of the fallen angels. Following Margaret Barker, Boccaccini summarizes: 21 As does, e.g., K. E. Pomykala, “A Scripture Prole of the Book of the Watchers,” in C. A. Evans and S. Talmon (eds.), The Quest for Context and Meaning: Studies in Biblical Intertextuality in Honor of James A. Sanders (Biblical Interpretation Series 28. Leiden: Brill, 1997), 266–74. 22 G. W. E. Nickelsburg, “Enochic Wisdom: An Alternative to the Mosaic Torah?” in J. Magness and S. Gitin, eds. Hesed ve-Emet. Studies in Honor of Ernest D. Frerichs (BJS 320; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998), 124. 23 Nickelsburg, Enochic Wisdom, 127. 24 See also Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis, 72. 25 See Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis, 75ff (building on Ben Zion Wacholder): “In the context of the Babylonian exile, Ezekiel’s dissociation of God’s heavenly abode from the Jerusalem temple offered the common priestly background from which both Enochic and Zadokite traditions arose. The disagreement and therefore the emergence of two distinctive parties could occur only later, after the return form the exile, and would concern the modalities of restoration. While the Zadokites claimed that

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andreas bedenbender On the one hand, the Genesis texts are abridged versions of stories of which the authors knew more than they chose to include: the logic is confused, the language does not run smoothly, and one cannot help smelling embarrassment and censorship. On the other hand, the Enoch texts can hardly be characterized simply as additions or expansions of Genesis; the author is interested neither in clarifying the obscurity of the biblical texts nor in using Genesis as a source of legitimacy. His theological agenda seems to rest on completely autonomous sources.26

And so Boccaccini reaches the conclusion: What makes Enochic Judaism differ from Zadokite Judaism is not the reference to the fallen angels but the different meaning given to the same ancient story. The narrative was developed according to an opposite trajectory, to the extent of making it the central paradigm for the origin of sin and evil. In itself the myth of the fallen angels is neither Enochic nor Zadokite, but belongs to the common polytheistic heritage of both movements.27

While the fallen angels probably are of Canaanite origin, the traditions about Enoch are an import from Babylon. Neither in Gen 6:1–4 nor in 1 En 6–11 is Enoch connected to the fallen angels.28 And, as in the previous case, it seems impossible to understand the materials connected to Enoch in the Book of the Watchers as expansions of the short Genesis account. According to Boccaccini, the Book of the Watchers version of the Enoch stories depends on Genesis (“the Zadokite narrative”) at least chronologically.29 But this is not a necessary assumption, and—what is more—it is improbable a priori. Why should the Enochians adopt a postexilic addition smuggled into the Torah by their sworn enemies? And apart from the question of chronology and from his genealogical position, the Enoch of Gen 5 turns out to be “un-Enochic” if not “anti-Enochic.” His mentioning in Gen 5 runs thus: (21) When Enoch had lived 65 years he begot Methuselah. (22) After the birth of Methuselah, Enoch walked with God 300 years; and he

God’s order had been fully restored with the construction of the second temple, the Enochians still viewed restoration as a future event” (76). As for the importance of Ezekiel for Enochic Judaism, see Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 30, and Boccaccini, Roots of Rabbinic Judaism, 99. 26 Boccaccini, Roots of Rabbinic Judaism, 98. 27 Boccaccini, Roots of Rabbinic Judaism, 96. 28 Boccaccini, Roots of Rabbinic Judaism, 97. 29 Boccaccini, Roots of Rabbinic Judaism, 97.

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begot sons and daughters. (23) All the days of Enoch came to 365 days. (24) Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, for God took him. [ JPS-translation]

This little passage is far from clear: Why does the author twice mention that “Enoch walked with God” (ha-elohim)? Why had Enoch to be content with so short a span of life? (When he disappeared, his great-great-great-great-grandfather Adam should stay alive for still more than 240 years.) And why the cumbersome “he was no more, for God took him?” Already Gerhard von Rad got the impression, “daß schon die Priesterschrift erheblich mehr von Henoch gewußt hat als in dem Satz Gen 5:24 ausgesprochen ist.”30 It seems not far-fetched to assume that at least some of the traditions in the background of Gen 5:22–24 are now gathered in the Book of the Watchers (and maybe in other writings of Enoch as well). The authors behind Gen 5 probably did not know the Book of the Watchers, but there must have been a period of time before the composition of the Book of the Watchers when some dissident Levites of the Temple already claimed Enoch as their hero and spiritual ancestor. What is written in Gen 5:22–24 can be understood best as a device to counter this picture. (a) In Genesis, Enoch is portrayed as a pious and virtuous person (“he walked with God”—see Gen 6:9 and 17:1), not as a revealer of hidden—and dangerous—wisdom. That the text seems to give with one hand while taking with the other, might either indicate a true veneration of the antediluvian patriarch, or that the verse tries to gird itself against an expected counter-attack of upset disenfranchised ( pre-)Enochians.31 (b) The end of v. 24 states without leaving any room for doubt: Enoch may stay with God forever—but for the world he is now, and since a very long time, a person of the past. History of mankind goes on without him, and so should theological reection. (c) By counting the days of Enoch to a total number of 365 years, Gen 5:23 might be taken as a challenge to the reliability of the “Enochic” Enoch in matters of astronomy. In the Astronomical

30

G. von Rad, Theologie des Alten Testaments (4th ed. München: C. Kaiser, 1965)

330. 31 As Boccaccini (Roots of Rabbinic Judaism, 173) points out: “In the theological understanding of Enochic Judaism, the apocalyptic seer is not chosen for his merits; the knowledge imparted to him is a gracious act of enlightenment on God’s part.”

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andreas bedenbender Book, Enoch appears as the champion of a solar calendar with 364 days—a value which is denitely much more incorrect than 365.

This nal argument depends on the hypothesis that in the Persian era the Temple of Jerusalem followed a lunar (or luni-solar) calendar. Obviously, the priestly establishment of Jerusalem would hardly have criticized its own calendar. However, according to another opinion (which has, admittedly, some plausible arguments in its favor) the Temple also used a sabbatical calendar, identical with, or only slightly different from, that advocated in the Astronomical Book.32 The matter is by no means clear, even more so since different calendars, used for different purposes, probably co-existed in Judaism during Aechemenid and Hellenistic times, just like they do in our world. But in any case, for Enochic Judaism the connection between “Enoch” and “365” must have sounded odd.33 5. The Most Important Second-Century Texts 5.1. The Animal Apocalypse and the Apocalypse of Weeks Compared to the earlier traditions, in the Animal Apocalypse Enoch nds himself transposed into a new world—the world after the Flood. Suddenly he has to deal not only with the history of Israel, but also with the history of Israel according to the Zadokite Torah and to the prophetical writings transmitted along with that Torah. Unlike in the Book of the Watchers, Enoch now follows the biblical narrative closely (as far as it goes). The chain of events he offers is governed by the deuteronomistic pattern: sin—punishment—return to God—forgiveness and salvation. And with respect to the period covered by the Torah, his most remarkable contribution is not an addition but an omission. When, on their way from Egypt to Canaan, the people of Israel reach Mount Sinai, we don’t hear about a covenant or about the revealing of the Torah (1 En 89, 28ff.). And the second Enochic retelling of Israel’s history, found in the Apocalypse of Weeks, may differ from the Animal Apocalypse by mentioning that on Mount Sinai “a law for all generations” was given

32 G. Boccaccini, “The Solar Calendars of Daniel and Enoch,” in The Book of Daniel: Composition and Reception, ed. John J. Collins and Peter W. Flint (Leiden: Brill, 2001) 311–328. 33 See also Bedenbender, Der Gott, 170–3.

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(1 En 93:6)—but like the Animal Apocalypse, the Apocalypse of Weeks prefers to ignore the Sinaitic covenant.34 In 1 En 93:4 the Apocalypse of Weeks offers “a rare reference to a specic commandment”: the “law for the sinners” made after the Flood recalls Gen 9:4–6 with its double prohibition against consuming and shedding blood.35 5.2. 1 Enoch 1–5 Since the biblical background especially of 1 Enoch 1 has been discussed already in the introduction, it should sufce here to concentrate on two points. 1. In 1 En 1:4 we have the only case in 1 Enoch where Mount Sinai is mentioned explicitly.36 About the coming (eschatological) Day of Judgment, Enoch proclaims: The Great Holy One will come forth from his dwelling and the eternal God will tread from thence upon Mount Sinai.37

The second half of the verse conates Deut 33:2 with Mic 1:3f., giving the original notions at the same time a remarkable twist. While in the theophany of Deut. 33 God comes from Mount Sinai, in Enoch he descends upon the mountain. As John Collins puts it: The slight change is signicant. Sinai has a place in Enoch’s revelation, but it is not the ultimate source.38

Or, in other words, in earlier times the adherents of Enoch had traveled (spiritually) extensively through heaven and earth. But to stop at Mount Sinai, of all places, was a new experience for them. Consequently, it was a new experience for their God also. In order to come from there,

34 Against Nickelsburg (1 Enoch 1) who translates in 1 En 93:6 “a covenant for all generations.” According to the dictionary, this translation is surely possible. (In Ethiopic sher‘ata has the meaning “covenant” as well as “law.”) But a close analysis of the complete text leads to the conclusion that in 93:6 (like in 93:4) only “law” is appropriate. See A. Bedenbender, “Reections on Ideology and Date of the Apocalypse of Weeks,” in G. Boccaccini (ed.), Enoch and Qumran Origins: New Light on a Forgotten Connection (Grand Rapids, MI/Cambridge, U.K.: Eerdmans, 2005) 200–203. 35 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 51. 36 When Enoch speaks about the mountain in 89:29, the name is not given. 37 Nickelsburg’s translation. 38 J. J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination: an Introduction to Jewish Apocalyptic Literature (Grand Rapids, MI/Cambridge, U.K.: Eerdmans, 1998), 48.

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as it was written in Deut 33, he must rst move to that place. Mic 1:3f. describes how God tramples on the heights of the earth and causes the mountains to melt, his action being offensive to his enemies. Read against this background, it is possible to nd the following provocative meaning in 1 En 1:4: God descends and tramples on Mount Sinai, thus symbolizing and conrming Israel’s breaking of the covenant.39

2. In 1 En 5:4a, Enoch accuses his audience: “But you have not stood rm nor acted according to his commandments.” Sure it is true that the immediate context as well as the general context of the Enochic corpus suggests that astronomical and calendrical matters are a major part of the violated Torah presently under consideration.40 But placed only a few verses behind 1:4 (the rst chapters of 1 Enoch being extraordinarily short) it is natural to think this for the Sinaitic law as well. By speaking of Mount Sinai at the beginning of a passage which deals with the “law of nature” (see 1 En 2–5) the texts seems to intend to build a bridge between Enochic wisdom and the Mosaic Torah. 6. An Historical Explanation for the Literary Rapprochement between Enoch and the Torah in the Second Century The interest Enoch suddenly develops in the Mosaic Torah and in the biblical reports about the history of Israel coincides temporally more or less with the persecution under Antiochus—the largest crisis Judaism experienced between the destruction of the rst Temple in 586 BCE and of the second Temple in 70 CE. Though the persecution was directed mainly against the observers of the Torah, it can be deduced from the Animal Apocalypse that the adherents of Enoch were also victimized. Sympathizing with Judas Maccabee, the text is doubtless written from the perspective of the persecuted. Why the Enochians were attacked is not clear. Either Menelaus, the high priest, decided to get rid of all his opponents at the same time, or in their practical way of living the followers of Enoch didn’t differ that much from Mosaic Judaism. In any case, the situation of 167 BCE offers an explanation for the ideological re-orientation of Enochic Judaism. Suddenly, they found themselves on the same side as the 39 40

Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 145 (with a more detailed reasoning). Ibidem, 158.

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circles they formerly had opposed, suddenly open war was declared between Moses and the priestly establishment of Jerusalem. In order to cope with the situation ideologically, it was reasonable enough to combine what both sides, “Moses” and “Enoch,” had to offer. By far the best weapon in the arsenal of Mosaic Judaism was their special way of remembering history. The present crisis could be understood better by using analogies, and the literary union of “Torah and prophets” presented many candidates. But at the same time, the situation of 167 BCE was denitely new. All earlier persecutions could be explained as divine punishments for the transgression of the law, but under Antiochus, the most pious of the people were persecuted just because of their piety! And the mainspring was no one else than the high priest of the persecuted religion. Under such circumstances, it was impossible to utilize the old “deuteronomistic” pattern unchanged. In this respect, it is highly signicant that the Animal Apocalypse parts from the conviction that God had made a covenant with Israel at Mount Sinai, and revealed a law to his people. By that means, the Animal Apocalypse can maintain its focus on the history of Israel. Without covenant and without a special act of divine legislation, the fact that so many Jews had subordinated themselves to the new order of Menelaus becomes more understandable. Different from the Animal Apocalypse, the Apocalypse of Weeks decides to take over the notion of a “law for all generations” given to Israel. The price the Apocalypse of Weeks has to pay is high: the mass-apostasy of 167 grows so large that it becomes impossible to maintain the idea of a unity of the Jewish people. And so in the Apocalypse of Weeks there exists no chosen people with an ongoing history. The argument, admittedly, is partly circular. Both the Animal Apocalypse and the Apocalypse of Weeks have been dated based upon their content. And their content was understood according to the hypothetical dating. But at least the result is (in my opinion) a plausible model. If, as many scholars claim, either the Apocalypse of Weeks or the core of the Animal Apocalypse or even both stem from pre-Maccabean times, it should be possible to explain the peculiarities of both texts I have analysed in another, but similarly convincing, way. 41 But I don’t see how this could be done.42 41

Regarding the case of the Animal Apocalypse, see, e.g., Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1,

361. 42 For reasons to date the Apocalypse of Weeks after the Animal Apocalypse, see also Bedenbender, Der Gott, 120–2.

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Regarding the date of 1 En 1–5, I am not so sure. Even if the palaeographical evidence is not clear, the possibility cannot be excluded that the text was composed some decades before 167 BCE.43 Maybe, thus, there was a beginning rapprochement between Enochic and Mosaic Judaism already before the persecution. But nevertheless, only what happened then can explain the intensity it reached and the path it took. 7. Concluding Remarks 7.1. “Rewritten Bible”? With respect to the texts that have been analysed in the present article, only the Animal Apocalypse and the Apocalypse of Weeks should be labelled as “rewritten Bible.” Neither text, however, is the product of the desire for exegetical clarication (like, e.g., occasionally the Targumim). Rather, they undertake to deconstruct the old narratives. And since the category “rewritten Bible” can mean likewise two efforts which are so completely different from each other, it might be asked whether this category is helpful at all.44 7.2. Later developments In order to integrate further Enochic texts into the analysis, one has to be aware of the fundamental change Enochic Judaism underwent in consequence of the Maccabean uprising. The close connection between Zadokite Judaism and the Mosaic Torah, which the Enochians had been confronted with before, had vanished forever, and Enochic Judaism itself was no longer a small minority.45 As Boccaccini puts it: What at the beginning was probably only the experience of exclusion of a few priestly families generated a sophisticated theological alternative that would attract a large portion of the Jewish population.46

43 4Q201, the oldest manuscript, appears to have been written between 180 and 155 BCE. See Bedenbender, Der Gott, 215–7. 44 See also Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis, 88ff., who doubts that Jubilees should be seen as a “rewritten Torah.” 45 See Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis, 91ff.; Roots of Rabbinic Judaism, 163. 46 Boccaccini, Roots of Rabbinic Judaism, 103.

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Enochic Judaism diversies, and so does its attitude towards the Torah. That even in later texts explicit quotations of the Torah are missing is easily to be explained: Enoch could know the content of the “tablets of heaven” but the revelation of Sinai was long past his time. What is much more remarkable, Enoch continues to ignore questions about the Mosaic Law. In part, this may be due to the fact that Enochic Judaism found its legal questions answered in other books—especially in Jubilees. In spite of this, the halakhic silence of Enoch should be taken as a warning, not to minimize the differences between later Enochism (or Essenism) and other forms of Judaism. An acceptance of the Torah of Moses doesn’t exclude the possibility that Enoch’s wisdom received an ongoing reverence as revelation of a higher kind. So probably Nickelsburg is right: Although there is no evidence that the Enochic authors disregarded the content of the Pentateuchal laws, they have leapfrogged Moses and identied Enoch as the primordial recipient of all heavenly Wisdom.47

47

Nickelsburg, Enochic Wisdom, 127; 1 Enoch 1, 52.

ENOCHIC WISDOM AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO THE MOSAIC TORAH George W. E. Nickelsburg The University of Iowa, United States In the broader context of Jewish literature, the corpus that we call 1 Enoch presents the interpreter with some unusual facts about its relationship to the Mosaic Torah. So much so that this is my fourth attempt to sort out and explain the issues.1 I shall do so here in three parts. First I shall summarize, principally, the theses of my three previous discussions of the topic. Second, I shall address some of the issues that Andreas Bedenbender raises in the article that precedes this one. Finally, I shall lay out some further reections on the matter. A. A Summary of the Issues 1. The various authors of 1 Enoch are acquainted with the Pentateuch (as well as much of the rest of the Hebrew Bible).2 Chapters 6–11 are an eschatological revision of Gen 6:1–4, and, indeed, of elements in the Flood narrative.3 Chapters 12–16 begin with a paraphrase of Gen 5:24,4 and chapters 14–15 are heavily indebted to Ezek 1–2.5 The account of Enoch’s second journey alludes to Gen 4:10 (22:5–7) and Gen 2:4–3:24 (32:6).6

1 See previously George W. E. Nickelsburg, “Scripture in 1 Enoch and 1 Enoch as Scripture,” in T. Fornberg and D. Helholm (eds.), Texts and Contexts: Biblical Texts in Their Textual and Situational Contexts: Essays in Honor of Lars Hartman (Oslo: Scandinavian University Press, 1995) 333–54; “Enochic Wisdom: An Alternative to the Mosaic Torah? in J. Magness and S. Gitin (eds.), Hesed ve-Emet: Studies in Honor of Ernest D. Frerichs (BJS 320; Atlanta: Scholars Press 1998) 123–32; 1 Enoch 1: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch Chapters 1–36; 81–108 (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001) esp. 50–3, 57–61. 2 See Nickelsburg, “Scripture in 1 Enoch,” 334–42; and in the summary in Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 57–8. 3 For details see Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 166–8. Pace Bedenbender (above), who thinks that this narrative depends on older narratives presumed in Genesis, citing Gabriele Boccaccini’s citation of Margaret Barker, but not my discussion. For a critique of Barker’s methodology, see my review of The Older Testament, JBL 109 (1990) 335–7. 4 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 233. 5 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 255–6. 6 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 305–6, 327–8.

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The introduction to the Book of the Watchers (chaps. 1–5) begins with wording taken from the Blessing of Moses (Deut 33:1–3; cf. 1:1, 3–4)7 and the Balaam oracles (Num 24:15–17; cf. 1:2–3).8 The Book of Parables (chaps. 37–71) constructs its portrait of the eschatological savior from biblical material about the Servant of the Lord (Second Isaiah), the Davidic Messiah (Isaiah 11 and Psalm 2), and also “one like a son of man” (Daniel 7).9 The Astronomical Book (or Book of the Luminaries) employs language from Genesis 1, as James VanderKam notes.10 In the Animal Apocalypse (chaps. 85–90), Enoch’s account of human history and many of its details and its order have been drawn from the narrative books of the Bible (Genesis 2–2 Kings and perhaps Ezra -Nehemiah) and probably some traditional exegesis of these texts.11 Especially noteworthy for our purposes are the many points at which the author summarizes the narrative parts of Genesis through Deuteronomy. The rst part of the Apocalypse of Weeks (93:1–10) also follows the order of biblical history, albeit very briey. 2. This use of material from the Pentateuch (and the Hebrew Bible more generally) notwithstanding, to judge from what the Enochic authors have written, and not written, the Sinaitic covenant and the Mosaic Torah were not of central importance to them.12 The only explicit reference to this covenant or Torah is in the Apocalypse of Weeks, which states that God made there “a covenant (or law) for all generations and a tabernacle” (93:6). The nal redactor of the Book of the Watchers also seems to allude to this covenant and Torah in 1:4, which stipulates Sinai as the location of God’s descent for the nal judgment. However, God’s judgment of “all esh” ( Jews and Gentiles) suggests that the Mosaic Torah is not the only benchmark for this judgment. The reference to “the eternal covenant” in 99:2 may be one other rare reference to the Mosaic Torah.13 This striking lack

7

Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 135–6, 143–5. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 137–41. 9 Nickelsburg, “Salvation Without and With a Messiah: Developing Beliefs in Writings Ascribed to Enoch,” in J. Neusner, W. S. Green, and E. Frerichs (eds.), Judaisms and Their Messiahs (New York/Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988) 58–62. 10 J. C. VanderKam, “Scripture in the Astronomical Book of Enoch,” in E. G. Chazon, D. Satran, and R. A. Clements (eds.), Things Revealed: Studies in Early Jewish and Christian Literature in Honor of Michael E. Stone ( JSJSup 89; Leiden: Brill, 2004) 93–7. 11 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 358–9. 12 Here and for the remainder of this section, I summarize Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 50–2. 13 For the problem of identifying with this the Mosaic covenant, see Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 489. 8

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of attention to the Sinaitic covenant and the Mosaic Torah is further emphasized in the Animal Apocalypse, which recounts the events at Sinai, including the theophany and Israel’s idolatry, but makes no reference to the establishment of the covenant or the giving of the Torah (89:29–35). God had opened the eyes of the sheep (i.e., given them revelation) already at Marah (89:28), where according to Exod 15:25–26 God had made a statute and ordinance with Israel and promised not to punish them if they “listened to his commandments and observed his statutes.” It is noteworthy that this author should take notice of these two obscure biblical verses but ignore the extensive legal and covenantal material in Exodus 20–24. In short, if usage is an indicator, the category of covenant and the word itself were not important for these authors. 3. Revealed Wisdom, rather than the Mosaic covenant and Torah, are 1 Enoch’s category for embodying the double notion that God has revealed the divine will to humanity and will reward and punish right and wrong conduct. The category of revealed wisdom appears in the Book of the Watchers (5:8; 32:6), the Book of Parables (37:1–2), the Astronomical Book in what appears to have been a redactional bridge that originally joined the Book of the Watchers to the Epistle (82:1–3),14 the Epistle (92:1; 98:8; 99:10; 104:12), including the Apocalypse of Weeks (93:10), and possibly in the Animal Apocalypse, which construes law as revelation under the metaphor of opening Israel’s eyes (89:28; 90:6). By using the epistemological term “wisdom” and emphasizing its receipt and transmission, the Enochic authors tie their soteriology to the possession of right knowledge. Actions are important, but they are possible only if one is rightly informed, and the obtaining of that information is pivotal for this sapiential apocalyptic tradition. Its sapiential character is indicated by, among other things, its concern with cosmology, by parallels in the Book of Proverbs, Sirach, Tobit, the Qumran Community Rule, and 4QInstruction, not least the frequent use of the metaphor of the two ways, whether to walk in the right way(s), or to stray from it (them) and walk in the path(s) of evil and sin (5:4; 91:4, 18–19; 92:3; 93:9; 94:1–4; 99:10; 104:13; 105:2; 108:13).15

14

For this judgment, see Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 335–7. On its cosmology, see P. G. R. de Villiers, “Revealing the Secrets: Wisdom and the World in the Similitudes of Enoch,” Neot 17 (1983) 50–68 (with respect to the Parables); and more broadly, M. E. Stone, “The Book of Enoch and Judaism in the 15

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4. For the Enochic authors, law is tied to cosmic order. Central to the message of most of the major parts of 1 Enoch is the expectation of an imminent eschatological judgment. This judgment implies a corpus or collection of laws and commandments that form the criteria for this judgment. This fact and the occasional use of terms for commandment notwithstanding, one looks in vain for formal parallels to the laws and commandments of the Mosaic Pentateuch, or for references to issues like the honoring of one’s parents, the observance of the Sabbath and other feasts,16 the rite of circumcision, and the full range of cultic laws. In 1 Enoch the violation of divine law relates to other issues. Chief among these is proper calendrical practice. This is the principal concern of the Astronomical Book (chaps. 72–82), although it is primarily descriptive rather than prescriptive, laying out the orderly character of the laws that govern the cosmos, rather than commanding humans to live in accordance with this order by observing a particular calendar.17 Other important issues are murder (22:5–7) and other forms of violence and oppression (the Epistle, passim), and sexual promiscuity, particularly on the part of the watchers (chapters 6–16), although there is no citation of the decalogue or related laws. The Enochic references to these issues occur in narrative and in strings of woes in the Epistle and threats of judgment in the Book of Parables, rather than in laws that prohibit this conduct or command righteous deeds that embody love of one’s neighbor or responsibility to the poor and weak. Pervading 1 Enoch’s understanding of law and reecting its roots in the sapiential tradition is a sense of cosmic order. The Astronomical Book lays out the “laws” and order that the Creator has structured into the universe. The introduction to the corpus celebrates the fact that the heavenly bodies follow their ordered courses,18 while human disobedience involves perversion and turning aside from God’s order (5:4). According to 15:1–6, the watchers’ sin confuses the created order

Third Century BCE,” CBQ 40 (1978) 479–92. On its relationship to Sirach, see R. A. Argall, 1 Enoch and Sirach: A Comparative Literary and Conceptual Analysis of the Themes of Revelation, Creation, and Judgment (SBLEJL 8; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995). 16 In chapters 72–82, festivals are mentioned only in 82:7–9, which relates to the right dating of the festivals in general and not to rules governing other aspects of their observance. 17 One exception is 80:2–3, which criticizes humans for wrong calendrical practice. 18 Also noteworthy are the few passages that condemn the exceptions to this orderly conduct by the heavenly bodies (18:14–16; 21:1–6; 80:4–8).

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that separates esh and spirit (cf. 106:13–14). Similarly, with respect to humans, the Epistle condemns men who “put on ornaments like women and fair colors more than virgins” (98:1–3), and it emphasizes that slavery violates the ordinance that God has decreed for humanity (98:4) and that woman’s sin is punished by the infertility that violates the order of creation and God’s rst commandment of record (Gen 1:28). 5. Essential to the world view of the Enochic authors is the claim of a process of revelation: the primordial seer and sage Enoch ascended to heaven, received “wisdom,” descended, wrote it in books, and gave these books to Methuselah and his sons for transmission to the latter generations (1 En 81:1–82:3; 104:12–13). In making this point, 1 Enoch employs a myth of the descent of wisdom that Sirach 24 and Baruch 4 apply to the Mosaic Torah, which they posit to be the real presence of heavenly wisdom. For the Enochic authors the situation is otherwise, and the repeated association of wisdom with the gure of Enoch is the corollary of the almost complete absence of references to the Mosaic Torah. Although there is no evidence that the Enochic authors disregarded the content of the pentateuchal laws, they have sidestepped Moses and identied Enoch as the primordial recipient of all heavenly wisdom. 6. Wisdom is a comprehensive category in 1 Enoch’s theology. It comprises revelations about: God’s will expressed in commandments and laws, though these are not spelled out; the coming judgment in which God will reward or punish those who obey or disobey these laws; and the structure of the universe that is both the arena and facilitator of this judgment. Thus it is not by accident that the word “wisdom” occurs at key points in the Enochic corpus as a designation for the corpus itself (1:2; 5:4; 37:2; 82:2–3; 90:6; 92:1; 93:10; 100:6; 104:12–13). The authors of this collection of texts self-consciously present their writings as revelations with a soteriological function. With the exception of the Astronomical Book (implicitly), they are not concerned with the specic content of the divine commandments, but with the fact that they have been revealed, the importance of obeying them, and the ineluctable consequences that result from one’s obedience or disobedience. B. Andreas Bedenbender on 1 Enoch and the Mosaic Torah Andreas Bedenbender agrees substantially with the points I have summarized above, and generally cites my commentary to that effect. The

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major part of his article treats the components of 1 Enoch diachronically and offers an historical explanation for both the non-Mosaic character of the early Enochic material and developing interest in the Mosaic Torah in the later strata. His explanation follows chiey Gabriele Boccaccini’s historical reconstruction of Second Temple Judaism. The Enochians were Levites who were disenfranchised of their priestly status and stood in opposition to the Zadokite high priestly establishment. Since the latter had taken possession of the Mosaic Torah, the Enochians chose Enoch as their champion and espoused an apocalyptic world view that gave expression to the religious chaos in which they found themselves. In the Antiochan persecution, the Enochians found themselves victimized as the Zadokites were, and they began again to espouse the Mosaic Torah, which had once been their possession, but had fallen “into the clutches of the Zadokites who perverted it into their mouthpiece.” I agree with Bedenbender that we should attempt an historical explanation of the data, treating the various strata of 1 Enoch diachronically, to the extent that is possible. On one other, substantial point I agree with him. Some of the Enochic strata are marked by an anti-temple, antipriestly bias.19 The story of the watchers and the women, recounted in chapters 6–11, is reinterpreted in chapters 12–16 as an aetiology of the demonic world, but it is cast in language that indicates that its author is concerned about the impurity of the Jerusalem priests.20 The Animal Apocalypse claims that the cult of the Second Temple has been polluted since its inception (89:73–74), and the religious blindness that attends it changes only with the religious awakening of the author’s own time and only among those of his own persuasion (90:6–7). The Apocalypse of Weeks is even more radical. The rst temple is burned, and there is no mention of the Second Temple. Only after the Enochians have received “sevenfold wisdom and knowledge,” at some point in the future, will the eschatological temple be built (93:8–10; 91:11–13). However, although I see this anti-temple, anti-priestly bias in three of the ve major parts of 1 Enoch, I believe that in the earliest strata of

19 See G. W. E. Nickelsburg, “Enoch, Levi, and Peter: Recipients of Revelation in Upper Galilee,” JBL 100 (1981), 582–7; reprinted in J. Neusner and A. J. Avery-Peck (eds.), George W. E. Nickelsburg in Perspective: An Ongoing Dialogue of Learning (2 vols.; JSJSup 80; Leiden: Brill, 2003) 2.436–42. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 54–55. 20 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 271–72.

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the myth of the watchers and the women, chaos is of a different sort.21 In the Shemihazah form of the myth, the point of the story is that the mating of the sons of God and the daughters of humanity spawns a race of giants whose brutal military actions threaten the existence of the human race. War is the problem. In a second, very early form of the story, the issue is the illegitimate revelation of forbidden secrets. In the one case these revelations facilitate violence once again and forbidden forms of sexual intercourse, which are not specically associated with the priesthood. In the second instance, the secrets concern magic and astrological forecasting, neither of which is an identiable priestly issue. Moreover, even in chapters 12–16, which recounts the watchers’ actions in language typical of anti-priestly polemics, the point of the story is to explain the origin of the demonic realm. For these reasons, I doubt that conicts in the priesthood (whose existence I do not doubt) generated the myth of the watchers and the women as it is told in 1 En 6–11. Additionally, I am not convinced by Bedenbender’s explanation for the occasional Mosaic elements in the later Enochic material. Why, for example, does the Animal Apocalypse, whose present (if not original) form dates to the time of the Antiochan persecution, deny Moses the receipt of the Torah on Mount Sinai (89:00)?22 Indeed, given what he considers to be the uncertainty of dating the texts, Bedenbender is forced to admit that there may have been “a beginning rapprochement between Enochic and Mosaic Judaism already before the persecution.” With such an acknowledgment, we are left with the question for which his hypothesis sought to provide an answer. Indeed, according to Bedenbender’s explanation (apart form this qualication), one would expect in the Animal Apocalypse a clear indication that the Mosaic Torah was a major constituent in the events surrounding the Antiochan persecution. For these reasons, I believe that we must look for a different explanation of the non-Mosaic character of most of 1 Enoch’s theology.

21 22

Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 165–72. On the dating of the Animal Apocalypse, see Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 360–61.

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george w. e. nickelsburg C. Further Reflections: Seeking an Explanation

I make no claim here of nding a complete explanation for 1 Enoch’s general lack of attention to the Mosaic Torah. Rather I wish to clarify some issues and point in some directions that may lead to such an explanation. In short, this is a work in progress. 1. The non-Mosaic character of most of 1 Enoch does not add up to an antiMosaic bias or polemic. The earliest form of the myth of the watchers and the women in 1 Enoch (the story of Shemihazah and his associates) is an eschatological interpretation of a mythic fragment from the Mosaic Pentateuch and is not an earlier, fuller version of the mythic fragment in Gen 6:1–4.23 While the elaboration of the myth in chapters 12–16 involves a dispute about priestly purity laws, the text does not tie this dispute to a rejection of biblical law. The issues and literary forms in chapters 17–19 (Enoch’s rst cosmic journey) are unrelated to the Pentateuch in general or its laws in particular. The account of Enoch’s second journey makes passing reference to the story of Cain and Abel, because the author, like his predecessors, considers violence and bloodshed a major issue in his time. While there is no reference to the decalogue, the use of the Genesis narrative is appropriate here and does not indicate a dismissal of the decalogue. The allusion to Gen 2–3 in chapter 32 is an element in Enoch’s journey; however, the elaboration of the Eden story with an element from a parallel tradition (the tree of wisdom) does not indicate an anti-Mosaic polemic. The introduction to the Book of the Watchers is noteworthy because it both draws on Mosaic tradition (the Blessing of Moses and the Balaam oracles), and attributes this Mosaic material to Enoch. The beginning of the Animal Apocalypse recasts Genesis-Deuteronomy, elaborating and reinterpreting it without deprecating it or criticizing Moses. The elaborations in large part reect the apocalyptic world view of 1 Enoch and ll out the narrative with material in the Book of the Watchers, namely, the descent of the watchers, the activity of the archangels, the centrality of the gure of Enoch. Although Moses does not receive the Torah on Mount Sinai, he is depicted as the divinely appointed leader of the Israelites and

23 This is evident from the fact that the story does not simply reprise the mythic fragment in Gen 6:1–4, but employs Noachic material from its biblical context. Here I disagree with Bedenbender, Boccaccini, and Barker. For further details, see the sources in n. 3 above.

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the agent of divine judgment against the Egyptians and the idolaters. Law is revealed to Israel at Marah, albeit not through the mediation of Moses (as is also the case in Exodus). What emerges here is an afrmation of Moses’s role as God’s agent to lead and judge Israel, but not as the giver of Torah, which is not mentioned at all. Conversely, Enoch is celebrated as the recipient of revelation (in the dream as a whole), and as one who ascends to heaven (as Moses does not) and functions as Israel’s intercessor in the heavenly throne room, as Moses does not on Mount Sinai.24 In chapters 90–93, Enoch’s testamentary scene is reminiscent of Moses’s farewell in the latter chapters of Deuteronomy, but there is no polemic indicated. The Epistle of Enoch has two major concerns: oppression of the righteous by the rich, and the purveyors of false religion. Both types of sin stand under the judgment of God, but for the most part, neither is described in terms that connect positively or negatively with the Mosaic Torah. There are two exceptions: the polemic against idolatry (99:6–9), where the author does not appeal to a Mosaic commandment, and the critique of slavery through an appeal to creation (98:4), where he does not polemicize against Moses’ acceptance of the institution.25 This lack of reference to the Torah is noteworthy since at one point the author of the Epistle does criticize those who “pervert the eternal covenant” but claim to be sinless. That is, interpretation of divine law is a matter of dispute.26 In summary: the Enochic authors indicate a respect for the Pentateuch by drawing on the traditions contained in it, albeit reinterpreting them. In the case of the Animal Apocalypse, the author allows Moses a crucial role in Israel’s history, as the leader of the Exodus. At the same time, he transfers the role of mediator, recipient of revelation, and lawgiver from Moses to Enoch. This is consonant with the fact that elsewhere in the corpus, the authors attribute to Enoch words and phrases that the Pentateuch ascribes to, or associates with Moses (1:1, 3–9; chaps. 90–94). 2. With a few exceptions, however, the authors of 1 Enoch doe not express themselves in literary forms typical of the Mosaic Torah and do not concern themselves with major issues in the Mosaic Torah. We have seen the exceptions: some

24 In 89:31 it is perhaps implied that Moses ascended the mountain to mediate with the fearful God, but there is no counterpart to Exod 32:11–14; 33:12–16; 34:9. 25 For a parallel where Moses is explicit, see Mark 10:2–11. 26 See Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 486–89.

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of the wording in the introduction and at the beginning of the opening oracle (1:1–9); part of the narrative in chapters 6–11; the narrative in the rst part of the Animal Apocalypse (chaps. 85–89:38); the testamentary material and the predictions in chapters 90–94:4. Elsewhere, through most of the corpus, the Enochic authors do not employ the legal forms and vocabulary typical of the Mosaic Torah. Instead, they cast their material in forms that are typical of the prophets and the socalled sapiential tradition. Thus, although the introduction to the corpus recalls the Blessing of Moses and the Balaam oracles, taken as a whole, chapters 1–5 combine the form of a late prophetic judgment/salvation oracle with topoi and language about observing nature that is at home in wisdom texts.27 Enoch’s narrative of his ascent to the heavenly throne room draws on accounts of prophetic calls, notably Ezekiel 1–2. The form of Enoch’s journey visions is reminiscent of Zechariah 1–6 and Ezekiel 40–48.28 The repetitious poetic cycles in the Book of Parables that describe events relating to the coming judgment is reminiscent of some prophetic oracles, not least Second Isaiah, whose ideas and imagery this author takes over. Chapters 83–90 are two symbolic dream visions. The woes and exhortations in the Epistle employ forms found in the canonical prophets and the Wisdom of Ben Sira. The Astronomical Book, which more than any other part, concerns itself with issues of law (specically the calendar) never speaks in the form of commandments. Furthermore, with the exception of the major issue of calendar, a reference to consuming blood (98:11), and some implied concerns about temple and priestly purity, the corpus does not reveal an interest in matters of cult and ritual. Such concerns may lie behind a text like 99:2, but the author does not spell out the issues. 3. In dealing with the general absence of Moses in the Enochic texts, we shall do well to trace the footprints of the prophets and the sages. It is perhaps not surprising that the Enochic texts have much more in common with the prophetic corpus and the sapiential texts than with the Mosaic Torah. Discussions about the origins of apocalyptic have generally centered around the works of the prophets and the sages. What needs to be emphasized in the present context, however, is the almost complete absence of the gure of Moses in the prophetic corpus, and his slow emergence in the sapiential texts. 27

Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 31, 152–55. See M. Himmelfarb, Tours of Hell: An Apocalyptic Form in Jewish and Christian Literature (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1983) 50–60. 28

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The name of Moses appears only three times in the whole prophetic corpus. In Jer 15:1, following the prophet’s plea in behalf of Israel, God cites the example of the ineffectual pleas of Moses and Samuel. Isaiah 63:11–12 mentions Moses twice, depicting him as a leader, as he is in the Animal Apocalypse. This is not to say that the prophets did not presume the validity of the Mosaic Torah. Clearly they did, and in many ways.29 However, they did not appeal to Moses as the mediator of the Torah, nor did they speak in the form of commandments. Moreover, like the Epistle of Enoch, they were concerned more about ethical issues than with matters of ritual and cult. The data in the wisdom texts are somewhat different, but compatible. In its present form, the Book of Proverbs presumes the identity of Wisdom and Torah, and speaks throughout of the nexus between human actions and their consequences. Yet we hear of covenant only once (2:17), and right and wrong conduct are discussed in proverbial and not legal forms. In the preserved part of 4QInstruction, “tôrÊh never occurs, and mitswÊh appears only three times.”30 Moreover, like 1 Enoch, it interweaves ethical instruction with an eschatological emphasis and an interest in the revealed sources of wisdom. Finally, there are the interesting cases of the Wisdom of ben Sira and the Wisdom of Solomon.31 Although Ben Sira celebrates the Torah as the repository of divine wisdom (chap. 24) and extols the gure of Moses in his hymn to the fathers (45:1–5), his quotations from the Mosaic Torah are rare, and he speaks in the form of proverbs rather than commandments. Like Proverbs and like the Epistle of Enoch, he is interested more in the connection between one’s deeds and their consequences and less in the specics of what is obedience to God’s law and in what circumstances.32 He is a teacher of ethics and not a halakhic interpreter of the Torah. The Wisdom of Solomon devotes several chapters to the Exodus (15:18–19:21); however, the author depicts Moses as a leader

29 See, e.g., K. Baltzer, Deutero-Isaiah: A Commentary on Isaiah 40 –55 (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001) 42–44. 30 J. Strugnell and D. J. Harrington, “General Introduction,” in J. Strugnell and D. J. Harrington (eds.), Qumran Cave 4.XXIV. Sapiential Texts, Part 2. 4QInstruction (Musar le Mevin): 4Q415ff. (DJD 34; London: Clarendon, 1999) 27. 31 On these texts, see J. T. Sanders, “When Sacred Canopies Collide: The Reception of the Torah of Moses in the Wisdom Literature of the Second Temple Period,” JSJ 32 (2001) 121–36. 32 G. W. E. Nickelsburg, Ancient Judaism and Christian Origins (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003) 39–41.

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rather than as a lawgiver. Like Ben Sira, this author chooses not to speak in the form of laws and commandments. The examples of Ben Sira and the Wisdom of Solomon have led Jack T. Sanders to speak of the collision of sacred canopies in the Hellenistic period.33 The wisdom literature and the Mosaic Torah were two different ways of dealing with issues of human conduct, and Ben Sira and the Wisdom of Solomon reect the transition, as the Mosaic Torah begins to gain prominence. It has been, and is my contention that the Enochic authors t this same pattern. In all three texts Moses is present but not dominating. In the preserved fragments of 4QInstruction, Moses is not present at all. In all of these texts, ethics is of more concern than cult and ritual, though this last is present in parts of 1 Enoch. Exhortation rather than commandment is the mode of expression. An interest in the prophets is evident in Tobit, Ben Sira, Baruch, and the Wisdom of Solomon.34 4. The non-Mosaic character of 1 Enoch reects a context, a paradigm, and a way of speaking about human conduct, God’s justice, and the cosmos whose concerns and emphases differ from those in the Mosaic Torah. I have painted in broad strokes, and my nal suggestions here require rening and the careful, close reading of a range of texts. a. The emphasis on cosmology and theodicy—as it appears variously in the journeys of Enoch in the Book of the Watchers, in the Parables, in the Astronomical Book—is addressed to people who need less to be admonished to right conduct than to be assured that there is order in the universe. This emphasis in the midst of daily cognitive dissonance is undergirded by the authors’ claims to revelation now shared with the faithful. This is not a concern of the Mosaic Torah.35 b. Similarly, most of the Enochic corpus reects a paradigm for speaking of human conduct and its consequences, that differs from

33

Sanders, “Sacred Canopies.” On Tobit, Sirach, and Baruch, see G. W. E. Nickelsburg, “Eschatology (Early Juwish),” ABD 2.585–86. On the Wisdom of Solomon, see G. W. E. Nickelsburg, Resurrection, Immortality, and Eternal Life in Intertestamental Judaism (expanded ed.; HTS 56; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006) 83–87. 35 On the Parables and their difference from the Torah in this respect, see J. J. Collins, “The Heavenly Representative: The Son of Man in the Similitudes of Enoch,” in G. W. E. Nickelsburg and J. J. Collins (eds.), Ideal Figures in Ancient Judaism,” (SBLSCS 12; Chico: Scholars Press, 1980) 111–33, esp. 24–25; de Villiers, “Revealing the Secrets,” and the response by B. C. Lategan, Neot 17 (1983) 69. 34

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that of the Mosaic Torah. Its roots are in the prophets and in the later wisdom tradition, which is, in part, an interpretation of the prophets. c. It would be useful to look more closely at these wisdom texts to see how they draw on the prophets and the point at which Torah informs their understanding of wisdom. As one example not considered in this essay, Tobit is a text that has important sapiential components ( proverbs and two-ways exhortations) and that respects the prophets and recommends obedience to the Torah. Thus, though it is roughly contemporary with Sirach, or perhaps a little earlier, its positive attitude toward the Torah is more integrated into the text. The author of the Book of Jubilees is comfortable with folding Enochic traditions into a pseudo-Mosaic text.36 A text such as 4QInstruction is logically prior to 1 Enoch, with no clear interest in the Torah, but claims of revelation and an interest in eschatology that somewhat parallel 1 Enoch. d. In this respect, it is important to acknowledge the extent to which revelation as such plays a central role (see above A.5–6) in 1 Enoch,37 and to see to what degree, in what ways, and with what functions notions of revelation appear in such texts as Jubilees, Sirach, the Wisdom of Solomon, and 4QInstruction.38 e. If Bedenbender’s hypothesis does not hold up, we must ask, again, why the basically non-Mosaic Enochic tradition does, in time, grant Moses and his Torah some space, and we may wonder why some Mosaic texts grant authority to Enoch. In the former case, one possibility is simply the growing inuence of the Mosaic Torah. In the latter case, it may be the venerable authority of the Enochic tradition itself. Thus, Jubilees grants Enoch authority in his own realm, as the author of the astronomy behind the solar calendar and as a person who lived and “testied” long before Moses and the founding of Israel.39 In any event, if one grants that the early Enochic authors were not

36

Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 72–76. Collins, “The Heavenly Representative;” de Villiers, “Revealing the Secrets;” Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 37–42. 38 On this issue, see G. W. E. Nickelsburg, “The Nature and Function of Revelation in 1 Enoch, Jubilees, and Some Qumran Documents,” in E. G. Chazon, M. Stone, and A. Pinnick (eds.), Pseudepgraphic Perspectives: The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Proceedings of the International Symposium of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature, 12–14 January, 1997 (STDJ 31; Leiden: Brill, 1999) 91–119. 39 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 73–78. On the parallels between T. Moses 10 and 1 En 1, see Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 144. 37

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anti-Mosaic, there is no reason why the wall between the two traditions should been impermeable. f. Finally, if we grant the largest part of the Enochic corpus its full non-Mosaic weight, and we recognize the lesser and greater roles that Moses plays in texts such as 4QInstruction, 1 Enoch, Sirach, Wisdom of Solomon, Tobit, Jubilees, and the Testament of Moses, it will be worthwhile to look more broadly at the whole range of texts from the Graeco-Roman period to see how we might ll in some of the tesserae of the complicated mosaic that we call Second Temple Judaism(s).40

40 For a study of some of the post-biblical Mosaic tradition, see H. Najman, Seconding Sinai: The Development of Mosaic Discourse in Second Temple Judaism ( JSJSup 77; Leiden: Brill, 2003).

MEASURING TIME AMONG THE JEWS: THE ZADOKITE PRIESTHOOD, ENOCHISM, AND THE LAY TENDENCIES OF THE MACCABEAN PERIOD Paolo Sacchi University of Turin, Italy The aim of this article is to search for the origins of the Jewish calendars and to evaluate the signicance of changes in relation to structures of thought. While the degree of importance calendars had to Jewish thought is yet to be fully determined, it was certainly great, as has recently attracted the attention of several scholars.1 Now, we can also add to these studies the paper entitled “4Q390, the 490-Year-Prophecy, and the Calendrical History of the Second Temple Period”, given by Hanan Eshel at the Enochic seminar held in Venice in 2003. The author interprets the fragment 4Q390 in light of an interpretation of Dan 7:25, as alluding to a change of calendar in Jerusalem. The result is a perfectly valid interpretation of the thought of the author of 4Q390 and, consequently, a new conrmation of the interpretation of Dan 7:25. His reconstruction of Jewish calendars, however, is less convincing. The 364-day calendar, which Eshel believes cannot predate the third century BCE, in my opinion could be much more ancient.

1 Among others, see: R. T. Beckwith, “The Temple Scroll and Its Calendar: Their Character and Purpose,” REVQ 18 (1997) 3–20; J. C. VanderKam, Calendars in the Dead Sea Scrolls ( London: Routledge 1998); C. Martone, “Calendari e turni sacerdotali a Qumran,” in F. Israel, A. M. Rabello, A. Somekh (eds.), Hebraica, Studi in on. di Sergio J. Sierra (Turin: Scuola Rabbinica S. H. Margulies – D. Disegni, 1998) 325–358; A. Strobel, “Die gemeinsame Kalendarbasis von Qumran und Heliopolis. Zur rechnerischen Tiefenstruktur archäologischer Fakten,” in Jahrbuch für Evangelikale Theologie 13 (1999) 67–76; J. C. VanderKam, “Calendars in the DSS,” NEA 63 (2000) 164–167; G. Brin, The Concept of Time in the Bible and DSS (STDJ 39; Leiden: Brill, 2001); V. Gillet-Didier, “Calendrier lunaire, calendrier solaire et gardes sacerdotales: recherches sur 4Q321,” REVQ 20 (2001) 171–206; B. S. Wacholder, “Calendars wars between the 364 and the 365-Day Year,” REVQ 20 (2001) 207–222; C. Martone, “Cronologie bibliche e tradizioni testuali,” ASR 6,(2001) 167–190; J. Ben-Dov, “The Initial Stages of Lunar Theory at Qumran,” JJS 54 (2003) 125–138; P. Sacchi, “I calendari ebraici,” Humanitas 58 (2003) 250–269.

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paolo sacchi 1. Before the Exile

Prior to the exile the Jews most certainly used a lunar calendar. As a consequence, they were surely faced with the problem of nding a relationship between the movements of the sun and the moon, since the length of the lunar month is not a factor of the length of the solar year. The ratio between a solar revolution and a lunar cycle was studied in a strictly empirical manner. The result was that the ancient calendars could not have been very precise and, as Cryer2 has pointed out, a certain degree of variability must have been common. At least some of the elites, however, must have felt the need for nding some way of measuring time that would always hold true. The tendency that prevailed was that of reconciling measurements taken from the sun with those taken from the moon by inserting an extra month every few years. The theoretical problem, then, was that of calculating the right frequency for adding an extra month. The calculations made by Cleostratus and Meton were simply the mathematical formalization, therefore always valid, of a problem that had long been solved through direct observation. We have no documentation illustrating how the solar and lunar years were evened out, but we are sure that it happened, because the Jews never ended up having their winter months during the summer, as happened with the Egyptians. We only know of such additions from sources external to Judaism—in Jewish texts the question of embolic periods never arises. 2. The Babylonian Situation in the Sixth Century bce In the sixth century BCE King Nabonidus sent a letter in the fteenth year of his reign, no. 115 in Clay’s numbering.3 The letter was sent to a priest at the temple of Eanna at Uruk to order the addition of a second month of Addaru, the nal month of the Babylonian lunar calendar. Thus, that year had thirteen months, but the order concerned

2 F. H. Cryer, “The 360-Day Calendar Year and Early Judaic Sectarianism,” SJOT 1 (1987) 116–122. 3 A. T. Clay, Neo-Babylonian Letters from Erech (Yale Oriental Series, Babylonian Texts 3; New Haven: Yale University Press, 1919).

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only that year. This means that prior to the king’s decision, no one knew that that year would have thirteen months. Another letter from the same collection, no. 196, is from a priest in Babylon ordering that a second month of Ululu, the sixth month, be added. This letter is not dated, but it was certainly written during Cyrus’ reign, or perhaps that of Cambyses. We are dealing with the Persian period, then, and no longer the Babylonian one. The order to insert an extra month no longer came from the king, but from the priest, and the month to be added was not Addaru. The problem, however, was the same. Every now and again a month needed to be added to the normal twelve in order to keep the lunar and solar calendars even. At any rate, it was during this period that a xed cycle was established for the addition of months, an essential step towards a calendar as we understand it, a calculation of the passage of time that holds for the future as well. It appears that initially there was a cycle of eight years, three of which had thirteen months. Later a nineteen-year cycle was adopted, with seven thirteen-month years. We can safely claim that by the Persian period the structure of the lunar-solar calendar was in place. In the West, the Greeks, who also used a lunar-solar calendar similar to the Babylonian one, came to the same conclusions at more or less the same time, rst with Cleostratus of Tenedo (eight-year cycle) and then with Meton of Athens (nineteen-year cycle). Cleostratus lived during the second half of the sixth century BCE, while Meton lived in the second half of the fth century BCE. In all probability the Greeks were inuenced by the Babylonians.4 While this approach was based on experience and simply sought a practical way of keeping the solar and lunar cycles on the same pace, there was also another approach. Some information is provided about the existence of this latter approach in the sixth century BCE in the writings of Ezekiel and of the Deuteronomistic editor I call R1, the author or team of authors active at the Jewish court in exile working on the rst great historical work by the Jews.5 The empirical approach

4 See B. L. van der Waerden, “Babylonian Astronomy, III, The Earliest Babylonian Computations,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 10 (1951) 20–34, esp. 31–32. 5 In fact, R1 corresponds to Noth’s Deuteronomist without Deuteronomy. See P. Sacchi, “Il più antico storico di Israele; un’ipotesi di lavoro,” in Atti Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei (Rome: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, 1987) 65–86 (the part of this text dealing with Deuteronomy was later modied); “Le Pentateuch, le Deuteronomiste et Spinosa,” Vetus Testamentum, Suppl. 61 (1995) 275–288; “Riessioni metodologiche sulla

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had an important defect; it had to even out two different measurements, where the larger number was not a multiple of the smaller one. These calculations and the method itself on which they were based must have appeared approximate at least to certain members of the elite, when the week was accepted as a new means of measuring time. In fact, neither the month nor the 354 days of the lunar year could be divided by seven, the days of the week. The week added confusion, but it was welcomed by the Priestly tradition as a fundamental theological element, as witnessed by the story of the creation in seven days. Qualitatively, the days were not all the same; at least the seventh was essentially different from the others. The seventh day became the linchpin of Jewish religious life. While it is very probable that the week was derived from a subdivision of the lunar month, its structure, considered valid on its own, led to the systematic use of added days to even out weeks and months. The oldest trace we have of a week-like subdivision of the lunar month dates to seventh-century BCE Mesopotamian texts in which some days are considered inauspicious. Certain actions, such as curing the ill or making prophecies, were prohibited on those days. The “inauspicious” days of each month were the 7th, the 14th, the 21st and the 28th.6 Clearly, these are the days corresponding to the rst quarter, the full moon and the third quarter, but the 28th was not yet the beginning of the following month. What is certain, though, is that the lapse between these days was always a seven-day interval. In other words, we have the scheme of the week. However, if this subdivision is to be considered a forebear of the week, there must be some uncounted days at the end of the month,7 in order for the month to always begin on the rst day of the week, with what we call Sunday. In the priestly tradition the week was used to add a qualitative dimension to daily life, at least in the sense that it distinguished sacred and profane. Thus a parallel was created between time and space. It was possible to dene sacred spaces and sacred times, just as it was to dene profane spaces and times.

critica biblica e soprattutto sul cosiddetto problema del Pentateuco, a proposito di un libro recente,” Henoch 21 (1999) 179–183. 6 The 19th was also included in the list of inauspicious days, but it was a day of mourning. 7 S. Langdon, Babylonian Menologies and the Semitic Calendars (London: Oxford University Press, 1935).

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3. The Ancient Practical 360-day Calendar of Mesopotamian Civilization The recent discovery of Ebla has shown that even in very ancient times a calendar based more on the sun than the moon, but in fact independent of both,8 was in use in areas gravitating culturally around Babylon. The year was divided in 360 days, subdivided into 30-day months. This calendar must have been quite practical for the bureaucracy and for commerce. Since the year fell behind by ve days each year, every sooften an entire month was added. In other words, the amount of time to be added to the 360 days was not taken into consideration every year in order to keep up with the solar calendar. They simply waited for the calendar to fall a whole month behind and then a month was added, making a 390-day year. The extra month was added after the tenth month.9 This calendar remained a neutral calendar; it was simply the expression of a different set of interests from those that gave rise to the lunar calendar. 4. Jewish Culture Comes into Contact with Babylonian Science Direct contact with Babylonian culture is clear in some episodes of Genesis, which are paralleled in ancient Mesopotamian stories. I do not intend to discuss this well known point, since interesting comparisons were rst made nearly a century ago.10 Now, Schmid’s lowering of the date for the Yahwist11 only conrms the Mesopotamian background of some Jewish productions. Alongside the literary parallels, which we nd in the accounts of the ood and the creation of mankind from a clay image,12 there was also 8

See G. Pettinato, Ebla, un impero fondato sull’argilla (Milan: Mondadori, 1979) 142. See Pettinato, Ebla, 141. 10 See F. Delitzsch, Babel und Bibel (3 vols.; Stuttgart: Deutscher Verlags Anstalt, 1905). 11 See H. H. Schmid, Der sogenannte Jahwist (Zurich: TVZ, 1976). There has been enormous discussion of this issue since Schmid wrote. There is a convenient update in T. B. Dozeman and K. Schmid, ed. A Farewell to the Yahwist? The composition of the Pentateuch in Recent European Interpretation (Atlanta: SBL, 2006) 12 On the myth of Atrahasis see L. Cagni, “Il mito babilonese di Atrahasis,” Rivista Biblica 23, 225–259; “Creazione e destinazione dell’uomo secondo i sumeri e gli assirobabilonesi,” L’uomo nella Bibbia e nelle culture ad essa contemporanee. Atti del simp. per il XXV dell’ABI (Brescia: Paideia, 1975) 9–26; W. R. Meyer, “Ein Mythos der Erschaffung des Menschen und des Königs,” Orientalia 56 (1987) 55–68. 9

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a much deeper level of contact. Jewish thought elaborated a new and more profound vision of things in contact with Mesopotamian culture and science. 5. Ezekiel and the 364-day Calendar If there is a direct inuence of Babylonian culture to be found in Ezekiel, it is in his vision of the cosmos, derived from what today we would call scientic notions. His vision of the universe broadens, becomes immense, favoring the formation of the image of Yahweh as the absolute, sole God. Ezekiel viewed the world through the lens of Babylonian astronomy, which became the key to understanding the role of the God of Israel in history. There is a characteristic element in the book of Ezekiel; fourteen dates are given including the year, month and day. Of these fourteen dates, thirteen regard his prophecies. Why is Ezekiel so interested in dating his prophecies down to the day? Why such precision? Was he overcome by a great historical interest in his prophecies, or did the fact that a prophecy came about on one day rather than another hold some particular value, recognized not only by him, but also by those it was addressed to? The fourteenth date does not regard a prophecy, but it does concern a singular event, arrival of the news that Jerusalem had fallen in 587. It is worth noting that Ezekiel does not use the pre-exile names for the months,13 nor does he use the Babylonian names, as the Jews would do later. Ezekiel refers to the months by number. This is an innovative way of indicating the months. If we read Ezekiel’s dates following the so-called solar calendar of the Enochians, Qumranians and Essenes, which uses ordinal numbers for the months, we get some truly interesting results. Annie Jaubert,14 whose hypothesis I am following, already noticed this phenomenon. Jaubert sought only to explain the difference in dates for the Last Supper between the synoptic Gospels and John, but I would like to clarify the question by singling out its presuppositions.

13 The names of only four months of the pre-exile calendar are known from the Hebrew Bible: abib (Ex 13:4), ziv (1 Kings 6:1), etanim (1 Kings 8:2), bul (1 Kings 6:38). 14 A. Jaubert, La date de la Cène (Paris: Gabalda, 1957).

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The later solar calendar as it appears in the Qumran texts, among others, is based on a normal 364-day year divided into twelve months. The months are then divided into four groups corresponding to the time between equinox and solstice. The months each have thirty days, except the last one of each period (the third, sixth, ninth and twelfth) which have thirty-one. The solstice or equinox, then, always falls on the thirty-rst day of a thirty-one-day month.15 Since 364 can be divided by seven, the rst day of the year always fell on the same day of the week, Wednesday, the day that God created the sun and moon and, therefore, the possibility of measuring time. In this calendar the seven-day week became a factor of the days of the year (364/7) and the two measures t together. The phases of the moon were left out. The book of Jubilees, when telling of the creation of the stars on the fourth day of creation, adds this phrase to the biblical text ( Jub 2:9): “God gave the sun as a great star on earth (to indicate) the days, the weeks, the months, the holy days, the years, the Sabbaths, the jubilees and all the periods of the year.” The month became a division of the year. The moon was left out. After the day, the fundamental measure of time was the year, with the week as a subdivision. This would create problems.16 As we can deduce from the Astronomical Book,17 this 364-day calendar was derived from an older one, identical in structure though based on a different philosophy. The earlier one, still of 364 days, was the form that Ezekiel knew and, in fact, it probably originated in his

15 The thirty-rst days are the four days added to the normal month mentioned in Astronomical Book in 1 En 75:1–2. They are the days with no movement. 16 These arise in some Qumran texts, such as 4Q259, 4Q319 and most of all in 4Q321. 4Q321 presents a concordance between the solar year, rotation of priests and the lunar month. There is no doubt that the rotation of priests, based on the week, was perfectly adapted to the solar year, while the relationship with the lunar month was variable (besides the problems in establishing the meaning of two words; it is not clear which is the rst and which the fteenth day of the lunar month). Whatever the purpose of this concordance, it is clear that the author followed the solar calendar. See C. Martone, “Un calendario proveniente da Qumran recentemente pubblicato,” Henoch 16 (1994) 49–76; “Calendari;” V. Gillet-Didier, “Calendrier lunaire, calendrier solaire et gardes sacerdotales; recherches sur 4Q321,” REVQ 20 (2001) 171–206. 17 See P. Sacchi, “The Two Calendars of the Book of Astronomy”, in Jewish Apocalyptic and its History ( JSPSS 20; Shefeld: Shefeld Academic Press, 1997) 128–139 (Italian Orig. 1990). On the survival of the 360 + 4 calendar in the calculations of the book of Daniel, see G. Boccaccini, “The Solar Calendars of Daniel and Enoch,” in J. J. Collins and P. W. Flint (eds.), The Book of Daniel: Composition and Reception (Leiden, Brill, 2001) 311–328.

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own circles. In this early phase the solar year was divided into twelve months of thirty days each, leaving the four days of the equinoxes and solstices out of the calculation. The “true” year, then, had 360 days, to which four days had to be added outside the normal day count. These four days, the equinoxes and solstices, were days in which the sun stood still—a lack of movement was interpreted as a lack of time.18 This apparently marginal element, that the year had 360 days plus four rather than 364, is important because it is fundamental and expresses a complex philosophy. This philosophy is hidden behind the assumption that there are four days with no movement, and therefore out of time. The 360-day plus four calendar became a 364-day one when the earlier philosophy was no longer understood. The 360 days were the 360 degrees of the horizon, called “days”, divided into twelve months corresponding to the twelve signs of the zodiac.19 As we can see, the four days out of time have no space either to move. The coincidence, even concerning the names, between measures of space and time creates a unitary system, which we can call a cosmic system. In practical terms the two calendars were identical. The “strong” day of the week was Wednesday and each year began on Wednesday. The week, basis of the Priestly liturgy, was a measure that t perfectly in the year. Now, we must turn our attention to the dates of Ezekiel’s prophecies and visions, in order to see some meaning in these dates as linked to a particular calendar. Of the thirteen dates given for visions, in nine cases the text is certain: all the Jewish and non-Jewish traditions agree. The dates with the days of the week are: 5/IV Sunday (Ezek 1:1); 12/4 Sunday (Ezek 3:15–16); 10/V Sunday (Ezek 20:1); 10/X Friday (Ezek 24:1); 1/I Wednesday (Ezek 29:17); 7/I Tuesday (Ezek 30:20);

18

See 1 En 75:1: “They (the archangels assigned to the solstice and equinox) do not leave from the xed stations according of the reckoning of the year.” In other words, they stood still in their positions. 19 On the history of the zodiac see B. L. van der Waerden, “History of the Zodiac,” in Archiv für Orientforschung 16 (1952–53) 216–230.

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1/III Sunday (Ezek 31:1); 1/XII Sunday (Ezek 32:1); 10/VII Friday (Ezek 40:1). Each of these nine dates regards a prophecy of Ezekiel, including 10/ X, the beginning of the siege of Jerusalem, but the date is given as a revelation during a vision. It should, therefore, be considered a prophecy alongside the others. We obtain the following results: ve prophecies took place on Sunday, one on Wednesday, two on Friday and one on Tuesday. Apart from Tuesday, which is a common day, we see that Wednesday is the strongest day of the week, while Friday and Sunday are opening and closing moments of the sacrality of the Sabbath. Moving from the dates conrmed by the entire tradition to those with variants, we obtain the following results, which can easily be inserted into the same schema. The date of 8:1 is 1/VI, a Sunday following the Hebrew codex Petropolitanus (of year 916) as opposed to 5/VI, a Wednesday in the common Masoretic text and 5/V, a Tuesday in the Septuagint. The number of the month has been lost in the datation of 26:1 in all the tradition, but the number of the day remains. Since it is the rst of the month, there are only three days possible: Wednesday (months I, IV, VII, X), Friday (II, V, VIII, XI) or Sunday (III, VI, IX, XII). In 29:1 the Masoretic text gives 12/X, Sunday, while the Septuagint has 1/X, a Wednesday. In 32:17 the Masoretic text gives 10/V, again a Sunday, while the Septuagint again gives a Wednesday, 15/I. The date contained in 33:21 (5/X) regards the day Ezekiel received news of the fall of Jerusalem, and is not important for us here. At any rate, in the Masoretic text 5/X is once again a Sunday, while the Septuagint gives the fth day of the twelfth month, a Thursday. Excluding the date that news of the fall of Jerusalem arrived, there is a preponderance of “strong” days of the week, Sunday in particular, as suitable for prophecies. Even the case of the variants in interesting. In both 29:1 and 32:17 the Masoretic text gives a Sunday and the Septuagint a Wednesday. It seems that the existence of particularly sacred days of the week, and therefore days more suited to manifestations of the sacred, could guide conjectures when there were problems reading the model manuscript. When uncertain the Septuagint opted for Wednesday. We can conclude, therefore, that Ezekiel dated his prophecies and his visions, because he used a calendar that allowed him to individuate

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the quality of the day of the year in relation to the week. This means that every year each day of the year was always in the same position regarding the cosmos. Again this meant that space and time were interconnected dimensions of a higher whole. This conception of the relationship between time and space was derived from the so-called astrolabes, all of them dating to before 1000 BCE. These astrolabes divided the sky into twelve equal parts, called months, each of them subdivided into thirty days, for a total of 360 days. The horizon, therefore, was divided into 360 degrees. Mul Apin’s compilation, composed around the year 700 BCE follows along these lines, though Mul Apin’s system is more elaborate; “There are 12 signs, because there are 12 months in the schematic year of Mul Apin. The signs were made of equal length in order to get months of equal duration: they were divided into 30 degrees each because the schematic months were supposed to contain 30 days each.”20 This calendar uses the stars as points of reference, but its 360 days are in reality the 360 degrees of the horizon. It is a “perfect” calendar since it is built around the stars. It only needed to be adapted to daily life. I am unable to penetrate the complex ancient calculations that modern scholars have published, beginning with Strassmaier, Epping and most of all Kugler, and recently Glessmer and Albani regarding the Astronomical Book, using previously unknown documents21 The relationship between time and space, however, is perfectly clear and is based on the 1:1 ratio between the number of days and the number of degrees of the horizon, which are indicated as days, because the sky is divided into twelve parts corresponding to the twelve signs of the zodiac, whose counterpart is to found in the measurement of time. Space and time are not two independent entities, but rather two coordinates measuring two dimensions of a single, unique cosmos. Ezekiel accepted such a calendar and adapted it to his theology. The important thing is not that his visions took place on a Friday or a Sunday, but the fact that he considered it important, that he took note of it and consecrated it to memory. And this because for him it must

20

B. L. van der Waerden, “History,” 218. See G. Schiaparelli, Scritti sulla storia dell’Astronomia antica (2 vols.; Bologna: Zanichelli, 1925) 1.47ff.; M. Albani, Astronomie und Schöpfungslaube: Untersuchungen zum astrononischen Henochbuch (WMANT 68; Neukirchen-Vluyin: Neukirchener, 1994); U. Glessmer, “Horizontal measuring in the Babylonian astronomical compendium MUL.APIN and in the Astronomical Book of 1Enoch,” Hen 18,3 (1996) 259–282. 21

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have been an important element of the vision itself. No other prophet, either before or after him, had done this. Apparently, for Ezekiel the week was not simply a period of seven days, but rather the earthly projection of a cosmic structure, the structure of creation. Sacred and profane, past and future, history and prophecy take on values that they had not had before. God had revealed himself on earth to the great prophets of the past. Ezekiel, in exile, had visions from beyond the heavens (Ezek 1:1). 6. Consequences of the Space-Time Unity The God of pre-exilic Israel was a mighty being, capable of ying on the clouds (Ps 68:5.34) and protecting his people, when they deserved it. He could cause prophets to prophesy with admonitions, but also with usually short-term predictions. He moved and lived within the space of this earthly world. Now, with Ezekiel, God reveals himself beyond the heavens: “On the fth day of the fourth month (therefore Sunday) . . . the sky opened, and I saw divine visions” (Ezek 1:1–2). God lives beyond the sky and his gaze is all-encompassing. The object of Ezekiel’s contemplation obeys laws that are no longer those of this world—the four-wheeled chariot of Ezekiel’s vision can move in all directions (Ezek 1:17): it is a philosophy based on the number four, independently of the laws governing this world. The living creatures all have four faces and four wings each. The events of this world take on new meaning; God punishes and rewards, but there is a meaning to history that goes beyond divine retribution. God wants to accomplish something in the cosmos, or rather, accomplish the cosmos. In order to reach his goal God can even give bad laws to Israel (see below). God’s works are laid out in history and direct it towards a nal end. The view of history becomes vast in Ezekiel. Hosea claimed that God had led his people from Egypt under the guidance of a prophet (Hos 12:14). Amos had predicted punishment for Israel’s great sins and for those of the neighboring peoples (Am 1–2). Isaiah had predicted the liberation of Israel from the two kings that were oppressing the Jews at that time (Is 7:16); he also predicted, if the passage is his,22 as 22 See C. F. Whitley, “The Call and Mission of Isaiah,” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 18 (1959) 38–48; R. Knierim, “The vocation of Isaiah,” VT 18 (1968) 47–68 as

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I believe, that from the line of Jesse an extraordinary king would come bringing justice to Israel (Is 11:1). These are the roots of messianism, but a messianism without any precise links to history; Isaiah only says that there will be a given time when a given descendant of David will be born, and he will have certain qualities. God watches over the safety of Israel, and also punishes it and all other peoples, but these actions do not seem linked to one another. There does not seem to be a divine project creating a continuum throughout history. Ezekiel contemplates the events of Israel’s past and discovers that it unfolds through history following God’s plan, going beyond the single epochs, especially the one in which the prophet lived. The history of Israel’s sins develops over very long periods of time: Israel sinned in the desert; it remained hard-headed in spite of divine blessing (Ezek 20); God would have liked to exterminate Israel, but he did not do it “for the sake of his name.” God does not limit his actions in history to retribution—God has plans that he wants to carry out and that can mean bending the rules of retribution, the principle of which remains valid nevertheless (Ezek 20). Since humans can live only observing the laws (the just ones, obviously, see Ezek 20:13), God gave Israel some commandments that were not good (Ezek 20:25–26),23 in order to hasten Israel’s ruin. Israel’s ruin was not the immediate consequence of a divine tribunal’s decision, but a complex historical event that involved God himself, who had to abandon his temple and go into exile (Ezek 10). Punishment is no longer either immediate or direct, but rather a series of negative events for Israel, linked to its sins. The more Israel sins the sooner punishment arrives, because it is intertwined with the slow and complex workings of history, rather than being a sentence to be carried out immediately, miraculously. God’s punishment is not meted out on the single case, it creates historical situations. It is bound up with various chains of events involving both Israel and all other peoples. well as R. Rendtorff, “Jesaja 6 im Rahmen der Komposition des Jesaiabuches,” in J. Vermeylen (ed.), The Book of Isaiah (BETL 81; Leuven: Leuven Univeristy Press, 1989) 73–89. Kaiser’s position is particularly interesting—he no longer supports the traditional dating and now prefers the post-exilic one. See O. Kaiser, Der Prophet Jesaja, Kapitel 1–12 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht 1963); Isaia (Brescia: Paideia, 1997) (orig. 1981). More recently, Joseph Blenkinsopp also supports the more ancient dating; see J. Blenkinsopp, A History of Prophecy in Israel (Louisville: WestminsterJohnKnox, 1996) 97–110. 23 “Moreover I gave them statutes that were not good and ordinances by which they could not live. I deled them through their very gifts, in their offering up all their rstborn”.

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This view of history, going beyond the bounds of Israel, had antecedents in both Jewish and non-Jewish prophecies, but it also had one that was independent of prophecy in Mesopotamian culture. It was the idea of the state that appears several times in Mesopotamian culture, a conception derived from very ancient ideas indeed, even from Sumerian times. The Sumerians, according to Pettinato, were not only the rst people to create organized cities, but they were also the rst to “theorize and practice a sort of government on a higher level than the city or even the region . . . around 2500 BCE the idea of universal empire was already part of the cultural and intellectual baggage of the Sumerian peoples.”24 Enlil, the supreme god, can confer regality on whomever he wants and on whichever lands he so desires. Regality, then, is above the level of power exercised in the single cities; regality is unique as is the principle that makes humans human. Regality comes from above, it is a divine principle. “When Enlil, king of all lands, . . ., gives Lugalzagesi regality over the land, he made all eyes of the land turn to him. He placed all the lands under his feet and from east to west subjected them to him. He also cleared all roads before him from the Lower Sea along the course of the Tigris and Euphrates to the Upper Sea . . .”25 Since God is master of space and time,26 God can leave valid signs for the future in certain events, because the future is already his, as is the past. In Ezekiel this idea produced the particular idea of signs for the future that today we call type and antitype. Ezekiel did not give any name to this sort of interpretative scheme, as was customary with the Jews, but the idea is quite clear in his words. The idea that one can nd elements in the past that are merely the type, the gure of that which will come in the future, has roots in this view of the world. The truth lies more in the relationship between things than in the things themselves, because the relationship can be found not only in space, but in time as well. David is no longer the progenitor of the Messiah,

24 G. Pettinato, Sumeri (Milan: Rusconi, 1994) 70. See also P. Sacchi, Storia del mondo giudaico (Turin: SEI, 1975) 133; History of the Second Temple Period ( JSOTSS 285; Shefeld: Shefeld Academic Press, 2000) 278–279 (orig. 1994). 25 G. Pettinato, Sumeri, 236. 26 For a documented case in the priestly tradition, to which Ezekiel belonged, see the way God, in order to reassure Moses in that particular moment regarding his particular protection, gives as a sign that in the future “you shall worship God on this mountain” (Ex 3:12). The sign is valid for the present and will come about in the future!

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he becomes the gure, or type. The historical David is only the type of another David yet to be born, who will be born, because his type has already existed. In 34:23–24 we read: “I will raise a shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, my servant David; he shall be their shepherd. And I, the Lord, will be their Lord and my servant David shall be a king among them.” In 37:25–26: “My servant David shall be their king for ever. I will make a covenant of peace with them. It shall be an everlasting covenant with them.” In Ezekiel any words referring to a blood tie between David and the Messiah disappear. Jeremiah had written: “Behold, the days come, oracle of the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous branch; he shall reign . . .” ( Jer 23:5). In Ezekiel’s view of things the past’s value does not derive simply from the fact that it comes rst and, therefore, conditions and in some way shapes the future, but from the fact that the single event can be the type of the future. In other words, its value transcends history as a simple chain of events. Events make sense in themselves, but they also hold a meaning that goes beyond human logic, because in some way they have been arranged by God. The past and the future become two realities that are merely two aspects of a unique ow of history following God’s project. The God of Amos punished sins inasmuch as they were sins. The God of Ezekiel must not only punish and reward (chap. 20), but he must also realize his project, a project that is not entirely clear to Ezekiel, but its existence is certain—God will make a covenant of peace with the Jews and this covenant will be eternal. The novelty of Ezekiel’s way of structuring concepts in the Jewish tradition is derived from contact with Babylonian culture, from which he borrowed elements which he was to re-elaborate freely in relation to his own ingeniousness and culture. While the relationship between space and time is clearly of Babylonian origin, the vision of the world that sprang from it is a creation of Ezekiel alone. 7. The Court in Exile (R1) The inuence of Babylonian culture and its complex cosmic speculations was also felt in the circles of the exile court. The court too formed a new and deeper vision of the world through a new conception of history, seen as the unfolding of a divine plan that is made perceivable to humans, because events, considered in their entirety, can be contained in signicant numbers.

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R1 constructed his account in a chronological framework—which is certainly his and not that of the sources27—in which there are traces of various chronologies. In part his chronology is built up philologically from the documents and in part it is the result of his philosophy. If we begin with the year of the Temple’s destruction and work backwards in time to Solomon, the dates assigned to events are reconstructed philologically, that is based on the documents available. Inasmuch as we can tell,28 going back as far as the end of the kingdom of Israel (721 BCE) the dates are exact, then rather approximated as far as the division of the kingdom (late tenth century BCE). In any case, the dates can even be wrong, but they were reconstructed following a historical-philological method that is meaningful for us as well.29 With the reigns of David and Solomon we see that the Jewish historian begins to reason in abstract terms, without the support of documents. He attributes forty-year reigns to each of them. For the moment I will forego discussion of Saul. For the period before David R1 apparently had no more documents to base his work on, but he knew that there had to be a certain amount of time for all the previous events. We could say that R1 had a sense of history as unfolding through time, but this does not justify creating precise numbers that certainly did not come from a source document. Therefore, it was not a need to reconstruct history philologically that led him to give precise numbers to facts and sovereigns for periods prior to those for which he had documents. Instead it was his global interpretation of history. The meaning behind the chronology created by R1 becomes clear in the end result. If we count the years as a continuum from the creation of the world, we nd that Zedekiah was killed and the Temple “destroyed”

27 In essence, here I am following the works of D. Cerutti, Vecchi e nuovi approcci per lo studio del rapporto tra Pentateuco e libri storici “deuteronomisti”: il contributo dell’analisi della cronologia (unpublished laurea thesis; Turin 1991); Martone, “Cronologie.” See also J. Hughes, Secrets of the Times: Myth and History in Biblical Chronology ( JSOTSS 66; Shefeld: Shefeld Academic Press, 1990). 28 See J. Reade, “Mesopotamian Guidelines for Biblical Chronology,” Syro-Mesopotamian Studies 4 (1981) 1–8. 29 See M. Liverani, “Nuovi sviluppi nello studio della storia dell’Israele biblico,” Biblica 80 (1999) 488–505. “The correspondence between biblical and Assyrian chronologies is such that we can discard the hypothesis of an ‘invention’ that is not based on reliable authentic sources,” (496, n. 18). Liverani’s claim must be limited to the history of events; for the history of religious ideas Liverani tends to lower the dates. See M. Liverani, Oltre la Bibbia; Storia antica di Israele (Bari: Laterza, 2004).

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exactly 3600 years after the creation of the world. The number 3600 (60 times 60) cannot be a chance gure, because of its meaning in Babylonian science and culture. The Babylonians had a sexagesimal system of numbers, so the number 3600 was a superior unit, much like our 100, ten times ten. This superior unit was called a saros and could be used to indicate long periods in history, as seen in Syncellus’ quotation regarding Berossus.30 In this way the destruction of the Temple and loss of independence mark the end of a “great period” in history, even though that history bears within it signs of the divine will that preordained it. History carries the traces of creation within it just as the entire cosmos does. There is order in the world and meaning that goes beyond the single events. The events can be narrated, but their meaning transcends them. The real existence of the transcendental meaning of the events is attested by the simple fact that the events are laid out in time following schemes that can be made sense of through signicant numbers. R1’s view of the cosmos is closer to that of Ezekiel than would at rst appear. Their values were different, of course. While Ezekiel saw David as merely the gure and not the forebear of the Messiah, R1 saw God’s love for David extended to all his people, and as still continuing. It was for love of David that God saved Judah several times (2 Kings 8:19; 19:34; 20:6). If God punished his lineage and his people, it was always with the rod of mortals (2 Sam 7:14). The regained favor shown to Jehoiachin, with which R1 closes his narrative, is just the latest demonstration of God’s love for the people and the king he has chosen. It is the rst sign of grace in the new era that opened after the end of the rst great period in the history of the world. I must point out that the number 3600 is obtained only if no amount of time is assigned to the reign of Saul. Only David and his dynasty are the kings chosen by God to rule Israel. No other kings and no other dynasties are possible. The confused manuscript tradition regarding the years of Saul31 is a consequence of an operation that did not erase Saul from memory, but that did reduce his importance to nil. The

30 “Berossus wrote history divided into saros, neros and sossos: Saros means a time of 3600 years.” (C. Martone, “Cronologie,” 188). 31 In the Masoretic tradition Saul reigned for two years, but the text of 1 Sam 13:1 shows various signs of corruption. In the best manuscripts of the Septuagint the verse is missing entirely.

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king’s rejection gives his reign a non-value and, therefore, a non-value is assigned to the years of his reign. At this point it is worth mentioning the text of the Septuagint which, as is well-known, presents different, higher numbers in the chronological framework. Also the Septuagint variants are not due to chance. Often the numbers are simply increased by a round two hundred. Examining the same numbers used in our example from the Hebrew text, it is striking that in the Septuagint the edict of Cyrus falls in 4999th year since the creation of the world and, as a result, return from exile32 in the 5000th year. This sort of number is rarely a random choice. While 3600 and its sexagesimal structure is surely linked to Babylonian culture and astronomy, the number 5000, half of 10,000, is linked to later situations. The number 5000 is not a multiple of 60 and is not a signicant number in the sexagesimal system, but it is in a base ten system. Here we are in a different culture, that of the Book of the Watchers. In this book 10,000 years will pass between the imprisonment of the wicked angels, which took place at the beginning of creation, and the end of their captivity (see 1 En [ BW ] 18:16 and 21:6). Therefore, for the author of the Hebrew text underlying the Septuagint the liberation of Israel is exactly at the halfway point of history, and is a clear sign of the divine hand guiding history. Human hope had found a very good support for admiring how God governed all of history and protected his people. Speculation regarding history as a whole regarding all time and all space is a phenomenon that rst appeared in Babylon and which had been made possible by Babylonian science. When the version of the biblical text that we call the Septuagint was born, there was still a sense of the importance of numbers of years as a manifestation of the divine in history. Numerical speculation was then lost, at least in the Zadokite tradition, which was anti-Enochic. The numbers present in the Hebrew Bible, as in the Alexandrian one, went from being meaningful to simply indicating a certain quantity. They became neutral. This was the period in which the calendar of 360 days plus four became the 364-day calendar. It is also interesting to note that in the Hebrew text the low point in Israel’s history, the pivotal moment that also marks the beginning 32 The author of the Hebrew Vorlage of the Septuagint believed that the return from exile took place because of the Edict of Cyrus. I do not believe that this can be used as proof that the return actually took place in 538 BCE, though but it was commonly believed so in post-exilic Judaism.

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of a new rise, is the year of the Temple’s destruction. The beginning of a rebirth comes about with the rise of Awil-Marduk to the throne, when Jehoiachin “left prison”.33 R1’s text is still bound to the hopes based on the house of David and must have been written before that house was taken from the throne. The Hebrew text underlying the Septuagint was composed when the Edict of Cyrus was already commonly believed to be history and the returned exiles were considered heirs to all the Jews, because all the Jews34 had been deported. We are therefore certainly in a period after Nehemiah. The most probable date seems to be the fourth century BCE. 8. Use of the 360-day Calendar The existence of a 360-day calendar is documented both for the exilic period and for the second century BCE. An academic tradition holds that there are two sources for the story of the Flood: J and P. Here I would like to examine the dates as they appear in the text handed down to us. We will see that there are some divergences in the system of dating that are difcult to reconcile with the two sources normally taken to lie at the basis of the story. The story goes (Gen 7–8) that in Noah’s 600th year, on the 17th day of the second month, the ood began (Gen 7:11) and it nished on 27 of the second month of the next year (Gen 8:14). 17/II is a Sunday, 27/II is Wednesday. These details are meaningful in the 364-day calendar (or the 360 + 4 one); the ood begins on the day after the Sabbath. In Gen 7:17 we read that the ood lasted 40 days. If we count forty days from 17/II, it takes us exactly to 27/III, which falls on a Friday, the day before the Sabbath. It is clear that we are faced with a solar calendar. The ark comes to rest on Ararat on the 17th of the seventh month, a Friday (8:4). The mountain tops appear on the rst of the tenth month (8:5), a Wednesday, the day of the great celebrations in

33 2 Kings 25:27. The translation “prison” is traditional. The otherwise unknown term must indicate the limitation of movements imposed on the Jewish king under Babylonian domination. 34 All: The idea that all the Jews had been deported to Babylonia and, therefore, only the descendents of the exiles were Jews, was a product of Nehemiah’s policies. See P. Sacchi, The History of the Second Temple Period (Shefeld: Shefeld Academic Press, 2000) 137–147.

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the 364-day calendar. 1/I of the following year is another Wednesday, when the waters were dried up and Noah removed the covering from the ark. It is clear that the nal touches were given to the story by a scribe who was used to calculating the days of the year based on the 364-day calendar. A few details, however, do not t. If the ood nished on the 27th day of the second month, having begun on the 17th of the same month in the previous year, it follows that the ood lasted 374 days, based on the 364-day year—and the perfect correspondence between the days of the week and their symbolic values indicates use of the 364-day calendar. But 374 has no symbolic value. We would expect the ood to last a year, not a year and ten days. If, however, we take the lunar calendar in consideration with its 354 days, the total becomes precisely 364. This means admitting that the author had a 364-day year in mind, but that he expressed it with the formula 354 + 10, which is hardly clear. The fact of the matter is that if the ood had lasted exactly one year, then it would have begun on a Sunday and, as a result, ended on a Saturday, which the author apparently found unacceptable. Having the ending date correspond to the beginning date would have been even worse; the ood would have ended on a Sunday, the day of beginnings. The effort to avoid such difculties must have led to the adopted formula; the ood ends on the strongest day of the week, a Wednesday. The story of the ood, however, reserves another surprise. The span of time between the beginning of the ood on 17/II and the ark’s coming to rest on Ararat, 17/VII, is given as 150 days. Now, if the calculation was made following the solar calendar that period would be 152 days. Following the lunar calendar the days would be 147 or 148. In order to get 150 days, we must count ve months of 30 days each. In other words we must use the 360-day calendar. This detail betrays the presence of a source that calculated time following a calendar that was neither solar nor lunar. This points to a Babylonian calendar counting time as in the Ebla calendar. If a 360–day calendar was in use around the time of the exile, it seems that it was still in use in the book of Daniel.35 In any case, it was the calendar used in the Jerusalem Temple until the time of the Maccabaean revolt. Dan 7:25 mentions that king Antiochus IV had

35 On the survival of the calendar of 360 + 4 days in the numerical calculations of the book of Daniel, see G. Boccaccini, “The Solar Calendars.”

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changed the Jerusalem calendar. This has been interpreted as the end of the solar calendar’s use in the Jerusalem Temple and its substitution by the lunar-solar calendar typical of the Hellenistic world. It was believed that the replaced calendar was the 364-day solar calendar known to us through the Qumran manuscripts and the book of Jubilees. As we have seen, though, the Astronomical Book narrates how the calendar of 360 + 4 days became the 364-day solar calendar. For the Enochic author the existence of four days outside time made no sense, because apparently the reasoning behind having 360 days had been lost. “In reference to them (the four uncounted days of the 360 + 4 calendar) men are mistaken, because those lights work in exactness in the position of the world . . . and every 364 positions of the world the perfect harmony of the world is achieved” (1 En [BA] 75:2). And again: “In fact they (the four days) are part of the calculation of the year and are true additions to time” (1 En [BA] 82:6). The perfect harmony of the world is brought about through the liturgy distributed over 364 days. Enochism maintained the original values of the calendar, but it found them in a different philosophy. This development was a problem within Enochism and could not, therefore, affect the Jerusalem Temple. On the other hand, the text of Daniel mentioned above indicates that the 364-day calendar had been abolished in the Temple. Only the more recent calendar, the 364-day one, had been taken into consideration by scholars, because the existence of the 360 + 4 day one had not yet come to light.36 The above quoted article by G. Boccaccini37 demonstrates that the 364day calendar must have remained in use in the Jerusalem Temple, but with the structure of the 360 + 4 one. The chronological references in Daniel had never been claried, because they did not correspond to either the solar or lunar-solar calendar. They do, however, become clear in light of a 360-day year. 9. Second Isaiah The cosmic vision of reality and history is very strong in Second Isaiah, who lived in the exile court circles and whose ideas and ideals were

36

See J. C. VanderKam, “2 Maccabees 6:7a and Calendrical Change in Jerusalem,” JSJ 12 (1981) 52–74. 37 See n. 36.

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quite different from those of Ezekiel. Second Isaiah had an incredible sense of history as guided by God. God desired to carry out his project: “My purpose shall stand, and I will full my intention” (Is 46:10). Everything that happens is part of God’s project in history; God has chosen Israel and remains faithful to it, even though Israel sins against him. God forgets Israel’s sins for his own sake (Is 43:35). “The grass withers, the ower fades; but the word of our God will stand forever” (Is 40:8). From the beginning of time God has had a plan in history and he has revealed it to his prophets: “Who has announced from of old the things to come?” (Is 44:7). God is the rst and the last (Is 44:6), or as we would say with John, the alpha and the omega, point of departure and of arrival. The cosmos takes on meaning in its entirety, because history, which is part of the cosmos, bears the sign of God’s will acting within it. The cosmic element was already present in Ezekiel, but in Second Isaiah the unifying presence of the one God is felt even more strongly. Second Isaiah’s God acts in a cosmos that is caught up in the dramatic force of its own becoming. The experiences of some Jewish circles during the exile are among the greatest in humanity during that period. And those years have been called pivotal in human existence and history, because of the concentration of great insights in various parts of the globe. It is fascinating to see how the vast amount of scientic information borrowed from the superior Babylonian civilization was structured entirely along the lines of the Jews’ own culture and religion. This was a great deal of evolution, but no new religion was born. Similar effects were produced by the encounter between the Iranian and Babylonian civilizations, when the mixture of traditional faith and acquired astronomical knowledge carried Zoroastrianism a considerable way from its origins.38 Astronomy’s impact was great on western thought as well.39 In the Jewish world there was a love-hate relationship with astronomy, which at times was considered a prohibited science,40 and at others was seen as the basis for

38 See J. Bidez and F. Cumont, Les mages hellénisés: Zoroastre, Ostanès, Hystaspe—d’après la tradition grecque (2 vols.; Paris: Belles Lettres, 1938 [1973]). 39 On the impact of astronomy/astrology on western culture, see F. Boll, C. Bezold and W. Gundel, Storia dell’astrologia (Bari: Laterza, 1979). On the distinction in western thought between philosophical speculation regarding the divinity on the one hand, and religion on the other, see L. Troiani, “Qualche considerazione sopra il politeismo degli antichi,” Rendiconti dell’Istituto Lombardo. Classe di Lettere e Scienze Morali e Storiche 134/2 (2000) 445–452. 40 See Deut 4:19. In Enochism astrology is considered diabolical, 1 En [BW] 8:3.

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all religious knowledge.41 This simply demonstrates the ancient Jewish fascination with the mysteries of the cosmos. 10. The 364-day Calendar and the 354-day Calendar In order to have clear evidence of the presence of the 354-day lunarsolar calendar in Jerusalem we must arrive at the book of Jubilees, where this calendar is mentioned polemically as something that had been recently introduced. I believe that the book of Jubilees should be dated to the same period that saw the origins of the Book of Dream Visions and Daniel, a time of great tension within Israel. This was the period following the end of the legitimate priesthood with Onias III. In this period a power struggle had been unleashed in Israel for the position of high priest.42 In Jub 6:34–36 we read: “All of the sons of Israel will forget, and they will not nd the way of the years . . . they will set awry all of the ordinances of the year. I (the guiding angel speaking to Moses) know and henceforth I shall make you know—but not from my own heart, because the book is written before me and is ordained in the heavenly tablets of the division of days—that they will forget43 the feasts of my covenant and they will walk in the feasts of the gentiles, after their errors and their ignorance. And there will be those who will examine the moon diligently because it will corrupt the appointed times and it will advance from year to year ten days.” The target of this critique is the 354-day calendar, the one that falls behind by ten days a year in respect to the sun. Accepting this calendar meant confusing the liturgical days. The relationship between the liturgy and the cosmos, as God had created it, would disappear; the cosmos would return to being chaos. I emphasize that the author of the book of Jubilees considered the lunar-solar calendar a recent pagan introduction. It was not the old Jewish calendar to be substituted by the solar one, but an innovation

41

See the Astronomical Book. On the political position of the author of the book of Jubilees, as one who aimed at the high priesthood as a means of gathering all the Jews under him, see G. Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis, 86–98. 43 This translation follows the edition of L. Fusella in P. Sacchi, Apocri, 251. This follows ms. C. In the other manuscripts the verb is negative. Charles translated it, “lest they forget . . .” 42

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brought about by the acceptance of pagan ways.44 In fact, the lunarsolar calendar was in use from Greece to Babylonia. The calendar was, therefore, an abomination. Such disdain for something that we consider absolutely neutral, choosing one measure of time over another, stems from the fact that the 364-day solar calendar represented more than merely a way of measuring time. The calendar was the tangible earthly projection of the unchangeable, divinely ordered cosmos. The 364-day calendar achieved the “perfect harmony of the world”. We have seen that the lunar-solar calendar was not in use in Judaea at the time of the Astronomical Book, while it was in use when the book of Jubilees was written. This means that the lunar-solar calendar must have come into use between the third and the middle of the second century BCE. A more precise date for its adoption in Jerusalem can be deduced from Daniel 7:25,45 where he says that during the reign of Antiochus IV “the sacred seasons and the Law” were changed. A change in the Law is also alluded to in 2 Macc 4:9–12, according to which, “( Jason) destroyed the lawful ways of living and introduced new customs contrary to the law.” The situation got worse under Menelaus (see 2 Macc 6:1 and following); Greek, and therefore pagan, laws and customs penetrated ever deeper in Jerusalem. It is plausible that the calendar of the Temple liturgy was changed as well. The restoration came about some years later with Judas Maccabeus, who had the Temple rededicated. At this point there could have been a return to the previous situation, at least as far as the liturgy was concerned. Regarding lay use, though, it is highly unlikely, because the lunar-solar calendar was used throughout the civilized world of the time, except in Egypt, and its presence is well documented in Judaea (see below). Things could have been different in liturgical use. There is a piece of information that returns several times in rabbinical writings,46 which tells that towards the end of the rst century CE there was some doubt about how to behave when Passover fell on a Saturday; were the norms regarding the Sabbath to apply, or those governing Passover? The question was posed to Hillel the Elder as he was arriving from Babylonia,

44

See the text quoted above: “they will walk in the feasts of the gentiles”. See J. C. VanderKam, “2 Maccabees.” Eshel’s contribution mentioned at page 1, in the text, should be added here. 46 See F. Manns, Pour lire la mishna ( Jerusalem: Franciscan Printing, 1984) 50–51. 45

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therefore towards the end of the rst century. They told him that they had forgotten whether to follow the laws of Passover or those of the Sabbath when Passover fell on a Saturday. Hillel answered in favor of Passover. But that is not what is important to us here. What is important is that, since it would be impossible to forget how one was to behave on Passover when it came on Saturday, it must have been a new situation, created by the adoption of the civil lunar-solar calendar even in the liturgy of the Temple. However, the presence of these two calendars appears in several religious texts of the second century BCE, though not in reference to the Temple liturgy. The book of Jubilees warned against celebrating Passover “a day and a month late” (49:7), a sign that at that time some people must have been celebrating Passover in accordance with the lay calendar. The Damascus Rule, of uncertain date, but not far from the book of Jubilees, forbade making offerings at the altar on the Sabbath (CD 11:17–18), as could happen with the lunar-solar calendar. Something similar can also be found in the fragmentary text 4Q513, fr. 3, where “shaking the stick on the Sabbath” (1:2–3) is called “blind bewilderment” (1:4). The history of the various calendars in not only interesting in itself, but it bears witness to the human effort to see meaning in creation and life. The measurement of time was not a neutral activity, because the world was creation, it had been made by God and therefore it held tangible signs of the divine in its structure. Loss of an immediate sense of the creation—even believers tend to put the creation back almost innitely in time—has led to a loss of the sense of “the perfect harmony of the world” reected in the liturgy. The liturgy—and this even from ancient times—has been memory, commemoration, actualization. These, however, are all historical concepts; the cosmic meaning of the liturgy has been lost in the main currents of Christianity and Judaism.

THE ASTRAL LAWS AS THE BASIS OF TIME, UNIVERSAL HISTORY, AND THE ESCHATOLOGICAL TURN IN THE ASTRONOMICAL BOOK AND THE ANIMAL APOCALYPSE OF 1 ENOCH Klaus Koch University of Hamburg, Germany The Astrological Part of 1 Enoch and Its Mesopotamian Roots1 The Astronomical Book, or Book of the Luminaries (1 En 72–82), is probably the oldest of all the writings preserved under the name Enoch. As indicated by the Qumran manuscripts 4QEnastra+b it was probably originally transmitted separately. The Astronomical Book was subsequently incorporated into an already existing Enochic corpus and looks now like a cuckoo in a bird’s nest, because it contains no real apocalyptic doctrine familiar from the other parts of 1 Enoch but an astronomical treatise, where it is doubtful whether Enoch was originally named as its author.2 Why was this kind of knowledge necessary for the true practice of religion (80:7f.) in the eyes of the redactors? A rst part (chaps. 72–79) explains the “laws” of sun and moon, their course across heaven and their reciprocal relationship through the days of the month and year with reference to their entrance into or departure from the twelve gates of heaven. In their paths they are accompanied by the stars and especially their angelic leaders each bearing a specic name. They are hierarchically organized according to four seasons, each supplemented by an epagomenal day, according to twelve months, each counting 30 days, so that the year has altogether

1 This essay is a supplement to K. Koch, “Die Anfänge der Apokalyptik in Israel und die Rolle des astronomischen Henochbuchs,” in K. Koch, Vor der Wende der Zeiten. Beiträge zur apokalyptischen Literatur = Gesammelte Aufsätze 3; (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1996) 3–44; “Die Gesetze des gestirnten Himmels als Manifestationen der Herrschaft Gottes über Raum und Zeit,” in K. Koch, Die aramäische Rezeption der hebräischen Bibel: Studien zur Targumik and Apocalyptik = Ges. Aufsätze 4 (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 2003) 21–42. 2 J. C. VanderKam, Enoch and the Growth of Apocalyptic Tradition (CBQMS 16; Washington, D.C.: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1984) 78.

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364 days (72:32; 75:2; 82:6). In heaven there are also twelve gates for different winds of salvation or disaster. As a multiple of the number seven the cosmic structure of the 364-year was created as a basic requirement for a wholesome life on earth. In the time of the author this total must have contradicted every astronomical observation of the course of a natural year. Since the middle of the rst millennium BCE it was a matter of course for the scribes in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece and presumably also in Judah (see Gen 5:23) that a year counts a little more than 365 days.3 According to the Astronomical Book, the reason for this deviation from the primeval seven-order was the sin of men and angels with the result that the astral powers departed from the correct path. Therefore the second part of the Astronomical Book, chs. 80, (81),4 82, announces a shortening of times for the future with still more

3 The number seven was also the fundamental structure for other parts of the cosmos (72:37; 73:2; 74:2; 77,4–8; 78:6–9). That AB already knew the longer, empirically observed time of the rotation of the sun can be concluded from 74:10ff. Here the period of 8 years is distributed, surely for a kind of intercalation. Why this span of time? Apparently the system of oktaeteris has inuenced the authors. It originated in Mesopotamia and was ofcially used in the Persian epoch between 529 and 503 BCE (later on replaced by a more exact 19-years-system); within 8 years it intercalated three times a month of 30 days; presupposing a sun-year of 365 1/4 days or 2922 in 8 years as compared with 2832 “moon”-days in 8 lunar-years; thus the minus of 90 days is balanced. AB reduced the sun-year to 364 days a year and 2912 in 8 years and therefore had to distribute only 80 days for a threefold intercalation, a rather odd reckoning. Nevertheless, the author maintains that just in that manner “the year is completed in relation to their positions within the alam” (74:17)! See S. Uhlig, Das äthiopische Henochbuch ( JSHRZ 5/6; Gütersloh: Mohn, 1984) 64916c. Perhaps the dates of the movements of sun and moon in 1 En 72ff. refer to an ideal year of beginning, i.e. of the time of creation or of a year following an intercalation, and not to a “normal” year. 4 Ch. 81 starts with a new speech of Uriel who calls Enoch to read in heavenly tablets the record of all human deeds through the generations and announces anew a day of judgment. It is not preserved in the Dead Sea Scrolls. So it is mostly seen as a later addition; J. T. Milik, The Books of Enoch: Aramaic fragments of Qumrân Cave 4 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1976) 14; H. S. Kvanvig, Roots of Apocalyptic: the Mesopotamian Background of the Enoch Figure and of the Son of Man (WMANT 61; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1988) 76–9, 239f. According to George Nickelsburg the passage 81:1–82:4 was an old bridge between ch. 36 of the Book of the Watchers and the Epistle ch. 91/92–105: see G. W. E. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch Chapters 1–36, 81–108 (Hermeneia; Philadephia: Fortress, 2001) 22–2, 335–8; see the critique of M. A. Knibb, “Interpreting the Book of Enoch: Reections on a Recently Published Commentary,” JSJ 33 (2002) 437–50 and the reections of P. A. Tiller, J. J. Collins, J. C. VanderKam, D. W. Suter, I. Gruenwald and G. W. E. Nickelsburg in: J. Neusner and A. J. Avery-Peck (eds.), George W. E. Nickelsburg in Perspective: An Ongoing Dialogue of Learning ( JSJS 80; Leiden: Brill, 2003) ch. 12. VanderKam (Enoch) supposes

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devastating consequences for life on earth. Evils and punishment will overtake the sinners, but this is mentioned only in a single verse without mentioning a universal day of doom (80:8f.; see 81:8f.). In what follows Enoch is summoned to report the contents of the heavenly tablets to humankind (ch. 81) and to admonish his audience to a righteous life, especially to observe the right sequence of the 364 days of the year (ch. 82). Then they will earn a good destiny because of their works; however, in this regard too there is no hint of an eschatological glorication. The Aramaic original was probably longer than the present Ethiopic translation.5 In both versions the nal passages have broken off, although 4QEnastrd includes some continuation of ch. 82:4, which is lacking in the Ethiopic. The intention of the author(s) is not easily detected. It has often been suggested that the Astronomical Book has a cultic concern in seeking xed dates for sabbaths and sacrices. Surprisingly, however, no festival, not even the sabbath is mentioned. (mocadin and hodashin appear, but their meaning remains uncertain; 82:9; see 78:12).6 Another suggestion is that the Astronomical Book “establishes the authority of a solar calendar.”7 But how could a 364-day year be accommodated to a solar calendar at a time when the Near East has long known that the course of the sun requires more than 365 days? The original intention will become clearer if we look for a text with which the Astronomical book is in dialogue, which in this case refers less to Hebrew writings than to an Akkadian one. As Albani has demonstrated in 1994,8 the main source of the Astronomical Book seems to have been the Akkadian MUL.APIN (henceforth MA), “eine Kompilation des gesamten astronomischen Wissens,”9 one of the astrologers’

that ch. 80 belongs to the same addition as ch. 81, because its content is ethical, not scientic whereas 82:1ff. was the conclusion of AB ( p. 78.105); the alternative is questioned by Kvanvig, Roots, 59. 5 For a comparison of the outlines of the two versions: Koch, Die aramäische Rezeption, 24f. See M. A. Knibb, The Ethiopic Book of Enoch: a new edition in the light of the Aramaic Dead Sea fragments (Oxford: Clarendon, 1978) (most quotations are taken from this book). 6 J. T. Milik, Books of Enoch, 295, 187f.; K. Beyer, Die aramäischen Texte vom Toten Meer (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1984) 257, 573. 7 Thus again Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 7. 8 M. Albani, Astronomie und Schöpfungsglaube. Untersuchungen zum astronomischen Henochbuch (WMANT 68; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1994). See U. Glessmer, “Horizontal Measuring in the Babylonian Astronomical Compendium MUL.APIN and in the Astronomical Book of 1 En,” Henoch 18 (1996) 259–82. See already VanderKam, Enoch, 91–8. 9 B. L. Van der Waerden, Erwachsende Wissenschaft 2: Die Anfänge der Astronomie (Basel: Birkäuser, 1968) 65 (Engl. Science Awakening II. The Birth of Astronomy, Leiden: Brill, 1974).

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most important reference books, written about 1000 BCE10 and still copied in the Seleucid era.11 I mention the most apparent parallels. (a) A synchronistic calendar culminating in a 2:1 day-night-ratio of sun and moon at the solstices: “The day becomes double the night; and the day amounts to 12 parts, and the night . . . amounts to 6 parts,” thus in the summer and vice versa in the winter (MA II ii 25.35; see 1 En 72:14.26). Regarding regular hours this calculation of the daynight-ratio would be odd for Jerusalem or Babylon; it can however be explained by the different use of water-clocks in MA,12 but which is probably not presupposed in the Astronomical Book! (b) With a specic interest in the cardinal points of the sun,13 in some parts of MA the year comprises 360 days (according to the heliacal rising of xed stars).14 The Astronomical Book added 4 single days at the cardinal points in order to achieve a seven-structure of time, but certainly presupposed a traditionsgeschichtlich older tradition of 360 days (75:1; 82,7; see 6:7 S ).15 In some passages of the Astronomical Book a year of 364 days seems to be possible too.16 In both writings the ideal month as a stable unit of time has lost its strong connection with the course of the moon. In the Astronomical Book, however, the polemics are neither against an older Israelite lunaryear nor against a solar year of 365 days (see Gen 5:23), but against a year of 360 days which subsequently became the framework for all scientic astrology till today (82:4–7)! (c) A yearly difference of 10 days between the rotations of the sun and those of the moon is explicitly stated in MA (II ii 10–12),17 as well as in the Astronomical Book (1 En 79:5; see Jub 6:36). (d) Both treatises are divided in two parts with similar content. First the decisive astral movement throughout the year is described with xed numbers and fractions; in this case the Astronomical Book speaks of

10 U. Koch-Westenholz, Mesopotamian Astrology: an introduction to Babylonian and Assyrian celestial divination (CNI Publications 19; Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, University of Copenhagen, Carsten Niebuhr Institute of Near Eastern Studies, 1995). 11 H. Hunger and D. Pingree, MUL.APIN. An Astronomical Compendium in Cuneiform (AfOB 24; Horn: Berger, 1989). 12 Hunger and Pingree, MUL.APIN, 140, 150f. 13 Albani, Astronomie, 226f. 14 Hunger and Pingree, MUL.APIN, 139. 15 Hunger and Pingree, MUL.APIN, 139. 16 Hunger and Pingree, MUL.APIN, 139. 17 Hunger and Pingree, MUL.APIN, 150f.

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the “laws” of the lights (1 En 72:2.35; 73:1; 74:1; 78:10; 79:1–3; also 82:9ff.[originally a continuation of ch. 79? See 4QEnastrb]). In MA as in the Astronomical Book a shorter second part turns to predictions based on celestial constellations. In MA (II iii 16–iv 12) positive and negative omina concerning fertility or national disaster as well as victories or defeats of the ruler are xed, valid for all time like the enduring celestial repetitions. The Astronomical Book refers to topics such as fertility and rain too, but announces only their disappearance in a future epoch (ch. 80f.).18 Moreover, the Astronomical Book adds blessings for the righteous who keep the right time-order in their life (81:4ff.). This opens up the freedom for the individual to go his way independently of the course of both the stars above and the human multitude on earth. Such a development would scarcely be conceivable for Babylonian sages. There are other deviations in the Astronomical Book from that source: (a) MA presents human wisdom, providing the names of the scribes responsible for the tablet at the end, although the writing is a sign of reverence to Nabu, the god of wisdom (colophon D). The Astronomical Book, however, delivers an angelic revelation. Surprisingly the revelation is completely silent in the rst part where Uriel is “showing” phenomena and Enoch is “seeing.” Uriel begins to speak only in the second part (chaps. 80f.) And subsequently his message is presented by Enoch as his own wisdom to his son (ch. 82). (b) The Astronomical Book presumably knew a later stage of Babylonian astronomy which compensated for the 17 stations of the moon throughout the year (MA) by 12 signs of the Zodiac (discovered about 500 BCE?). But instead of the Mesopotamian conception of continuing courses of sun and moon through the Zodiac, the Astronomical Book postulated the course through 2 × 6 doors of the Eastern and Western horizon. This explanation avoided the deterministic consequences of the concept of the 12 numinous powers of the zodiac as decisive causes of earthly fate as attested in Chaldean astrology, and related the determining factors of time and destiny to a hidden and dynamic divine providence. (Does the “sign” of the gate in 72:13 refer to its zodion?).19

18 The prognostication refers only in 81:4 to an eschatological end-time. Does ch. 80 mean that nature was still in order in the primeval time of the ctive author Enoch, but is now disturbed in the time of the real author? 19 Milik, Books of Enoch, 295, 337f.

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However, the notion of the doors of the sky through which the stars enter almost certainly makes use of an older Mesopotamian mythology which is even remembered in MA itself (I i 36f.; see Enuma elish V 8–12, but also Gen 28!).20 According to the presupposed geocentric worldview the conception of an invisible circle of doors did not necessarily contradict empirical observation. As the astral bodies rise at the Eastern horizon, go up to the high point above the South and decline to the Western horizon, the logical conclusion seems to be that they continue their circle beyond visibility beneath the North in order to rise again in the East (ch. 78 4QEnastrb+c). (c) For Mesopotamian thinking the stars caused the winds and the meteorological phenomena.21 In the rst, descriptive part of MA (II i 68ff.) only the 4 cardinal winds are considered with the remark: “The stars will indicate which wind blows;” the proper causes of weather phenomena are spoken of in the second part. Here they depend on the color, brightness or conjunction of astral constellations (II iii 16ff.). The Astronomical Book, however, suggests the opposite relation and considers the astral bodies and meteorology dependent upon the ruah (72:5; 73:2; remembering the divine spirit of Gen 1:2?) and its extensions in four cardinal ruhin and the 12 ones of the wind (75:3–8; 77 4QEnastrbc). Regarding meteorology, similar ideas about the wind as Urkraft are sometimes presupposed in Phoenician22 and Hellenistic texts (Aristotle, Ptolemaeus). (d) With the exception of sun and moon, the stars themselves are not divine in MA, but rather extensions of diverse deities which may be addressed through prayer (III 35–37). The Astronomical Book, however, presents an exact order of the starry sky akin to a military army under the absolute command of God himself. A thoroughgoing angelization is combined with a strict hierarchy: at the top Uriel,23 then 4 “toparchs”

20

Hunger and Pingree, MUL.APIN, 138. Koch-Westenholz, Mesopotamian Astrologie, 167; Albani, Astronomie, 231–3. 22 K. Koch, “Wind und Zeit als Konstituenten des Kosmos in phönikischer Mythologie und spätalttestamentlichen Texten,” in K. Bergerhof, M. Dietrich, and O. Loretz (eds.), Mesopotamia—Ugaritica—Biblica (AOAT 232; Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener, 1993) 59–91. 23 The prototype of Uriel, the angel “Light (of) El” (thus Hebrew, see Gen 1:3) or “Fire (of) El” (Aramaic) was according to Kvanvig (Roots, 236–9) the Sumerian Apkallu (sage) Uan (Oannes), “Light of the divine heaven”, who is in charge of the cosmic order and composer of astronomical works. As another candidate the Persian Tištrya/Tir, equated with the star Sirius or the planet Nabu/Hermes/Mercur, comes 21

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for the seasons and the four additional days, 12 “taxiarchs” for the stars of the months, and 360 “chiliarchs” for the stars of the 360 normal days. The system is reminiscent of Egyptian and Greek chronokrators.24 Are all the stars included in this hierarchy? Surely not sun, moon and the (other) planets although they are under Uriel’s command too.25 Surprisingly no stars are presupposed for the weeks and the sabbath. Was the counting of the days of the week according to the names of the deities of the 7 planets (as is still the case in modern Western languages) already a matter of course in the cultural surrounding of AB?26 For the Astronomical Book the planets are, however, the paradigm of astral disobedience (80:7; see 21:1–7) so that it seems appropriate to exclude the week from the astral system? There is a complete silence regarding the planets in the Astronomical Book.27 (e) An important point is the silence about astral inuence on the destiny of the individual. No personal astrology was taken over. The Astronomical Book neglects Babylonian nativity omens and horoscopes which were developed in the second half of the rst millennium BCE and soon gained a great acceptance in the East and the West.28 The roots of the (Aramaic) Astronomical Book are found primarily in Babylonian and not in Israelite wisdom. It was transmitted by Judean circles who knew “the literature and language of the Chaldeans” (Dan

into question. He is called in the Avesta “the lord and overseer of all stars” and lateron “Offenbarer und Schreiber;” M. Boyce, A History of Zoroastrianism (Leiden: Brill, 1975) 74–8; H. W. Haussig (ed.), Wörterbuch der Mythologie (Stuttgart: Klett 1986) 446f. In Jewish and Christian traditions Uriel was degraded to a minor role among the archangels; M.Mach, DDD (2nd ed.) 1999, 885f. 24 W. Gundel and H. G. Gundel, Astrologoumena. Die astrologische Literatur der Antike und ihre Geschichte (Sudhoffs Archiv Beiheft 6; Wiesbaden: Sternar, 1966) 363 s.v. Chronokratie. 25 The angelization of the powers behind the astral bodies corresponds to the angelization of natural forces in Second Temple literature and later Enoch traditions (60:15–21; 69:15–25 2En 5f.; Jub 2, 2f.; 1QH IX 9–13). The conviction was that the moving cause of the sea as well as of frost, snow, dew etc. consists in a special wind/spirit, so that all positive movement within the universe emerges from ruah. Over the single ruhin of each of these phenomena an angel is the determinant force and guarantees the orientation. Even the fallen angels had ruhin which became evil spirits acting on earth (15:8–12). 26 Gundel, Astrologoumena, 34f.; Koch, Die aramäishce Rezeption, 25. 27 Already MA had some problems with the planets because of their irregular course, although they must have been an important source of omina. MA could not nd an appropriate place for them in the 3 “paths” of the great gods at the rmament; their inclusion was perhaps an secondary one. 28 Koch-Westenholz, Mesopotamian Astrologie, 171–6.

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1:4). VanderKam and Kvanvig have demonstrated the same for other parts of the Enoch-corpus.29 As the Enoch gure corresponds to Enmeduranki (or a sage of his time), so the sky-oriented world-view corresponds to the conviction in 1st-millenium Mesopotamia that astral powers exert determining inuence on every destiny. Of course, important alterations occurred, caused by Israelite traditions. In Mesopotamian mythology the determination of destiny (shimtu) was conceived as the main task of the deities. Since Neo Assyrian times, and especially in the Chaldaean religion, astrological omina became the main source of divination, because of the conviction that they reveal the content of the heavenly tablets of irresistible destiny. Because of the “scientic” evidence of that kind of futurology, this Chaldean wisdom spread out to Persia, India, Egypt, Greece and Rome as an integral part of religious and philosophical theories around the turn of the era.30 The fatalistic consequences were more and more stressed: Fata irrevocabiliter ius suum peragunt nec ulle commoventur prece, “the fates realize their right irrevocably and cannot be shaken by any prayer” (Seneca).31 Apparently the authors of the Astronomical Book were acquainted with that kind of international wisdom. By their alterations they attempted to secure the freedom of God and humankind, although in a somewhat violent manner as it may seem to us. Nowadays apocalyptic literature in general is suspected of determinism. How far does it hold true for the Astronomical Book?32 Indeed according to 81:2 Enoch read on the heavenly tablets “all deeds of men . . . for the generations of eternity.” But one may ask whether this included predestination? The very next verse blesses the (future) righteous one, “concerning him no sin is written down,” and 82:5 does the same with those who decide to adhere to the true sequence of the days of the year during their life. Certainly the general frame of nature and history is xed since creation. But although the behavior of every individual is foreseen by heaven, it is not predetermined. The outcome will be every human being’s own choice.

29

VanderKam, Enoch; Kvanvig, Roots. F. V. M. Cumont, Die orientalischen Religionen im römischen Heidentum (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1931) (Engl.: The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism, Chicago: Open Court, 1911) ch. VII. 31 Cumont, Die orientalischen Religionen, 29965. 32 See G. E. W. Nickelsburg, “The Apocalyptic Construction of Reality in 1 Enoch” and my critique with his response in Neusner and Avery-Peck, George W. E. Nickelsburg, 29–59. 30

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Contrary to other parts of 1 Enoch, the Astronomical Book demonstrates an optimistic worldview with a dominant cosmic harmony established by the universal laws of the creator. Over time this will be shaken severely by the sins of angels and men, so that a horrible divine judgment must remove the growing deciencies. But heaven and earth will endure in the indenite future although (according to ch. 81) they will eventually be superseded by a new creation. The expanded angelology in the Astronomical Book, as in other Second Temple writings, and the corresponding interpretation of natural powers was presumably the outcome of an enduring struggle for monotheism. If only one sublime god is envisaged then a gap opens up between his transcendence and this-worldly immanence. The divine presence in day-to-day life, as well as his proximity to the pious individual, seems no longer self-evident. Thus intermediary perspectives became necessary. One possibility was to enlarge the gure and the functions of the malxak of Hebrew tradition. Angels became prominent because this species has no inherent existence but appears as an extension of the unique god, each taking care of a separate sector of life.33 The connection of angels and ruah (see already Ps 104:4) was perhaps stressed in the light of a growing mechanical and fatalistic view of the astronomical laws. By his ruah God is acting and revealing himself as the hidden force of the universe (“Lord of the spirits” ch. 37ff.) and through his angels as the driving force behind the cosmological order. The winds are the sources of blessing and curse on the earth, not the stars! Angels and ruah have also been connected in Qumran texts.34 Conclusion. Why was Babylonian wisdom taken over by Judean sages as a fundamental doctrine of their religious world-view in the Astronomical Book? The stress on ruah as the ultimate power behind the astral phenomena, and on an angelic hierarchy leading the single stars as well as groups of them, contradicts an inherent independence of celestial bodies as the source of human fate (shimtu in Akkadian) on earth. Just that, however, was the kernel of Babylonian astrology and divination built upon convincing astronomical computations such as MA and similar writings. Already before the turn of the era this Babylonian wisdom had become internationally renowned and spread as far as India in the East

33 34

K. Koch, “Monotheismus und Angelologie,” in Koch, Vor der Wende, 219–34. M. Mach, EDSS 25.

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and Rome in the West. Its reception in the Astronomical Book accepts the truth of the observations but maintains the freedom of human will to choose between righteousness and evil.35 The celestial bodies are not autonomous deities and their present course is not the true mirror of the cosmic order of creation. More fundamental are the invisible but real numbers, like seven or twelve. Their repetitions, which often, but not always, concur with the visible constellations, constitute potential sources of health and salvation. Thus everybody is called upon to live in accordance with this clear-cut frame of times. And many heads of the stars in command will go astray, and these will change their courses and their activities, and will not appear at the times which have been prescribed for them. And the entire law of the stars will be closed to the sinners, and the thoughts of those who dwell on earth will go astray over them, and will think them gods. And many evils will overtake them, and punishment will come upon them to destroy them all (80:6–8).

The predicted punishment may hint to the nal judgment. The “many evils,” however, are surely thought to occur during the present. 1 Enoch is commonly called an apocalypse and the content of this literary genre connected with eschatological subjects. However, the Astronomical Book is not concerned with an eschatological goal. But it acquired a corresponding frame as soon as it was incorporated into a larger Enochic corpus. The redactors added Enoch’s report of two dream-visions as continuation (chaps. 83–90). The second of these, especially, describes the metahistorical background of human history from Adam until the eschatological turn. The Astronomical Book placed in front of it becomes a necessary preface referring to the creation of the astral world and time as the presupposition of life on earth. While the Astronomical Book cannot deny all the results of contemporary international “science”, its authors are eager to encourage both the observations of the astral heaven as well as their adaptation according to a monotheistic worldview. This worldview includes humanity as the paramount partners of the deity and admonishes the reader to nd the ways of righteousness within the framework of creation.

35

Koch, Die aramäische Rezeption, 28–37, 41f.

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The Book of Dream Visions Quite a different perspective from the Astronomical Book prevails in the following chapters 83–91:19,36 known as the Book of Dream Visions, recording two night-visions of Enoch. First, Enoch recounts how he was frightened by a short but horrible vision of the end of the world. The earth with its mountains and trees was swallowed up into the great abyss. Afterwards his grandfather offers the following interpretation: the earth must sink into the abyss because “of all the sins of the earth” (83:7), and he admonishes Enoch to pray for a remnant to remain on earth. Enoch complies and writes down his prayer for the generation of the {alam in order to give them the chance to belong to the remnant of those aware of the danger of such a horrible end. In this connection Enoch praises the reign, majesty and dominion of the Lord which endures through all generations. This vision is followed by a second and far more elaborate one describing the course of human history from Adam to the eschatological turn in the form of an animal allegory. The rst vision about the end is placed out of chronological sequence before the historical record in order to stress a decisive point in the Dream Visions as a whole. Most commentators explain the rst vision by analogy to the Book of the Watchers “as a valid prediction of the deluge” and only secondarily as a typology for the nal judgment.37 But nothing is said here about water and its destructive force whereas in the later passage about the ood (89:1–9) water will be the source of the catastrophe and no abyss is mentioned. The splitting of the earth in order to swallow up the sinners is predicted again in the description of the end in 90:18.24–27 and was probably imagined by analogy to Num 16:31–35.38 The second and much larger vision, the Animal Apocalypse, is especially characteristic for an apocalyptic worldview and a universalistic outlook on the eschaton. In chaps. 85–90, the Animal Apocalypse describes the course of world history and the behavior of Israel and the nations in connection with supernatural beings as dominant

36 Originally 91:11–17 did not belong to the concluding chapter of Dream Visions, but was part of the Apocalypse of Weeks in the following epistle; Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 414f. 37 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 346 e.g. 38 Nickelsburg (1 Enoch 1, 347f.) supposes an inuence of the Aramaic Balaam Inscription of Deir {Alla.

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powers from Adam until the future eschatological turn and renewal. The source for the epochs from creation to the establishment of the second temple (sixth/fth cent. BCE) are the biblical books from Genesis to 2 Kings and probably Ezra. As for the era of the four leading Hellenistic kingdoms, the books of the Maccabees or contemporary oral traditions may have been used. The prediction of a nal judgment according to heavenly books and the establishment of an eternal sanctuary are reminiscent of Deutero-Isaiah’s Zion-prophecies and Dan 7. Thus, in the Animal Apocalypse the recourse to Hebrew scriptures is much more apparent than in the Astronomical Book. The specic character of the second vision is the thoroughgoing metamorphosis of human actors and victims, either whole nations or key individuals, into animal species.39 Thus, following common Hebrew usage,40 the Israelites and their ancestors, starting with Jacob as their rst representative are depicted as sheep, and God is called “Lord of the sheep” (more than 25 times), whereas the gentiles are seen primarily as predators or birds of prey. The species of foreign nations are taken from the Hebrew scriptures as far as possible. Thus the Ishmaelites are identied as wild asses (89:11 according Gen 16:12), the (Assyrians and?) Babylonians as lions (89:55f. according to Jer 50:17f.; Dan 7:4), the Philistines as dogs (89:42 after 1Sam 17:43). Other attributes are distributed according to the list of unclean animals in Lev 11, but a number of them remain unexplained, e.g. the Egyptians as wolves 89:13f., the choice of the eagle for Alexander the Great (and of the Diadoches?) 90:2. The giants living before the ood are portrayed as camels and elephants, surely because of their size, but why are asses included in this group 86:4 (why not horses in spite of 86:4; 88:3?)? Groups of species are arranged according to historical epochs. Dangerous predators appear rst with the growth of the (Assyrian and) Babylonian superpowers (85:55). Before that, only wolves (= Egypt) were active. The Hellenistic kingdoms are birds of prey throughout. Enoch narrates that the sheep went astray again and again and became blind, but nevertheless retained their special relation to the

39 See P. A. Tiller, A Commentary on the Animal Apocalypse of 1 Enoch (SBL. Early Judaism and Its Literature 4; Altanta: Scholars Press, 1993) 21–60 and the list in Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 358. 40 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 380f.

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God of {alam (84:54) throughout the whole history. But since a time when their sinful behavior had increased and they “went astray in everything” (89:54), God installed 70 supernatural shepherds to punish them. These are angel-like beings with a threefold function: to take care of the Israel-sheep, to represent each a nation (according to the number 70 in Gen 10) and to assemble themselves in groups according to the epochs of the Assyrian-Babylonian, Persian and Hellenistic superpowers (see Dan 10:12ff.).41 Subsequently, however, these shepherds transcend their task in a cruel manner;42 which brings about their condemnation at the end of this world. From an Israelite point of view the sheep was the most intimate animal in human life (see 2 Sam 12:1–4). It is conceivable that this relationship was transferred to the metaphorical speech of Israel’s God as “lord of the sheep.” Surprisingly in the Animal Apocalypse the metaphor was qualied with the sheep being replaced by bulls as far as priority at creation and proximity to God are concerned. The ancestors of the human race from Adam to the three sons of Noah are depicted as white bulls and their wives as cows. This kind prevailed in the Shem line until Abraham and Isaac; only after them the sheep appeared and the bulls disappeared. The sheep race will endure until the eschatological turn. But then a single white bull will appear as a second Adam and the prototype of a new humankind (90:37f.).43 The surviving animals of all species including the sheep will respectfully fear and entreat him with the result that all of them will be transformed into white bulls for the joy of the Lord forever. Humankind is only depicted as white bull in the context of its creation as well as its eschatological future. The high rank of this species is astonishing because its offspring is seen in an ambiguous manner. Indeed the white ones always have a positive character. However, they engender not only peaceful sheep, but also black bulls and all kinds of

41 Supernatural representatives of each nation are also depicted in the reliefs of the Persian kings at Persepolis. Whereas the throne of the ruler is carried by human gures of the subjected nations (with a specic weapon) in the palace area, the thrones of the deceased king at Naqsh-i-Rustam are apparently carried by a corresponding other-wordly genius; P. Frei and K. Koch, “Reichsidee und Reichsorganisation im Perserreich,” OBO 55 (21996) 159–93. 42 The biblical image of the negligent shepherd is transformed “by identifying the shepherds as angels.” See Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 391. 43 On the “white bull” as the Enochic metaphor for “like son of man” in Dan 7:13 see Koch, Vor der Wende, 247–50.

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dangerous animals! (And that apparently against their own will.) Even the fallen stars become bulls on earth and form unions with human cows (ch. 86–88), thus engendering the giants as elephants, camels and asses. In Hebrew tradition there is no reason for this esteem of the bull. We may ask whether a foreign myth about the common descent of humans and animals from a primeval pair of bull and cow is in the background? Humans are not absent from the metaphorical history. The seven archangels are seen as white men coming from heaven (87:2; 90:21). When one of them speaks to the white bull Noah, this person also becomes a “man” (89:1). The same metamorphosis occurs when Moses the sheep is able to establish the tabernacle after meeting the Lord of the sheep on a mountain and disciplining the other sheep (89:36–38).44 Thus the human form characterizes an extraordinary nearness to the divine. But it never depicts human nature as such, not even in the context of the renewed creation. The metaphorical use of animals as images for nations and of men for angels reminds us of the language of Dan 7f. However, Daniel speaks of monstrous beings like a lion-eagle or a male goat with a large horn between his eyes (7:4; 8:5), which remained unchanged in outlook and nature over the course of time. Contrary to that continuity, sudden and unexplained metamorphoses are common in the Enochic text. When the three bulls, the sons of Noah, had left the ark after the ood “they began to beget wild beasts and birds, so that there arose from them every kind of species” (89:9) and the same occurs to their descendants. Without intention on the part of the begetter the children are of a different nature, at times benecial animals at times harmful ones. Such transformations seem to occur according to the will of the creator. This worldview contradicts Gen 1 insofar as there it is stressed that all living creatures have a specic character and preserve it through all generations. The image of an animal representing a nation is a common one even in our days. Everybody understands the symbolic references to the Russian bear, the German Bundesadler, the British or Bavarian lion etc. But it is quite another thing to extend this kind of image to describe the corresponding animals as the decisive subjects of history

44 There is no hint of Torah (against the superscription “die Gesetzgebung” in Uhlig, Das äthiopische Henochbuch, 687).

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subject to supernatural powers. There is one interesting parallel from contemporary Hellenistic Alexandria, the epic “Alexandra” by a certain Lycophron, written perhaps shortly after 197 BCE.45 It contains a prophecy of the daughter (Cassandra) of the last king of Troy in the form of a survey of history from the downfall of Troy until the future Roman conquest of the East. As a rule not the nations but the heroes of myths and history are introduced as animals, primarily predators, and mostly anonymous. Wolves are Paris (l.101), Achilles (245; also an eagle 260 and a erce dragon 309), but also the Phoenician nation (1292) and the Argonauts (1309); lions are Heracles (458), Romulus and Remus (1230), Alexander the Great (1439?); bulls Hector (267), Ajax (462). Europa and Helena are depicted as heifers (101, also a dove 85). The Cretans appear as boars etc. The reason for this expansion of the animal imagery is the conviction that each species has a specic character which is comparable to a particular human attitude. Conclusion. In the Animal Apocalypse the view of humankind and the world is a rather pessimistic one. The times of the sheep Israel are depicted as the backbone of all world history. But the Apocalypse is lled with quarrels between the sheep and its environment to the extent that even animals which are harmless to sheep by nature, e.g. wild boars and foxes or birds like ravens (89:2–4.42f.66), repeatedly attack and eat the sheep, We also note a deterministic perspective in the conception of history. When wild animals are ghting with the sheep they do so apparently according to their nature, which originated in the divine creation. Are they acting with sinful intent? The guilty ones are their supernatural shepherds who refuse to tame them and will be condemned at the end. However, a large part of the animals will then perish too. The ultimate goal in the Animal Apocalypse is a universalistic one. The end of history will be a renewed creation with eternal happiness. After the nal judgment, which will include the destruction of the present temple (on Mt. Zion), the Lord of the sheep will bring a holy tower to Jerusalem for the surviving sheep as well as for the other animals (90:33):

45 A. W. and G. R. Mair, “Callimachus Hymns and Epigrams, Lycophron, Aratus,” LCL 129 (1969).

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klaus koch And all those who had been destroyed and scattered and all the wild animals and all the birds of heaven gathered together in that house, and the Lord of the sheep rejoiced very much because they were all good and had returned to his house.

Afterwards the large sword which the Lord had given to the sheep before to overcome the hostile animals will nally be brought to the sanctuary and sealed up in the presence of the Lord, so that there will be peace on earth and between the nations forever. Then a white bull, the new Adam, will appear and all surviving animals will be transformed and become white bulls too. The Endzeit corresponds to the Urzeit. Thus a very modest eschatology is articulated. Salvation happens only on this earth. There is no elevation to the angelic realm. Bulls remain bulls, the implication being that human beings continue to be human although without sin and quarrels. The privileged position of the sheep, of Israel, disappears because all human beings become one nation, one bull race. However, their identity is guaranteed by one central sanctuary, at the place where once the sheep alone met the Lord. The Astronomical Book and the Book of Dream Visions as one coherent text The three manuscripts 4QEnastrc+d+e point to a former direct continuation of the Book of the Watchers (chs. 1–36) with the Book of Dream Visions (ch. 83ff.). Between these two blocks, the Astronomical Book was inserted, perhaps by another Enochic school. This arrangement is witnessed by a Greek translation in an Oxyrhynchus Papyrus,46 but probably presumed already in Jubilees.47 The position of the Astronomical Book in the expanded corpus is astonishing. Why was AB with its references to the fundamental laws of the cosmic order not placed before the account of the disturbance of the order in the Book of the Watchers (in analogy with Genesis)? I would like to suggest that the reason was the intention to introduce

46

Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 13. The Book of the Watchers, the Astronomical Book, and the Animal Apocalypse are known as Enoch’s writings in Jubilees, thus the Astronomical Book was already part of a larger corpus in circles outside Qumran. See M. A. Knibb, “Which Parts of 1 Enoch Were Known to Jubilees?” in J. D. A. Clines, J. C. Exum, and H. G. M. Williamson (eds.), Reading from Right to Left: essays on the Hebrew Bible in honour of David J. A. Clines ( JSOTSSup 373; London: Shefeld Academic Press, 2003) 254–62. 47

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the Astronomical Book as a necessary prerequisite for the correct understanding of Dream Visions. The redactor wanted to demonstrate that the astral realm structured by xed numbers, especially seven, was the enduring frame of all the periods of world history reported in the second source. In the composition which is now chaps. 72–91 the titles and subtitles are distributed in such a way that the transition from one of the compositions to the next appears as a meaningful one. The former title of the Astronomical Book, “The book of the revolutions of the lights of heaven” is preserved in 72:1, but presented as a mark of segmentation like “The words of the blessings” in 1:1 or “(Writing?) that which wrote . . . Enoch” in 92:1.48 Although the Book of Dream Visions surely once had its own superscription as an independent writing, it is now introduced with a transition formula in 83:1: And now, my son Methuselah, I will show you all the visions which I saw, recounting (them) before you.

Nearly the same address was used at the beginning of the last chapter of the Astronomical Book in 1 En 82:1: And now, my son Metuselah, all these things I recount to you and write down for you . . .

Keep, my son Metuselah, the books of the hand of your father . . . In both cases only a change of perspective within the speeches to the same son is announced. A further break is announced in 92:1, where probably yet another formerly independent text is annexed, i.e. the Epistle of Enoch. Here a real superscription is preserved: [Writing of the hand of Enoch, the scribe, the interpretation which he has writ]ten and given [his son Methu]selah . . . about the truth.49

The editorial arrangement clearly illustrates the intention, to combine the contents of the Astronomical Book and Dream Visions and to separate this part from the other compositions before ch. 72 and after ch. 91. There are further indications of the intention to concatenate the two texts. So the introduction in ch. 72 is probably expanded:

48 Milik, Books of Enoch, 260; Beyer, Die aramäische Texte, 246f.; Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 430. 49 Thus the reconstruction of Beyer, Die aramäische Texte, 246f. See Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 430f.

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klaus koch The book of the revolutions of the lights of heaven, each as it is, according to their classes, according to their ( period of ) rule and their times, according to their names and their places of origin, and according to their months, which Uriel, the holy angel who was with me and is their leader, showed to me; and he showed me all the regulations exactly as they are, for each year of the world and for ever, until the new creation shall be made which will last for ever.

Without mentioning his name the author refers to himself in the rst person. The reader is supposed to know his identity from an earlier part of a larger Enochic work. Other details hint beyond the following chapters of the Astronomical Book to Dream Visions (1 En 83ff.). Thus the introduction announces the times of the rule of the heavenly lights and the regulation for the years of the world. These are not mentioned in the Astronomical Book but play an important role in Dream Visions, at least since the installation of the 70 shepherds of the nations (89:65, 68, 72; 90:1.12.17) for a rule of probably 490 years (see Dan 9:24).50 For the earlier epochs no number of years is given even in Dream Visions, but the introduction in 72:1 presupposes xed numbers for this time too. What do the “places of origin” in 72:1 refer to? In the chapters of the Astronomical Book the different locations of sun and moon in the gates are indicated, but those are surely not their origin. Does the expression hint at the 70 shepherds in Dream Visions, insofar as each is connected with one nation on earth? And the goal of a “new creation” is only explained in 89:28ff. (later on in 1:14–19). Thus the expanded superscription in 72 combines the astral constituents with the course of history and its eschatological goal. There is a thoroughgoing creatio continua in spite of the deep gap between the regulations of the cosmic order established by creation and the sinful world below, but also between this-worldly history and the world to come. The same holistic view is present in the rst vision in Dream Visions. After Enoch had seen the horrible end of the world of his day he went out and saw “the sun rising in the east, and the moon setting in the west, and some stars, and the whole earth, and everything as he knew it at the beginning. Then I blessed the Lord of Judgment, and ascribed majesty to him, for he makes the sun come out from the windows of the east, so that it ascends and rises on the face of heaven, and sets out and goes in the path which he had shown to it” (83:11). So in spite

50

Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 391–3; VanderKam, Enoch, 165–7.

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of his horrible experience Enoch began to praise the Lord King, his sovereignty and majesty: “All the heavens (are) your throne for ever, and the whole earth your footstool for ever, and for ever and ever” (84:2). Presumably these passages were inserted by the redactor of the Astronomical Book + Dreams Visions composition. They underline that the basic cosmic structure established by the creator will outlast the history of this world as well as the universal judgment at its end.51

51 I am indebted to Charlotte Hempel for painstaking corrections of my English manuscript.

COSMIC LAWS AND COSMIC IMBALANCE WISDOM, MYTH AND APOCALYPTIC IN EARLY ENOCHIC WRITINGS Helge S. Kvanvig University of Oslo, Norway 1. The Rise of a Forgotten Hero When Friedrich Lücke in 1832 published the rst comprehensive representation of apocalyptic literature, the publication of the rst modern translation of 1 Enoch ten years earlier was one of the decisive underlying factors.1 The voluminous text of 1 Enoch broadened the source material considerably for this strange kind of literature that was earlier known from the Book of Daniel, the Revelation of John, 4 Ezra and the Sibylline Oracles. Lücke derived the designation “apocalyptic” from the opening line in the Revelation and he used this biblical book as the catalyst in the discussion of the apocalyptic material. Together with the other Jewish apocalypses 1 Enoch got a double role. On the one hand, these texts were necessary to establish the concept of apocalyptic literature. On the other hand they were imitations of the original Biblical apocalypses, which had not attained canonical status.2 Thus already at the very beginning of scholarly work on apocalypticism some presuppositions were present that would dominate 1 F. Lücke, Versuch einer vollständigen Einleitung in die Offenbarung Johannis und in die gesammte apokalyptische Literatur (Bonn: Weber, 1832). I refer here to the second edition of 1852. Lücke explicitly states that the possibility of formulating the concept “apocalyptic” and developing a literary history was rst present after R. Laurence’ publication of several Ethiopic texts, and among them above all the Book of Enoch, 13f. For Lücke’s interpretation of Enoch, see J. M. Schmidt, Die jüdische Apokalyptik. Die Geschichte ihrer Erforschung von den Anfängen bis zu den Textfunden von Qumran (Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag des Erziehungsvereins, 1969) 98–119. The Ethiopic text of Enoch was translated into English in 1821 after it was brought to England by the Scottish explorer James Bruce in 1773; see G. W. E. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001) 109f; M. A. Knibb, The Ethiopic Book of Enoch. A New Edition in the Light of the Aramaic Dead Sea Fragments (2 vols; Oxford: Clarendon, 1978) 2.15f. 2 See Lücke’s (Versuch) discussion of the hermeneutical challenge in the interpretation of apocalyptic in the introduction, 3–6, and the outline of Jewish apocalyptic from Daniel to the New Testament, 61–6, 63f. See also Schmidt, Die jüdische Apokalyptik, 106f.

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discussion for more than a hundred years. The basic apocalypses that formed the point of departure were those of the Protestant Bible. The other apocalypses were regarded as derivations, and of lesser value. The root of apocalypticism was to be found in Old Testament prophecy that was transposed to a new religious and social setting in post-exilic Judaism, as shown in the Book of Daniel. There was a bridge from prophecy and apocalyptic in the Old Testament to the fullment and the renewed eschatology of the New Testament.3 The reason why apocalyptic was regarded as a “child of prophecy” was above all its concern with history and eschatology, and the explicit reference to divine inspiration as the source of the revelations.4 This understanding of apocalypticism culminated in two broad discussions of the rise of apocalypticism in post-exilic Judaism, by Otto Plöger in 1959 and Paul Hanson in 1975.5 Both emphasised the continuity between post-exilic prophecy and apocalyptic, and both saw a tension or conict in post-exilic society between the Zadokites and the visionaries or apocalypticists. Neither for Plöger nor for Hanson did the scriptures of Enoch have any relevance for the origin of apocalyptic. As far as I can see, Plöger does not mention them at all, Hanson quotes them three times. There was some opposition to this direct line from prophecy to apocalypticism. Gustav Hölscher argued in 1922 for a background of apocalyptic in sapiential traditions.6 He emphasised the speculative aspects of apocalyptic, such as we nd in 1 Enoch, astronomy, cosmology, botany, and medicine, magic and demonology, besides the historical and eschatological concerns. Hölscher was followed by Gerhard von Rad, who claimed that what had been dened as the very core of apocalyptic, history and eschatology, was not rooted in prophecy, but in

3 See K. Koch, Ratlos vor der Apokalyptik (Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn, 1970) 35–54. 4 See Schmidt, Die jüdische Apokalyptik, 212ff., 265–77. This opinion has been advanced most strongly in Anglo-American research, see for instance R. H. Charles, Religious Development between the Old and the New Testaments (London: Oxford University Press, 1914) 12–26; H. H. Rowley, The Relevance of Apocalyptic (3rd rev. ed. New York: Association Press, 1964) 13–53; D. S. Russell, The Method and Message of Jewish Apocalyptic (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1964) 88–100. 5 O. Plöger, Theokratie und Eschatologie (Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag des Erziehungs-vereins, 1959); P. D. Hanson, The Dawn of Apocalyptic (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1975). 6 G. Hölscher, Geschichte der israelitischen und jüdischen Religion (Giessen: Alfred Töpelmann, 1922) 187–93.

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the understanding of time in the wisdom writings.7 Von Rad got very little support for this new attempt to root apocalyptic in wisdom.8 There has been awareness about the inuence from non-Jewish religions on apocalyptic right from the beginning with Lücke. For apocalypticism in general scholars have claimed parallels in all the surrounding religions, above all Greek, Persian and Babylonian.9 Most often, this has not affected the emphasis on the prophetic heritage. “Foreign” religions contributed to the mythical and speculative clothing of apocalyptic, they did not give birth to the child itself. Research concentrating on the background of Enoch has disturbed this picture. Herman Jansen published already in 1939 an investigation of the background of Enoch in Babylonian traditions about primeval time, although the concept was quite confused because of the scanty knowledge of the sources and the unclear methodology.10 The assumption that Enoch was modelled on Babylonian primeval heroes got a new basis through a broad analysis by Pierre Grelot in 1958.11 Rykle Borger added a new important element in 1974 through a new edition of a tablet belonging to the incantation series BÒt MÏseri, recording a list of the primeval sages, apkallus, and among them Utuapsu in the seventh place, who ascended to heaven.12 Two broad independent investigations followed by James VanderKam in 1984 and Helge Kvanvig in 1989 (based on his dissertation from 1984).13 They both concluded that the

7 G. von Rad, Theologie des Alten Testaments (2 vols; München: C. Kaiser, 1968) 2.316–31; Weisheit in Israel (Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag des Erziehungsvereins, 1970) 337–63. For a more recent and ballanced view on the understanding of time in wisdom and apocalyptic, see K. Koch, “Das Geheimnis der Zeit in Weisheit und Apokalyptik um die Zeitwende,” F. García Martínez (ed.), Wisdom and Apocalypticism in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the Biblical Tradition (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2003) 35–68. 8 See for instance the criticism by P. von der Osten-Sacken, Die Apokalyptik in ihrem Verhältnis zu Prophetie und Weisheit (ThE 157; München: C. Kaiser, 1969). 9 See Schmidt, Die jüdische Apokalyptik, 204–14; K. Koch, “Einleitung,” in idem, ed., Apokalyptik, (Wege der Forschung 365; Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1982, 3–11, 21–4; J. J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination (New York: Crossroad, 1984) 19–28. 10 H. L. Jansen, Die Henochgestalt. Eine vergleichende religionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung (Oslo: Dybwad, 1939) 13–60. 11 P. Grelot, “La légende d’Hénoch dans les Apocryphes et dans la Bible: Origine et signication,” RSR 46 (1958) 5–26 and 181–220. 12 R. Borger, “Die Beschwörungsserie BÒt MÏseri und die Himmelfahrt Henochs,” JNES 33 (1974) 183–96. 13 J. C. VanderKam, Enoch and the Growth of an Apocalyptic Tradition, (CBQMS 16; Washington: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1984) 23–51; H. S. Kvanvig,

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gure of Enoch was modelled on the seventh king in the antediluvian king lists, Enmeduranki, who was brought to heaven to read the tablets of the gods. Kvanvig also claimed that there was a broader Babylonian tradition behind the gure of Enoch, connected to the primary antediluvian sage, Uanadapa, and to the ood hero. Not only does the gure of Enoch seem to be of Babylonian descent, but also his teaching shows strong Babylonian inuence. This was demonstrated by Matthias Albani in 1994, carefully examining the similarities between the astronomical calculations in the Enochic Astronomical Book (1 En 72–82) and the comprehensive astronomical work MUL.APIN (“Plough Star”).14 Klaus Koch called attention to more parallels with Babylonian astronomy and sharpened the question what this would mean for the origin of apocalyptic.15 This question seems inevitable, because if both the gure itself and the most distinguished part of his early teaching have Babylonian roots, there can hardly any longer be a prophetic child in Babylonian clothes The child itself must have Babylonian ancestors. If the publication of the Ethiopic Enoch was an important factor at the beginning of scholarly work on apocalypticism, the discovery and publication of the Aramaic fragments of 1 Enoch from Qumran by Josef Milik laid a new foundation for recent research.16 The dates of the earliest fragments to the Astronomical Book (1 En 72–82) and the Book of the Watchers (1 En 1–36), Enastra and 4QEna, demonstrate that these two books certainly were written before the Book of Daniel.17 Both books formed the foundation for Enochic apocalyptic,

Roots of Apocalyptic (Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag des Erziehungsvereins, 1989) 160–342. 14 M. Albani, Astronomie und Schöpfungsglaube (Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag des Erziehungsvereins, 1994) 163–272. 15 K. Koch, “Die Anfänge der Apokalyptik in Israel und die Rolle des astronomischen Henochbuches,” Vor der Wende der Zeiten (Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag des Erziehungsvereins, 1996) 3–39. 16 J. T. Milik, The Books of Enoch. Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1976). In the beginning of September 1952 Milik identied the rst Aramaic fragment to Enoch among the Qumran fragments at his disposal. Later the same month he personally dug new Enochic fragments out of the earth that lled Cave 4; see Milik, The Books of Enoch, iv. 17 See Milik, The Books of Enoch, 7f, 22f. Milik’s dating has been widely accepted. Enastra is dated to the end of the third or the beginning of the second century, 4QEna, providing fragments both of the introduction to the Book of the Watchers (1 En 1–5) and the Watcher Story (1 En 6–16), is dated to the rst half of the second century. There is no need to assume that these fragments were from the original manuscripts.

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although there are hardly any marks of apocalyptic in the Astronomical Book. There is no possibility to draw a thick line from Old Testament prophecy to these books. The history of early apocalyptic had to be rewritten in the awareness that Enoch and not Daniel represented the earliest known apocalyptic tradition.18 This new insight challenges the way we dene apocalyptic. Already K. Koch called attention to the ambiguous ways apocalyptic and derivates were used.19 Collins subsequently proceeded in an attempt to dene ‘apocalypse’ as a genre, including all elements of apocalyptic and not only its concern with history and eschatology.20 He presented the following denition: “ ‘Apocalypse’ is a genre of revelatory literature with a narrative framework, in which a revelation is mediated by an otherworldly being to a human recipient, disclosing a transcendent reality which is both temporal, insofar as it envisages eschatological salvation, and spatial insofar as it involves another, supernatural world.”21 This denition is generic and synchronic, and it is intended to encompass all texts belonging to the genre “apocalypse”. Collins was, however, fully aware that the study of apocalypticism had to include a diachronic aspect as well, both in regard to the history of individual texts and to

18 See J. J. Collins, “The Place of Apocalypticism in the Religion of Israel,” in P. D. Miller et al. (eds.), Ancient Israelite Religion (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1987) 539–58; P. Sacchi, Jewish Apocalyptic and Its History ( JSPSup 20; Shefeld: Shefeld Academic Press, 1990) 33–71; The History of the Second Temple Period ( JSOTSup 285; Shefeld: Shefeld Academic Press, 2000) 174–82; G. Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesi, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998) 68–79; Roots of Rabbinic Judaism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002) 89–103. 19 Koch, Ratlos vor der Apokalyptik, 15–30; “Einleitung,” 12–21. 20 Collins intends to nd a balance between two opposing views, the one stressing eschatology as a necessary characteristic of apocalyptic, and the other dening apocalyptic out of purely formal characteristics without regard to content. For a broader presentation and analysis of the discussion, see A. Bedenbender, Der Gott der Welt tritt auf den Sinai (Berlin: Institut Kirche und Judentum, 2000) 32–61. 21 J. J. Collins, “Introduction: Towards the Morphology of a Genre,” in J. J. Collins (ed.), Apocalypse: The Morphology of a Genre (Semeia 14; Missoula: Scholars Press, 1979) 1–20, esp. 9. Later Collins made an amendment including the function of an apocalypse: “An apocalypse is intended to interpret present earthly circumstances in the light of the supernatural world and of the future, and to inuence both the understanding and the behavior of the audience by means of divine authority,” see J. J. Collins, “Genre, Ideology and Social Movements in Jewish Apocalypticism,” in J. J. Collins, J. H. Charlesworth (eds.), Mysteries and Revelations ( JSPSS 9; Shefeld: JSOT, 1991) 11–32, esp. 19. The amendment was done after this aspect of function in the genre was underlined by D. Hellholm, “The Problem of Apocalyptic Genre and the Apocalypse of John,” in A. Yarbro Collins (ed.), Early Christian Apocalypticism: Genre and

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the genetic dimension of the genre “apocalypse” itself.22 At this point the study of the earliest Enochic compositions is highly relevant, both in regard to the formal characteristics of apocalyptic and in regard to its content. The Enoch traditions were not created as apocalyptic. They were transformed into apocalyptic. They clearly had distinctive features when this transformation took place, features that were not lost in the process of transformation. 2. Enoch and the Laws of History We start our inquiry into the early Enochic compositions by examining the Apocalypse of Weeks (1 En 93:1–10; 91:11–17),23 because this text is generally held to have the typical marks of the apocalyptic genre: “The text belongs to an apocalyptic genre, whose purpose is to track history from some point in the past to the real time of the author, who stands at the threshold of the eschaton. It may be properly designated as an apocalypse, because revelation is central to its author’s self-understanding.”24 The date of the Apocalypse is debated, but there is nothing in the Apocalypse itself that makes a pre-Maccabean origin impossible.25

Social Setting (Semeia 36; Decatur: Scholars Press, 1986) 13–64, esp. 25–7; and D. E. Aune, “The Apocalypse of John and the Problem of Genre,” Early Christian Apocalypticism, 65–96, esp. 68–70, 89–91. 22 Collins, “Genre,” 18–23. See also D. Hellholm, “Methodological Reections on the Problem of Denition of Generic Texts,” Mysteries and Revelations, 135–63, esp. 157–63. 23 The common observation among scholars on the basis of the Ethiopic text that this must be the correct sequence, is conrmed in the Aramaic manuscript 4Q212 where 93:10 is followed by 91:11 in lines 13–4. 24 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 439. 25 The text is a part of the Epistle of Enoch (1 En 92–105) in the Ethiopic corpus, see Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 426. The dating depends both on text-external and textinternal criteria. The most important text-external criteria have been: What was the original Aramaic shape of the Epistle, when was it composed, and had the Apocalypse of Weeks and the original Epistle the same authors?—See the discussion in Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis, 104–113, who argues that the Apocalypse was composed by the same author in a much shorter Proto-Epistle of Enoch, dating from the midsecond-century-BCE. The text-internal criteria are closely connected to where in the historical scenery of the text the author places himself, given that there is a break in the text between what is vaticinia ex eventu and what is really prediction, and to the question whether the historical survey contains any hints to the Maccabean revolt. Given the whole symbolism of the vision, ten units of time with seven as the key number, it is hard to think that the author would have created this symbolism without giving

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Reading the Apocalypse of Weeks as a text belonging to the apocalyptic genre, we can observe several features that match the dening points in Collins’ master-paradigm of apocalyptic.26 Under the rubric “Manner of Revelation” Enoch matches the characteristics of the genre by referring to a heavenly vision and audition, and by being a pseudonym (93:2). Under the rubric “Content, Temporal axis” there are correspondences to the genre characteristics in the record of primordial events (93:3–4), ex eventu prophecy (from the rst to the seventh week), salvation through knowledge (93:10), eschatological judgment of sinners and otherworldly beings (91:12–15), and eschatological salvation with cosmic transformation and personal salvation (91:16–17). Accordingly, there are enough features from the apocalyptic genre to classify the text as an “apocalypse”. Nevertheless the deviations from this synchronic genre classication are in many ways more signicant than the matches. Further, it is quite notable that the most distinctive features of the Apocalypse are not covered in this synchronic perspective. The language of revelation is limited to a short introduction to the historical tableau (93:2). The record of history does not show any sign of revelatory apocalyptic language. This differs from other apocalypses that are commonly dated to about the same time, the Animal Apocalypse and the apocalypses of the Book of Daniel (7–12) where the revelatory language is baked into the apocalypses themselves in frequent references to visions and auditions. In the eschatological outlook there is no immediate expectation of the end. Although the time of the author is described as a time with expectations of change, there is expected no immediate break in history of a transcendent quality. The future develops in many new steps from the seventh to the tenth week. This does not mean that the Apocalypse lacks eschatology, only that the eschatology rmly rests in the chronology.

himself and his co-believers the signicant placement in the seventh time unit. This would mean that the sword given to all the righteous in the eight week would have nothing to do with the Maccabean revolt. There is also no need to see the uprooting of violence and deceit at the very end of the seventh week as a reference to the revolt, if this line really belongs to the vaticinia ex eventu part, and not to the prediction. See J. C. VanderKam, “Studies in the Apocalypse of Weeks,” CBQ 46 (1984) 511–23, esp. 521–3; Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 440f, 447–9. If the Apocalypse was composed after the Maccabean revolt, it would perhaps be strange that there were no hints to this crucial event at all. The Enochic Animal Apocalypse certainly does not miss it, see 1 En 90:9b–16. 26 Collins, “Introduction,” 5–9.

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The formative elements of the text are not observed by the synchronic denition of apocalyptic, although many of them are shared with a lot of early apocalyptic texts and texts under apocalyptic inuence. The most noteworthy is the division of history into periods and the use of seven as the key number to interpret history.27 The basic unit is [ybv, gÊbÒa{, a seven unit of time, or week,28 ten times gÊbÒa{give a time span of 70, which is well known in apocalyptic texts, and signicantly in the Watcher Story for the period between proton and eschaton (1 En 10:12). The number of years counted within each seven unit seems to be 490 (7×7×10).29 Enoch was born the seventh in the rst week (93:3) and the nal judgment takes place in the seventh part of the tenth week (91:15). The righteous are given sevenfold wisdom and knowledge (93:10). The stars of the new heaven will shine with sevenfold brightness (1 En 91:16). In the seven time units three to eight, the most signicant events occur at the end, just as the Sabbath closes the week.30 Within this chronographic structure the author presents an image of history based on a dichotomy between the just and the chosen on the one side and sin and the wicked on the other.31 Koch has called attention to the fact that the description of this dichotomy as it appears in various stages of history ultimately can be reduced to two forces in conict: afvq, qug¢xa, “the justice, truth”, and arqv, giqrax, “the deceit, lie”, see the crucial opposition in the rst and seventh week (4Q212 iii 25 and iv 14 = 1 En 93:4; 93:10–91:11).32 In this discord between justice and deceit justice prevails. The lemma Qe”occurs ten times in the two Aramaic fragments. Adding the Ethiopic text, where the word ÉÚdÚq is used, the total number seems to amount to sixteen in the whole text. The Apocalypse never tells about any direct divine intervention in history, but it reveals the underlying dynamic, the force of qug¢xa runs

27 See K. Koch, “Sabbatstruktur der Geschichte. Die sogenannte Zehn-WochenApokalypse (1 En 93:1–10; 91:11–7) und das Ringen um die alttestamentlichen Chronologien im späten Israelitentum,” ZAW 95 (1983) 403–30, now in: Vor der Wende der Zeiten, 45–76; Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination, 50f; Apocalypticism in the Dead Sea Scrolls (London: Routledge, 1997) 52–6. 28 Koch, “Sabbatstruktur,” 48. 29 Koch, “Sabbatstruktur,” 58–65. 30 See VanderKam, “Studies,” 518–21. For more elements forming patterns in the Apocalypse, see J. C. VanderKam, Enoch. A Man for All Generations (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1995) 63–72. 31 See the chart in Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 438f. 32 Koch, “Sabbatstruktur,” 66f.

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through whole history from the very beginning when justice ruled until the time of Enoch (iii 23–24 = 1 En 93:3), to the very end when justice will last for ever (iv 26 = 1 En 91:17). The Apocalypse exhibits a tableau of history where the movements of events occur within a xed structure based on the law of seven and the force of justice. If we keep to the early dating of the text, this is the rst time in Judaism when the whole of history is grasped into one comprehensive image. It demonstrates the intellectual urge of the author to go behind the individual events to nd the underlying laws. In many ways this approach resembles the mode of thinking in the Astronomical Book, possibly composed more than hundred years earlier. In both cases there is a drive to understand the whole, either cosmos or history, and to nd a xed rhythm in the movements going back to a hidden law, which in both cases rests in the holy number “seven”.33 There is also a justice, qug¢xa, prescribed for both humans and the heavenly bodies to keep the world in correct order. The heavenly bodies shall complete their movements in justice, Ethiopic baÉÚdÚq, Aramaic fwvqb, baqšÖ¢ (1 En 74:12.17), and like humans they can go astray (1 En 80:6).34 This does not mean that what is described is independent of what can be observed. History in the Apocalypse is according to Koch demystied and demythologised in the concentration on underlying laws: “Um es zugespitzt zu sagen: in der Zehn-Epochen Lehre meldet sich der Georg Friedrich Wilhelm Hegel des Altertums.”35 Philip Alexander regards the Astronomical Book as the rst example of pre-modern science in Judaism, because it is based on observation and systematising of the movements of celestial phenomena.36 There is a road from Enoch to Einstein, although it is long and tortuous.37 For our modern mind the realities of Hegel and Einstein are widely removed, history has nothing to do with astronomy, but not so in the ancient world. The astronomy of the Astronomical Book evolved out of a Babylonian system. Astronomy in Babylonia cannot be separated

33

For the Astronomical Book, see Kvanvig, Roots of Apocalyptic, 68–78; Albani, Astronomie, 99–101. 34 For qug¢Ê in the Astronomical Book, see Albani, Astronomie, 105–8. 35 Koch, “Sabbatstruktur,” 67. 36 P. Alexander, “Enoch and the Beginnings of Jewish Interest in Natural Science,” in C. Hempel, A. Lange, and H. Lichtenberger (eds.), The Wisdom Texts from Qumran and the Development of Sapiential Thought (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2002) 223–43, esp. 230ff. 37 Alexander, “Enoch and the Beginnings,” 242.

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from astrology. The observance of the heavenly bodies was made in order to make predictions of what would happen in history.38 Thus it is not surprising that Enoch, the great sage of astronomy, appears in the Apocalypse as the one who can predict history. The two capacities are united in 1 En 81 at the end of the Astronomical Book.39 After having been shown the astronomical calculations, Enoch reads the heavenly tablets on which were written all the deeds of men, and all who would be born until the generations of eternity (1 En 81:2).40 Enoch read the prediction about the fate of the just and chosen in the heavenly tablets, aymv tjwl, l֘at gÚmayax (1 En 93:2). He was born as the seventh in the rst week (93:3). In 1 En 81:2 the tablets of heaven occur in the context of astronomy. As Albani has demonstrated, this astronomy has close resemblances with the Babylonian astronomical and astrological composition MUL.APIN.41 In Babylonian tradition the antediluvian king Enmeduranki was regarded as the ancestor of astronomy and divination. He was given the seventh place in several antediluvian king lists.42 According to a composition belonging to the bÊrû-priests, he was brought to heaven and there he was shown the tablets of the gods. He returned to the earth and revealed this knowledge to eleven men, thus starting the chain of knowledge belonging to the divinatory priests.43 This divinatory knowledge was explicitly connected to the large astronomical series Enuma Anu Enlil. This series was in the line of textual transmission closely interwoven with MUL.APIN.44 Enmeduranki was not the only antediluvian gure, who was ascribed authorship of famous compositions. So were also the antediluvian apkallu’s, “sages, experts”, above all Uanadapa, who could appear both in the rst and seventh position in lists. Both in the myth of Adapa and in the incantation series BÒt MÏseri he ascended to heaven.45 Uanadapa was

38 See “Astronomy and Astrology,” in P. Bienkowski and A. Millard (eds.), Dictionary of the Ancient Near East (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000) 40f. 39 The unit seems to be a later addition to the original book, see Kvanvig, Roots of Apolyptic, 59. 40 Kvanvig, Roots of Apolyptic, 76–9. 41 Albani, Astronomie, 163–272. 42 See the chart of the lists in Kvanvig, Roots of Apolyptic, 166f. 43 See Kvanvig, Roots of Apolyptic, 184–90. The basic text was published by W. G. Lambert, “Enmeduranki and Related Matters,” JCS 21 (1967) 126–38. 44 See Albani, Astronomie, 264–72. 45 See Kvanvig, Roots of Apolyptic, 191–213, about authorship, 209–13; J. C. Greeneld, “The Seven Pillars of Wisdom (Prov 9:1)—A Mistranslation,” JQR 76 (1985)

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regarded as author of astronomical compositions, and the Babylonian priest Berossos even made him the author of Enuma Elish.46 Uanadapa wrote his compositions under divine inspiration and guidance. There are accordingly good reasons to assume that this strand of Enoch traditions, Enoch as astronomer and predictor, goes back to Babylonian traditions where these two capacities belonged together. Evidently the world-view underwent great changes in the transmission from a Babylonian to a Jewish setting. The astronomer became historian, he discovered that the same basic law of seven ruled both cosmos and history, but he did not read history out of the movements of the heavenly bodies. There is one more element that is crucial for understanding the Apocalypse. Typically it is concealed in its rational language. The dramatic Watcher Story, telling about the rebellion of the divinities in heaven, their sexual union with women, the corruption of the earth by their teaching and the devastation of the earth by their offspring, the giants, is in the Apocalypse put into the following formula according to the law of history: “After me will come a second week in which deceit and violence will spring up” (iii 24–25 = 1 En 93:4). The response of God in the Watcher Story, destroying the human race in a ood, sending the giants into a self-destructive battle and imprisoning the divinities in the abyss, is given the following wording: “and in it (the second week) will be the rst end” (1 En 93:4). The evil spirits that according to the Watcher Story will haunt humans until the nal judgment (1 En 15:8–12), lurk behind the apostasy and violence that rival justice through the history of Israel, but they never appear on the surface of the text in the Apocalypse. This rational language must not mislead us to underestimate the impact of the Watcher Story. The story forms the basis for the protology in the two rst weeks and for the eschatology in the three last. The story is also the key to understand what is going on in the author’s own time, in the seventh week. The story frames the whole history of Israel as it is recorded from the third to the sixth weeks. Although we can recognise the events in this history from the books that became

13–20. For the Myth of Adapa and the apkallu tradition, see S. Dalley, Myths from Mesopotamia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991) 182–8. 46 See the Prologue, par. 5 in the translation of S. M. Burstein, The Babyloniaca of Berossos (SANE 1/5; Malibu: Undena, 1978) 13f.

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the Hebrew Bible, the basic perspective on history is Enochic, both in regard to the laws of history, and in regard to the underlying drama given by the Watcher Story. There are numerous references to the Watcher Story in the Apocalypse. We must here constrain ourselves to the most important. The interruption of the original justice on earth, and thus the origin of evil, is linked to the sudden upcoming of asmjw arqv, giqrax and ˜amsax, the “deceit and violence” (iii 25 = 1 En 93:4). “Violence” occurs in the Watcher Story both in the description of the destructive acts of the giants (1 En 7:2–6) and as a consequence of the false teaching of the Watchers (8:1–4). The humans cry out because of the ˜amas that has destroyed the earth (4Q201 iv 8 = 9:1). The noun gÚqar, “deceit”, is not found in the preserved Aramaic fragments to the Watcher Story, but may be presupposed in 9:6 in a description of Asael’s teaching. The Ethiopic text has here {ammaÓÊ, “injustice”, while one Greek text of Syncellus adds , “deceit”, at this place. The noun gÚqar in the Apocalypse refers to the false teaching of the Watchers.47 It is crucial to notice that what happened in primeval time, is repeated in the time of the author: The chosen, who are bestowed with sevenfold Enochic wisdom in a time of perversion, “will uproot the foundation of violence and the work of deceit” (iv 13–14 = 1 En 93:9–11). The violence and deceit caused by the Watchers and giants led to the “rst end” (93:4—Aramaic text missing). The reference is obviously to the whole intervention by God against rebellious divinities and a polluted humanity. If there is a rst end, there must be a second. According to VanderKam the second end comes with the judgment in the ninth week, Nickelsburg sees it distributed over all the three last weeks.48 There is, however, only one place where the word for “end” q, qeÉ ( presupposed in 93:4) recurs in the text, that is in iv 23 = 91:15, foreseeing the judgment of the Watchers in the tenth week. In this week comes: abr anyd qw aml[ ˆyd. The common translation here takes q in the meaning “time, moment” of judgement: “eternal judgment and the moment of the great judgment.”49 To read the construct in this way

47

Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 443. VanderKam, “Studies,” 519; Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 443f. 49 F. García Martínez and E. J. C. Tigchelaar, The Dead Sea Scrolls. Study Edition (2 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 2000) 445; Milik, The Books of Enoch, 267. See however K. Beyer, Die aramäischen Texte vom Toten Meer (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1984) 249: “Jüngste Tag des grossen Gerichtes.” 48

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gives of course a smooth translation. But would it not be strange that the scribe used qeÉ here so unqualied, when it has such a weight in the beginning? The great judgment clearly refers to the nal judgment of the Watchers as it is recorded in 4Q204 v 2 where q is used.50 The nal judgment is described in the following way in 4Q206, frag 2 ii 2–3 (1 En 22:4): abr anyd yd axq wy ˆmz d[w, “Up to the time of the day of the end of the great judgment.” I would rather see in abr anyd q a contraction of this longer expression, reading: “the endtime of the great judgment”. Thus this is really the second end, foreseen in the Watcher Story. This is the moment when the transcendent agents of evil nally are abolished. There are some signicant inferences from this use of the Watcher Story in the Apocalypse. The rst is related to how the story is adapted into the historical succession: The story functions both as an etiology of evil and as a paradigm of evil.51 It is etiological in the way that evil had its origin in primeval time before the rst end. What really happened at that time is rst revealed in the nal judgment, the second end, when the Watchers appear as the root cause of evil. What is told together in the Watcher Story, proton and eschaton, is in the Apocalypse placed at the beginning and at the end in the historical succession. The seventy generations, briey referred to in the Watcher Story as the time until the nal judgment (10:12), are in the Apocalypse lled in with the whole history of Israel and humanity. The Watcher Story functions paradigmatically by letting the deceit and violence in the beginning be repeated in the perverse generation in the seventh week. Accordingly, the Watcher Story mirrors and interprets reality as it is experienced by the author and his co-believers in their own time. The other inference relates to the two highly different world-views that come together in the Apocalypse: On the one hand the radical

50 1 En 10:14 has here a slightly different text. The second part of line iv 23 = 91:15 is missing in Aramaic. The Ethiopic manuscripts have different readings, but all have a reference to the Watchers or holy ones, see the discussion in Knibb, The Ethiopic Book of Enoch, 220; and Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 437. The restorations of the Aramaic text suggests that the Watchers of holy ones are referred to in the judgment: “he will carry out revenge in the midst of the holy ones,” see Milik, The Books of Enoch, 267; Beyer, Die aramäischen Texte, 249; García Martínez and Tigchelaar, Study Edition, 445. The judgment of humans is completed in the weeks eight and nine; what is left are the Watchers. 51 The Watcher Story functions in a similar way in Jubilees, see H. S. Kvanvig, “Jubilees—Between Enoch and Moses,” JSJ 35 (2004) 243–61, esp. 249–52.

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vision of evil, rooted in the transcendent divine realm, represented by the Watcher Story; on the other hand the rational approach, searching for the hidden laws in history. The Apocalypse seeks to bridge this gap between a world sanctied through the law of seven and ethically founded in the order of justice on the one hand, and the radical experience of evil on the other. It thus functions as a historical-eschatological theodicy, there are trajectories of justice running through history until justice will prevail at the end. 3. Enoch and the Cosmic Insanity In the Watcher Story (1 En 6–11+12–16) we nd the Enochic founding myth. The word “founding” has here two meanings. On the one hand it is “founding” in the Enoch traditions, it constitutes a core element in the Enochic perception of reality, the conviction that evil did not have its origin on earth, but started with a rebellion in heaven.52 This theme runs through the whole Enoch tradition BCE and had a deep impact on religious sentiments also outside this tradition.53 On the other hand “founding” also refers to the specic Enochic world-view. The crucial, formative events, did not take place in the history of Israel, as we nd it in the Pentateuch; they took place in primeval time, in accordance with the mythical perception of the surrounding religions.54 The mythical world-view permeates almost all the characteristics that are most typical of Enochic apocalyptic in the way they are described by Nickelsburg, in what he designates as “a triple set of complementary dualisms.”55 There is a spatial axis, both vertical and horizontal.

52 See Sacchi, Jewish Apocalyptic, 47–60; “The Theology of Early Enochism and Apocalyptic,” in G. Boccaccini (ed.), The Origins of Enochic Judaism (Henoch 24; Torino: Zamorani, 2002) 77–85; Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis, 68–79; Roots, 89–111. 53 See H. S. Kvanvig, “Gen 6:3 and the Watcher Story,” Henoch 25 (2003) 277–300, esp. 279–81. 54 See Kvanvig, “Jubilees,” 258–61. 55 G. W. E. Nickelsburg, Ancient Judaism and Christian Origins (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2003) 73f; “Apocalyptic Construction of Reality,” in J. Neusner and A. J. Avery-Peck (eds.), George W. E. Nickelsburg in Perspective (Leiden: Brill, 2003) 29–43. In a response to Nickelsburg, Koch has doubted that the concept of dualism is a correct way of describing the three axes present in the Enochic writings. Koch emphasises that all the three dimensions belong to a world created by God. There are connections and continuity between the different locations and eras in space and time. See K. Koch, “Response to ‘the Apocalyptic Construction of Reality in 1 Enoch’ ”, 44–55.

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The vertical axis divides the world in heaven, earth and underworld, the horizontal separates an inner known world and an outer world where both the underworld and Paradise are located (see the Journeys of Enoch, 1 En 17–36). There is a historical axis that separates the now of history from the then of primordial rebellion. There is an ontological dualism that distinguishes humans from the realm of God and from the evil spirits. The basic structure of this shaping of the world is, however, mythic.56 In the early Enochic traditions this mythic shaping is not only presupposed as a common world-view of that time; it is activated as the actual space and time in which Enoch and the other earthly and otherworldly agents move. The borders between these different worlds are constantly crossed by the actors. When Nickelsburg stresses the dualism and division in the Enochic world-view, keeping the different worlds apart in time and space, this has to be seen as a tension within the texts. There is certainly not only dualism. There is just as much an overlap between the different worlds, both in time and space. Enoch, in his growing apocalyptic attire, his visionary capacity and his interest in eschatology, moves around in a mythic world, which is explicit and not only implicit in the texts. A myth is a complex, dynamic, narrative. The amalgam of diverse themes, woven together, makes up the communicative force of a myth.57 Although it is tempting to start to untangle the texture, we will rather begin by seeing how the narrative as a whole is composed.58

56 See the outline of a mythic shaping of the world in space and time given by N. Wyatt, Space and Time in the Religious Life of the Near East (Shefeld: Shefeld Academic Press, 2001) 53–94. 57 G. S. Kirk, Myth. Its Meaning and Function in Ancient and Other Cultures (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970) 275–85. 58 This does not mean that it is irrelevant to raise the diachronic questions to the text. With regard to date of origin we know from the two earliest Aramaic copies (4QEna–b) that the whole Book of the Watchers (1 En 1–36) circulated as an independent composition in the third century BCE; see F. García Martínez, Qumran and Apocalyptic (Studies in the Texts of the Desert of Judah 9; Leiden: Brill, 1992) 60–72. Nickelsburg separates two layers in the Watcher Story, the Shemihazah myth and the interpolated material about Asael. Because of the war scenery in the Shemihazah myth, he dates this myth to the end of the Diadochan wars (around 300 BCE), see G. W. E. Nickelsburg, “Apocalyptic and Myth in 1 Enoch 6–11,” JBL 96 (1977) 383–405; 1 Enoch 1, 165–72. This is tempting, but the question remains: When dealing with a myth, storing elements from different times, is it necessary to nd allusion only to one place in history, that we think may suit? Could the myth speak more generally about wars and violence? There is also the problem of analysing the myth on the basis of supposed literary or oral layers. We have no idea what a stratum looked like or what it communicated before it became a part of the texture in the Watcher Story. This

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The two united stories in the Watcher Story (6–16) I call the Rebel Story (6–11) and the Enoch Story (12–16). The rebel story contains two parts: The actions of the Watchers and giants (6,1–8,4), and the heavenly reaction (9:1–11:2). The rst part ends with an outcry, lq, qol, from humans to heaven (4Q201 iv 5–6 and 4Q202 iii 6). A similar uttering from the humans occurs in 7:6 dividing the rst part in two subsections: the rst telling about the rebellion of the Watchers and the destruction by the giants, the second concentrating on the teaching of the Watchers (7:7–8,4). The second main part (9:1–11:2) can be divided into two subsections: the rst recording how the message about the destruction of the earth is brought to the Most High (9,1–11), the second recording the response of the Most High (9:12–11:2). The second subsection is formed as a speech. The speech mode is the only way a narrative can open up for the future. The speech, nevertheless, continues the story line. The speech records the future as subsequent steps in the story: How Noah (Son of Lamech) shall escape the ood (10:1–3), how Asael shall be thrown into the pit (10:4–8), how the giants will destroy each other in battle (10:9–8), how Shemihazah and the other Watchers will be imprisoned in the underworld in seventy generations until the nal

is also the case with the relation between the Watcher Story proper (1 En 6–11) and the following Enoch Story (12–16). There are a lot of indications that the rst was written separately from the second, but we do not know what this rst part looked like before it was taken into the whole story (1 En 6–16). It is this Enochic version that has had its impact on later history. There is a long discussion about how the Watcher Story relates to Genesis. There are scholars who have argued for the Watcher Story as the parent text, see Milik, The Books of Enoch, 31ff.; Sacchi, Jewish Apocalyptic, 82f., and The History, 178; P. R. Davies, “Sons of Cain,” in P. R. Davies and J. D. Martin (eds.), A Word in Season: Essays in Honour of William McKane ( JSOTS 42; Shefeld: JSOT, 1986) 35–56; “Women, Men, Gods, Sex and Power: The Birth of a Biblical Myth,” in A. Brenner (ed.), A Feminist Companion to Genesis (Shefeld: Shefeld Academic Press, 1993) 194–201; “The Origin of Evil in Ancient Judaism,” ABR 50 (2002) 43–54, esp. 45–8. Most scholars seem, however, quite convinced that Gen 6:1–4 is the parent text; see among others, F. Dexinger, “Jüdisch-Christliche Nachgeschichte von Gen 6:1–4,” in G. Sauer, S. Kreuzer, and K. Lüthi (eds.), Zur Aktualität des Alten Testaments (Frankfurt am Main: P. Lang, 1992) 155–75, esp. 159ff.; J. C. VanderKam, “Biblical Interpretation in 1 Enoch and Jubilees,” in J. H. Charlesworth and C. A. Evans (eds.), The Pseudepigrapha and Early Biblical Interpretation ( JSPS 14; Shefeld: JSOT, 1993) 96–125, esp. 103ff; Enoch. A Man for All Generations, 31–42; “The Interpretation of Genesis in 1 Enoch,” in P. W. Flint (ed.), The Bible at Qumran. Text, Shape and Interpretation (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001) 129–48, esp. 131–4; K. E. Pomykala, “A Scripture Prole of the Book of Watchers,” in C. A. Evans and S. Talmon (eds.), The Quest for Context and Meaning, (Leiden: Brill, 1997) 263–84, esp. 266ff. See also Nickelsburg’s analysis in his commentary: Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 166–8.

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judgment (10:11–14), how all wickedness will be removed from the earth (10:15–16a), how the earth will be renewed in righteousness and peace (10:16b–11:2). This double facet, story line as prediction in speech, conceals the time aspect. The shifts in time come rapidly (see 10:6–8; 10:16). We do not really know when we are in the primeval time before the ood or when we are in the time before the nal end. The Enoch Story (12–16) has two subsections: in both Enoch is acting as an intermediary between the Watchers and the Most High. The rst subsection (12:1–13:10) tells how Enoch brings a petition from the Watchers to the Most High and receives visions as an answer (—the motif of petition is prepared in 10:10). The second subsection (14:1–16:4) records the content of the vision with a clear new beginning: afvwq ylm rps, “Book of the words of truth” (4Q204 vi 9). The whole Enoch Story is formed as retrospection in relation to the previous story (see 12:1–3). As a whole, the Enoch Story parallels the Rebel Story. Much of the same narrative epoch is told once more, but under an entirely different perspective, not the cry from humans, but the petition from the Watchers. Within the Enoch Story the second subsection parallels the rst. The vision recorded in 14:1ff. is the vision already reported in 13:8: “I saw a vision of rage” (4Q204 vi 5). When we focus on the Watcher Story as a whole (6–16), we see a complex texture of narrative layers. The ground structure is given by the ood story. There is the same succession of events as in both the Genesis version and the Babylonian Atra-›asÒs, forming the same basic plot structure: A period of turbulence leading up to the turning point, the divine decision to send a ood, the escape of the ood hero and his kin, the restoration of the earth and the decree of new conditions for human kind. This story line is in the Watcher Story stretched in time, as we have observed, but the same underlying structure is clear. The story line following the Watchers and giants dominates, but it is placed as a layer over the ood as the deep structure. Whatever sources may have been used in the Watcher Story, this story itself has never existed without this deep structure, which is the one that holds the narrative elements together. As we have seen, there is one more layer in the narrative, this time recorded afterwards. The Enoch Story in 12–16 claims to tell at least parts of the same story in 6–11, but in a different perspective: Enoch acts as an intercessor on behalf of the Watchers. Accordingly, in the narrative design also this story claims to be related to the ood story. Within the Enoch Story the basic layer is told rst, Enoch goes to the

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waters of Dan, reads aloud the petition from the Watchers, falls asleep and sees a vision (4Q204 vi he 2–5 = 1 En 13:7–8). The throne vision in 1 En 14 is a retrospective record of the content of this vision. The rst time Enoch appears as a visionary in the composition is accordingly in his role as intercessor at the waters of Dan. The Watcher Story as a whole contains three basic themes or codes that are repeated over and over again: The code of forbidden sexuality, the code of forbidden violence and the code of forbidden knowledge.59 In these codes are woven together both mythical themes and human experiences.60 The code of forbidden sexuality is ambiguous in the narrative. It may reect experiences of transgression of sexual borders. This is certainly the way it is interpreted in Jubilees.61 In the story itself the code of sexuality has, however, one main purpose: The sexual union between the Watchers and the women reveals how destructive violence and illegitimate knowledge were bred into this world from the divine. This is how this code functions in 6:1–8:4. The focus is here on the blend of human and divine, resulting in the demonic force of violence and knowledge (see the comment in 15:4–9). These are also the two codes that were in focus in the Apocalypse of Weeks, the giqrax and ˜amsax, the “deceit and violence”. In recording the primeval events there have been contacts between the Genesis and Enoch traditions, but more complex it seems than often assumed.62 There is, however, one crucial difference between Genesis and 1 Enoch that often has been underlined. In Genesis the reason for the ood rests in human sinfulness, in 1 Enoch, it goes back to a divine rebellion and intervention, causing cosmic instability due to the

59 See H. S. Kvanvig, “Origin and Identity of the Enoch Group,” in The Origins of Enochic Judaism, 207–12. 60 See for the giants as ancient or primeval warriors the discussion of the material in R. Bartelmus, Heroentum in Israel und seiner Umwelt (Zürich: Theologische Verlag, 1979) 31–78; see also the fragments from Pseudo-Eupolemus recording that the giants lived in Babylonia in primeval time and were annihilated in the ood, Kvanvig, Roots of Apocalyptic, 111–7. There is one tradition connected to primeval knowledge that relates that the apkallus, the primeval sages, were dispatched to the underworld because they angered the gods, Kvanvig, Roots of Apocalyptic, 200, 205–7, 313–5. 61 See Kvanvig, “Jubilees,” 248–52. Many will follow Suter in his argument that 1 En 15 reects violation of priestly purity in improper marriages, see D. Suter, “Fallen Angel, Fallen Priest: The Problem of Family Purity in 1 Enoch 6–16,” HUCA 50 (1979) 115–35; “Revisiting ‘Fallen Angel, Fallen Priest’,” in The Origins of Enochic Judaism, 137–42. See also Kvanvig, “Origin and Identity,” 211f. 62 See Kvanvig, “Gen 6:3,” 284–300; Idem, “The Watcher Story and Genesis,” SJOT 18 (2004) pp. 277–300.

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blend of the human and divine. At this point 1 Enoch comes closer to Atra-›asÒs than to Genesis. Both creation stories in Atra-›asÒs contain the same element of merger of the divine and the human. The rst humans are created out of a blend of clay with divine esh and blood. The slaughtered god is IlawÏila, “god-man-god”, the rebel god who distinguished himself with ¢Ïmu, “intelligence, planning capacity.” In the second creation story humans are born, seven pairs, by goddesses in order to procreate rapidly. It also appears that the gods forgot to create humans with the ability to die.63 The result was a rigmu, “noise”, roaring through the whole story, signalling the cosmic instability. The world had to be completely destroyed, it was constructed erroneously from the beginning. Only after the ood did the gods nd the right balance. In this story the reason for the ood was not human sin or error, but divine mistake, making a world that ended in chaos. The basic reason for this was the fusion of the human and the divine. In Atra-›asÒs the ood hero has the role of an intercessor between the antediluvian race, completely out of control, and the god Enki. Immediately before the ood he goes to a river, brings with him a petition, performs a sacrice, falls asleep and sees a dream vision.64 I think we here nd the depiction of the second role model for Enoch, besides the sages of the primeval time. The place where we nd Enoch introduced as a visionary in the Watcher Story coincides with the place in Atra›asÒs where the ood hero is most clearly described with a visionary capacity, foreseeing the future fate of the antediluvians. The Watcher Story gives a vision of the world totally different from the other early Enochic composition, the Astronomical Book. The Watchers were the guardians of the cosmic order, both the celestial bodies,

63 See M. Stol, Birth in Babylonia and the Bible (Groningen: Styx, 2000) 112–8; see also H. S. Kvanvig, “Gen 6:1–4 as an Antediluvian Event,” SJOT 16 (2002) 79–112, esp. 93–112; “The Watcher Story, Genesis and Atra-Hasis: A Triangular Reading,” in The Origin of Enochic Judaism, 17–22. 64 This incident comes between the third plague and the ood. It is written on tablet 5 rev. 55–74 in the Sippar version of the story, published by A. R. George and F. N. H. Al-Rawi, “Tablets from the Sippar Library VI. Atra-Hasis,” Iraq 58 (1996) 147–90. A translation and discussion of the section is found in S. A. L. Butler, Mesopotamian Conceptions of Dreams and Dream Rituals (AOAT 258; Münster: Ugarit Verlag, 1998) 227–31. For the relation between Atra-Hasis and Enoch, see the discussion in Kvanvig, “Gen 6:3,” 297–9.

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meteorological, natural and cultural phenomena.65 Therefore they could teach the secrets about how to get access to this hidden knowledge.66 When these divinities rebelled, they caused such damage to the world that God had to make an end to it. Behind this adaptation of a central motif from the ancient ood story lies an experience and interpretation of the world that tells that the cosmos is out of divine control. The myth does not only function as an etiology of evil, it is also meant as a paradigm of evil. If the rst end was necessary, a second end will be necessary to put an end to all evil and to set the cosmos in a new order. Thus there are two different beginnings in the Enochic writings, both resting on Babylonian traditions about primeval time and the role models given there. The one, as found in the Astronomical Book, is the scientic, the drive to discover the laws of cosmos; the other, as found in the Watchers Story, is a radical vision of a world in chaos, out of divine control. As the Enoch traditions develop the two notions could be held together in various ways. We have examined one way in the Apocalypse of Weeks, where history became the scene of the rivalry of the two visions of cosmos. We already see the need to reconcile the two visions in the introduction to the Book of the Watchers (1 En 1–5). Here we nd the same attempt to reconcile the radical vision of a world gone astray with the conviction of the stability of the cosmic order.

65

See their names in 4Q201 iii 5–13; 4Q202 ii 15–7; 4Q204 ii 24–29 = 1 En 6:7–8. See the discussion in Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 179–81. 66 See 4Q201 iv 1–5; 4Q202 iii 1–5 = 1 En 8:1–3.

1 ENOCH AND BEN SIRA: WISDOM AND APOCALYPTICISM IN RELATIONSHIP Benjamin G. Wright III Lehigh University, United States Scholars have usually treated the categories of wisdom and apocalypticism as separate systems of thought, worldviews or literary types, but recently they have devoted quite a bit of energy to demonstrating the inadequacy of earlier denitions and to breaking down the wall of separation between them.1 In one of the earliest attempts to relate wisdom and apocalypticism, Gerhard von Rad argued that Jewish apocalypticism grew out of wisdom.2 Although scholars by and large have not accepted von Rad’s arguments without modication, he highlighted what seems more and more apparent—that Jewish wisdom and apocalypticism are much closer to one another than we might have thought not too long ago. Indeed, the recent publication of the wisdom texts discovered at Qumran, particularly 4QInstruction, has brought this entire issue into even bolder relief and has blurred the boundaries even further.3 1 A large proportion of the studies cited in this paper have contributed to that enterprise. Building on and extending the results of previous scholarship, the work of the Wisdom and Apocalypticism in Early Judaism and Christianity Group of the Society of Biblical Literature over the last decade has narrowing the divide between wisdom and apocalypticism as an explicit goal. 2 G. von Rad, Wisdom in Israel (Nashville: Abingdon, 1972). The importance of von Rad’s work is apparent in the number of studies that have used it as a framework for asking questions about wisdom and apocalypticism. See, for example, J. J. Collins, “Wisdom, Apocalypticism, and Generic Compatibility,” in L. Perdue, B. B. Scott, and W. J. Wiseman (eds.), In Search of Wisdom. Essays in Memory of John G. Gammie (Lousiville: Westminster, 1993) 165–85 and M. E. Stone, “Lists of Revealed Things in the Apocalyptic Literature,” in F. M. Cross Jr., W. E. Lemke, and P. D. Miller (eds.), Magnalia Dei: The Mighty Acts of God. Essays on the Bible and Archaeology in Memory of G. Ernest Wright (Garden City: Doubleday, 1976) 414–52. 3 For the most recent accounting of those Qumran texts considered “wisdom,” see A. Lange, “Die Weisheitstexte aus Qumran: Eine Einleitung,” in C. Hempel, A. Lange, and H. Lichtenberger (eds.), The Wisdom Texts from Qumran (BETL 159; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2002) 3–30. For 4QInstruction in particular, see J. Strugnell and D. Harrington, Qumran Cave 4.XXIV: Sapiential Texts, Part 2. 4QInstruction (Musar Le Mevin): 4Q415ff. With a re-edition of 1Q26 (DJD 34; Oxford: Clarendon, 1999). On wisdom and apocalypticism in 4QInstruction, see M. J. Goff, The Worldly and Heavenly Wisdom of 4QInstruction (STDJ 50; Leiden: Brill, 2003). For 1 Enoch and the Qumran wisdom texts, see the article by E. J. C. Tigchelaar in the present volume.

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In particular, two early Jewish works, 1 Enoch and the Wisdom of Ben Sira, have been at the center of this scholarly conversation. Whereas some studies have singled out particular features of these works as exemplary of the relationship between wisdom and apocalypticism, others have suggested a closer relationship, one that extends to the people who composed and used them. In this paper I want to argue, based on some of the scholarly work that has argued for a relationship between these works, that the converging lines of evidence allow us to suggest not only literary similarities and connections, but also a social connection between the people responsible for them. While Ben Sira is perhaps the quintessential early Jewish wisdom book, 1 Enoch is a composite work, and in this paper I will draw on three of 1 Enoch’s constituent parts, two that are clearly apocalypses, the Book of the Watchers (1 En 1–36) and the Astronomical Book (1 En 72–82), and a third that certainly contains an apocalyptic eschatology but that is formally somewhat different from the literary genre “apocalypse,” the Epistle of Enoch (1 En 91–104).4 I will focus on three possible connections among these works that have different implications for assessing their relationships. The rst, and probably most easily demonstrated, are shared literary themes, forms and vocabulary. These features show that certain common ideas were prevalent in the worlds of these writers, and, while they do not give any necessary indication that Ben Sira and the Enochic authors knew each other, they indicate some of the issues that concerned Jews in the period when these works were composed. Second, and more difcult to discern, is social location, that is, the possible places in the social landscape of Second Temple Judaism where these works might have originated and been used. In the same way that a literary relationship does not assure connections between people in a social context, arriving at some conclusions about social location in this sense does not necessarily allow reconstructing a social world in which these people directly engaged each other. The third and most difcult question, which is a variant on the problem of social location, concerns whether the texts provide any evidence of exactly who their authors/redactors and readers were and whether they were aware of or responding to each other. Do the relationships between their

4 For the most widely accepted denition of the genre apocalypse, see J. J. Collins, “Introduction: Towards the Morphology of a Genre,” in J. J. Collins (ed.), Apocalypse: The Morphology of a Genre (Semeia 14; Missoula: Scholars Press, 1979) 1–20, esp. 9.

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literary products indicate that these individuals or groups were directly addressing one another through them? Even though this third avenue of investigation presents the greatest obstacles, it holds out the possibility of connecting some of the disparate dots and envisioning some aspects of the social and religious context of Second Temple Judaism. Common Literary Themes, Forms and Devices A number of scholars, most notably Michael Stone, George Nickelsburg, Randal Argall and Gabriele Boccaccini, have presented arguments that parts of 1 Enoch employ sapiential forms, language and ideas, even if the Enochic authors frequently invest them with content and meaning different from their parallels in wisdom literature. All four scholars to various extents invoke Ben Sira as one of the wisdom texts to which 1 Enoch might be compared. Stone analyzes the broad literary connections between wisdom and apocalypticism. In his article, “Lists of Revealed Things in the Apocalyptic Literature,” he argues that the lists appearing in a number of apocalypses, including several in 1 Enoch, have a common function and content. Their characteristics convince him that “[t]hese lists must be associated with certain types of interrogative lists. These lists take their origin apparently in the interrogative Wisdom formulations such as Job 38 and Ben Sira 1:3ff.”5 Based on the observation that the individual elements in the apocalyptic lists are not often represented in those found in wisdom books, he concludes, “The lists in the apocalypses are not merely inherited units of Wisdom material; they comprise rather catalogues of actual subjects of speculative investigation, study, and perhaps even of the contents of ecstatic experiences of the apocalyptic authors.”6 So, while these lists reveal a clear literary relationship between wisdom and apocalypticism, one cannot claim that the apocalyptic authors simply borrowed them from the wisdom tradition. The situation is clearly much more complex and uid than that, and Stone notes that the specic avenues and mechanisms of transmission “may prove difcult to trace.”7 Despite our inability to draw precise lines between

5 6 7

Stone, “Lists of Revealed Things,” 434–5. Stone, “Lists of Revealed Things,” 435–6. Stone, “Lists of Revealed Things,” 438.

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wisdom and apocalypticism on the issue of these lists, Stone argues persuasively that some relationship is assured. George Nickelsburg, looking specically at 1 Enoch, has concluded that all of the work’s major constituent parts employ sapiential ideas and forms in such a way that “the Enochic authors presented their material as revealed Wisdom that provided an alternative or rival to the Mosaic Torah.”8 Indeed, this revealed wisdom “is a comprehensive category that includes revelations about God’s will expressed in commandments and laws, about blessings and curses that will come to those who obey or disobey, and about the world in which these are enacted.”9 For example, Nickelsburg argues that fundamental to the way that 1 Enoch construes Law and the interpretation of it is the idea that Wisdom originated in the heavenly realm and that it can only be acquired through revelation. For the Enochic authors, Enoch received this revelation when he ascended to heaven and brought back wisdom with him, which he subsequently wrote down in books to be transmitted to later generations. Nickelsburg sees in this construction the myth of the descent of wisdom, an idea found in Proverbs 8, but interpreted in Sirach 24 and Baruch 4 as referring to the Mosaic Torah.10 Since 1 Enoch identies Wisdom with the Enochic corpus, the Enochic authors do more than place these works on a par with the Mosaic Torah. The Enochic writings constitute a much more ancient and authentic revelation than the Mosaic Law, since Enoch received and descended with heavenly wisdom well before Moses received the tablets of the Law. Ben Sira’s and Baruch’s claims that this descended Wisdom is embodied in the Law essentially get trumped by 1 Enoch in which Enoch has already in primordial times ascended to heaven to receive it. The most important element in this comparison of Ben Sira and 1 Enoch is that while the use to which Sirach (and Baruch) puts this myth of wisdom descended from heaven differs from that of 1 Enoch, their authors appeal to the same myth, if a bit differently constructed, to argue that they possess the embodiment of divine Wisdom and thereby God’s will for humankind. Nickelsburg concludes, “Thus, in contrast to the received paradigm of a Judaism centered around the

8 G. W. E. Nickelsburg, “Enochic Wisdom: An Alternative to the Mosaic Torah?” in J. Magness and S. Gitin (eds.), HESED VE-EMET: Studies in Honor of Ernest S. Frerichs (BJS 320; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988) 123–32, esp. 124. 9 Nickelsburg, “Enochic Wisdom,” 128. 10 Nickelsburg, “Enochic Wisdom,” 127.

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Mosaic Torah, we nd an Enochic corpus, presented as Sacred Scripture, embodying the divine wisdom necessary for the salvation of those who live in the last times.”11 Randal Argall in his book 1 Enoch and Sirach: A Comparative Literary and Conceptual Analysis of the Themes of Revelation, Creation and Judgment makes the most extensive arguments for a literary relationship between 1 Enoch and Ben Sira. Succinctly, Argall summarizes his thesis this way: A close reading of 1 Enoch and Sirach brings them much closer together on the literary and conceptual spectrum. These two texts represent roughly contemporary Jewish writings that not only describe themselves as wisdom in competition with other wisdom, they do so when explicating the same themes. Moreover, in the explication of these themes, we can recognize both a shared conceptual framework and a common fund of literary forms [i.e. the prophetic woe-oracle and exhortation] and vocabulary.12

Argall isolates the three major themes enumerated in his title because “it appears that these themes were subjects of learned inquiry in the late-third and early-second centuries BCE.”13 In various ways, both 1 Enoch and Sirach engage these ideas, demonstrating some similarities and differences. So, for example, Argall explains that both the authors of 1 Enoch and Ben Sira claim that the order and makeup of the cosmos teach an ethical lesson. The way that the astronomical bodies obey God’s will in their regular and predictable travels through the sky provides a lesson that people must also obey God. The authors of the Epistle of Enoch (1 En 100–102) and the Astronomical Book (1 En 80–82) employ this ordered regularity as the basis for warnings to those who violate what they understand to be an ethical or calendrical order that God has ordained. Ben Sira also touts the orderly nature of God’s created order, especially in the movement of the celestial bodies and the appearance of weather phenomena (43:1–22). Through his doctrine of the syzygies (42:24–25), Ben Sira claims that God has embedded a basic plan in the cosmos

11

Nickelsburg, “Enochic Wisdom,” 127. R. A. Argall, “Competing Wisdoms: 1 Enoch and Sirach,” in Gabriele Boccaccini (ed.), The Origins of Enochic Judaism: Proceedings of the First Enoch Seminar (Turin: Zamorani, 2002) 169–78, esp. 169. 13 R. A. Argall, 1 Enoch and Sirach: A Comparative Literary and Conceptual Analysis of the Themes of Revelation, Creation and Judgment (SBLEJL 8; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995) 3. See below for the implications of this statement for social location and group identication. 12

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that humans can observe. For Ben Sira, the elements of creation also become instruments with which God can bless those who obey and punish those who do not (39:22–31).14 Similarly for the themes of revelation and judgment, Argall isolates the many elements that 1 Enoch and Sirach share as well as those that separate them. His study is most successful in showing that the conventional labels “apocalypticism” and “wisdom” applied to these two works obscure rather than illuminate the complex relationship between them at the level of literary themes, forms and vocabulary. Using a broader approach to the categories of wisdom and apocalypticism, Gabriele Boccaccini has also argued for a relationship between works like Ben Sira and 1 Enoch.15 Boccaccini understands the relationship between apocalypticism and wisdom to be one of confrontation, although primarily a literary confrontation, originating out of the different answers given in wisdom and apocalypticism to essentially the same questions. As Boccaccini reconstructs the situation, Ben Sira writes at a very critical time in the history of Jewish thought, one in which “[t]he characteristic tension of ancient Jewish thought—a tension never completely resolved between the ideas of covenant and promise, in other words, between an idea of salvation that rests on human forces and one that rests on the hope of God’s intervention—was by that time [the time of Ben Sira] denitely in crisis.”16 By the time Ben Sira arrived on the scene, the Book of the Watchers and the Astronomical Book had already articulated a view that “individual responsibility is gravely compromised. Salvation is entrusted to an extraordinary intervention by God and the idea of covenant is emptied of all substance.”17 Wisdom tradition, particularly as embodied in Ben Sira’s wisdom, was obliged to confront this challenge. Boccaccini nds “traces” of this confrontation in Job and Qoheleth, but it reaches its most intense moment in Ben Sira’s response. For Boccaccini, this debate is a “bitter” one, the questions “urgent,” and the answers boil down to two crucial themes, the problem of knowledge and the issue of salvation with its constituent conundrum of the origins of evil.18

14

For Argall’s discussion, see Argall, 1 Enoch and Sirach, 99–164. G. Boccaccini, Middle Judaism: Jewish Thought 300 BCE to 200 CE (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1991). 16 Boccaccini, Middle Judaism, 78. 17 Boccaccini, Middle Judaism, 79. 18 Boccaccini, Middle Judaism, 80–1. 15

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Boccaccini’s reconstruction of the relationship, then, differs from Argall’s. Whereas at many points Argall claims that, despite undeniable differences, Ben Sira’s and 1 Enoch’s answers to some questions are not all that far apart, Boccaccini seems to suggest that while the questions are the same and thus held in common because they lie at the heart of what constitutes Judaism in this period, their answers, that is their claims about what makes up true Judaism, could not be more different—hence the confrontational nature of Boccaccini’s reconstruction. As we shall see below, however, despite their diverging assessments of the situation, both Argall and Boccaccini think that the literary relationship between 1 Enoch and Sirach suggests a social and religious confrontation. A nal literary commonality between 1 Enoch and Ben Sira is the way in which Enoch himself gets represented. Stone notes that as the originator of certain learned arts, like astronomy, and as a recipient of wisdom, the gure of Enoch must have accumulated wisdom characteristics very early and that this ancient sage appears in the Book of the Watchers and the Astronomical Book already as a fully developed character.19 Although Ben Sira’s references to Enoch are meager and somewhat enigmatic, Stone has also argued that Ben Sira’s claim that Enoch was t[d twa (44:16 Gk.    ) recognizes the wisdom characteristics attached to Enoch by his time.20 Similarly, Argall claims that this verse reveals Ben Sira’s awareness of extra-biblical traditions about the predeluvian patriarch, like those found in 1 Enoch, that present him as a revealer gure.21 Whatever nuance one wants to give it, Enoch’s character as a wisdom gure seems shared by both works. Each of the scholars whose positions I have outlined above recognizes in Ben Sira and 1 Enoch a literary relationship of some sort. Whether it is a particular type of literary device like the lists that Stone studied or the common use of wisdom forms and vocabulary like those

19 M. E. Stone, “Enoch, Aramaic Levi and Sectarian Origins,” JSJ 19 (1988) 159–70, esp. 163. 20 Stone, “Enoch, Aramaic Levi,” 167. idem, “Apocalyptic Literature,” in M. E. Stone (ed.), Jewish Writings of the Second Temple Period (CRINT 2.2; Assen: Van Gorcum, 1984) 383–441, esp. 395. 21 Argall, 1 Enoch and Sirach, 9–13. Some scholars maintain that 44:16 is not original to Ben Sira (Th. Middendorp, P. L. Skehan and A. A. Di Lella) or that it does not belong here in the book (Y. Yadin). Although I earlier accepted Yadin’s argument, I have since come to think, along with Argall, Stone and others that the verse belongs right where it is. B. G. Wright, “Fear the Lord and Honor the Priest: Ben Sira as Defender of the Jerusalem Priesthood,” in P. C. Beentjes (ed.), The Book of Ben Sira in Modern Research (BZAW 255; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1997) 189–222, esp. 214–7.

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highlighted by Nickelsburg or broader themes like those Argall examined or even basic questions of the tradition as Boccaccini has proposed, clearly these works share commonalities that the traditionally exclusive categories of “wisdom” and “apocalypticism” mask. The work that these scholars have done has contributed to a breaking down of that mutual exclusivism, but a difcult obstacle remains, one that Stone highlights in his recognition that even though the apocalypticism lists probably derive ultimately from wisdom contexts “the lines of connection may prove difcult to trace.”22 Each of these studies has inherent in it this same difculty. Can we, and if so how can we, trace those connecting lines? We can begin to look for some answers by looking at the possible social locations of these texts. The Social Location of 1 Enoch and Ben Sira The phrase “social location” can mean different things to different people. In some cases it might refer to identifying particular social groups who compose and use pieces of literature. But as numerous scholars have pointed out, to begin with a piece of literature and to posit from it the existence of a social group is problematic at best and dangerous at worst.23 But the search for a work’s social location might also have as a goal to indicate the place within the social landscape into which a text might t. So, for example, one might identify the social location of texts that come from cultures that have low levels of literacy among the elite groups who would be literate and in the institutions where they ourish. In addition, specic thematic interests and content might point to some of the places out of which works of literature come, and shared background and interests might well point to a common place or institution in the social landscape. So while identifying groups behind texts, especially previously unattested groups, might seem a daunting task, perhaps asking in what places and among what groups these texts are likely to have arisen will provide another avenue for inquiring about their possible connections and social worlds.

22

Stone, “Lists of Revealed Things,” 438. M. E. Stone uses the term “danger” in “The Book of Enoch and Judaism in the Third Century BCE,” in M. E. Stone and D. Satran (eds.), Emerging Judaism (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1989) 61–75, esp. 65 (originally in CBQ 40 (1978) 479–92). 23

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Several factors point to the wisdom school as a likely social location for both Ben Sira and 1 Enoch.24 By the phrase “wisdom school” I do not mean to suggest something analogous to the modern institution of a school, but rather simply some formal pedagogical context in which a teacher/sage instructs students. The Wisdom of Ben Sira would certainly t that description as well as any ancient Jewish text that we know. The book indicates that Ben Sira was a scribe-sage who trained young men to follow him in public service as scribe-sages. The topics that he addresses are quite diverse. He treats everyday social situations that his trainees might face, such as attending a banquet or going into a court of law, but he also teaches about matters that might be considered more traditionally intellectual or even speculative, such as his doctrine of the syzygies. Even though he makes critical remarks about some kinds of speculative interests, particularly about matters like trying to understand the secrets of the inner workings of the universe (cf. 3:22–24) or interpreting dreams (34:1–8), he displays interest in the functions of the various celestial bodies and cosmic phenomena (cf. 43:1–26).25 If any text would seem to come from a “school” context, Ben Sira would certainly qualify. But what about 1 Enoch? The situation might not be as straightforward as with Ben Sira, but a case still can be made for locating 1 Enoch in a wisdom school setting. Most signicantly a number of clues can be marshaled to suggest that 1 Enoch has instruction as one of its primary purposes.26 Both Nickelsburg and Argall have made good cases that the corpus as we have it, particularly the Astronomical Book and the Epistle of Enoch, is presented as a book of revealed wisdom.27 Among the Enochic books, the Astronomical Book is probably the clearest example of instruction. It contains primarily data, a detailed compendium of various sorts of cosmological, astronomical and meteorological information. Yet, these data are presented as revealed knowledge intended to instruct the reader in proper calendrical practice

24 For a more detailed argument, see B. G. Wright, “Wisdom, Instruction and Social Location in Ben Sira and 1 Enoch,” in E. G. Chazon, D. Satran, and R. A. Clements (eds.), Things Revealed: Studies in Early Jewish and Christian Literature in Honor of Michael E. Stone ( JSJS 89; Leiden: Brill, 2004) 105–21. 25 On this problem, see Wright, “Fear the Lord.” 26 Wright, “Wisdom, Instruction.” 27 Nickelsburg, “Enochic Wisdom” and Argall, 1 Enoch and Sirach.

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while at the same time trying to counteract “the sinners” who adhere to a different calendar.28 The Epistle of Enoch’s condemnation of false teachers and their lying words indicates some conict over proper teaching. In this work, the foolish do not possess knowledge or wisdom (98:3), nor do they obey the teaching of the wise (98:9). The author of the Epistle employs a number of traditional sapiential forms, such as “two-ways” material, but he also directs prophetic woes against his opponents. Thus, the instruction presented by the Epistle is reminiscent of the Torah-oriented teaching we nd in Ben Sira. Yet, Ben Sira and the Enochic authors differ dramatically when it comes to the purpose for offering their instruction. Ben Sira wants his students to heed his instruction so that they might have happiness and security in their lives—a good job, a well ordered family, honor in the eyes of the community. The tradent of the Astronomical Book wants to inculcate proper religious behavior, specically the use of a proper calendar, in contrast to the “sinners” who reckon their calendar incorrectly. The author of the Epistle, in light of what he sees as an impending judgment, desires that those whom he teaches follow his instruction so that they will avoid eschatological judgment and receive an eschatological reward. The other major point of division is the mechanism by which the teachers have acquired their wisdom. Ben Sira has studied the Law, has learned the traditions of the sages and has observed the way that the world works. This wisdom is available to anyone who can devote the requisite time to mastering it. By contrast, the Enochic authors received their wisdom handed down from Enoch who got it directly from God and who transmitted it to Methuselah through whom it came ultimately to them. These differences, however, should not obscure what I think to be a fundamental aspect of these works—their authors offer instruction that, if heeded, will enable the student/learner to achieve the right goal, to follow God’s will properly and thereby to achieve the good that awaits those who are faithful. If one likely social location for 1 Enoch and Ben Sira is formal pedagogy, then the complementary question arises of who typically would be teaching in such circumstances. Several considerations become

28 For the Astronomical Book as an instructional text, see Wright, “Wisdom, Instruction.”

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important factors in trying to resolve this problem. As we saw above, both 1 Enoch and Ben Sira reveal interest in similar themes and questions, such as the makeup and working of the universe, even if they evaluate differently the extent of what one can or should try to know. Michael Stone, speaking of 1 Enoch, writes, “It is of course impossible to know whether these people [i.e. those represented in Book of the Watchers and the Astronomical Book] formed a group that was distinct from all those already mentioned. At the very least, however, they reected an intellectual tradition and the likely relationships of that tradition can be studied. Its bearers must have been well-educated men and may possibly have been associated with the traditional intellectual groups, the wise and the priests.”29 In some cases, the wise may even be priests. Another group of educated experts, the scribes, are often connected with Israelite wisdom, and more and more scholars have situated apocalypticism in learned, scribal circles. Jonathan Z. Smith, for example, in a study based on Babylonian and Egyptian texts, concludes, “[ W]isdom and apocalypticism are related in that they are both essentially scribal phenomena. It is the paradigmatic thought of the scribe—a way of thinking that is both pragmatic and speculative—which has given rise to both,” and “Apocalypticism is a learned rather than a popular religious phenomenon.”30 As learned men, the scribes also have a close connection with both of the groups whom Stone identies as intellectual. While there are still many unanswered questions about how sages, priests and scribes may have been related to one another, in many cases, they have at a minimum closely converging agendas. When looking at Second Temple Judea, Richard Horsley and Patrick Tiller use the hyphenated term scribe-sage to speak of Jewish wisdom teachers like Ben Sira.31 The description given by Ben Sira in 38:24–39:11 of his own vocation contrasts the work of the scribe (Heb. rpws, Gk. ) with other occupations, like the farmer, the artisan and the smith. 38:24 begins by pointing out that the

29

Stone, “The Book of Enoch,” 73. J. Z. Smith, “Wisdom and Apocalyptic,” in J. Z. Smith (ed.), Map is Not Territory: Studies in the History of Religions (SJLS 23; Leiden: Brill, 1978), 67–87, esp. 74 and 86. 31 R. A. Horsley and P. Tiller, “Ben Sira and the Sociology of the Second Temple,” in P. R. Davies and J. M. Halligan (eds.), Second Temple Studies III: Studies in Politics, Class and Material Culture ( JSOTS 340; Shefeld: Shefeld Academic Press, 2002) 74–107, esp. 99–103. On scribes generally, see A. J. Saldarini, Pharisees, Scribes and Sadducees in Palestinian Society: A Sociological Approach (Wilmington: Michael Glazer, 1988). 30

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scribe-sage needs leisure time to “become wise,” whereas other trades take up all of one’s time. 39:1 essentially sums up 38:24–34: “How different is the one who devotes himself to the Law of the Most High.” Ben Sira’s identication of the scribe with one who can acquire wisdom indeed warrants the designation scribe-sage for Ben Sira. As a wise teacher, he prepares young scribes-in-training for careers in public service by conveying to them the wisdom that he has both inherited and developed. According to Horsley and Tiller, men like Ben Sira would have worked as retainers of the aristocratic priestly class from whom they had probably been ceded some of the responsibility for teaching the Jewish Law, a responsibility that Ben Sira ascribes originally to Aaron in 45:17. “In Second Temple Judea the (high) priesthood must have, in effect, over a period of generations, delegated that authority [i.e. to teach the Law] and function to the sages, both with regard to the people generally (37:23), and with regard to the exercise of their own governmental authority (8:8; 9:17–10:5; 38:32–33; 38:34–39:4)”32 These men were powerful and learned, and, according to Horsley and Tiller, dependent on the priestly aristocracy for their livelihood. This situation created a rather delicate position for scribe-sages like Ben Sira. They were vulnerable because they were politically and economically dependent, but in their own estimation their professional roles of teaching and administration should accord them high status and independence from their priestly superiors. In this circumstance lies the potential for conict, as we shall see below.33 As a scribe-sage, Ben Sira would have had close connections to and a vested interest in the priests for whom he worked. Indeed, some have argued that Ben Sira was actually a priest himself.34 Even if he was not a priest, he is certainly an outspoken proponent of the Jeru-

32

Horsley and Tiller, “Ben Sira,” 100. “Ben Sira,” 101–2. See also on the issue of the difcult social position of these scribe-sages, B. G. Wright and C. V. Camp, “ ‘Who Has Been Tested by Gold and Found Perfect?’ Ben Sira’s Discourse of Riches and Poverty,” Henoch 23 (2001) 153–74, esp. 162–72. 34 On Ben Sira’s possible priestly status see especially, H. Stadelmann, Ben Sira als Schriftgelehrter: Eine Untersuchung zum Berufsbild des vor-Makkabaïschen Sofer unter Berücksichtigung seines Verhältnisses zu Priester- Propheten- und Weisheitslehretum (WUNT 2/6; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1981) and S. Olyan, “Ben Sira’s Relationship to the Priesthood,” HTR 80 (1987) 261–286. Although Horsley and Tiller do not argue that Ben Sira was a priest, it is clear that some scribes were priests (see below) and nothing would seem to prevent a scribe-sage like Ben Sira from belonging to a priestly family, but one that perhaps did not belong to the elite that controlled the cultic apparatus in Jerusalem. 33

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salem priesthood.35 In the light of Horsley’s and Tiller’s analysis, this unequivocal support should not be surprising coming from someone who is dependent on the high priestly aristocracy. One example should sufce at this juncture.36 We nd Ben Sira’s views about the priesthood articulated most succinctly in 7:29–31. In this passage he adapts the language of Deut 6:5 in order to encourage that the priests get their due. He says, “With all your heart (bl lkb) fear the Lord and regard his priests as holy (çydqh). With all your might (dwam) love your maker and do not forsake his servants. Give glory to God, honor the priest, and give them their portion as you are commanded.” It is striking here that each action intended for God has a parallel one for the priests. Ben Sira employs Deuteronomy to give signicant symbolic and rhetorical weight to how important honoring the priests is. Loving and serving God and honoring his priests are equated in this passage. Consequently, one gives God proper honor by performing one’s cultic obligations and giving the priests their portion. The two strands that I have set out above for wisdom and apocalypticism—a social location connected with learned sages, priests and/or scribes and pedagogy—entwine into a single cord. These “schools” transmit various types of wisdom, the most prominent being practical wisdom of the sort we see Ben Sira dispensing to his budding public servants, and speculative wisdom, such as that found in both 1 Enoch and Ben Sira, which, among other things, tries to apprehend the rationale hidden in the workings of the created order. Those who cultivate, preserve and transmit this wisdom are most likely scribe-sages, perhaps connected with the priesthood. They might claim that their wisdom ultimately derives from different sources—from studying the Law, from observation of the world, or from revelation—but, as Horsley and Tiller put it, “[F]rom a sociological perspective, the differences between Enochic, mantic wisdom and traditional, ‘proverbial’ or ‘educational’ wisdom do not imply differences in social position or role. One group

35 M. Himmelfarb (“The Book of the Watchers and the Priests of Jerusalem,” The Origins of Enochic Judaism, 131–5, esp. 134) argues that Ben Sira, rather than being “an apologist for the priestly establishment,” was an internal critic employing an ideal picture and arguing for a royal priesthood. In my view, these are not mutually exclusive positions. A royal high priest might well be an innovation, but that is the situation in Jerusalem. While other Jews, like those responsible for the Book of the Watchers, might be more conservative on this issue, Ben Sira nevertheless advocates the position of those who hold power in Jerusalem. 36 For a more detailed look see, Wright, “Fear the Lord.”

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of sages cultivated both kinds of wisdom; another only educational.”37 That is, despite the clear and obvious differences between works like 1 Enoch and Ben Sira, especially in their content, they may well have their origins in a common location in the social landscape of Second Temple Judaism, in circles of scribe-sages and priests who preserve and teach their special wisdoms to their disciples. Common social location, however, might not imply common cause. Priestly Conflict between 1 Enoch and Sirach? Perhaps the most intriguing question about the relationship between 1 Enoch and Ben Sira is whether their common literary themes and forms together with what looks like a common social location provide any window into the relationships between the people who produced and used these works. Argall and Boccaccini both think they do, and they use the language of conict and debate to suggest that these works represent groups of Jews who are in active opposition. Argall notes that the differing views about the themes he recognizes in the works “are the stuff of conict” and Boccaccini refers to a “bitter debate.”38 In two articles, I have tried to bring some of the circumstantial evidence together, and I think that one can reasonably conclude that Ben Sira and the Book of the Watchers and possibly the Astronomical Book (in its present form) represent groups of Jews who, at the least, know each other’s arguments and who are indeed engaged in active polemic over some central issues, most specically the behavior of and thus the legitimacy of the priests who have control over the Jerusalem cultic apparatus.39 Since I have made and then summarized these arguments elsewhere, I will not do so in detail. My basic conclusion is most germane here. “In general, Sirach, 1 Enoch and Aramaic Levi

37

Horsley and Tiller, “Ben Sira,” 105. 4QInstruction contains both practical/educational wisdom and an eschatological wisdom, the hyhn zr, which the addressee is supposed to study. Furthermore, the practical wisdom is grounded in the eschatology and revelation. See Goff, Worldly and Heavenly Wisdom, 51–79. 38 Argall, 1 Enoch and Sirach, 250; Boccaccini, Middle Judaism, 80. 39 B. G. Wright, “Putting the Puzzle Together: Some Suggestions Concerning the Social Location of the Wisdom of Ben Sira,” in B. G. Wright and L. M. Wills (eds.), Conicted Boundaries in Wisdom and Apocalypticism (Atlanta: SBL, 2005) 89–112, and “Fear the Lord.” See my summary of the argument in B. G. Wright, “Sirach and 1 Enoch: Some Further Considerations,” The Origins of Enochic Judaism, 179–87. In these articles I also examined the Aramaic Levi Document.

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reect people and communities that care about the priesthood primarily because all apparently were priests or were closely connected with them. The most contentious issues seem to be the legitimacy of marriages contracted by the priestly class in Jerusalem and the use of varying calendars. We are presented then in these works with competing groups/communities who most likely know about each other, who don’t really like one another, and who actively polemicize against one another.”40 The priests and their scribal supporters who composed and used 1 Enoch and Aramaic Levi, then, were opposed to people like Ben Sira who was a partisan of those in power in Jerusalem (if he was not a priest himself ). I do want to think a little more about one piece of the argument, however. Martha Himmelfarb has issued a caution against the view “that the arguments implied by our texts were of interest only to priests.”41 She argues that the central importance of temple and priesthood was such that “all Jews, or rather, all members of the literate elite who have left us their thoughts, were likely to have ideas about how priests should behave.”42 This caution is well taken, and I do not want to insist that these people must have been priests; my conclusion actually is not really at odds with Himmelfarbs’ in that I suggest that it was priests and the scribes who supported them that were responsible for these criticisms. Yet, I think that the nature of the evidence presented in the previous two sections of this paper provide sufcient warrant for the suggestion that priests were some of the central players in this debate. In the case of Ben Sira, I noted how scholars have recognized his advocacy of the priesthood in Jerusalem. Whether or not Ben Sira was himself a priest by descent, the relationship between him, as a scribe-sage, and the priesthood was a close, indeed a dependent one, as Horsley and Tiller have argued.43 I am not speaking here about local village scribes who might be called upon to write down a petition of some sort. If Ben Sira is typical of the scribe-sage who acts as a retainer for the aristocratic priests, he not only is literate, but he is also trained in the wisdom traditions of Israel. He teaches and interprets the Law, activities that are connected with priests not only in the Bible, but in Ben Sira’s own book where God chooses Aaron to perform the 40 41 42 43

Wright, “Fear the Lord,” 218. Himmelfarb, “The Book of the Watchers,” 134–5. Himmelfarb, “The Book of the Watchers,” 135. Horsley and Tiller, “Ben Sira.”

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sacrices and “to teach Jacob the testimonies, and to enlighten Israel with his Law” (45:16–17). While some of the functions attributed to the scribe overlap with those of priests, and although Horsley and Tiller note that over some generations scribes must have taken over some of the priests’ teaching function, there is no reason to think that a priest could not be a scribe, especially since one becomes a scribe by training not by heredity.44 Turning to the gure of Enoch, the Book of the Watchers and the Astronomical Book (in its present form) ascribe to him both priestly and scribal functions.45 He is explicitly called “scribe of righteousness” (15:1), and in his bearing of the Watchers’ petition he acts as a scribe. In addition, he also takes on the role of the sage who hands down written wisdom to subsequent generations (82:1–4). But Enoch also possesses priestly characteristics. He has extraordinary access to the heavenly Temple (1 Enoch 14), and he not only writes and communicates the Watchers’ petition, he intercedes for them, acting as a priest on their behalf. In 1 Enoch, then, the converging relationship of the roles of priest and scribe in the gure of Enoch calls to mind the close social connection between the two groups that we see in Ben Sira, and it may be representative of the people behind the Enochic texts.46 The cases of Ben Sira and the gure of Enoch are not isolated ones in Second Temple Judaism. Steven Fraade has argued that scribes did not constitute a separate class of lay specialists in Second Temple times, but that “[t]o the extent that the scribes represent the rise of a new intellectual class, they remain within the priestly orbit and not apart from or opposed to it.”47 Ezra, of course, is the model priest-scribe whose activities “were not functions simply of pedigree or politics but of prophetic inspiration” (Ezra 7:6, 28).48 Ben Sira, the model scribe-sage, 44 A fact noted by M. Himmelfarb, “A Kingdom of Priests: The Democratization of the Priesthood in the Literature of Second Temple Judaism,” The Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy 6 (1997) 89–104, esp. 102 and Horsley and Tiller “Ben Sira,” 100. 45 On the gure of Enoch generally in Second Temple Judaism, see J. C. VanderKam, Enoch: A Man for All Generations (Studies on Personalities of the Old Testament; Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1995). 46 For additional arguments about Ben Sira and Enoch as scribes and/or priests, see Himmelfarb, “A Kingdom of Priests” and Ascent to Heaven in Jewish & Christian Apocalypses (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993) 23–5. See also S. Fraade, “They Shall Teach Your Statutes to Jacob: Priests, Scribes and Sages in Second Temple Times” (unpublished paper; my thanks to Prof. Fraade for making the paper available to me). 47 Fraade, “They Shall Teach.” 48 Fraade, “They Shall Teach.”

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makes these same claims of prophetic inspiration on his own behalf (cf. 24:30–34), and in 1 Enoch the predeluvian patriarch-scribe-priest also receives prophetic inspiration. In addition, employed in both Ben Sira and 1 Enoch we also nd such prophetic forms as the woe-oracle. While Fraade does not deny the existence of a lay elite, he argues that the functions of teaching and interpretation remain primarily a priestly prerogative and responsibility. Scholars who have seen in 1 Enoch, particularly the Book of the Watchers, a criticism of the priests in Jerusalem have generally avoided identifying those critics as priests themselves, but I do not think it a long jump from recognizing the literary relationships and the common social locations of Ben Sira and 1 Enoch together with the close association of scribe and priest in both works to postulating that the people responsible for the Enochic works were priests and their scribal retainers.49 I am not suggesting here that we see behind the Enochic works some new and previously unknown Jewish group. As I noted earlier, many scholars have pointed out the difculty, even futility, of such identications.50 I am trying to make an altogether different point. It is true that identifying criticisms of priests does not necessitate concluding that the critics were themselves priests. In the rst two sections of this paper, we have seen that Ben Sira and 1 Enoch share literary themes and forms, albeit with differing approaches and interpretations. These shared literary elements and interests might reect some common place in the Second Temple social landscape. I have argued that the wisdom “school” is a probable place to look for the creation, preservation and transmission of such interests. Other scholars have noted the possible connections between these intellectual traditions, apocalyptic literature and a scribal or priestly milieu. If we bring all these diverse pieces of evidence together, then, I think it quite likely that the criticisms of priestly marriage behavior in the Book of the Watchers or the calendrical problems articulated in the Astronomical Book originate in priestly contexts. If Ben Sira indeed intended certain passages in his book to address some of these priestly criticisms, then we can reconstruct plausibly a

49 D. Suter (“Fallen Angel, Fallen Priest: The Problem of Family Purity in 1 Enoch 6–16,” HUCA 50 [1979] 115–35) does make the suggestion that the criticisms should be connected with priests. 50 See, for example, Stone, “The Book of Enoch,” 66, and L. L. Grabbe, “The Social Setting of Early Jewish Apocalypticism,” JSP 4 (1989) 27–47.

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social context in which we see reected in Ben Sira and 1 Enoch different factions of priests and their partisans nding fault with others over various aspects of priestly practice and behavior. They expressed their grievances over and responded to the problems differently, but they also preserved and handed down their views to those whom they or their surrogates taught. Such inner-priestly conict would, of course, be nothing new in ancient Judaism. One of the best examples comes in the last chapters of Ezekiel, who is both priest and prophet, in which the author represents the Levites as committing idolatry, and, as a consequence, he announces that God has demoted them to the status of cultic janitors.51 The hereditary nature of the priesthood and the differing views as to who makes up the legitimate priesthood must have resulted in an ongoing struggle for power and control of such a central institution. While I do not want to minimize the differences between Ben Sira and 1 Enoch, they share enough in common to convince me that they do provide evidence of a polemical relationship between groups of priests and their scribal retinues whose divergent attitudes toward those who held the reins of cultic power resulted in contrasting assessments of how dangerous the present was and how God would respond to his people and the times in which they lived.

51 On these chapters, see J. D. Levenson, Theology of the Program of Restoration of Ezekiel 40–48 (HSM 10; Missoula: Scholars Press, 1976) 129–58.

WISDOM AND COUNTER-WISDOM IN 4QINSTRUCTION, MYSTERIES, AND 1 ENOCH* Eibert Tigchelaar Florida State University, United States At present, it is universally acknowledged that there are signicant parallels between the sapiential text 4QInstruction and the early apocalyptic Enoch literature.1 Elgvin initially suggested that “4QInstruction draws upon the Enoch tradition,”2 but a direct dependence between both texts and corpora has been questioned from different perspectives.3 For the present discussion several aspects are of importance. First, with regards to the question of literary dependence, there are no explicit references in either corpus to the other, and there is no certainty as to when exactly one should date either 4QInstruction or specic Enochic

* Earlier forms of this paper have been presented at the “Wisdom and Apocalypticism in Early Judaism and Early Christianity” Session of the Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting 2004 in San Antonio, and in Spring 2005 at the “Seminar for the Study of Judaism in Late Antiquity,” Durham, UK. I greatly thank the organizers of the Durham Seminar, Robert Hayward and Loren Stuckenbruck, for inviting me, and I am indebted to the discussion with the participants to the seminar. Nicole Tilford assisted with the editing of this paper. 1 See the summary by J. J. Collins, “The Eschatologizing of Wisdom in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in Sapiential Perspectives: Wisdom Literature in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls (ed. J. J. Collins, G. E. Sterling, and R. A. Clements; STDJ 51; Leiden: Brill, 2004), 49–65, esp. 62. 2 See, e.g., T. Elgvin, “The Mystery to Come: Early Essene Theology of Revelation,” in Qumran between the Old and New Testaments (ed. F. H. Cryer and T. L. Thompson; JSOTSS 290; Copenhagen International Seminar 6; Shefeld: Shefeld Academic Press, 1998), 113–50, esp. 146. 3 E. J. C. Tigchelaar (To Increase Learning for the Understanding Ones: Reading and Reconstructing the Fragmentary Early Jewish Sapiential Text 4QInstruction [STDJ 44; Leiden: Brill, 2001], 212–17) questions some purported correlations between 4QInstruction and the Epistle of Enoch, as well as the directions of dependence. L. T. Stuckenbruck (“4QInstruction and the Possible Inuence of Early Enochic Traditions: An Evaluation,” in The Wisdom Texts from Qumran and the Development of Sapiential Thought [ed. C. Hempel, A. Lange, and H. Lichtenberger; BETL 159; Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2002], 245–61) questions both a direct literary dependence, as well as a sociologically continuous group. M. J. Goff (The Worldly and Heavenly Wisdom of 4QInstruction [STDJ 50; Leiden: Brill, 2003], 185–88) does not claim a literary dependence, but accepts that “the author of 4QInstruction was familiar with Enochic texts.”

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texts such as the Epistle of Enoch.4 Second, the new paradigm, which explains second c. BCE literature in terms of amalgamation or bricolage, is not entirely compatible with older paradigms, which presuppose gradual developments within generically delineated groups of texts from one text to another.5 The observation that different texts fuse sapiential and apocalyptic elements hardly helps us to understand the exact relation between those texts. The bricolage paradigm also, at least for this period of literature, severs the connection between literary forms or genres and social or sociological settings. In other words, those familiar concepts of apocalyptic and wisdom cannot be used as umbrella terms to denote either specic kinds of literature or modes of thinking.6 In this contribution I will depart from the assumption that both the early Enoch literature and 4QInstruction and Mysteries might well originate in the early part of the second c. BCE, without one of them ostensibly being earlier than the other. Moreover, in view of the recent deconstruction of the categories “wisdom” and “apocalyptic” as general descriptive terms of literature or modes of thinking,7 I will not deal with wisdom as such, but instead focus on specic formal elements related to “wisdom” in the early Enoch literature, 4QInstruction, and other sapiential texts.8 My starting point will be some sections from

4 For the date of 4QInstruction, see Goff, The Worldly and Heavenly Wisdom, 228–32, who, after a long discussion, hesitantly places 4QInstruction in the same era as Ben Sira. 5 See Collins, “The Eschatologizing of Wisdom,” 63, and M. Kister, “Wisdom Literature and its Relation to Other Genres: From Ben Sira to Mysteries,” in Sapiential Perspectives, 14–47. 6 It therefore is no coincidence that both Kister (“Wisdom Literature,” 45) and Collins (“The Eschatologizing of Wisdom,” 63) explicitly acknowledge the existence of different kinds of wisdom within both Enochic and the so-called Qumran sapiential literature. 7 We owe this deconstruction to the work of Michael Stone, George Nickelsburg, Randy Argall and Benjamin Wright. See B. G. Wright, “Wisdom, Instruction, and Social Location in Sirach and 1 Enoch,” in Things Revealed: Studies in Early Jewish and Christian Literature in Honor of Michael E. Stone (ed. E. G. Chazon, D. Satran, and R. A. Clements; SJSJ 89; Leiden: Brill, 2004), 105–21. 8 The Dead Sea Scrolls composition named Mysteries is commonly referred to as a “sapiential text.” In fact, inasmuch as can be determined from the remnants, it is a composite text with both sapiential forms (such as the riddle, the wisdom contest) and other elements. At any rate, it is by no means a “sapiential instruction,” pace A. Lange (“Annotated List of the Texts from the Judaean Desert Classied by Content and Genre,” in The Texts from the Judaean Desert: Indices and an Introduction to the Discoveries in the Judaean Desert Series [ed. E. Tov et al.; DJD 39; Oxford: Clarendon, 2002], 115–64, 140). The element of instruction is entirely missing from this text.

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4QInstruction, from which I will then turn to other texts including the early Enoch literature. 1. 4Q418 69 ii on Folly The large fragment 4Q418 69 ii9 has received much attention and has often been compared to sections of 1 Enoch, because it offers, together with 4Q416 1, the most comprehensive overview of the eschatology of 4QInstruction. The text contains descriptions of theophanic judgment, as well as implicit and explicit statements about one’s fate after death, including, according to some scholars, a reference to resurrection.10 In an earlier discussion of this fragment, I focused on the particular style of the fragment: whereas the largest part of 4QInstruction is directed to a second person singular addressee, 4Q418 69 ii 4–15 contains two different second plural speeches.11 The rst is directed to the “foolish of heart” and the second to the “elect of truth,” or perhaps “those who choose truth.” Strugnell suggested on the basis of the alternation of second plural and singular discourse “that these two instructions might have been originally composed as twin set-pieces now integrated into the instruction for the maven,” i.e., the ˆybm, or “the understanding one.”12 Yet, he did not back up this suggestion by referring to any other difference of thought, form, or terminology. I demonstrated that the twin pieces of 4Q418 69 ii share correspondences with 4Q418 55 and that these two sections are stylistically and terminologically distinct from the rest of 4QInstruction, even though they share some of its characteristic vocabulary. Moreover, and perhaps surprisingly, exactly those stylistic features and terms of 4Q418 55 and 69 ii that are unusual in the rest of 4QInstruction are attested in the remains of another sapiential text, Mysteries.13 What then, are these correspondences? Mysteries, as well as

9 The small fragment 4Q418 60 should be joined to 4Q418 69 ii 4–5, but instead of referring to 4Q418 69 ii + 60, I simply refer to the fragment as 4Q418 69 ii. 10 Goff, The Worldly and Heavenly Wisdom, 168–215, esp. 173–79, deals with these topics and conveniently refers to previous literature. 11 Tigchelaar, To Increase Learning, 208–24. 12 J. Strugnell, D. J. Harrington and T. Elgvin, Qumran Cave 4:XXIV: Sapiential Texts Part 2: 4QInstruction (Musar le Mevin): 4Q415ff (DJD 34; Oxford: Clarendon, 1999) [henceforth: DJD 34], 1–40, esp. 14. 13 E. Tigchelaar, “Your Wisdom and Your Folly: The Case of 1–4QMysteries,” in Wisdom and Apocalypticism in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the Biblical Tradition (ed. F. García Martínez; BETL 168; Leuven: Peeters, 2003), 69–88, esp. 79–81.

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4Q418 55 and 69 ii, uses second person plural discourse and directly address an opponent group; embedded in the discourse are rst person plural quotations introduced by formulae such as “how can you say”; all three have rhetorical questions introduced by interrogative ha, by awlh, hkya, and by hm. The two 4Q418 second person plural discourses (4Q418 55 and 69 ii) have a shared terminology, with rare words occurring only, or predominantly, in those two fragments, such as the root dqç, “to be vigilant,” the innitive absolute fqçh, “tranquility,” and the verb dr, “to pursue.”14 Expressions such as the “roots of insight” are only found in Mysteries and the 4QInstruction plural discourses.15 In sum, 4Q418 55 and 69 ii are different from 4QInstruction and similar to Mysteries, and the question is how to explain this. One may approach the differences between 4Q418 55 and 69 ii, on the one hand, and the rest of 4QInstruction, on the other hand, from a historico-literary critical perspective: both fragments derive from a common source and have been inserted, in a slightly edited form, into the composition which came to be 4QInstruction.16 These formal correspondences of the 4Q418 plural discourses with Mysteries should, in my opinion, warn us against positing too much of a difference of milieu between the two texts.17 However, apart from merely ascribing the plural discourses to a different source, comparable to Mysteries and integrated by author or editor in 4QInstruction, one might also focus on an exploration of form and effect of these plural discourses. In a previous description of the form, I briey stated that both Mysteries and the 4Q418 plural discourses have the formal features of the “rib (byr) pattern,” or “disputation form.”18 Here, however, I wish to deal with aspects that have not been discussed before.

14 I failed to call attention to the correspondence between 4Q418 55 10 wrdh hbry wlkç yplw wh[rm çya wdbky μt[d and 4Q418 69 ii rdh bwrw dwb?k. 15 For extensive discussion and full references see Tigchelaar, To Increase Learning, 217–22 and idem, “Your Wisdom and Your Folly,” 79–81. 16 Tigchelaar, To Increase Learning, 217–21. Goff, The Worldly and Heavenly Wisdom, 175, counters that “[t]here are no themes of 4Q418 55 and 4Q418 69 ii that are at odds with the rest of the composition.” But then, one would have to be a really bad editor, to insert material that is inconsistent with the composition at large. On the contrary, he would have inserted the discourses, because he realized they tted in the composition. 17 See T. Elgvin, “Priestly Sages? The Milieus of Origin of 4QMysteries and 4QInstruction,” in Sapiential Perspectives, 67–87, who argues for related, but distinct milieus. 18 Tigchelaar, “Your Wisdom and Your Folly,” 80–81.

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First, in the twin pieces of 4Q418 69 ii, the “foolish of heart” are opposed to the “elect of truth, and pursuers of [knowledge,] sear[chers of understanding].”19 Although the reading and reconstruction of the addressees of the second speech are not entirely certain, it is clear that we do not have here a simple opposition between “foolish” and “wise.” The second group of addressees is not described as already being “wise,” but as a group of elect ones still in search and pursuit of something—the fragment is damaged and the words mentioning the object of search are missing. The editors have reconstructed as objects “righteousness” and “understanding,” whereas Puech restored in the gaps “understanding” and “wisdom” (hmkwj).20 The latter is not impossible, but, I would argue, unlikely: there is only one certain example of hmkj in the absolute state in 4QInstruction.21 One may compare this to the use of hmkj, “wisdom,” in Mysteries, where the term is predominantly used in a negative context to refer to the wisdom of the opponents of the text, foreign astrologers, and soothsayers.22 Both 4QInstruction and Mysteries seem on the whole to give preference to words like hnyb, “understanding,” t[d and h[d, “knowledge,” and lkç, “understanding” and to avoid hmkj and hmr[, “wisdom.”23 In short, in 4QInstruction and Mysteries, there is a distinction between different kinds of “wisdom.” Second, the fact that the addressees are referred to as still being in search and in pursuit of knowledge and understanding is entirely in line with the very argument of the discourse, namely that the

19 The rst expression may also be “those who choose truth.” See DJD 34:289 for a discussion of tma yryjb or tma yrwjb. The reconstructions “pursuers of knowledge” (t[d ypdwr) and “searchers of understanding” (hnyb yrjçm) are based on the use of these terms in 4Q418 55 5 hnyb wrjç alw and 4Q299 8 7 t[d ypdwr, as well as 4Q418 69 ii 11 t[d wdrl. 20 É. Puech, “Apports des textes apocalyptiques et sapientiels de Qumrân à l’eschatologie de judaïsme ancien,” in Wisdom and Apocalypticism in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the Biblical, 133–70, esp. 140. 21 DJD 34 has 11 cases of hmkj. One is in 4Q418b 1 4, a manuscript not belonging to 4QInstruction; the two cases 4Q416 2 ii 12 and 4Q418 8 13 are parallels and have wfwa tmkj, tentatively explained by the editors as “the wisdom of his secrets;” hm?kj in 4Q417 1 i 9 is a mere guess; wtm¿kwjmw, in 4Q418 126 ii 5, if correct, refers to God’s wisdom. Five of the six remaining cases have μydy tmkj, “skill of hands,” and only in 4Q417 1 i 6 is hmkj used absolutely. 22 Tigchelaar, “Your Wisdom and Your Folly,” 85. 23 See also E. Schuller, “4Q432: 4QpapHodayotf,” in Qumran Cave 4:XX: Poetical and Liturgical Texts, Part 2 (ed. E. Chazon et al.; DJD 29; Oxford: Clarendon, 1999), 209–32, esp. 223, for an example of the negative use of μkj and hmr[ (probably a quotation of Job 5:13).

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addressees have not yet attained knowledge. One may support this interpretation by an intertextual reading of the speech. The various questions in these fragments, “how can you say?”, “would they really say?”, “Have you not known? Have you not heard?”, may be regarded as mere rhetorical devices, but these expressions are all rare, and they seem to refer to biblical texts. The question in 4Q418 69 ii 11 “How can you say (wrmat hkya) ‘We are weary with insight and have been vigilant to pursue knowledge’?” can be understood as allusions to Isa 19:11, “How can you say to Pharaoh (wrmat ya), ‘I am one of the sages’” (yna μymkj ˆb) and Jer 8:8 “How can you say (wrmat hkya): ‘We are wise’ (wnjna μymkj).” In both of these two verses, the question is directed against those who claim to be sages, but whereas in Isa 19:11 they are foreign sages, those of Jer 8:8 are Jewish who claim to have knowledge of the law of the Lord. However, according to Jeremiah, the false pen of the scribes has made the law into a lie. Again, the phrase in 4Q418 69 ii 13, “Would they really say” (wrmay rwmah), has only one close parallel in the Hebrew Bible, namely in Ezek 28:9, where, according to the Masoretic Text, the prince of Tyre is taunted “Would you really say (rmat rmah) ‘I am a god (yna μyhla).’” In Ezekiel 28, the claim to be a God is directly connected to the claim to be wise, as appears from the repeated references to hmkj and bl in the section. It is of interest that in Ezek 28:8 the proof that the Prince of Tyre is not a god, that is, has not attained wisdom, is expressed by the fact that he will be thrust in the Pit. In 4Q418 69 ii 6, the fools will return to the Pit, whereas in the speech to the elect of truth a damaged section (4Q418 69 ii 15) refers to the council of the gods (μylya dwsb). One may again note that the parallelism in Isa 19:11a “The princes of Zoan are utterly foolish (μylwa); the wise counselors (yx[y ymkj) of Pharaoh give stupid counsel” declares the wise to be in fact fools. Also in Mysteries we probably nd a similar allusion to these biblical verses. In 4Q300 1a–b ii 3, I propose to read at the beginning wrmat? y¿a, “How can you say,”24 and, after an unreadable section, the second part of the line reads hmkj çrwçb μtfbh la yk, “For you have not beheld the root of wisdom!” In this section of Mysteries (4Q300 1a

24 L. Schiffman (“4Q300: 4QMysteriesb,” in Qumran Cave 4:XV: Sapiential Texts, Part 1 [ed. T. Elgvin et al.; DJD 20; Oxford: Clarendon, 1997], 33–98, esp. 102) reads wrmat? z¿a, but there is enough space for wrmat? y¿a. In earlier publications, I too read wrmat? z¿a.

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ii–b par 4Q299 3c i), the addressees are called μymf?rj, “magicians,” and [çp ydmlm, “teachers of transgression.”25 The introductory clause in 4Q418 55 8 μt[mç al μa μt[?dy awlh, “[Have] you [not k]nown? Have you not heard?” uses the same rhetorical question as Isa 40:21 and 28, whereas 4Q418 69 ii 11–13 also alludes to Isa 40:28 with its motif of fainting and growing weary. Because of this motif, the point that was made in 4Q418 55 8–9 probably was not that “the holy angels [served] him (sc. God) in heaven,”26 but that they did so continuously, without growing tired. Even though a considerable section of 4Q418 55 is missing, it is clear that this second person plural discourse, like 4Q418 69 ii, emphasizes the need for the unfaltering quest for knowledge and understanding, which results, eventually, in honor and glory. Thus, in recapitulation, 4Q418 55 and 4Q418 69 ii, as well as Mysteries, have second person plural speeches instead of the singular address elsewhere in 4QInstruction. The twin pieces in 4Q418 69 ii address the foolish and the elect, emphasize the need for continuous search for knowledge, and implicitly criticize those who claim to be wise. This implicit criticism of 4Q418 55 and 69 ii is explicit in Mysteries, which polemicizes against the “magicians” and their counter-wisdom. These compositions tend to employ the terms hmkj and hmr[, “wisdom,” negatively for the counter-wisdom, and hnyb, t[d/h[d, and lkç, “understanding, knowledge, insight” for the knowledge they promote. At the same time, in 4Q418 69 ii the contrast between the foolish and the elect who pursue knowledge correlates with their contrasting

25 For a discussion of this section and the terms, see Tigchelaar, “Your Wisdom and Your Folly,” 75 and n. 26, as well as the extremely insightful treatment by Kister, “Wisdom Literature.” The view that the people behind Mysteries stand in opposition to another group that claims to know wisdom is generally accepted, but there is discussion about the addressee of some lines of the Mysteries fragments, as well as about the identity of the “other group.” Thus, A. Lange (Weisheit und Prädestination: Weisheitliche Urordnung und Prädestination in den Textfunden von Qumran [STDJ 18; Leiden: Brill, 1995], 102) argues that “those who search the roots of understanding” in 4Q301 1 2 are viewed negatively: “eine negativ bewertete und mit Magie und Mantik in Verbindung gebrachte Gruppe.” Elgvin (“Priestly Sages?” 74) opines they “may be close to the maskilim of Daniel.” Elgvin (75) thinks that the opponents are “another Israelite group,” whereas Tigchelaar (“Your Wisdom and Your Folly,” 83–88) argues that the general opposition in Mysteries is between Israel and the nations and that the opponents are Hellenistic (Babylonian and Egyptian) diviners. 26 DJD 34:268 suggest: “That the Holy Angels in heaven unto Him [do give honor.”

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future fates: the rst will be no more, the latter will inherit some form of angelic or eternal life. In the early Enoch literature, second person plural speeches directed to different, opposing groups are only found in the Epistle of Enoch. Enoch’s rst, second, third, and sixth discourse are directed alternately to the sinners and the righteous,27 and, like 4Q418 55 and 69 ii, these discourses deal with judgment and one’s future fate. Throughout these discourses, the main opposition is between the sinners and the righteous, but a few times the epistle uses the sapiential terminology of “folly/ foolish” or “wisdom/wise.” Two different concepts of this opposition seem to be juxtaposed, or even merged, in the Epistle. On the one hand, Deut 32:28–29 can be seen as the key clause lying behind the contrast of folly and wisdom: foolish are those who “do not realize what their end shall be” (Deut 32:29b), whereas wisdom consists in knowing how to be saved.28 On the other hand, in the third discourse (98:9–99:10) these terms seem to denote two opposing groups of teachers or scribes, the traditors of the Enochic writings apparently being wise and their erring opponents, who wrote other books, being foolish.29 In some respects, 4Q418 69 ii has a closer parallel in 1 En 2–5, an example of the rib or disputation form. Both 4Q418 69 ii 2–4 and 1 En 2:1–5:3 describe how all nature obeys God’s commandments and then continue with a second person plural rebuke of the foolish of heart, respectively sinners. 4Q418 69 ii 10 continues with an address to the truly chosen, while 1 En 5:6–9 blesses the righteous and chosen. Whereas 4Q418 69 ii emphasizes the need to pursue knowledge, 1 En 5:8 announces that wisdom (¢ebab; !) will be given to the chosen. The concept of “wisdom” as an eschatological gift is also expressed in 1 En 91:10 and 93:10 and is implied with regard to the giving of written

27 According to the structure proposed in G. W. E. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch Chapters 1–36, 81–108 (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 2001). 28 The introduction of 1 En 98:1 addressing the wise is articial, since the small section actually describes the foolish “who have no knowledge or understanding,” because they do not realize that they will perish with all their possessions. According to Nickelsburg’s structure, “listening to (the words of) the wise” in 98:1 and 99:10 forms the inclusion of the third discourse, whereas 100:6 forms the end of the fourth discourse. In these verses, being wise results in being saved. 29 For the most detailed discussion of this section, see G. W. E. Nickelsburg, “The Epistle of Enoch and the Qumran Literature,” JJS 33 (1982): 333–48; repr. in George W. E. Nickelsburg in Perspective: An Ongoing Dialogue of Learning (ed. J. Neusner and A. J. Avery-Peck; SJSJ 80; Leiden: Brill, 2003), 105–22.

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wisdom to Methuselah and his sons in 82:1–3 and again in 104:12 to “the righteous and pious and wise.” The exact phrasing varies from case to case, but the recurrence of similar notions in these verses, such as the “giving” of “wisdom”30 to the “chosen” or the “righteous,” resulting in “joy,” may indicate some amount of editing. In 1 En 5:8–9, the gift of wisdom and understanding results in ethical behavior: the chosen will sin no more and live a long life.31 The one correspondence with 4Q418 69 ii is that the chosen are viewed as not yet having reached knowledge or understanding. However, the emphasis in these texts is rather different. In 1 Enoch wisdom will be given to the chosen, whereas in 4Q418 69 ii and Mysteries the chosen are admonished to pursue understanding. In 1 Enoch the main opposition is between the righteous and the sinners, and in the sections dealing with wisdom the issue is not, like in 4QInstruction or Mysteries, different kinds of wisdom or knowledge. A third indirect correspondence with 4Q418 69 ii and Mysteries may be found in the “reproof ” speeches in 1 En 13:1–3, 14:1–7, 14:24–16:4. All these reproofs consist of direct speech, the latter three using the second person plural. Whereas in 1 En 6–11 the illicit teachings of the Watchers is a major motif, alongside sexual intermingling of the Watchers with women, the teaching motif is clearly secondary in 1 En 12–16 and only surfaces in two reproofs which seem to be interpolations, 13:1–3 and 16:2–4.32 In those interpolations, Asael and the watchers are rebuked for having revealed forbidden knowledge and sin to human beings, a reference to the longer description of the teachings of the Watchers of 1 En 8–9. Here we may refer to the abovementioned section of Mysteries which was addressed to the μymf?rj, “magicians,” 30

The original terminology has only survived once. 4Q212 1 iv 13 (1 En 93:10) has

?ˆwhl b¿hytt [dmw hmkj ˆ?ym[¿p h[bç yd, where for the Aramaic [dmw hmkj Ethiopic

has temhert, “teaching.” In 5:8 Ethiopic has ¢ebab, “wisdom,” corresponding to Greek ! (5:8), but in 32:3, 6 and in the Epistle, ¢ebab corresponds to " , which in the LXX is used to render both hmkj (only in Kings) and, more often, terms like hnyb, hnwbt, t[d, and lkçh. 31 See similarly the Aramaic Levi Document 3:6–7, “Let there be shown to me, o Lord, the holy spirit and grant me counsel and wisdom and knowledge ([dnmw hmkjw) and strength in order to do that what is pleasing to you and nd favour before you,” where the holy spirit and wisdom are contrasted to an “unrighteous spirit and evil thought.” For text and comments see J. C. Greeneld, M. E. Stone, and E. Eshel, The Aramaic Levi Document: Edition, Translation, Commentary (SVTP 19; Leiden: Brill, 2004), 62–63, 128; and H. Drawnel, An Aramaic Wisdom Text from Qumran: A New Interpretation of the Levi Document (SJSJ 86; Leiden: Brill, 2004), 99–101, 214–15. 32 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 230, 236, 274–75.

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and [çp ydmlm, “teachers of transgression.” In 1 En 8:3, one of the teachings of the Watchers is wmfrj, “sorcery” (4Q201 1 iv 2), and Asael is blamed of having “taught all iniquity upon the earth” and having “revealed the eternal mysteries that are in heaven” (9:6). In Mysteries, therefore, hmkj, “wisdom,” is associated directly with the teachings of the Watchers. Implicit in 1 En 6–11 is the question of the usefulness of this wisdom. The teaching of Noah by Sariel (as well as the teaching of Enoch in the following sections of the Book of the Watchers) is the counterpart of the instruction by the Watchers. The main opposition is between wisdom that in the end brings destruction, and revelation about the end and how one may preserve oneself alive and escape forever (1 En 10:1–3). Again, in Mysteries, this is exactly the same issue: in 1Q27 1 i 2–4 par 4Q300 3 3–4, those who [know/taught?] the mysteries of iniquity, despite all their wisdom, do not know the mystery that is to come and have not been able to save themselves from the mystery to come. Kister has showed the close correspondence of these verses to the version of Isa 47:10–14 in 1QIsaa, which mocks the Babylonian magicians and astrologers for not having wisdom.33 Whereas the connection between 1 Enoch and Mysteries is obvious, the issue in 4QInstruction is more complex. The “foolish of heart” in 4Q418 69 ii are not described as those having the wrong kind of wisdom, but are characterized as “sons of iniquity” and “those who cling to evil” (line 8). It is rather by means of the intertextual references to Isa 19:11–13 and Ezek 28 that the notion of different kinds of wisdom is imbedded in the discourse. The many correspondences between Mysteries and 4Q418 55 and 69 ii invite us to read Mysteries’ and 1 Enoch’s notions of different kinds of wisdom into 4QInstruction, but in the latter text the notion is implicit rather than explicit. 2. 4Q418 222+221+220 and Wisdom In the ofcial edition, the three rather small fragments 4Q418 220, 221, and 222 are transcribed separately. However, they are placed next to one another on the Museum plate because of their physical similarity. Since 4Q418 220 and 221 both preserve the bottom margin, I suggest that they be placed close to one another. Moreover, I propose to read

33

Kister, “Wisdom Literature,” 26–27.

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both in 4Q418 222 and in 4Q418 221 rst person forms. In addition to the physical correspondence, the use of le with innitive, as well as the contents of the fragments, suggest that in a reconstruction these fragments belong close together, with 4Q418 222 probably higher in the column than 4Q418 221. Tentatively, I give the following transcription and translation which differ in several cases both from the ofcial one and the one I proposed earlier (the two words of frag. 220 are underlined).34 35

μ¿kl rbd ytrbd?w ¿nb h? 222 h . . .¿a ytpç lzmw yjwr h[?yba ¿. . .hl μy[çwp jykwhl? . . .¿ba yk .? ¿w[d ¿yp? ¿awlw hmh? 221 ¿μyytwp lwk ˆybhlw 37μyakn ? ¿ vacat μynybml jql ys?whlw tmal¿ hlw[ ?ˆy¿b wlydbh zaw yfpçm w[dw an? ¿tlwaw? hnyb [dw ¿bwf t[dl wnnwbth? 36

1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 5

bottom margin 222 1 ] . . . son[ . . . and] I will speak38 a word to y[ou . . . 2 I will p]our out my spirit, and the ow of my lips I wi[ll . . . 3 ] to reprove sinners, to . . . [ 4 ]know[. . .] because I (?) will [. . . 221 1 ]their [. . .] and not [. . .] my (?) mouth [ 2 ] smitten ones, and to make all the simple ones understand[ 3 and to incr]ease learning for the understanding ones. vacat [ 4 ] . . . and know my regulation(s) and then you will distinguish be[tween] iniquity [and truth 5 and] you shall get understanding to know good [and evil, insight] and folly [.

Apart from the different reading of some damaged letters, my present transcription mainly differs from the editors’ and my previous one in the reading of yod instead of waw in 4Q418 222 2 and 4Q418 221 4.39 34

DJD 34:436–38; Tigchelaar, To Increase Learning, 117, 188–91. DJD 34:211–474, esp. 438, read ¿kl.kdw wtrbd? ¿nb h?, but their translation of the last letters “And a[l]l of [” reects a reading l?w¿kw. 36 The editors read l¿a wtpç lzmw wjwr h[?mç, “hear his spirit. And the outpouring of his lips do not.” 37 The editors read μyaybn. See my comments in Tigchelaar, To Increase Learning, 117. 38 I interpret the form as a perfect consecutive. 39 DJD 34:438–39 (comments on 4Q418 222 1–2) did refer to the possibility of rst singular forms in the case of self-reference of the lykçm who is addressing the ˆybm ˆb, 35

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Unless more text surfaces, we will never know for certain, but one may note that the spelling ytpç for “my lips” would be more regular than wtpç (defective for wytpç)40 for “his lips” and that the verbal correspondences in this section with Prov 1:2–6 and 1:23ff strongly suggest the possibility of rst person speech. In the introduction of Proverbs, in 1:2–6, the teaching of wisdom is described with innitives, and some phrases recur in 4Q418 222+221+220, such as jql yswh, “gain in learning,” ˆybhl, “to make understand,” and μyytwp (in Prov 1:4 μyatp), “simple ones.” In addition, I reconstruct on the basis of Prov 1:23 yjwr h[yba, “I will pour out my spirit.” This phrase occurs in a speech directed towards the simple ones (1:22 μyatp), who are called upon to give heed to “my reproof ” (1:23 ytjkwt; see also 1:25, 30), the same term which is found in the next line of 4Q418 222, “to reprove sinners.” One may hypothesize that this rst person is the sage or lykçm, and hypothetically one might even place 4Q418 238 with the word lykçm at the beginning of the rst column of 4Q418 and 4Q418 222+221+220 at the bottom of the same column.41 On the other hand, the text alludes to Prov 1:22–33 where the rst person is Lady Wisdom (1:20 twmkj). The phrase yjwr h[yba of Prov 1:23, which I partially reconstructed in 4Q418 222 2, is also found in Sir 16:25 (Ms A) and 4Q301 1 1. The words introduce the hymn of Sir 16:24–18:14, which is generally attributed to Ben Sira himself, who boldly employs words placed in the mouth of personied Wisdom in Prov 1:23.42 This is indeed clearly the case in the Greek translation, which reads in 16:24 #" μ $, “listen my child,” but the Hebrew and the Syriac use the plural imperative and lack the “child.”43 The poem deals with those sapiential

but rule out this possibility in their comments on 4Q418 221 4 (DJD 34:437): “a 1st sing. sufx, however, would not be in the style of 4Q415ff.” 40 As stated by Strugnell and Harrington (DJD 34:438), this defective phonetic form of nal wy is often found in Qumran. However, this defective spelling is not used in 4Q418. The one possible exception may be 4Q418 9 8 wdlwm, where the parallel text of 4Q416 2 iii 9 has wydlwm. On the other hand, it is not certain that we should have μydlwm here and not dlwm as in 4Q186. Clearly plural forms of dlwm are only found in the construct phrases μydlwm tyb and in ydlwm followed by hlw[, [çy, not in relation to individuals. 41 See suggestions in Tigchelaar, To Increase Learning, 183, 188–91. See Goff, The Worldly and Heavenly Wisdom, 17–18 on this proposal. 42 A. A. Di Lella, The Wisdom of Ben Sira: A new Translation with notes (Anchor Bible 39; New York: Doubleday, 1989), ad loc. 43 For the Syriac, see N. Calduch-Benages, J. Ferrer, and Jan Liesen, La Sabiduría del Escriba: Edición diplomática de la versión siriaca del libro de Ben Sira según el Códice Ambrosiano, con traducción española e inglesa. Wisdom of the Scribe: Diplomatic Edition of the Syriac Version

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issues which in other texts are related to personied wisdom, such as creation, the order of nature, and the allotment of knowledge to human beings, and it is ambiguous whether the poem should be attributed to “wisdom” or to Ben Sira. In 4Q301 1 1 (Mysteries), the expression is found in a different context. The remnants of Mysteries have only a rst person singular in one other section. In 4Q299 53+59, at the beginning of a new section, h[ymça, “I want to tell,” is followed in the next line by hbyrn, “let us contend in dispute.”44 Here, it would seem, the plural “let us contend in dispute” includes the rst person singular speaker and his or her opponents. In Mysteries, rst plural forms, referring to human beings, are more common, and the use of the terminology of Prov 1 suggests that Wisdom may be speaking here. In all four texts with the expression yjwr h[yba (Prov 1:23, 4Q418 222 2, 4Q301 1 1, Sir 16:25), a rst singular speaker addresses a plural audience, whereas, except for Mysteries, second singular forms are the rule in those sapiential texts. Second person plural forms may not be certain in 4Q418 222, but 4Q418 221 4–5 contains at least three second person plural forms: “know,” “you will distinguish,” and “you will get understanding.” The tone of these statements is positive, and this is in line with the distinction that has been made in the previous lines: I will pour out my spirit to reprove sinners, but also to make all the simple ones understand, and to increase learning for the understanding ones. In the preserved parts of 4QInstruction, we nd no reproof of sinners, and the one section that ts this description best is the section of 4Q418 69 ii directed to the foolish. There are no explicit clues in that fragment, nor, for that matter, in 4Q418 55, that wisdom herself is speaking. Yet, the concern with the pursuit of knowledge and the use of second plural discourses in both fragments invite us to associate these fragments with the rst person speech of 4Q418 221 and 222.45 The question which I raised above, namely about the reason for the use of plural discourses in compositions such as 4QInstruction, may now be approached from a different perspective.

of the Book of Ben Sira according to Codex Ambrosianus, with Translations in Spanish and English (Biblioteca Midrásica 26; Estella: Editorial Verbo Divino, 2003). 44 For the tentative join of 4Q299 53 and 59, see E. Tigchelaar, “Notes on the Readings of the DJD Editions of 1Q and 4QMysteries,” RevQ 21/81 (2003): 99–107. 45 Note that more than half of the second plural forms of 4QInstruction are found in 4Q418 55, 69 ii and 221.

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In 4QInstruction, the practical commands and prohibitions that are concerned with this-wordly matters are spoken to a singular addressee. Once in a while, these commands are followed by a motive or result clause. It would seem that these commands and motives or results spring from the sage’s examination of daily life, community laws and values, and his study of scripture. The tone is such: if you are sensible and want to behave correctly according to the rules destined for you, you should act in such or such manner. The second person plural discourses, on the other hand, deal with issues such as rewards or punishment after death that cannot be veried by the everyday experience of sage or student. Therefore, a different mode is called for. The rhetorical mode is that of direct questions, reproof, rebuke, challenge, which all aim at an emotional response of the reader. This is the rhetoric (and sometimes the exact words) of prophecy. However, the sage is not a prophet who can claim that God spoke to him. In those cases, the sage introduces the persona of Wisdom. Ben Sira is much more explicit on Wisdom. As a literary manoeuvre, the wisdom poems, rst and foremost Sir 24, use a mode of speech which differs from Ben Sira’s own instruction. In the wisdom poems, rst singular words abound, and we nd plural addressees. Yet, in Sirach it is clear that there is a correlation between Wisdom and the sage. Ben Sira may speak the words of Wisdom, because God has poured out Wisdom upon those who love him (Sir 1:9–10). The metaphors of Sir 24:30–34 where Ben Sira compares himself to a canal from a river, or a water-channel into a garden, express a direct contact between Wisdom, who has taken her dwelling in Jerusalem, and the sage. A similar correlation may also be found in Dead Sea Scrolls that use similar phrases with regard to both the lykçm and Wisdom.46 In the early Enoch literature, we do not nd Wisdom speaking, nor does this literature elaborate on a relation between the gure of Enoch and Wisdom. Two remarks on Wisdom in passing may be of interest, though. In the hymn of 1 En 84:3, Enoch blesses the Holy One and says, “Wisdom does not escape you, and it does not turn away from your throne, nor from your presence,” and in 94:5 Enoch instructs his children, “I know that sinners will tempt to do harm to wisdom, and 46 In the so-called “(Syriac) Psalm II” in 11QPsa XVIII, “Wisdom is given . . . to make known to simple ones his might” (μyatwpl [ydwhl), whereas the tasks of the lykçm are also expressed in similar innitives, e.g. in 1QS III 13 (dmllw ˆybhl lykçml rwa ynb lwk ta).

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no place will be found for her.” Both remarks may be connected if interpreted in the light of 1 En 42, according to which Wisdom found no place where she might dwell, returned to her place, and took her seat among the angels.47 In 1 Enoch, wisdom resides in heaven with God and among the angels. In every section of the Enoch literature (apart from 1 En 6–11), Enoch, who has been to heaven and has dwelt with the angels, refers in rst person speech to either visions of heaven, or words of angels, or wisdom written in heaven, as the source of his knowledge. In this sense, Enoch is presented both as a conduit of heavenly knowledge and as the wisest of men (1 En 92:1).48 This also appears from his function, which is more or less the same as that of Wisdom in 4Q418 222+221+220: to reprove sinners and to instruct the righteous or understanding ones. 3. Wisdom and Counter-wisdom The notion of counter-wisdom is most apparent in Mysteries, where wisdom and folly merge in the gure of the opponents: those “who understand parable and riddle,” “who search the roots of understanding,” “who hold fast to secrets,” “who behave foolishly,” and are “men of thought,” “magicians,” and “teachers of transgression.” The disputes with these opponents refer to their “fading knowledge,” as well as their “folly.” On the basis of the astrological terminology, I ventured that these opponents were Hellenistic (non-Israelite) diviners. Kister showed that the key-passage 1Q27 1 i 2–4 used Isa 47:10–14 (in the wording of 1QIsaa!), which taunts the Babylonian magicians and astrologers for not having adequate wisdom. To a large extent, we nd the same terminology in 1 En 6–11, which also criticizes diverse forms of divination. In Mysteries, but implicitly also in 1 Enoch, that wisdom is scorned because it does not tell what will befall them and how these wise men should save themselves. Also in the early Enoch literature, but arguably interpolated in a later period, would be the altogether different folly of opponents in the Epistle of Enoch. At least in 1 En 98:9, 15; 99:2, they seem to be opponents of the wise of 1 En 99:10. Here the polemics 47

Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 52, on the myth of Wisdom’s descent. See A. A. Orlov, The Enoch-Metatron Tradition (TSAJ 107; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2005) for extensive discussions of the roles and of Enoch in the different Enochic traditions. Orlov (Enoch-Metatron, 46–70) differentiates between three main aspects of Enoch’s role as a sage in early Enochic literature: scribe, mediator, expert in secrets. 48

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are clearly inner-Jewish, and, as Nickelsburg argued, the terminology of erring and leading astray denotes the perversion, that is, the wrong interpretation, of the Torah (in the eyes of the author).49 Remarkable in this Enochic discourse is the rhetoric of iniquity and sin that is attributed to these fools. This latter aspect is similar to that of the rst discourse in 4Q418 69 ii. The “foolish of heart” are also called “sons of iniquity,” “clingers to evil,” and perhaps “lovers of [iniquity]” (see 1 En 98:12, “you who love the deeds of iniquity”). In view of the many terminological correspondences with Mysteries, one is tempted to search some kind of counter-wisdom behind the refutation of the foolish of heart in 4Q418 69 ii. The possible intertextual references in the second discourse of 4Q418 69 ii allow for different possibilities: that of foreign sages (as in Isa 19:11) or that of Jewish sages who depend on a perverted Torah ( Jer 8:8). However, common to both is that they do not know the times (see Jer 8:7) and are not able to tell what God has planned (Isa 19:12). However, contrary to 1 Enoch or Mysteries, the polemics in 4QInstruction are not explicit, and the focus is hardly on the counter-wisdom, but on the need for the chosen to pursue understanding. Common to all three texts is a perception about the purpose of understanding or instruction, although this is formulated differently. In 1 Enoch the eschatological giving of wisdom (5:8) or, in another (later?) strand of the tradition, the listening to the words of the wise (99:10) results in ethical behavior and salvation from judgment (“they will be saved”). In 4QInstruction, in 4Q418 221+220 4–5, the rst speaker (Wisdom) invites the reader to know her regulations, by which “one will distinguish be[tween] iniquity [and truth . . . and] get understanding to know good [and evil, insight] and folly[.” The ultimate result of the search for this understanding is an eternal inheritance and angelic life for the chosen, as contrasted with the eternal pit for the foolish. In all three texts, this reection about the rewards of a future life goes beyond traditional worldly wisdom, and therefore formally is attributed to Wisdom or heaven itself. Ultimately, therefore, the counter-wisdom need not per se be associated with any specic group. The counter-wise or fools are those who either do not understand wisdom and therefore do not know how to live according to her regulations or those who do

49

Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 484, 486–88.

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not know what will befall one, that is, do not anticipate the judgment or rewards after this life. 4. Concluding Remarks The two sections taken from 4QInstruction are exceptional within 4QInstruction insofar as they employ a different style and rhetoric. My approach to these fragments demonstrates the fusion of genres and styles which previous scholarship tried to distinguish. The contents of 4Q418 69 ii are generally viewed as corresponding to an apocalyptic worldview (expectation of “an end time, when iniquity will be destroyed and the righteous will be rewarded”).50 However, a joint reading with 4Q418 55, 4Q418 222+221+220, and Mysteries suggests that Wisdom is speaking here. Thirdly, the text uses the rhetoric found mainly in prophetic literature. Fourth, in 4QInstruction these “Wisdom” speeches are merged into a composition together with everyday, “worldly wisdom” issues. A comparison with the early Enoch literature also shows the apocalyptic worldview and the use of prophetic language,51 but Enoch has taken the role of the sage, whereas the gure of Wisdom has yielded to that of Uriel and the other archangels. However, compared with 4QInstruction, the early Enoch literature has many general remarks on wisdom, human behavior, listening to words of the wise, on obedience or disobedience, but very little, if any, concrete instructions for human conduct.52

50

Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 59. See for example Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 161 on the paraphrase of Isa 65:15–16 in 1 En 5:6. 52 Nickelsburg (1 Enoch 1, 53) briey remarks: “The specic laws and commandments that are the criteria for this judgment are not explicated by the authors.” 51

TEMPLES AND THE TEMPLE IN THE EARLY ENOCH TRADITION: MEMORY, VISION, AND EXPECTATION David W. Suter Saint Martin’s University, United States At rst glance the topics of temple, priesthood, and cult do not seem to be an intuitive set of categories to choose for a systematic examination of the early Enoch tradition. They are rather categories established by the symbolic structure (or structures) of Second Temple Judaism. The early Enoch tradition does not offer so much a portrait of the existing temple, priesthood, and cult as a kind of photographic negative, so to speak, that provides information indirectly concerning temple, priesthood, and cult. In the Book of the Watchers (1 En 1–36), instead of the physical temple in Jerusalem, we nd the celestial temple in 1 En 14, although this transcendental reality is described in terms suggestive of the physical temple. Instead of a human priesthood composed of the sons of Levi or Aaron, we nd an angelic priesthood, and yet the treatment of the angelic priesthood seems to presuppose the rules for marriage and requirements designed to ensure the purity of the Levitical priesthood. Instead of an earthly sacricial cultus, we nd an angelic ‘avodah or ‘service’ of intercession and obedience. In the Apocalypse of the Animals (1 En 85–90) and the Apocalypse of Weeks (1 En 93:3–10; 91:11–17), the temples of Judaism are only vaguely sketched, with the second temple either depicted as polluted or strangely absent (1 En 89:73; 93:9). While there are hints in the literature that the earthly cultus is corrupt, to be replaced in the end of days by an eschatological temple built in Jerusalem by God’s own hands (1 En 25–26; 89:73; 90:28–29), when 1 Enoch does portray matters cultic, it locates access to the gates of heaven at Dan, the ancient rival of Jerusalem, and has Enoch engage in an incubation oracle “by the waters of Dan” in order to gain entrance (1 En 13:7–8). What we learn about temple, priesthood, and cult in the early Enoch literature is therefore largely indirect rather than direct, and the purpose of this essay is to enlarge and print that ‘negative’ in order to understand what that literature has to say about sacerdotal matters.

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The present author has previously explored the question of priesthood in the early Enoch tradition with an article which interprets the story of the Watchers in the Book of the Watchers as a polemic concerned with the Levitical purity of priestly marriages directed against the 1 Zadokite priesthood in Jerusalem. A more recent article addresses the question of cult, if cult is understood more broadly than the sacricial cultus at Jerusalem to include mantic practices associated with sacred places.2 Building upon the work of George Nickelsburg,3 it argues that the accounts of Enoch’s incubation in ch. 13 and ascent to heaven in ch. 14 reect mantic practices and theological concerns associated with Syria and Phoenicia encountered at Dan in the upper Jordan valley that may, however, be unwelcome in Jerusalem. While the discussion of cult in 1 Enoch needs to be carried further to determine if there is any relation of tendencies there to possible substitutions for the temple cult by the Qumran Yahad, the present essay limits itself to an examination of the role of the temple and temples in the early Enoch tradition. Our approach will be to survey the images of the temple in the Book of the Watchers, the Apocalypse of the Animals, and the Apocalypse of Weeks and then to examine those images against the diversity of conceptualizations of temples and the temple present in early Judaism. The focus will be upon architectural details, as sketchy as they may be, as well as issues related to location implicit in access to the celestial temple from Dan, the ancient rival of Jerusalem. The decision in this particular study is to limit the works examined to the earlier portions of 1 Enoch. While Jubilees includes material derived from the early Enoch tradition, its approach to sacerdotal matters is distinctive. In opposition to the Zadokite or Priestly tradition, which begins the Israelite sacricial cultus with Moses on Mount Sinai, Jubilees seeks to

1 D. W. Suter, “Fallen Angel, Fallen Priest: The Problem of Family Purity in 1 Enoch 6–16,” HUCA 50 (1979) 115–35. See also D. W. Suter, “Fallen Angels Revisited,” Henoch 24 (2002) 137–42; “Mapping the First Book of Enoch: Geographical Issues in George Nickelsburg’s Commentary,” in J. Neusner and A. J. Avery-Peck (eds.) George W. E. Nickelsburg in Perspective: An On-Going Dialogue of Learning ( JSJS 80; 2 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 2003) 2.387–94. 2 D. W. Suter, “Why Galilee? Galilean Regionalism in the Interpretation of 1 Enoch 6–16,” Henoch 25 (2003) 167–211. 3 G. W. E. Nickelsburg, “Enoch, Levi, and Peter: Recipients of Revelation in Upper Galilee,” JBL 100 (1981) 575–600; 1 Enoch 1: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch, Chapters 1–36; 81–108 (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001) 229–75.

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show that the patriarchs built altars and sacriced.4 As a consequence, the portrait of Enoch offering incense on the Mount (either Mount Zion or the Mount of the East) in Jub 4:25–26 reects the redactional concerns of Jubilees rather than an item from the early Enoch tradition, which does not demonstrate the same interest in altars and sacrice, as we shall discover. While in the discussion of sacerdotal issues in the Enoch tradition the tendency has been to argue that the sectarian dissatisfaction was with the priesthood rather than the temple,5 our conclusion is that in addition to issues associated with the purity of the priesthood, for the early Enoch tradition the design of the second temple itself was inadequate to serve as the abode of God.6 Our discussion will deal with temples and the temple in the early Enoch tradition in terms of memory, expectation, and visionary experience. This tradition looks back to the golden age of the temple designed by David and built by Solomon. It looks forward to the temple for the end of days that God will build, which will be an appropriate abode for the Deity and will accommodate the return of the scattered righteous to dwell in the holy city. For the present, however, it seeks the presence of God in the celestial temple, to be accessed by the righteous at Dan through visionary experience in a way comparable to Ezekiel’s encounter with the divine throne chariot at the Chebar River in Ezek 1:1–3:11 (cf. 3:23; 10:15–16; 43:3). As Michael Knibb has observed, for the early Enoch tradition as for much of the apocalyptic literature, Israel is still in exile.7 Access to the presence of the sacred must therefore deal with the absence of the abode of God on earth.

4 R. H. Charles, The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament (2 vols.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1913) 2.7. 5 See D. Mendels, The Rise and Fall of Jewish Nationalism (Anchor Bible Reference Library; New York: Doubleday, 1992) 147–8. 6 See J. Maier, “The Temple Scroll and Tendencies in the Cultic Architecture of the Second Commonwealth,” in L. H. Schiffman (ed.), Archaeology and History in the Dead Sea Scrolls: The New York University Conference in Memory of Yigael Yadin ( JSPSS 8; Shefeld: Shefeld Academic Press, 1990) 67–82, who understands the Temple Scroll in the context of an architectural tradition of planning stemming back into the time of Solomon’s temple and intended to solve problems related to the temple as a monumental building and a functioning temple. 7 M. Knibb, “The Exile in the Literature of the Intertestamental Period,” HJ 17 (1976) 253–72 (see particularly pp. 256–59 for his discussion of the period of the seventy shepherds in the Apocalypse of the Animals and the treatment of the same period in the Apocalypse of the Weeks). See G. Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis:

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Given the importance in the early Enoch literature of the eschatological temple to be built by God at the end of days, the forms of piety necessitated by the inadequacy of the second temple seem to be a temporary rather than a permanent solution. In Ascent to Heaven in Jewish and Christian Apocalypses, Martha Himmelfarb comments that “Ezekiel’s visions of the chariot throne mark the beginning of a trend to dissociate God’s heavenly abode from the temple in Jerusalem.”8 With regard to the long-term impact of Ezekiel’s visions upon the ascent apocalypses that she is studying, she is undoubtedly correct. If one pauses to look at the early Enoch tradition alone, however, that process of dissociation is only partially underway. It is present in the emerging role of the celestial temple and in Enoch’s access to it from Dan rather than Jerusalem. On the other hand, the tradition continues to imagine the celestial temple in terms derived from architectural traditions associated with Solomon’s temple and reected in utopian and eschatological approaches to temple design in the literature of the period, and it longs for a time in which the ideal temple design can be realized not simply in heaven but on earth to serve as an appropriate abode for the Deity. While we are dealing with what amounts to an architect’s conceptual sketch rather than the blueprint quality of the presentations in Ezek 40–48, the Temple Scroll, or the New Jerusalem scroll from Qumran, this article seeks to examine the conceptualization of the celestial and eschatological temples in the early Enoch literature in light of traditions about temples and the temple in Judaism of the period to establish the role of the temple in that literature. Temples and the Temple in the Early Enoch Tradition If one approaches the topic of temple from the standpoint of the phenomenology of religion and the manifestation of the sacred,9 there are antecedents to the temple in Second Temple Judaism—in the rst instance, Mount Sinai—and 1 Enoch itself begins by establishing

The Parting of the Ways between Qumran and Enochic Judaism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998) 85, n. 10. 8 M. Himmelfarb, Ascent to Heaven in Jewish and Christian Apocalypses (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993) 11. 9 See M. Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Religion: A Study of the Element of the Sacred in the History of Religious Phenomena (trans. Rosemary Sheed; Cleveland: Meridian, 1963) 1–37.

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a relationship between the celestial temple, the abode of God, and Mount Sinai: The Great Holy One will come forth from his dwelling and the eternal God will tread from thence upon Mount Sinai. He will appear with his army, he will appear with his mighty host from the heaven of heavens. (1 En 1:3–4 [Nickelsburg])

What follows is a fairly conventional theophany with deep roots in the Biblical language of theophany,10 but the distinctive nature of this theophany is that, unlike Deut 33:2, Sinai is not the source but the destination of God’s coming. As the second line of the second couplet makes clear, the dwelling or abode of God is the “heaven of heavens,” the devir or Holy of Holies of the sanctuary of heaven. Also telling is the fact that the locus of God’s appearance is Mount Sinai and not Jerusalem. While the reference to Mount Sinai is undoubtedly shaped by Deut 33:2,11 what we do not nd is the correspondence of Ps 11:4 between temple and heaven: “Yahweh in his holy temple! Yahweh, his throne is in heaven” (NJB). The opening chapter of 1 Enoch offers a return to Sinai, but now Sinai is the location and not the source of the theophany. From the standpoint of the Second Temple period, Sinai is remote, and if its location is even known at this point, it is not a practical site to seek the presence or the abode of God. The celestial temple in the early Enoch tradition In 1 En 9:1 we encounter heaven as a sanctuary, the location of an angelic priesthood—Michael, Sariel, Raphael, and Gabriel—whose function seems to be to hear the prayers of the victims of violence on earth and to intercede before God for them. Syncellus identies the location from which the archangels look out over the earth as % &! ' (',12 “the sanctuary of heaven,” and the phrase seems to correspond to 4Q201 f1iv:7, [hymç yç]dq.13

10

For an analysis, consult G. W. E. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 142–9. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 145. 12 Citations of the Greek version of 1 Enoch, including material from the Chronographia of Georgius Syncellus, are taken from M. Black, Apocalypsis Henochi Graece (Leiden: Brill, 1970). 13 See F. García Martínez and E. J. C. Tigchelaar, The Dead Sea Scrolls: Study Edition (2 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 1997–98) 402. 11

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Although 1 En 6–11 offers no architectural details for such a sanctuary beyond indicating that heaven has gates (9:2, 10), the movement of the narrative in ch. 9 implies something about the construction of this sanctuary. Following Matthew Black’s reconstruction of the scene—depending heavily upon Syncellus—the archangels look over upon the earth, hear the cries of those perishing, enter ()*") the sanctuary to confer either among themselves or with the other angels, and then bring (*") the prayers and petitions before the Most High, apparently in the divine throne room.14 The dynamics correspond to the structure that we will encounter below in ch. 14: the temple of heaven has a court with gates, a hekhal or sanctuary where the angelic beings stand before God, and a devir, the location of the divine throne (the “heaven of the heavens” noted above in 1:4). While the archangels must look over the gates of heaven to receive the prayers, convey them rst to the hekhal, and then bring them before the throne, the archangels’ case to God asserts that, since he is omniscient, God should have responded to the crisis on his own. It is striking that, while later the text seems to maintain a certain distance between the angels and the Great One (in 14:21–22 they cannot actually enter the throne room),15 the angels can be quite direct with God in raising the problem of evil (1 En 9:4–11). Theoretically, given the omniscience of God, the angelic priesthood and intercessory cultus are pointless; pragmatically, they provide a vehicle for the outcry of the victims of violence and for the execution of God’s commands in response to the outcry. In any case, the implication of the narrative is that God is to be sought through prayer directed to his abode in heaven: an earthly location is superuous (contrast 1 Kgs 8:28–30, in Solomon’s temple dedication prayer, which asserts that prayers directed toward the temple in Jerusalem will be heard). Moreover, this abode in heaven has a seemingly physical structure not unlike that of an earthly temple. 1 Enoch 12–16 carries these conclusions about the celestial temple further. The passage opens with the introduction of Enoch, who has been removed from the human world and whose activity is now with the Watchers. In ch. 12 he is given a commission to proclaim judgment to the Watchers “who have left the high heaven and the holy, 14 M. Black, The Book of Enoch or I Enoch: A New English Translation (Leiden: Brill, 1985) 129–30. 15 See Nickelsburg’s discussion of the issue of angels approaching the throne in 1 Enoch 1, 265. He notes that v. 23 appears to contradict v. 21 for at least some angels.

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eternal Sanctuary” (1 En 12:4 [Black]), + " , (, , ", , &!μ . / ' )%.16 In the context of the nal pronouncement of judgment upon the Watchers, 1 En 15:3 has essentially the same phrase, translated differently with +! , (, , , , 0  ' )%. The narrative moves along in ch. 13 to an incubation oracle in which Enoch obtains a vision of judgment by sleeping by the waters of Dan where, in his dream, he is able to look to the gates of heaven (13:7–8). What remains of the Aramaic in 4Q204 f1vi.4 ([aymç lky]h y[rtl) suggests a reference to the gates of the temple (or palace) of heaven.17 This incubation oracle with its apparent reference to the gates of heaven draws upon the story of Jacob’s Ladder in Gen 28. Gerhard von Rad notes that the ladder in Gen 28 should be understood as a staircase that connected “the place of the god’s appearing” with “its actual (heavenly) dwelling place” on the model of Babylonian temple towers.18 What is distinct about 1 En 13 is that, where in Genesis the earthly sanctuary itself is the ‘gate,’ in the passage in 1 Enoch, the gates are located in heaven, a development implying a distancing between earthly sanctuaries and the dwelling place of the Deity in heaven, but also a treatment of the gate or gates in architectural rather than purely metaphorical terms.19 The implication of the allusion to Gen 28 in 1 En 13 is that Enoch’s incubation by the waters of Dan establishes a connection between the ancient Israelite sanctuary at Dan (the rival of Jerusalem) and God’s dwelling place in heaven. In the case of 1 Enoch, the location at Dan is connected to the summit of Mount Hermon, a traditional place of the assembly of the gods. The fact that the place of access to the celestial temple is Dan and not Jerusalem has implications for the relation of the celestial sanctuary to the temple in Jerusalem: while the celestial temple depicted in the following chapter in 1 Enoch has

16 The nal phrase is difcult but seems to mean something like “the sanctuary of the eternal establishment.” 17 The h is uncertain but plausible. See J. T. Milik, The Books of Enoch: Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1976) 193; García Martínez and Tigchelaar, Study Edition, 414–5. 18 G. von Rad, Genesis: A Commentary (trans. John H. Marks; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1961) 279. See also G. W. Ahlström, “Heaven on Earth—at Hazor and Arad,” in G. Widengren and B. A. Pearson (eds.), Religious Syncretism in Antiquity: Essays in Conversation with Geo Widengren (Missoula: Scholars Press, 1975) 67–83, for a discussion of the relation between temple and heaven. 19 Where Genesis speaks of a gate, a point of entry, 1 Enoch refers to gates, which seems to visualize dual door panels on hinges.

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denite ties to the temple in Jerusalem, as we shall note, the point of access at Dan suggests a rejection of the one-temple rule advocated by the Zadokite priesthood in the Persian and early Hellenistic period and consequently a distancing between the celestial temple and specic earthly locations. 1 Enoch 14 brings us to the centerpiece of the Enochic presentation of temples and the temple: the celestial temple. Where in ch. 13, Enoch gazes into heaven to receive visions of the judgment of the Watchers, in ch. 14 those visions are presented more specically as an ascent to heaven, where Enoch receives the word of judgment as he stands before the divine throne. The ascent to heaven represents the earliest example of a type of revelatory vision that will become increasingly popular in the Hellenistic and Roman periods,20 and it provides us with a sketch, at least, of the celestial temple that corresponds to the movements of the archangels in ch. 9, which we examined above. In Ascent to Heaven, Himmelfarb argues for a link between the structure of the temple in heaven of 1 En 14 and the temple in Jerusalem. Based upon a difference between the Greek and the Ethiopic versions of 1 Enoch, her interpretation of 1 En 14 is that it presents a threechambered temple like the temple in Jerusalem, with a ‘ulam, or vestibule, a hekhal, or sanctuary, and a devir, the Holy of Holies.21 In the Greek version in 14:9 Enoch is deposited in heaven by the winds and enters until he draws near to a wall of a building with stones of hail and tongues of ame encircling them ( ).* μ$  1  ! )μ. 2 !*  /3  4 , 56 (%). The Ethiopic tells us that he approaches a wall built with stones of hail (     ). In v. 10, Enoch enters a house that is as cold as ice and hot as re, and then in v. 15 he approaches a second house of greater splendor yet that contains the throne of the Great One. Himmelfarb takes the )μ. in v. 9 as the vestibule or ‘ulam of the celestial temple, with the house of v. 10 as the sanctuary or hekhal, and the second house of v. 15 as the devir, or Holy of Holies. Problems with the Greek in 14:9, however, suggest that the Ethiopic is to be preferred at this point. 78, as well as the equivalent in Ethi-

20

For a study of these visions, see Himmelfarb, Ascent to Heaven. Himmelfarb, Ascent to Heaven, 14. While making a connection between the general structure of the temple building and the celestial temple, Himmelfarb stresses instead the sense of transcendence created by the description of the latter rather than the precision of the relationship. 21

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opic, indicates a city wall, not the wall of a house, so that it seems more likely that the Greek has misplaced a passive participle with a noun.22 The instrumental use of the preposition 2 with a dative likewise seems to call for a passive participle.23 It is more likely that the construction that Enoch rst encounters is a wall marking off a court or temenos containing the celestial temple. While the two buildings encountered within may constitute the hekhal and the devir, one the location of the angelic priests who stand before the throne, the other the place of the throne itself, it is important to note that the celestial temple is set within a larger court. When we turn below to examine the relation of the sketch of the celestial temple to the larger set of traditions concerning the temple, the emerging signicance of the courts will become a signicant part of our discussion. What links the celestial temple to the temple in Jerusalem is more the description of the throne than the precise design of the temple as a two or three-chambered temple. Even if we do modify Himmelfarb’s analysis of the architectural description in 1 En 14 as the heavenly equivalent of the three-chambered temple found in Jerusalem, the description of the divine throne, including the Cherubim and ‘wheels’ (14:18), is suggestive of Ezekiel’s vision of the throne-chariot, which has its roots in the temple of Solomon in Jerusalem, and which will eventuate in the emergence of the Hekhaloth tradition. The presence of the EzekielHekhaloth material in 1 Enoch is well-established, however.24 The allusions to Ezekiel’s vision of the throne-chariot in 1 En 14:18 may explain in part the dislocation to Dan of the place of access to the celestial temple. Dan functions in much the same way as the Chebar River does in the book of Ezekiel as a sacred spring or waterway where one can seek a vision. In each case the prophet or seer has a vision of the throne-chariot away from Jerusalem, and like 1 Enoch, Ezekiel’s visions of the divine throne-chariot are associated with a critique of the purity of the temple—in Ezekiel’s case the rst temple.25 The major difference between Ezekiel and 1 Enoch, of course, is that Enoch ascends to the celestial temple for the vision of the throne chariot, 22 14:10 has the passive participle in a parallel construction. It also uses 8 for the walls of the hekhal, the correct term for the walls of a building. 23 Both Black, The Book of Enoch, 146–7, and Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 258, support a reading with the passive participle rather than a noun, arguing that the wall that Enoch encounters in 14:9 is the outer wall of heaven. 24 Note Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 264, 270. 25 See Suter, “Why Galilee?” 178.

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while Ezekiel remains rmly xed to the earth.26 Whether the variation in 1 Enoch has ‘cultic’ implications—with regard to employment of forms of contemplation—undoubtedly must be the subject of further discussion, but the interest of the author of the Book of the Watchers in Dan seems to be in an alternative location to Jerusalem where it is possible to practice oneiromancy and where there is an encounter with a more celestial theology associated with a developing pagan monotheism in Phoenicia and Syria.27 There are other details of the sketch of the celestial temple in 1 En 14 that are suggestive of items in the traditions about the temple (or temples) in Jerusalem, leading to the conclusion that the description of the celestial temple in 1 En 14 is very much a constituent part of a rather rich body of literature related to the temple. Himmelfarb calls attention to Josephus’ description of the effect of the appearance of Herod’s temple in relation to the re and ice of the celestial temple in 1 En 14:28 The exterior of the building wanted nothing that could astound either mind or eye. For, being covered on all sides with massive plates of gold, the sun was no sooner up than it radiated so ery a ash that persons straining to look at it were compelled to avert their eyes, as from the solar rays. To approaching strangers it appeared from a distance like a snow-clad mountain; for all that was not overlaid with gold was of purest white. ( J.W. 5.222–223 [Thackeray, LCL])

An alternative approach to the visual impact of the description of the celestial temple is one that has been explored by both Nickelsburg and the present author in the context of an argument for the location of the Watcher traditions in the Book of the Watchers in the vicinity of Mount Hermon: the meteorological features of the celestial temple, including the hailstones but also the shooting stars and lightnings in its upper chambers (14:11, 17), reect the environment of the summit of Mount Hermon. As Nickelsburg puts it: Many of them [the meteorological phenomena] are compatible with the physical appearance of Mount Hermon and the conditions that surround

26 27 28

Himmelfarb, Ascent to Heaven, 9. See Suter, “Why Galilee?” 186–201. Himmelfarb, Ascent to Heaven, 15.

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it: a massive snowcap, ice, heavy clouds, erce winds, and terrible cold at its peak.29

What the passage from Josephus has in common with the link to Mount Hermon is the association of temple and sacred mountain. For that matter, in comparing the visual effect of the temple to a snow-capped mountain, Josephus can only have had Mount Hermon in mind from the standpoint of the region. There is more that could be said, however, to establish the place of the Enochic description of the celestial temple in the larger body of temple literature from the Second Temple period. It would be as relevant, for example, to cite the visual effect of the revelation of the new Jerusalem in Revelation: And in the spirit he carried me away to a great, high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. It has the glory of God and a radiance like a very rare jewel, like jasper, clear as crystal. (Rev 21:10–11 NRSV)

A few verses later the text of Revelation continues with the use of gems and precious stones to create a sense of the visual impact of the celestial Jerusalem:30 The wall is built of jasper, while the city is pure gold, clear as glass. The foundations of the wall of the city are adorned with every jewel; the rst was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, the fth onyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, the twelfth amethyst. And the twelve gates are twelve pearls, each of the gates is a single pearl, and the street of the city is pure gold, transparent as glass. (Rev 21:18–21 NRSV)

The use of gems and precious stones shows up elsewhere in the description of utopian and eschatological temples and cities in Second Temple literature and reects a tradition about the creation of visual impact in the depiction of an ideal state of affairs.31 While the hailstones, or

29

Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 261. See Suter, “Why Galilee?” 206–7. Student Judith Pittelkau alerted the author to the signicance of gems and precious stones in eschatological texts in a paper on gems and weapons in the War Scroll. 31 See the description of the new Jerusalem in 4Q554 Frag. 2 ii.14–16. F. García Martínez (“The ‘New Jerusalem’ and the Future Temple of the Manuscripts from Qumran,” in F. García Martínez (ed.), Qumran and Apocalyptic: Studies on the Aramaic Texts 30

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ice crystals, and tongues of re of 1 En 14 are not exactly precious stones, they possess the same impact.32 Perhaps of even greater relevance to the use of re as a structural element in the depiction of the celestial temple in 1 Enoch is the description of the new Jerusalem in Zech 2, which begins with an angel measuring the city and then turns to a description of its future state in vv. 3–5: And then, while the angel who was talking to me walked away, another angel came out to meet him. He said to him, “Run, and tell that young man this, ‘Jerusalem is to remain unwalled, because of the great number of men and cattle inside. For I—Yahweh declares—shall be a wall of re all round her and I shall be the Glory within her.’” (NJB)

Fire seems to be a universal symbol of the divine presence, as is apparent from the description of the investment of the tabernacle with the glory of Yahweh in Exod 40:34–38. Another feature of the architecture of the temple that shows up in 1 En 14 is the upper chambers (t/Yli[)} of the temple.33 These appear for the rst time in 1 Chr 28:11 and 2 Chr 3:9 as a component of Solomon’s temple, and while their function is not clear, the upper chambers of the celestial temple seem to be mentioned in 1 En 14:11, 17–18. In 14:11 they appear as the $ , which in the plural refers to the upper stories of a building. In 14:17, $ is used in the singular as the ceiling or roof of the building, but in the same verse there is reference to , . . . +4 (', “its [the second building’s] upper parts.” In both vv. 11 and 17 in the Greek the upper stories or parts contain shooting stars and lightnings, indicating a cosmic signicance for the celestial temple, particularly when taken in conjunction with the solar imagery associated with the description of the throne and the Great One. The cosmic signicance of the upper chambers is obvious from Ps 104:3, 13, where they describe the celestial temple itself, and where God is said to set his t/Yli[} upon the waters and to water the mountains from them. It would be tempting to suggest that the cosmic symbolism

from Qumran [Leiden: Brill, 1992], 180–213, esp. 199) traces the tradition to the Hymns to Zion, reected in Isa 54:11–12 and Tob 13:15–18. 32 Note that elsewhere in the Book of the Watchers, 1 En 18:6–8, Enoch in his journey describes seven mountains composed of gems, one of which appears to be like the throne of God, with emeralds and sapphires. See also 24:1–3. 33 See L. H. Schiffman’s discussion of the upper chamber or chambers in “The Construction of the Temple according to the Temple Scroll,” RQ 17 (1996) 555–71, esp. 567–70. See also Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 264.

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makes the celestial temple a microcosm, except that microcosm in fact might not be the right word to use in this case to describe the relation between celestial temple and cosmos. The eschatological temple in the early Enoch tradition Elsewhere in the early Enoch literature the idea of an eschatological temple emerges as a feature of the Enochic tradition. In chs. 24–26, Enoch’s journeys take him to seven jeweled mountains, the most magnicent of which turns out to be God’s throne, upon which he will sit when he descends to the earth in blessing—presumably an eschatological event (24:3; 25:3). Associated with that throne is a remarkable tree whose fruit will feed the righteous—again an eschatological reference (24:4; 25:4–6). The tree—which seems to be the tree of life—is to be transplanted to the precincts of the temple of the Lord, where it will provide the basis for a paradisiacal existence for the righteous. The scene then shifts to the center of the earth where the topography of a “blessed place” resembles that of Jerusalem. While the interest in ch. 26 is in the valleys as the place of judgment of the wicked, 26:1 pictures a grove of trees in that “blessed place,” which seems to evoke the image of the plantation as a symbol of the community of the righteous known from Jewish literature of the period.34 In 26:2, the Gihon ows out from beneath the sacred mount. If we piece the details together, what we nd is a rather vague reference to a new Jerusalem, which in the end of days will become a place for the community of the righteous, with the eschatological temple in its midst and the tree of life planted by its side to sustain the life of the community. The Apocalypse of the Animals in 1 En 85–90 contains a series of temple images from the celestial temple through the tabernacle in the wilderness and the rst and second temples to either the eschatological temple or the new Jerusalem. The description of these various temples presents some difculties, however. The principal difculty is the distinction between ‘house’ and ‘tower.’ The celestial temple is described as a tower, higher than all of the hills or perhaps ‘high places’35 of the

34 See 1QS viii:4; xi:8; 1QHa xiv:15; xvi:4–14, and note Nickelsburg’s Excursus in 1 Enoch 1, 444–5. The image of a felled tree in the midst of the plantation probably represents a textual corruption, although it could also be a reference to the survival of a remnant (contrast Black, Book of Enoch, 172, and Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 318). 35 Black, Book of Enoch, 261, notes a possible equivalence to the Hebrew hmb or twmb, “high place” or “places”—cultic sites inferior to the “lofty tower”—although he

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earth (87:3). The tabernacle in the wilderness is described as a ‘house’ (89:36, 40) in Ethiopic, which suggests a temple or sanctuary, while the Aramaic to 89:36 appears to have [ ˆkç]m, “abode” or “tabernacle.”36 However, it is also a place where the whole of Israel can stand (89:36), suggesting that the writer also has the camp of the Israelites in the wilderness in mind.37 Solomon enlarges a ‘house,’38 which seems to represent Jerusalem, and builds a high tower, the temple, upon which the Lord of the sheep stands, indicating God’s presence in the rst temple (89:50). The house is low, but the tower is lofty and great, and the sheep offer a “full table” before the Deity. In the Apocalypse of the Animals, the reigns of David and Solomon are pictured as ideal times in which the people of Israel are obedient to God. The second temple has both a house with ornaments and pillars—again the house represents Jerusalem—and a high tower, seemingly an imitation of the temple of Solomon, but the “high tower” is one in name only (89:72–73).39 It is not inhabited by God, and the bread that is placed before the tower is polluted. Eventually its columns and ornaments are taken away and replaced by God with ones that are newer and larger. God dwells in this new house, and the righteous assemble in it, although even so it cannot hold them all (90:28–29, 36). The narrative makes it plain that the second temple is decient and is not a place that God chooses to inhabit. The pollution of its offering is part of the problem, but the second temple also seems to be lacking in part on account of its design. Among other things, the narrative is interested in comparisons of size, and the eschatological house that replaces it is larger and grander than the second temple. What is unclear about the narrative is that it describes the eschatological construction that replaces the second temple as a house, but does not mention a tower. The dilemma is whether the writer intends a new Jerusalem like the one in Rev 21, which has no need of a temple in it, or whether a tower (temple) is implied in the adjectives denoting height in the

also notes that Enoch is being taken to a place higher than the hills that were covered by the ood. 36 4Q204 Frag. 4:10. Both Milik, Books of Enoch, 205–6, and García Martínez and Tigchelaar, Study Edition, 418, make the same reconstruction. 37 See Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 381–2. 38 Black, Book of Enoch, 269, suggests that the Aramaic tyb, “house,” underlies this verse as opposed to the ˆkçm, “tabernacle,” of v. 36. 39 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 394.

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eschatological ‘house.’ Perhaps the correct solution is that the city as a whole is intended as an extension of the temple.40 The Apocalypse of the Animals helps to resolve one question about the celestial temple. While the architectural description implied in ‘house’ and ‘tower’ is exceedingly vague in most respects, its simplicity has the virtue of being able to imply an ‘architectural’ correspondence between the temple in heaven and those on earth. The difference lies not in the general structure—both the celestial temple and Solomon’s temple are towers—but in size and grandeur. The narrative may also imply a comparison between the celestial temple and the hills or high places, as well as a difference in size and height, following Black’s interpretation of the ‘hills’ as ‘high places’ noted above. Should we conclude that other sanctuaries—like Dan and Bethel—are still in the purview of the text, but that, given the difference in terminology (‘hill’ versus ‘tower’), they are one step further removed from the temple of Solomon in Jerusalem? In any case, it is clear that the second temple is both polluted and structurally inadequate as a dwelling-place for the Deity. The Apocalypse of Weeks (1 En 93:3–10; 91:11–17) is related to the Apocalypse of the Animals, although it is difcult to determine the nature of that relationship. Nickelsburg comments that it “is either an epitome of the Animal Vision or a source for it.”41 The Apocalypse of Weeks mentions the tabernacle (93:6), the temple of Solomon (93:7–8), and the eschatological temple (91:13), with what Nickelsburg notes as an intensication of description of the royal and glorious nature of the sanctuaries as it moves from one to the next.42 In contrast, the second temple is left entirely out of the picture, with the generation of the Restoration being dismissed briey as perverse (93:9). Striking in its presentation is the idea that in the tenth week, with the judgment of the Watchers, the rst heaven will pass away and a new heaven will be revealed (91:16). The implication seems to be that at the end of days the corruption of both the Watchers and the Israelite priestly establishment will require a new celestial temple as well as a new one on earth. What emerges from this survey of references to ‘temple’ in the early Enoch literature is that the tradition looks to the past and the future as

40 41 42

See Nickelsburg’s discussion (1 Enoch 1, 404–5). Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 441. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 449.

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the times at which God can be approached in a dwelling upon earth. The golden ages for this body of literature in which God takes up his dwelling with Israel are the age of David and Solomon—even more so than the period of the Wilderness with Moses and the tabernacle—and the end of days with the appearance of either a new Jerusalem or the eschatological temple. For the present, God’s abode must be sought in heaven, and while the prayers of those perishing from violence ascend to heaven, the sanctuary in heaven, the celestial temple, is accessible only to those who, like Enoch, are specially qualied by their righteousness. One implication of this conclusion is that prior to the emergence of the Qumran Yahad there are those who have ceased to seek God’s presence in the second temple in Jerusalem and may be developing new forms of piety. However, such alternative forms of piety can only be described as provisional in the early Enoch tradition given the intensity of the expectation of the temple for the end of days. Jewish Conceptualizations of the Temple and the Early Enoch Tradition One approach to understanding the role of the temple imagery in the early Enoch tradition is to examine it in the context of the rich diversity of conceptualizations of temples and the temple present in early Judaism. Nowhere is that diversity more apparent than in the distinctions made by Doron Mendels regarding types of temple descriptions in Jewish literature of the period read against the backdrop of descriptions of temples in Hellenistic literature in general.43 Mendels distinguishes among (1) realistic descriptions of temples (1 Kgs 6–7; Sirach), (2) idealized temple descriptions (Eupolemos), (3) utopian temples (Ezek 40–42; possibly the tabernacle in the wilderness of Exodus; and the Temple Scroll), (4) negative attitudes toward temples (Mendels identies Greek examples but argues that Jewish critiques were directed toward the priesthood rather than the temple), and (5) apocalyptic temples (absent in Greek sources but found in 1 En 14; 90:28–36; and the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrice). In Mendels’ typological classication of temples, the category that is most problematic is the apocalyptic temple, since he fails to dene

43

Mendels, The Rise and Fall, 139–49.

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what he means by apocalyptic and includes examples both of an eschatological temple (1 En 90), intended to take the place of the second temple, and a heavenly temple, in the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrice, which he suggests is a “heavenly apolitical duplicate (not an alternative!) of the present real temple.”44 He mentions the heavenly temple of 1 En 14 only in passing. Perhaps the confusion in his classication scheme rests in the dual meaning of ‘apocalyptic’ as ‘eschatological’ (the eschatological temple of 1 En 90) and ‘revelatory’ (the celestial temples of 1 En 14 and the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrice). While Mendels introduces some confusion between utopian and apocalyptic temples by suggesting at one point that Ezek 40–42 may belong in the latter category, one signicant difference reected in Mendels’ classication is that his utopian temples are presented with great architectural detail while the apocalyptic examples—including 1 En 14—are only vaguely sketched.45 While Mendels’ classications are open to discussion, it does make sense to assume as a starting point that the way in which a document represents architectural detail is of signicance in understanding what is being said about a temple, whether located in heaven or upon the earth.46 For Mendels, the physical shape of a temple is integral to its function as a religious and political center, so that in a utopian description of a temple architectural detail and dimensions make an important statement designed to “justify a new situation, a new national setup.”47 In his estimation, the concern of the Temple Scroll reected in the structure it gives the temple is with the twelve tribes—represented by twelve gates into the outer court—more so than with the Land of Israel, which for Mendels remains an amorphous concept in the scroll.

44

Mendels, The Rise and Fall, 148. Mendels, The Rise and Fall, 148; see Himmelfarb, Ascent to Heaven, 15–6. 46 Here note the approach of M. Chyutin (The New Jerusalem Scroll from Qumran: A Comprehensive Reconstruction [Shefeld: Shefeld Academic Press, 1997] 10–2), who relates the literary style used in architectural description to the religious and political purposes of the writer. He lists four types of description in Jewish literature: divine commandment, human execution, historical documentation, and angelic tour. Chyutin’s literary distinctions apply to texts like Ezek 40–48 or the New Jerusalem scroll that have thick architectural description, but need further thought for texts like 1 Enoch where the description is sketchy. The Enoch texts represent the angelic tour style, which for Chyutin carries an eschatological signicance, but that again leaves us with a quandary about how to understand such texts as 1 En 14, which is revelatory but not eschatological, at least not with regard to its architectural description. 47 Mendels, The Rise and Fall, 146. 45

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The focus upon the twelve tribes Mendels takes as an indication of the political signicance of the temple, although he fails to note that the twelve-tribe system has long since ceased to exist, making any such statement an ideal rather than a reality. The signicance of such an ideal becomes apparent when it is viewed in an eschatological rather than a purely political perspective. Lawrence Schiffman notes that for the Temple Scroll, the temple “symbolized the nation of Israel in its pristine perfection in the years of wandering in the desert” and was intended to be a source of blessing for the entire people.48 With the adoption of these plans for the Temple . . . the author/redactor of the entire Temple Scroll dreamt of a day when Israel would dwell, as it were, in the tent of the Lord. He looked forward to the reestablishment of Israelite society, within the courtyards of the House of the Lord.49

Utopian and eschatological designs from the Temple Scroll to the New Jerusalem scroll from Qumran and the description of the New Jerusalem in Rev 21, make the courts of the temple exceed the capacity of the Temple Mount and the hills upon which Jerusalem is built to hold temple courts and city. Even Herod the Great, in renovating the temple, appears to have had such a utopian concern in mind in designing a splendid building and in pushing the limits of engineering and construction to create a spacious court in which to set his structure, although one suspects that Herod’s motive may have been more political than eschatological in nature. Part of the interest in size may be to accommodate the multitude of the righteous to assemble at the eschatological temple or in the new Jerusalem at the end of days, and that motivation seems to have driven the author of the Apocalypse of the Animals in his description of the eschatological temple that will replace the second temple (cf. 1 En 90:29, 36), although it is curious to note that even so, the eschatological temple and city will be unable to hold all who return (90:34). What is distinctive about the eschatological vision of the Apocalypse of the Animals is that it imagines not only the return and transforma-

48 L. Schiffman, “Architecture and Law: The Temple and Its Courtyards in the Temple Scroll,” in J. Neusner, E. S. Frerichs, and N. M. Sarna (eds.), From Ancient Israel to Modern Judaism: Intellect in Quest of Understanding: Essays in Honor of Marvin Fox (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1989) 267–84, esp. 284. 49 Schiffman, “Architecture and Law,” 284.

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tion of the sheep—the people of Israel—but the transformation of the whole of humanity to some primordial unity,50 although as far as one can tell from the symbolic presentation, the new Jerusalem remains an Israelite ‘institution.’ In reecting upon the relation between temple design and function, Yigael Yadin offers a somewhat different analysis of the architectural description and its function in the Temple Scroll than Mendels, one that may help understand the developing role of the celestial sanctuary in 1 Enoch and beyond. He makes a distinction between the temple that God on Mount Sinai commanded Israel to build and the one for the end of time that God will build.51 He classies the temple of the Temple Scroll as a temple for present time to be built by Israel, playing an equivalent role in the Temple Scroll to the tabernacle in Exodus, while the temples of Ezek 40–48 and 1 En 90 are eschatological temples to be built by God at the end of time.52 In Yadin’s estimation, the distinctive feature of both Ezekiel’s temple and the temple of the Temple Scroll is in their treatment of the temple courts more so than the temple building itself. In particular, the Temple Scroll intends to make a separation between temple and city through the introduction of three concentric courts and a moat a hundred cubits wide intended in part to buffer the temple from the possibility of intrusion that would render it impure. The city likewise is part of the concentric rings of holiness and purity providing a buffer around the sanctuary.53 The celestial temple in 1 En 14 is in some respects like what Yadin calls the temple for the end of days and in some respects like the temple of the Temple Scroll as described by Yadin. While the celestial temple of 1 En 14 is not eschatological, to be built by God at the end of days, it seems safe to assume that it reects not a human but a divine foundation. On the other hand, its ‘location’ in heaven—where it can be reached by Enoch only by undertaking a vision-quest by sleeping at

50

In the Book of the Watchers, the conclusion to the instruction to the archangels in 1 En 10:20–22 anticipates that the entire earth will be puried and that all of humanity will become righteous. In 91:14, at the conclusion of the Apocalypse of Weeks, the whole of humanity will likewise become righteous, leading Nickelsburg to note that “the conversion of the human race is a topos in the Enochic corpus” (1 Enoch 1, 449). 51 Y. Yadin, The Temple Scroll (3 vols.; Jerusalem: The Israel Exploration Society, 1977–83) 1.182–7. 52 Yadin, The Temple Scroll, 1.183, 191. 53 Yadin, The Temple Scroll, 1.177–8, 188–9, 191–2, 275.

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the waters of Dan—functions, in effect, in the same way as the concentric courts of the temple of the Temple Scroll to buffer the sanctuary from mundane contact.54 As the idea of the ascent to heaven develops in apocalyptic and Merkabah literature, the concentric ring of courts becomes the levels or palaces separating the celestial from the mundane. In his study of the priestly investiture of Levi in heaven in the Greek Testament of Levi, Benedikt Otzen shows how the hierarchy of the angels in the levels of heaven leading up to the throne of God reects the hierarchy of priests and Israelites in the temple in Jerusalem and the courts in which they served or to which they had access.55 As Philip Alexander describes the concept in 3 Enoch, God’s throne “is located in the seventh heaven, in the middle of seven concentric palaces or temples (hêkÊlôt), and can be approached only through seven doors guarded by erce guardian angels.”56 The wall of ame through which Enoch must enter the precincts of the celestial temple in 1 En 14:10 seems to function in a similar manner by establishing a court to serve as a buffer to anything that is mundane, and as the sage penetrates further into the celestial temple he reaches a place off limits even to the angelic priests who stand before the Deity and faces an implied question as a mortal about the legitimacy of his own presence in the celestial courts (1 En 15:2). In addition to the way in which structures separate between the sacred and the profane or provide a space for the assembly of the righteous, aesthetic issues are also intimately related to the expression of sacrality. Temple architecture is an art. The magnicence of the temple, its ability to inspire awe, is a factor to be taken into consideration. While there is a distinct difference between the way in which architectural detail is merely sketched in the early Enoch literature but measured out in blueprint-like detail in Ezekiel, the Temple Scroll, and the New Jerusalem, the attention to architecture and appearance suggests that the aesthetic qualities of the design of the temple are an important factor related to its sanctity and its suitability as an abode for the Deity. Johann Maier notes that: 54 Note 1 En 14:11–12, where there is a cryptic and possibly corrupt reference to the walls ( %) and the upper parts of heaven with the Cherubim in what may be an allusion to the idea of multiple heavens (see Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 263). 55 B. Otzen, “Heavenly Visions in Early Judaism: Origin and Function,” in W. B. Barrick and J. R. Spencer (eds.), In the Shelter of Elyon: Essays on Ancient Palestinian Life and Literature (Shefeld: JSOT, 1984) 199–215, esp. 208. 56 P. Alexander, “Enoch, Third Book of,” ABD 2.522–26, esp. 523.

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Considering the long history of the sanctuary in Jerusalem and realizing its dimensions, which by far surpassed comparable monumental buildings of antiquity, it appears self-evident that without a continuous architectural tradition it would have been impossible to create and maintain such vast structures.57

There are, however, maximalist and minimalist positions in modern scholarship regarding the monumental character of the temple in relation to the sacred architecture of the ancient world. Carol Meyers notes that, when compared to the monumental architecture of the Hellenistic and Roman eras, the limitations upon the magnicence of the temple in the Second Temple period, imposed among other ways by the constraints of the size of Solomon’s temple, inevitably leads to dissatisfaction with the impact of the second temple. The problem is solved by Herod the Great through an expansion of the plaza surrounding the temple and the construction of the porticoes on its perimeter.58 The concern with aesthetics and impression shows up in the Enoch literature in several ways that correspond to the temple literature of Second Temple Judaism. As we have noted, the description of the celestial temple in 1 En 14 attempts to exceed the possibilities of imagination by bringing together re and ice, materials that do not exist together in mundane circumstances,59 and by building not only upon their intellectual impact but their visual impact in a way similar to Josephus’ description of Herod’s temple quoted above. We have also noted the way in which a similar effect is accomplished elsewhere in utopian or eschatological description through the use of jewels and precious stones as materials of construction. Another aesthetic factor in temple design—celestial or earthly—that seems to interest the early Enoch tradition and affect the suitability of the structure as a dwelling-place for the Deity is that of height. The height of the temple in the diverse examples of temple literature is a variable of signicance,60 and while some of the differences seem to be

57

J. Maier, “The Temple Scroll and tendencies in the cultic architecture of the Second Commonwealth,” in L. Schiffman (ed.), Archaeology and History in the Dead Sea Scrolls; the New York University Conference in Memory of Yigael Yadin (Shefeld: JSOT, 1990) 67–82, esp. 67. 58 C. Meyers, “Temple, Jerusalem,” ABD 6.350–69, esp. 364–65. 59 See Himmelfarb, Ascent to Heaven, 15. 60 See L. H. Schiffman, “The construction of the Temple according to the ‘Temple Scroll’,” RQ 17 (2006) 555–571, esp. 563–5, for a discussion of the heights attributed by different authors to the various temples.

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the result of efforts by later writers to interpret the various traditions about Solomon’s temple, the issue also seems to be one of visual impact and the ability to push the limits of structural engineering. Josephus’ description of both Solomon’s and Herod’s temples make height one of their imposing features (Ant. 8.63–65; 15.391–393,411–412), and for Herod it is the rationale he uses, according to Josephus, to justify the renovation of the second temple (Ant. 15.380–387). As we have noted, the Apocalypse of the Animals is also interested in height as a measure of the sanctity of both the celestial temple and the various earthly temples constructed in Jerusalem. The celestial temple in 1 En 14 likewise uses height as an index of sanctity, both in including the upper chambers of the temple in its description61 and in making the devir, the throne room of the temple, larger and more magnicent than the hekhal, where the opposite ratio was the case in the various earthly temples. García Martínez suggests a dual function for the celestial temple. On the one hand it serves as the place of the angelic cultus of praise and glorication of the Deity, on the other it provides an ideal and a model for what will take place on earth.62 In the case of the early Enoch tradition, its cultic function includes its role as the destination of Enoch’s ascent to heaven, but it serves as an ideal in establishing a vision of magnicence that shapes the expectation associated with the temple for the end of days. Our survey produces one interesting contrast in constraints related to utopian concepts in the design of the temple: God’s holiness must be defended by buffers or isolated in the heaven of heavens where it is accessible only to the righteous few—like Enoch—and yet at the end of days the temple and the holy city must be prepared to accommodate multitudes of the righteous as they return to Jerusalem. Perhaps the difference is to be found in the consideration that in the present degenerate age, purity is a signicant issue, while at the end of days, humanity will be transformed and the righteous will need to be included in the courts of the temple. Although previous discussion has concentrated on the issue of purity, particularly the purity of the priesthood,

61 Maier (“Tendencies in the Cultic Architecture,” 76) notes that “the development of multistory buildings in conjunction with architectural court enclosures seems therefore to be a specic feature of the Syrian region (in its widest sense).” 62 García Martínez, “New Jerusalem,” in Lawrence H. Schiffman and James C. VanderKam (eds.), Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls (2 vols.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000) 2.606–10, esp. 609.

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an examination of the role of the temple in the early Enoch literature against the background of Jewish understandings of the temple and temples of the period suggests a broader spectrum of concerns, including eschatological accessibility and the aesthetics of holiness. Ending the Exile requires a temple adequate to the holiness of God, but that temple can be built by God alone. Conclusion In printing a photographic negative of the temple in the early Enoch tradition, we discover that the temple remains a reality in the memory and the expectation of the writers of this body of literature, but apparently not in their practice. In spite of the Restoration under the Zadokites, Israel remains in exile, and God’s presence, symbolized by the throne-chariot with its wheels, is to be encountered in other places and through other means than the Zadokite sacricial cultus. While we might conclude from a discussion of priesthood in the early Enoch tradition that not all priests have departed from the purity of the priesthood (not all of the Watchers have departed from the sanctuary of heaven),63 in examining the early Enoch literature from the perspective of the temple, the pollution of the second temple in the Apocalypse of the Animals and its absence from the Apocalypse of Weeks is decisive: God is not present in that temple and cannot be sought there. Moreover, although the early Enoch tradition is clearly a priestly tradition, there is relatively little if any interest in the sacricial cultus (in contrast to Jubilees, as noted above), but much interest in the visionary aspect of religious practice. In the Apocalypse of the Animals, the fundamental index of piety is the blindness of the sheep, and while this blindness may be in part tied to torah observance, it may also have other levels of signicance. For the early Enoch tradition, the temple is of importance because of its ability to separate between the sacred and the profane and to instill a sense of awe and wonder through its visual impact. In conjunction with the new Jerusalem it must also be prepared to accommodate the return of the exiles at the end of days to place the entire people in contact with the divine blessing. What counts is its ability to provide a visually appropriate abode for the Great One

63

See Himmelfarb, Ascent to Heaven, 22.

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insulated from the impurity of the mundane world, more so than to provide a setting for sacrice. As far as we can determine from the tradition, one approaches this Great One through prayer, through the practice of righteousness, and through visionary experience. In its presentation of temples and the temple in Second Temple Judaism, it is the celestial temple that provides both the location where God’s presence is to be sought for the present time and the ultimate visual expression of sanctity. However, the literature does not yet imagine that this dislocation of God’s abode from earth to heaven is permanent. In its surveys of sanctuaries, the early Enoch literature leads not to the celestial temple but to the one to be revealed at the end of days for all eternity. In the nal analysis, it will be the eschatological temple that will sustain the life of the righteous through the planting of the tree of life beside the temple and the presence of the Deity in his dwelling place.64

64 The author expresses appreciation to former student Ian Werrett for reviewing a penultimate draft of this article and offering substantive suggestions. Responsibility for the nal form of the article remains the author’s own.

TEMPLE AND PRIESTS IN THE BOOK OF THE WATCHERS, THE ANIMAL APOCALYPSE, AND THE APOCALYPSE OF WEEKS Martha Himmelfarb Princeton University, United States For much of the Persian and Hellenistic periods, the Jerusalem temple was unrivaled as the central institution of Jewish society, and the priests who served in it constituted a well-dened élite with considerable political inuence. Yet precisely because of the temple’s importance, priests often found themselves condemned for their incorrect understanding of the laws governing the temple and for behavior inappropriate to their ofce. Such criticism is preserved for us in works ranging from the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah through the Dead Sea Scrolls. Further, disapproval of priestly behavior sometimes caused anxiety about the status of the temple itself, for the impiety of the priests and their failure to follow the laws of the Torah properly could have the effect of deling the temple. Here I would like to examine the attitude toward the temple and its priests in three Enochic apocalypses, the Book of the Watchers (1 Enoch 1–36), which dates to the third century BCE, and two works that probably date to the period after the Maccabean revolt and the Hasmonean assumption of the high priesthood, the Animal Apocalypse (1 En 85–90) and the Apocalypse of Weeks (1 Enoch 93, 91). Though both of the later texts form part of larger Enochic works, the Book of Dream Visions (1 Enoch 83–90) and the Epistle of Enoch (1 Enoch 92–105) respectively, neither of the larger works refers to the temple outside the units on which I focus. Each of the works considered here is critical of the Second Temple, though temples play a central role in each. The Book of the Watchers offers its criticism of the Jerusalem temple and its priests indirectly: the only temple that appears in its narrative is the heavenly temple with its angelic priests. But I shall argue that the depiction of the watchers who descend to earth is intended as criticism of some of the priests of the Jerusalem temple. The Animal Apocalypse, in contrast, offers a straightforwardly negative evaluation of the Jerusalem temple: its

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cult was polluted from the very start. The Apocalypse of Weeks simply ignores the Second Temple altogether. Yet the priests who might have been held responsible for the sad state of the Second Temple are conspicuously absent from both of these later works. Further, all three works revere the ideal of the temple, as can be seen from the heavenly temples of the Book of the Watchers and the Animal Apocalypse and the eschatological temples of the Animal Apocalypse and the Apocalypse of Weeks. I begin with the most ancient of the works considered here, the Book of the Watchers. As I just noted, the temple of the Book of the Watchers is not the Jerusalem temple, but the heavenly one. It appears in the course of Enoch’s ascent to heaven to plead the case of the fallen watchers (1 Enoch 12–16). Upon arrival in heaven, Enoch nds himself standing before an awesome structure composed of re and ice, materials that could never coexist in the world we know. He is terried by the glory of what he sees, but he is able to pass through the outer wall of the structure and its rst chamber to stand at the entrance to the even more glorious inner chamber, where he sees God enthroned, surrounded by a host of angels (1 Enoch 14:8–24). Although it is never made explicit, the identity of the building Enoch enters is clear.1 Like the earthly temple, the heavenly temple consists of an outer court (1 Enoch 14:9), a central chamber (1 Enoch 14:10), and an inner chamber, the holy of holies (1 Enoch 14:15). The ery cherubim on the ceiling of the central chamber (1 Enoch 14:11) recall the cherubim on the woven wall hangings of the wilderness tabernacle (Exod 26:1, 31; 36:8, 35) and the walls and doors of Solomon’s temple (1 Kings 6:29, 32, 35). God’s cherubim throne (1 Enoch 14:18) clearly echoes the seat composed of two cherubim with their wings spread forth that stood in the inner sanctum of the tabernacle (Exod 37:6–9) and the temple (1 Kings 6:23–28); it owes its wheels to Ezekiel’s chariot (Ezekiel 1:15–21). The crowd of angels that stands before the divine throne is described using the verb “approach” (1 Enoch 14:22–23), a technical term for priestly service in the priestly corpus of the Torah;

1 For discussion of the heavenly temple in 1 Enoch 12–16, G. W. E. Nickelsburg, “Enoch, Levi, and Peter: Recipients of Revelation in Upper Galilee,” JBL 100 (1981) 580–2; 1 Enoch 1: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch, Chapters 1–36; 81–108 (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001) 259–66; and M. Himmelfarb, Ascent to Heaven in Jewish and Christian Apocalypses (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993) 9–16.

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the angels’ attendance by day and by night (1 Enoch 14:23) may also have cultic connotations.2 The idea of a heavenly temple has deep roots in the ancient near east, where temples were understood as replicas of the actual abodes of the gods in which the gods made themselves available to their devotees. So too the Bible often calls the Jerusalem temple “the house of the Lord” (e.g., Deut 23:19, 1 Kings 6:37; 7:40,45,48,51; 8:10,11,63,64), and Isaiah of Jerusalem (chap. 6) and many psalms (e.g., Psalms 27, 122, 132, 134) attest that the Israelites believed that the Lord’s presence could be found there. The understanding of heaven as the Lord’s abode also gives rise to an alternate picture of heaven as temple in the literature of the Second Temple period, the picture of heaven as royal palace. This is the picture to be found in Daniel 7, for example, where the Ancient of Days sits on his throne, surrounded by his courtiers, as the royal record books are opened (Dan 7:9–10). The picture of heaven as temple and the picture of heaven as royal palace share an understanding of heaven as the abode of the Lord, the king of the universe, though in one picture the angels are priests, while in the other, they are courtiers. Though the structure Enoch sees in heaven is undoubtedly a temple, it is not to be identied with any of the temples described in the Bible: the tabernacle of the Israelites’ travels through the wilderness, Solomon’s temple, or the eschatological temple Ezekiel envisions (Ezekiel 40–46). Indeed, the point of the elaborate description of the extraordinary building blocks of the heavenly temple seems to be the heavenly temple’s utter transcendence of the earthly temple and indeed of earthly reality. A similar logic appears to underlie the description of the heavenly temple in the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrice. There the equipment of the cult and the temple itself are frequently multiplied by seven, though singular and plural stand side by side, a situation surely impossible on earth, if not in heaven.3 But despite the glorious appearance of the heavenly temple in the Book of the Watchers and the Lord’s presence on the throne, all is not well, for some of the angelic priests have descended to earth. The language in which God rejects the petition of the fallen watchers

2

For this point, Nickelsburg, “Enoch, Levi,” 585 n. 37; 1 Enoch 1, 265–6. C. Newsom, Songs of the Sabbath Sacrice: A Critical Edition (Harvard Semitic Studies; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985) 49. 3

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makes it clear that their departure from heaven meant abandoning their priestly duties: Go and say to the watchers of heaven, who sent you to petition in their behalf, “You should petition in behalf of men, and not men in behalf of you. Why have you forsaken the high heaven, the eternal sanctuary; and lain with women, and deled yourselves with the daughters of men . . .?” (1 Enoch 15:2–3)4

By employing Enoch to mediate between them and God, the watchers have reversed the proper order, in which they would perform the priestly function of mediation on behalf of humanity. Indeed, the contrast between the fallen watchers, who have abandoned the heavenly temple, and Enoch, the righteous human being who fullls a priestly role in that very temple, is a central theme of the Book of the Watchers. The Book of the Watchers calls Enoch a scribe (1 Enoch 12:3–4), and Enoch’s ability to draw up a petition for the fallen watchers (1 Enoch 13:4–6) requires scribal expertise. Yet, though it never says so explicitly, it is clear that it also regards Enoch as a priest.5 As we have just seen, God’s rebuke to the watchers describes Enoch as performing a priestly function rightfully theirs. Further, the very fact that Enoch successfully traverses the structure of the heavenly temple to stand before the throne of glory is an indication of priestly status. For anyone but a priest, entering the inner spaces of the sanctuary would constitute trespassing, and in several passages the Torah, jealous of priestly prerogatives, warns that the alien who approaches shall die (Num 3:10,38; 18:7).6 That heaven is a temple and Enoch a priest in the Book of the Watchers seems to me clear. That is not to claim that all aspects of the account of the watchers’ descent and Enoch’s ascent contribute to this picture. The teachings of the watchers and their consequences, for example, reect a different set of interests.7 Still, temple and priesthood

4 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 257. All translations of 1 Enoch are taken from Nickelsburg. 5 On Enoch as priest and scribe, Himmelfarb, Ascent, 23–5. 6 See J. Maier, “Das Gefährdungsmotiv bei der Himmelsreise in der jüdischen Apokalyptik und ‘Gnosis,’ ” Kairos 5 (1963) 18–40, with brief discussion of the Book of the Watchers, 22–3. 7 On these interests, A. Yoshiko Reed, “Heavenly Ascent, Angelic Descent, and the Transformation of Knowledge in 1 Enoch 6–16,” in R. Boustan and A. Yoshiko Reed (eds.), Heavenly Realms and Earthly Realities in Late Antique Religions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004) 47–66.

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are central to the Book of the Watchers, and several scholars have suggested that it uses the story of angels taking human wives in the service of its interest in priests, or rather its anxiety about them. The interpretations of the descent of the watchers of most interest to me here are those David Suter and George Nickelsburg suggested a quarter of a century ago.8 Suter reads the Book of the Watchers’ version of the myth of the descent of the watchers as an attack on priests for deling the temple by taking wives forbidden to priests, by violating the laws of menstrual purity, and by misappropriating offerings brought to the temple.9 He nds these concerns in the story of the descent of the watchers in chaps. 6–11 as well in the account of Enoch’s ascent to heaven in chaps. 12–16. Independently of Suter, George Nickelsburg makes a similar argument focused on chaps. 12–16; he understands the forbidden wives not as the wrong kind of Jewish women, but as foreign women.10 Before I attempt my own account of the criticism of priests implicit in the watchers’ marriage to women, it is important to note one difculty with reading the story as critical of priests. In the context of the myth, the problem with the watchers’ marriages is not their choice of wives, but the very fact of marriage. As God points out in his rebuke of the watchers, human beings require marriage for reproduction, but the watchers are immortal spirits for whom marriage is inappropriate (1 Enoch 15:4–7). Thus there is a certain lack of t between the myth and the criticism implicit in it: watchers should not marry at all, while priests should not marry the wrong kind of women.

8 The most recent interpretation of watchers as priests is that of E. J. C. Tigchelaar, The Prophets of Old and the Day of the End: Zechariah, the Book of the Watchers and Apocalyptic (Leiden: Brill, 1996) 198–203. Tigchelaar argues that the watchers’ abandonment of heaven to marry human women recalls the career of Manasseh, the brother of the high priest Jaddua, who married Nikaso, the daughter of Sanballat, the governor of Samaria. But the event on which Tigchelaar bases his interpretation took place according to Josephus around the time of the arrival of Alexander, that is, in the later fourth century BCE, considerably earlier than the usual dating of the Book of the Watchers or even chaps. 12–16. Furthermore, the abandonment of Jerusalem for priestly ofce elsewhere, if not marriage to Samaritan women, is a one-time event rather than an ongoing problem. Nor are there any other indications of anti-Samaritan sentiment in the Book of the Watchers. 9 D. Suter, “Fallen Angel, Fallen Priest: The Problem of Family Purity in 1 Enoch 6–16,” HUCA 50 (1979) 115–35; see also “Revisiting ‘Fallen Angel, Fallen Priest,’ ” Henoch 24 (2002) 137–42. 10 Nickelsburg, “Enoch, Levi,” 584–85, and 1 Enoch 1, 230–1.

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With this problem in mind, I turn back to Suter and Nickelsburg. As noted above, Nickelsburg understands the criticism of the Book of the Watchers as directed at foreign wives. Yet while the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah attest that intermarriage was a signicant social problem in the Persian period, there is little evidence that it continued to be an issue in hellenistic Palestine.11 The absence of such evidence lends support to Suter’s view that the women the Book of the Watchers views as forbidden are Jewish women who are somehow inappropriate wives for priests. On the basis of the criticism of priestly marriages in Aramaic Levi and 4QMMT, I suggest that the Book of the Watchers believes that priests should marry only women from priestly families. This understanding of the restrictions on marriage partners for priests appears to derive from a particular way of reading the Torah’s rules for priestly marriage. For the high priest, the Torah decrees: “A widow, or one divorced, or a woman who has been deled, or a harlot, these he shall not marry, but he shall take to wife a virgin of his own people (wym[m)” (Lev 21:14).12 The phrase “of his own people” is ambiguous. While it could refer to the people of Israel, elsewhere in Leviticus 21 (vv. 1,4,15) it refers to a priest’s more immediate kin. Thus both Philo (Special Laws 1.110) and Josephus ( Jewish Antiquities 3.277) claimed that the high priest was permitted to marry only women from priestly families.13 Although the Torah does not require that the wife of an ordinary priest be “of his own people,” it does restrict the marriage choices of priests: “They shall not marry a harlot or a woman who has been deled; neither shall they marry a woman divorced from her husband” (Lev 21:7). Like the high priest, then, ordinary priests are forbidden to marry harlots. During the Second Temple period some texts come to use the terms “harlot” and “harlotry” for any kind of sexual relations the author thought improper.14 The Damascus Document, for example,

11 M. Himmelfarb, “Levi, Phinehas, and the Problem of Intermarraige at the Time of the Maccabean Revolt,” JSQ 6 (1999) 1–24. 12 All quotations from the Hebrew Bible and New Testament are taken from the RSV translation. 13 In Against Apion 1.30–35, Josephus appears to hold the view that the high priest may marry a suitable Jewish woman from a non-priestly family. See Himmelfarb, “Levi, Phinehas,” 9. 14 J. Kampen, “4QMMT and New Testament Studies,” in J. Kampen and M. J. Bernstein (eds.), Reading 4QMMT: New Perspectives on Qumran Law and History (SBL Symposium Series 2; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1996) 135–8.

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labels as harlotry marriage to two women while both are alive (4.2), either polygamy or remarriage after divorce. It is thus not surprising that some Jews in the Second Temple period concluded that the harlot forbidden to priests was not an actual harlot, whose unsuitability would have been too obvious to require mention, but a woman inappropriate in some other way. The rule for ordinary priests in Lev 21:7 could then be read as requiring a wife come from the priestly clan, just as for the high priest. Aramaic Levi and 4QMMT appear to reflect this view. Isaac’s exhortation to Levi about proper marriage partners in Aramaic Levi contrasts a proper wife from the family with harlots: . . . Keep yourself pure of all fornication and uncleanness, and of all harlotry. And you, take for yourself a wife from my family so that you will not dele your seed with harlots. For you are holy seed, and holy is your seed, like the holy place. For you are a holy priest called for all the seed of Abraham. (16–17)15

Isaac’s “from my family” echoes Lev 21:14’s “of his own people”; in its context in Aramaic Levi it clearly refers to the priestly family rather than the family of Israel. First, it comes in the course of Isaac’s transmission of priestly lore to his successor in the priesthood. Second, Aramaic Levi is already on record as rejecting marriage to foreigners in its account of the Levi’s role in the destruction of Shechem after the rape of Dinah (1–3); the rhetoric of Isaac’s speech makes it clear that the restrictions he imposes on Levi and his descendants go beyond those that fall on all Israel. Given the early stage of Israel’s history in which Aramaic Levi is set, the distinction between high priest and other priests is not relevant, but mention of Levi’s descendants without differentiating among them suggests that Aramaic Levi intends its marriage rules for all priests. The passage in 4QMMT (B75–82) is unfortunately fragmentary at some crucial points. It condemns “the harlotry that takes place among the people” (B75; my translation), enumerates the Torah’s prohibitions laws against the mixing of kinds (Lev 19:19; B76–78), and goes on to refer to Israel as holy, but Aaron as most holy (B79). It then describes the behavior that it condemns, calling it relations with harlots (B80–82). It mentions priests as involved in these relations (B80), but the identity

15 Trans. R. A. Kugler, From Patriarch to Priest: The Levi-Priestly Trdition from “Aramaic Levi” to “Testament of Levi” (EJL 9: Atlanta: Scholars Pres, 1996) 96.

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of the remaining participants is lost. The passage is difcult, and a number of scholars understand it to condemn marriage with gentiles.16 In my view, however, the sexual relations in question are relations between priests, the most holy seed of Aaron, and women from the merely holy seed of Israel, harlots in the sense that they are forbidden to priests.17 Aramaic Levi and 4QMMT provide a plausible context for the Book of the Watchers’ criticism of priests’ marriages. Aramaic Levi is probably roughly contemporary with the Book of the Watchers, and it refers to Enoch (103), though not necessarily to the Book of the Watchers. 4QMMT dates from the middle of the second century, considerably later than the Book of the Watchers, but it comes from a group that valued the Book of the Watchers. It is clear from the polemical tone of Aramaic Levi and 4QMMT that their view that ordinary priests must marry priestly women was a minority view. The priests who were the objects of criticism probably chose wives from non-priestly families with a clear conscience and viewed those who criticized them as extremists. The Book of the Watchers, then, takes a restrictive approach to priestly marriage that must have set it at odds with many priests of its day. Both Suter and Nickelsburg understand the Book of the Watchers to accuse the angelic priests not only of taking forbidden wives, but also of deling themselves through violation of the laws of menstrual purity.18 Both note the passage in the Damascus Document that accuses the people of Israel of deling the temple “in as much as they do not keep separate in accordance with the law, but lie with a woman

16 Himmelfarb, “Levi, Phinehas,” 7–8 for references. See also C. E. Hayes, Gentile Impurities and Jewish Identities: Intermarriage and Conversion from the Bible to the Talmud (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002) 82–91, who criticizes my view in “Levi, Phinehas,” and argues that the passage refers to marriage between native Jews and converts to Judaism. I respond to Hayes’ position in the chapter on Jubilees in my book, “A Kingdom of Priests”: Ancestry and Merit in Second Temple Judaism (Philadelphia:University of Pennsylvania, 2006) 53–84. 17 For my argument in full see Himmelfarb, “Levi, Phinehas,” 6–12. This is also the position of E. Qimron and J. Strugnell, Qumran Cave 4. Miqsat Ma’ase ha-Torah (DJD 10; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994) 172–4 (this section is signed by Qimron). The case presented there is weak, however, and I attempt to improve on it in “Levi, Phinehas.” 18 Suter, “Fallen Angel,” 118, 130; Nickelsburg, “Enoch, Levi,” 585, and 1 Enoch 1, 271–2. The references to delement appear in 1 Enoch 7:1, 9:8, 10:11, 12:4, and 15:4. Only 10: 11 and 15:4 mention blood.

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who sees the blood of her discharge” (5.6–7).19 According to Leviticus 12–15, the impurity of menstruation and other physical conditions can be conveyed to other people and objects, including the sanctuary (Lev 12:4). Thus failure to observe the laws of menstrual impurity properly would put people in a state of impurity so that they could then dele the temple by entering it. Both Suter and Nickelsburg conclude that the Book of the Watchers is accusing contemporary priests of deling the temple in this way. This reading of the Book of the Watchers seems to me somewhat problematic. The only passage from chaps. 12–16 that refers to women’s blood comes from God’s rebuke of the watchers: You were holy ones and spirits, living forever. With the blood of women you have deled yourselves, and with the blood of esh you have begotten; And with the blood of men you have lusted, and you have done as they do— esh and blood, who die and perish. (1 Enoch 15:4)

The way “blood” is used in this passage leaves open a range of possibilities other than menstrual blood for the cause of the watchers’ defilement. In the phrases “blood of flesh” and “blood of men,” “blood” cannot be understood literally; rather, it appears to mean something like what blood means in the phrase “esh and blood” at the end of the passage. The point of the passage is that the very fact of marriage has deled the watchers.20 Thus the delement in question is not the delement caused by menstrual impurity. After all, even the most rigorous observance of the laws of menstrual impurity would not redeem the watchers’ marriages; the problem with these marriages is that angels should not marry at all. Rather, the delement in question appears to be the delement Leviticus 18 and 20 attribute to forbidden sexual relations. In contrast to the impurity of the physical states of Leviticus 12–15, the impurity caused by forbidden sexual relations

19 Trans. M. A. Knibb, The Qumran Community (Cambridge Commentaries on Writings of the Jewish and Christian World 200 BC to AD 200 2; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987) 39. 20 This argument improves on my suggestion in Himmelfarb, Ascent to Heaven that the deling “blood of women” of 1 Enoch 15:4 was the blood of virginity rather than menstrual blood (21). This suggestion was an effort to take account of the fact that marriage in itself is deling for the watchers, but I now believe that “blood” should not be read as literally as I read it there.

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is not conveyed by contact and deles only the sinner and the land.21 Thus there is no reason to claim that the Book of the Watchers saw the Second Temple as deled. It is worth noting that when Nehemiah chases away a grandson of the high priest Eliashib for marrying a foreign woman, he accuses him of polluting the priesthood, not the temple (Neh 13:28–29). Finally, the criticism of the Book of the Watchers is not directed at all priests. It pictures some of the watchers continuing their loyal service in the heavenly temple, thus suggesting that some priests on earth have not deled themselves.22 Indeed, one might argue that the Book of the Watchers’ picture of the failings of the heavenly priests actually serves to defend the earthly temple against those who saw it as hopelessly compromised, by showing that even the heavenly temple, of which the sanctity could hardly be doubted, was experiencing problems with its priests. I turn next to the Animal Apocalypse. This apocalypse takes its name from its use of animals in place of human beings for its retelling of biblical and more recent history, culminating in a prediction of the imminent eschaton. From the patriarch Jacob on, the children of Israel with a few signicant exceptions are depicted as sheep; the other nations are represented by wild animals and birds of prey. The Animal Apocalypse does not provide the angelic interpreter common in late prophecy and apocalyptic literature for its vision, and most of the vision is clear enough to be understood without explicit decoding. One point that is not immediately clear, however, is the relationship between the tower and the house, the symbols the Animal Apocalypse uses for the sacred structures of its history. This point, as Devorah Dimant has argued, is of central importance for our understanding of the Animal Apocalypse’s attitude toward the temple.23

21 For a useful discussion of the two different types of impurity, see J. Klawans, Impurity and Sin in Ancient Judaism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000) 21–42. 22 Nickelsburg’s claim that the authors of chaps. 12–16 “viewed the Jerusalem priesthood as deled and therefore under the irrevocable judgment of God” does not take account of this fact (1 Enoch 1.231). 23 D. Dimant, “Jerusalem and the Temple in the Animal Apocalypse (1 Enoch 85–90) in Light of the Thought of the Dead Sea Scrolls” (Hebr.), Shnaton 5–6 (1981–82) 178–87; see also P. A. Tiller, A Commentary on the Animal Apocalypse of 1 Enoch (Early Judaism and Its Literature 4; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993) 36–51.

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When the two structures appear together, there is no lack of clarity. The house represents Jerusalem, and the tower, the temple. Thus at the time of Solomon, . . . That house became large and broad. And a large and high tower was built upon that house for the Lord of the sheep. That house was low, but the tower was raised up and was high. And the Lord of the sheep stood upon that tower, and they spread a full table before him. (1 Enoch 89:50)

The meaning of the spread table is also clear; it represents the sacricial cult. When Nebuchadnezzar conquers Jerusalem, the tower is burnt down, and the house is demolished (1 Enoch 89:66). The same symbolism appears in the unattering picture of the Second Temple, where the Lord is absent and the cult polluted from the very start: And behold, three of those sheep returned and came and entered and began to build all that had fallen down from that house. . . . And they began again to build as before and they raised up that tower and it was called the high tower. And they began again to place a table before the tower, but all the bread on it was polluted and not pure. And besides all these things, the eyes of the sheep were blind. . . . (1 Enoch 89:72–74)

The symbolism is also clear when the tower appears alone. Angels take Enoch to a high place to view the course of history, and from it he sees a “tower high above the earth” (1 Enoch 87:3), that is, the heavenly temple. The symbolism is less clear, however, when the house appears alone, as it does in the wilderness and at the eschaton. In the wilderness, Moses builds a house “for the Lord of the sheep” (1 Enoch 85:36); thus the house appears to represent the tabernacle. But then Moses makes “all the sheep stand in that house” (1 Enoch 85:36). (Of course, “all the sheep” are only those who have survived the slaughter after the worship of the Golden Calf [1 Enoch 89:32–35].) Dimant suggests that the presence of the sheep in the house represents the people of Israel engaged in proper cultic service. But the Torah uses the wilderness tabernacle to legislate for the Jerusalem temple, and many sources derive laws about the sanctity of Jerusalem from the sanctity of the wilderness camp. Thus the correspondence also suggests that the house represents not only the tabernacle, but also the camp of Israel. Dimant points particularly to the Temple Scroll, which offers a heightened sense

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of the holiness of Jerusalem, extending purity laws from the temple to the “city of the sanctuary.”24 Just as in the wilderness the house stands without a tower, so too at the eschaton: And I stood up to see, until that old house was folded up—and they removed all the pillars, and all the beams and ornaments of that house were folded up with it—and they removed it and put it in a place to the south of the land. And I saw until the Lord of the sheep brought a new house, larger and higher than the rst one, and he erected it on the site of the rst one that had been rolled up. And all its pillars were new, and its beams were new, and its ornaments were new and larger than (those of ) the rst one, the old one that he had removed. And all the sheep were within it. (1 Enoch 90:28–29)

The pillars, beams, and ornaments of the eschatological house suggest a temple rather than a city; Dimant notes descriptions of Jerusalem in similar terms in 2 and 3 Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Zechariah, as well as in a number of later works including the new Jerusalem text from the Scrolls.25 Further, the many temple-like features of the house indicate that the absence of a tower in the eschatological Jerusalem signals not the absence of a temple, but rather that the whole city has become sacred. Indeed, just as the house in the wilderness contained all the sheep, so too at the eschaton all the sheep are in the house. Thus the eschaton is marked by a return to what the Animal Apocalypse views as the idyllic conditions of the wilderness, in which all of the sheep serve the Lord.26 If so, even the First Temple, which the Animal Apocalypse depicts in far more positive terms than the Second, represents a falling away from the ideal. Ideally, the tower that is the heavenly temple should nd its earthly counterpart in the broader space of a house rather than the narrow connes of a tower. Though he largely shares Dimant’s view of the house as sacred city, Nickelsburg nonetheless insists that the new house implies an end to the cult: “If the house is thought of as city and temple, it will be a temple in which God dwells (v 34) and where no traditional cult is necessary both because of God’s presence and because the human race has been fully and permanently puried of sin.”27 The most famous picture of

24 25 26 27

Dimant, “Jerusalem and the Temple,” 183–5. Dimant, “Jerusalem and the Temple,” 188–9. Dimant, “Jerusalem and the Temple,” 189. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 405.

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the eschatological Jerusalem is explicit about the absence of a physical temple, thus clearly if implicitly bringing an end to the cult: “And I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and 28 the Lamb” (Rev 21:22). Yet the picture of the Animal Apocalypse is quite different. Indeed, though the connection of the Lord of the sheep to the eschatological house is guaranteed by the fact that he is the one who brings it,29 the Animal Apocalypse never mentions his presence in it; the emphasis is rather on the presence of all the sheep in the house, an image, as we have seen, of positive cultic activity. Nor does God’s presence in the First Temple preclude a sacricial cult there; the Animal Apocalypse mentions both the presence of the Lord of the sheep and the table spread before him (1 Enoch 89:50). Further, even the elimination of sin would not dispense with the necessity of the daily, sabbath, and festival sacrices ordained by the Torah. Let me return now to the Animal Apocalypse’s negative view of the Second Temple and the reasons for it.30 The Animal Apocalypse does not explain why it views the sacrices of the Second Temple as impure from the very start, but Nickelsburg suggests that its attitude reects differences with the temple authorities over purity laws just as, in his view, the Book of the Watchers’ negative attitude toward the Jerusalem temple reects such differences.31 As I have already indicated, I am not persuaded by Nickelsburg’s reading of the Book of the Watchers on 28 Nickelsburg notes that the heavenly Jerusalem that descends to earth at the end of the Book of Revelation offers a parallel to the eschatological house in the Animal Apocalypse (1 Enoch 1, 405). Dimant (“Jerusalem and the Temple,” 190) points out that the new house of the Animal Apocalypse is never said to descend from heaven. 29 Dimant (“Jerusalem and the Temple,” 188) notes that the explicit mention of the Lord’s role in bringing the house (1 Enoch 90:29) contrasts with the anonymous thirdperson plural for those who remove the old house (1 Enoch 90:28). 30 For a suggestive discussion of the negative view of the Second Temple in the Animal Apocalypse, the Apocalypse of Weeks, Testament of Levi 16, and Assumption of Moses 4, M. A. Knibb, “The Exile in the Literature of the Intertestamental Period,” HeyJ 17 (1976) 256–61. 31 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 395. Indeed Nickelsburg claims that these attitudes were a central part of the worldview of the group to which the author of the Animal Apocalypse belonged: “Their self-identity turns on a pervading eschatological consciousness born of their belief that they have received revelation about the correct law for the conduct of the cult.” Tiller, Commentary, 39–40, considers disagreement over purity laws among other possibilities, but notes that the Animal Apocalypse is “not . . . especially interested in legal interpretation” (40). Conversely, A. Yoshiko Reed (“The Textual Identity, Literary History, and Social Setting of 1 Enoch: Reections on George Nickelsburg’s Commentary on 1 Enoch 1–36; 81–108,” Archiv für Religionsgeschichte 5 [2003] 291–93) has suggested that Nickelsburg’s view that the Book of the Watchers has a negative attitude toward the temple and cult

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this point, but there can no doubt that the Book of the Watchers is interested in priests and worries about delement. The Animal Apocalypse, on the other hand, says nothing at all that could be construed as relevant to purity laws and hardly mentions priests. Aaron appears only when he goes to meet Moses on Moses’ return from Midian to Egypt (1 Enoch 89:18) and when he dies (1 Enoch 89:37). He is left out of the account of the Golden Calf (1 Enoch 89:32–35), presumably to save his honor. While the Animal Apocalypse notes the role in this incident of the Levites, the sheep who help Moses to slaughter the sheep guilty of straying from the proper path (1 Enoch 89:35),32 it never discusses their cultic responsibilities. The only gure to whom the Animal Apocalypse gives an active role in the cult is Moses, who makes all of the sheep stand in the house he has built in the wilderness (1 Enoch 89:36). It is true that the constraints of animal symbolism present certain challenges for the depiction of priests. But that alone cannot explain their absence, for the Animal Apocalypse regularly represents the leaders of the people of Israel as rams, and it surely could have found an appropriate way to mark some of the sheep as priests. Rather, the absence of priests suggests that the Animal Apocalypse is not particularly interested in them because it does not see their behavior as having special signicance for the fate of Israel. Indeed, it nowhere singles out Israel’s leaders for blame; all the sheep are blind and go astray. The Animal Apocalypse is not the only apocalypse to offer an account of Israel’s past, including the Second Temple period when priests served as political leaders as well as temple ofcials, without paying much attention to priests. Perhaps most relevant for this discussion, priests are absent also from the Apocalypse of Weeks, to be discussed below. Nor do they appear in Daniel. On the other hand, the Apocryphon of Jeremiah (4Q390) provides a fragmentary example of a review of Israel’s history in which priests play a prominent and negative role: . . . And a]gain I shall [deliver them] into the hand of the sons of Aar[on ] seventy years [ ] And the sons of Aaron will rule over them, and they will not walk [in] my [wa]ys, which I command you so that you may warn them. And they will do what is evil in my eyes, like all that which

is in part the result of his emphasis on the continuity between the Book of the Watchers and the Animal Apocalypse and Apocalypse of Weeks. 32 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 362, suggests on the basis of this passage that the author may have been a Levite.

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the Israelites had done in the former days of their kingdom, except for those who will come rst from the land of their captivity to build the Temple.33

It is also worth mentioning the Testament of Levi’s prophecy of seven jubilees of evil priests, with a distinctive form of bad behavior for each week (chap. 17). The Second Temple is built in the fth week of the seventh jubilee (T. Levi 17:10); the priests of the seventh week are said to be arrogant idolaters who engage in forbidden sexual relations (T. Levi 17:11). The passage appears to draw on an earlier text that offered a more detailed account of the seven jubilees.34 Unlike the Apocryphon of Jeremiah and the source on which the Testament of Levi drew, the Animal Apocalypse does not nd the distinction between priests and the rest of Israel relevant to its account of history or to its view of the pollution of the temple. Though its picture indicates that at the time of the building of the Second Temple all the children of Israel, presumably including priests, were blind (1 Enoch 89:74), nowhere does it suggest that the sacrices of the Second Temple were polluted because of improper observance of purity laws or other mistaken practices. The Animal Apocalypse’s critique of the Second Temple is more like the prophetic critique of the cult: even sacrices offered properly are repulsive to God when the people offering them continue to sin. Or, to put it a little differently, with God absent from the temple, how could the sacrices be anything other than polluted? Finally, I turn to the Apocalypse of Weeks, a brief account of human history from beginning to end structured in ten “weeks,” that takes a mere fteen verses. Here too, as Nickelsburg notes, the temple is of central importance.35 The tabernacle in the wilderness appears in the fourth week (1 Enoch 93:6). The First Temple is built in the fth week “forever” (1 Enoch 93:7), though its destruction takes place at the end

33 Trans. D. Dimant, Qumran Cave 4.XXI. Parabiblical Texts, Part 4: Pseudo-Prophetic Texts, ed. Dimant (DJD 30; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2001) 238. 34 Thus, M. de Jonge, “Levi in Aramaic Levi and in the Testament of Levi,” in E. G. Chazon and M. E. Stone (eds.), Pseudepigraphic Perspectives: The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Proceedings of the [Second] International Symposium of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature, 12–14 January 1997 (STDJ 31; Leiden: Brill, 1999) 76. For an elaborate but highly speculative effort at reconstructing that historical references in the text, R. T. Beckwith, “The Signicance of the Calendar for Interpreting Essene Chronology and Eschatology,” RQ 10 (1980) 173–9. 35 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 446, 449.

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of the sixth week (1 Enoch 93:8). The eschatological temple is built at the end of the eighth week (1 Enoch 91:13). The Apocalypse of Weeks is so brief that the very fact that it mentions the tabernacle, the First Temple, and the eschatological temple indicate their importance. Further, while the language in which the tabernacle is mentioned is neutral, both the First Temple and the eschatological temple are described in very positive terms. The First Temple is called “the temple of the glorious kingdom” (1 Enoch 93:7),36 and the Apocalypse of Weeks predicts that at the eschaton, “The temple of the kingdom of the Great One will be built in the greatness of its glory for all the generations of eternity” (1 Enoch 91:12). The problematic Second Temple, however, is never mentioned. Yet whatever was wrong with the Second Temple, it was presumably not the fault of priests in particular since the Apocalypse of Weeks, like the Animal Apocalypse, is silent on the subject of priests. Above I mentioned several texts that offer accounts of history and eschatological timetables similar to those of the Animal Apocalypse and the Apocalypse of Weeks. Like the Animal Apocalypse, the Apocalypse of Weeks belongs with those that ignore priests. This lack of interest in priests ts well it context in the Epistle of Enoch, a work that condemns the rich and powerful for oppressing the weak in a variety of ways, but never mentions priests for better or for worse. Altogether, then, the Apocalypse of Weeks appears to share the attitude of the Animal Apocalypse to the ideal of the temple, the reality of the Second Temple, and the place of priests in Israel’s history. Both revere the temple as an institution and look forward to an eschatological temple, or, in the case of the Animal Apocalypse, an eschatological city/temple. On the other hand, both reject the Second Temple. But neither points to purity laws as the cause of the rejection, and neither singles out priests for blame; indeed, neither appears to view priests as particularly important to Israel’s history and fate since neither has anything to say about priests. As we have seen, the attitude of the Book of the Watchers is quite different. It too reveres the temple as an ideal, as can be seen from its picture of heaven as a temple, but it differs considerably from the later works in its attitude toward the Second Temple and its priests. Priests play a central role in its thought, and as with the temple, it reveres

36

This is Nickelsburg’s emendation; see his notes, 1 Enoch 1, 435–6.

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the ideal even as it criticizes the reality. Thus, even as it accuses some priests of violating the marriage laws the Torah lays down for them, it depicts its hero Enoch as a priest. And despite the failings of some of the priests who serve in it, it does not understand the Second Temple as fatally polluted.

THE SOCIOLOGICAL SETTINGS OF THE COMPONENTS OF 1 ENOCH Patrick Tiller Sharon, MA, United States Introduction Asking sociological questions about an ancient text is a little like asking biological questions about a rock. It can be done—especially if the rock happens to be a fossil. But it is impossible to apply the same methods to a rock as one applies to a living organism. In the same way sociological studies of ancient texts are only successful with texts that happen to preserve fossilized remains of the social context in which they were produced and recorded. The methods that a sociologist would apply to the study of a living society are of little use. One must be content with the use of historical, linguistic, archeological and literary methods in answering historical questions informed by sociological sensitivities. When we ask about the sociological settings of the components of 1 Enoch, it must be clear from the outset that we are not asking about the social groups that created the texts, as if there were some kind of correspondence between literary document and social group. We may presume that the various texts, that were later collected in 1 Enoch, were produced by several individuals who may have beneted from the company of other like-minded individuals, who probably shared common theological, political, social and economic views. These, however, are not the object of our sociological inquiries. We are not asking about ideology, nor do we know the amount of ideological diversity that might have been acceptable to these people and their friends. Rather than looking for a “sect” or “conventicle,” we will be trying to describe the social context in which the authors of such texts may have lived. We are asking about social setting, and this requires some pre-understanding about the social landscape of Hellenistic Judea. For this we must content ourselves with a few observations about the political and economic structure of Judea as a subject province of larger, Greek empires—rst the Egyptian, Ptolemaic empire and then the Syrian, Seleucid empire. We will begin by analyzing some of the available

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evidence. We will then attempt a synthetic description of the politicalreligious, economic, and social realities. Finally, we will see whether it is possible to place the producers of the various texts of 1 Enoch somewhere within that structure. The Social Structure of Ptolemaic Judea Little is known for certain about the Ptolemaic administration of Judea, but if it was anything like that in Egypt, there would have been ofcials in charge of agricultural production, nances, and record-keeping. In addition there would have been a military structure, somewhat independent of the rest of the bureaucracy.1 The King probably claimed some kind of right to all of the land with direct control only over the “royal lands.” Taxes in kind, as well as various monetary taxes, were collected through a system of tax farming. Royal ofcials collected the taxes, and the tax farmers ensured that the correct amounts were collected. On the other hand, there were clear differences between Ptolemaic administration of Egypt and that over Palestine, just as there were differences in the administration of the various nomes of Egypt.2 In particular it is evident that military administration was entrusted to local powerful families, such as the sons of Tobiah who are prominent in the Zenon Papyri and virtually all of our extensive historical accounts of the post-exilic period down to the establishment of the Hasmonean dynasty. What little evidence we have indicates that at the beginning of Ptolemaic rule over Judea the Jerusalem high-priesthood had attained a position of power at the head of what amounted to a temple-state. Hecataeus of Abdera, a Greek ethnographer in the court of Ptolemy I states that Jerusalem was a temple-state ruled by a high priest who stands in authority over the people and serves as “a messenger of God’s commandments” and “announces what is ordained in assemblies” (preserved in Diodorus Siculus 40.3). Pseudo-Hecataeus (probably mid-second century BCE) refers to a chief priest Ezechias, who was a proponent of emigration to Egypt after Ptolemy became ruler of Syria. He tells us that Ezechias was “highly esteemed by his countrymen, intellectual,

1 For a fuller review of the administration of Syria and Phoenicia see R. S. Bagnall, The Adminstration of the Ptolemaic Posessions outside Egypt (Lieden: Brill, 1976) 11–24. 2 Bagnall, Adminstration, 8.

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and moreover an able speaker and unsurpassed as a man of business” ( Josephus C. Apion 187–189). This Ezechias may possibly have been the “Hezekiah the governor,” whose name was inscribed on silver coins minted in Jerusalem dating to the late Persian or early Ptolemaic period. If Persian, the Ezechias or Hezekiah, would have been high priest and governor of the Persian Province and would have survived until Ptolemy had seized control over Palestine. The identication, however, is speculative. Although it is not certain whether the Judean high priest functioned as governor under the Ptolemies, it is clear that the high priest was highly inuential and powerful. The power of the high priest, however, was not absolute, inasmuch as it was subject to the foreign emperor and possibly also to the local governor and because the sphere of inuence of the high priest did not necessarily extend equally over all of Judea. As the Zenon papyri show, there were numerous powerful families, who had a certain degree of local autonomy and control. The most prominent of these were the “sons of Tobaias,” presumably the descendants of Nehemiah’s opponent (Neh 2:19; 4:3,7; 6:1, 14, 17–19), who was also inuential among the elite in Jerusalem in his day. A certain “Toubias” is mentioned in the Zenon papyri as a commander of Ptolemaic soldiers in and around the stronghold of Birta in Ammanitis.3 This practice of entrusting military command to local powerful men, along with the practice of tax farming, launched the family of Tobiah into prominence and into direct conict with the Oniads, the high-priestly family of the late third century and early second century BCE. Josephus reports on one stage of this conict in his “Tobiah romance,” drawn from what must have been part of a “court history” of the Tobiad family. While this account should not be taken at face value, it reports events that must have had some remote correspondence to events that could have at least seemed possible to contemporary audiences. According to the story Onias II4 was responsible for paying a sum of 20 talents to the Ptolemaic rulers, which sum was somehow related to his authority over the people and his possession of the ofce of high priest (Ant 12.158–161). This is consistent with the fact that the high priestly ofce was always held subject to the emperor’s consent.

3

Bagnall, Administration, 17. Josephus’ chronology is confused, but most scholars place the events in the late third century. 4

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According to the story Onias stopped paying the tax/tribute due to laziness. If indeed he had withheld payment, it would have been an act of rebellion; perhaps Onias had aligned himself with the Seleucid emperor and hoped for a Seleucid victory. Joseph, the Tobiad, now an in-law of Onias, took the opportunity to pay the amount in exchange for the position of tax farmer for all of Syria and Phoenicia (Ant 12.184). No doubt such an exchange would have also carried severe consequences for Onias. If the story is true, it is extremely doubtful that Onias retained the high priesthood (see Ant 12.163). It is possible, in fact, that Joseph would have been appointed high priest. That Josephus fails to mention these issues is to be expected, given his tendency to present the Judean elite in a favorable light.5 Seleucid Judea—the decree of Antiochus III One of the most important documents that survives from the early second century is the decree of Antiochus III preserved in Josephus Ant. 12.138–144. The letter has sometimes been dismissed as a Jewish forgery. Its general historical verisimilitude, veriable details, style and dialect, however, guarantee that it represents, at least in general, an authentic decree issued shortly after the conquest of Coele-Syria.6 Antiochus’ decree is in the form of a letter from Antiochus to Ptolemy, the provincial governor of Coele-Syria at the time of Antiochus’ conquest.7 Its importance for our purposes is that it is an ofcial, imperial document that mentions the political realities of Judea and denes imperial policy toward Jerusalem and its local aristocracy during the transition of rule from the Ptolemaic empire to the Seleucid empire. Antiochus’ decree

5 M. R. Kurtz, “The Social Construction of Judea in the Greek Period” SBLSP (1999) 62. 6 The most thorough study of the issue is that of E. Bickerman, “La charte séleucide de Jérusalem,” REJ 197 (1935) 4–35. Almost all scholars now accept Bickerman’s arguments. See, for examples, V. Tcherikover, Hellenistic Civilization and the Jews (trans. S. Applebaum; reprint ed.; New York: Atheneum, 1979) 82; R. Marcus, Josephus (9 vols.; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1961) 7.744–59; or J. E. Taylor, Seleucid Rule in Palestine (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Duke University, 1979) 54–5. 7 See Taylor, Seleucid, 108–68, for a competent treatment of Ptolemy’s career, including his service in 219 BCE to Ptolemy IV as co-commander of the Macedonian phalanx in the so-called fourth Syrian war against Antiochus III (Polybius 5.63–65) and his later service to Antiochus III as strategos and archiereus of Coele-Syria. Taylor dates Ptolemy’s defection to the time of the fth Syrian war and proposes that he had formerly been strategos and archiereus of the Ptolemaic province (115–27).

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was to dene and cement the relationship of Antiochus as benefactor to the people and Temple of Jerusalem and to establish a new order under Seleucid sponsorship and jurisdiction. One must assume that Antiochus published his decree partially on the basis of information provided by Judean advisors (probably not unlike Ben Sira himself) since it reects a familiarity with Judean circumstances.8 In fact, we know the name of one of these advisors from 2 Macc 4:11 (“He [Antiochus IV ] rejected the royal concessions to the Jews that had been established through John the father of Eupolemus, . . .”). The information in it must, therefore, bear at least a rough resemblance to how things were or at least how they were represented to be by a Judean representative of the party loyal to Antiochus. This decree depicts the centrality of the Temple in Jerusalem society and identies the aristocracy deserving of special tax relief. The Temple was recognized by Antiochus, who promised to provide the sacricial materials and to allow the import of tax-free timber for the rebuilding of the temple (Ant. 12.140–41). The fact that Jerusalem functioned as an ofcially recognized temple-state is conrmed by the other proclamation of Antiochus III preserved in Josephus (Ant. 12.145–46), which forbids foreigners and unclean Jews from entering the temple enclosure and forbids the introduction of non-sacricial animals or skins into Jerusalem. Those who were responsible for the “splendid reception” afforded to Antiochus when he arrived at the city and who were relieved of their tax burden, consisted of the “the gerousia, the priests, the scribes of the temple and the temple-singers” (Ant. 12.142). The importance of the gerousia in Judean civic affairs is indicated by their position at the head of the list of Judean dignitaries. This primacy is conrmed for a slightly later period by references to the gerousia in 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, and Judith. According to 2 Macc 4:44 the gerousia sent three men to Antiochus IV to le complaints about Menelaus. The later letter of Jonathan to the Spartans is represented as being from “Jonathan, the gerousia of the ethnos, the priests and the rest of the Judean people”

8 Bickerman (The Jews in the Greek Age [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988] 127–8) notes that “It is obvious that the formulation of this as well as other benets granted by the Seleucid king must have been drafted with the participation of Jewish experts. We notice, for instance, that the king does not promise to furnish the fuel for public offerings. The reason for this omission was that the wood offering was a traditional obligation of rich Jewish families in Jerusalem (Neh. 10:35, 13:31).”

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(1 Mac 12:6). The answer from Sparta refers to “Simon the great priest and the elders and the priests and the rest of the Judean people.”9 Thus, the gerousia of the letter to the Spartans corresponds exactly to the “elders” of the letter from the Spartans.10 Judith (probably composed in the second half of the second century) also refers anachronistically to a gerousia in Jerusalem that had the authority to waive cultic regulations concerning the eating of sacricial food (11:14), to direct military operations (4:8), and to witness the victory over the Assyrian army and congratulate Judith for her part in it (15:8). In these passages gerousia is sometimes translated as “senate,” but “aristocratic council” would be better. We have, then, evidence from 1 Maccabees, 2 Maccabees, Judith, and independently in Josephus of the powerful political-religious role of the gerousia in Judea throughout the second century. What we lack is a clear idea of the particular powers and makeup of this council. The political upheaval that must have occurred with the transfer of power from the Ptolemies to Antiochus III would surely have effected changes that may have also had an impact on the makeup of such a prominent assembly. There seem to be several possibilities. From the decree it is clear that the assembly had welcomed Antiochus. 1. The members of the gerousia who had sided with the Ptolemaic regime (Tobiads and other priestly and non-priestly elites) failed to sway the assembly and lost their seats, while those who sided with the Seleucids (priests and others allied with Simon II) gained control of the assembly. 2. Or the assembly had always been in opposition to Ptolemaic rule, but had been relatively powerless. Their support for Antiochus III won them new prestige and power as a body, but involved no substantial change in membership. 3. Or nally, the power and composition of the gerousia remained relatively unchanged relative to other Judean powers, but the balance of power within the gerousia changed with certain members who supported Antiochus gaining in prestige and inuence.

9 1 Macc 14:20b: 9 μ% :8 μ/6  8 $   8 :'   ;  ; <μ6 % =!. 10 Even if either letter should prove to be spurious, this demonstrates clearly that for the writer of 1 Maccabees, the two expressions were equivalent in Greek, as we would expect anyway given the etymology of !. See also E. Schürer, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ (175 BC–AD 135) (HJPAJC; rev. by G. Vermes and F. Millar; 3 vols.; Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1973–87) 2. 203, n. 8.

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What we do know is that the gerousia was above the ordinary priests in status and sometimes (but not always) below the high priest (e.g., Jonathan), its members were rewarded for their support of Antiochus III’s conquest of Judea along with the priests, and they could act independently of (and against) the high priest (e.g., Menelaus). The decree’s failure to mention the high priest is signicant. The lack of mention indicates a lack of prominence. This is very signicant and cannot be a mere oversight. The later letter of Jonathan to the Spartans (cited above) mentions “Jonathan, the gerousia of the ethnos, the priests and the rest of the Judean people.” The order of mention in the list corresponds to ones relative position in society. In both cases the gerousia is above the priests; in the decree the gerousia has the rst place. There was apparently no single head of state at the time of the Seleucid entry into Jerusalem. There are a couple of possibilities that I can conjecture. 1. The Tobiad head of state (possibly Joseph the tax collector) had supported the Ptolemies and so was not among those who welcomed the Seleucid conqueror. 2. The Oniad head of state/high priest had either been exiled or executed for his failure to pay tribute due to Ptolemy, the event that led to the rise of Joseph the Tobiad to the good graces of the Egyptian monarch. There was therefore no functioning high priest. No long afterwards the Judean high priest again attained a position of unique power. This may have been assisted by the transfer of authority to collect taxes from the house of Tobiah to the house of Simon. While it is clear that the high priest did not have exclusive control over the collection of taxes,11 his newly regained powers would have brought him considerable new authority and wealth, including the right to use imperial troops to enforce collections. The high priest also had at least some of his own troops, as is attested by 2 Macc 4:40, which says that Lysimachus, as a representative of the high priest, raised an army of 3,000 when he had been left in charge of Jerusalem while his brother, Menelaus, was in Antioch. It was this power to levy an army that caused so much trouble later when Jason drove Menelaus out of 11 According to 2 Macc 4:28, the collection of tax revenue was the responsibility of Sostratus, the eparch of the akropolis, while Menelaus was high priest. No Hellenistic ruler ever allowed anyone to possess exclusive nancial powers over the imperial purse.

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Jerusalem after Antiochus had appointed Menelaus high priest in his place ( Josephus, Ant. 12.239–40). Antiochus’ decree also mentions the priests, the temple-scribes, and the temple-singers. The fact that the priests are mentioned after the gerousia indicates that the (mostly priestly?) gerousia had greater status than the ordinary priests. This mention conrms the centrality of the Temple and the Temple cult in Judean society and the power of the priesthood in general. Second, it conrms the existence of a politicalreligious ofce of temple-scribe, which was subordinate to the priesthood. Unquestionably, Ben Sira was one of the these “scribes of the Temple.” Seleucid Judea—the Book of Sirach The book of Sirach was written in the rst quarter of the second century BCE by Jesus son of Eleazar son of Sira, a teacher and practitioner of wisdom in Jerusalem. This text is important for understanding Judean politics under the Seleucids for several reasons. 1. It was written by someone who was involved in the daily administration of justice and diplomacy in Jerusalem, probably not unlike John, the father of Eupolemus, who had served under Antiochus III (2 Macc 4:11). 2. It was written to instruct those who hoped to engage in similar activities. 3. It contains descriptions of various occupations (from slave to king) and prescriptions for proper behavior and relations between those of different social strata. In so doing it provides Ben Sira’s idealized social structure centered on the Jewish High Priest. 4. Ben Sira’s wisdom was written to describe and promote a new, symbolic political order with the high priest at the center and the loyal sage as the foundation. The author identies himself as “Jesus the son of Eleazar son of Sira” (50:27b). He invites his readers to his “house of instruction” (51:23). Apart from these details, we know little or nothing about him personally. What is far more important for our purposes is that he describes in some detail his occupation as one “who devotes himself to the study of the law of the Most High” (38:34b). He has four basic tasks.

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1. The rst is to study ancient wisdom, prophecies, and parables, to meditate “on his mysteries” and to “glory in the law of the Lord’s covenant” (39:1–3, 7b,8b). 2. The second is to serve in political and diplomatic roles (“He serves among the great and appears before rulers; he travels in foreign lands . . .” [39:4]). 3. The third is “to seek the Lord who made him and to petition the Most High” (39:5). 4. The fourth is to teach (“he will pour forth words of wisdom of his own” [39:6b]). The sage, then, is one who studies ancient wisdom, prophecy and law; engages in bureaucracy and diplomacy; performs deeds of personal piety; and teaches. His is a political-religious ofce, not a political ofce for religious people nor a religious ofce with collateral political duties. The total integration of political and religious interests can be clearly seen in Ben Sira’s agenda for global politics. According to 10:4, “The government of the earth is in the hands of the Lord, and over it he will raise up the right man for the time.” For Ben Sira, the political status of Israel in the world is wrapped up in his conviction that God “places a ruler over every nation, but Israel is the Lord’s own portion” (17:17). Intermixed with the assertion that God repays individuals according to their deeds is the claim that he will also repay vengeance to the nations and judge his people’s case with mercy (35[32]:18–19[23–25]). Ben Sira’s prayer for God’s deliverance in fulllment of the prophecies (36:1–17 [33:1–13a; 36:16b–22]) immediately following the threat of vengeance on the nations indicates Ben Sira’s political-religious agenda. He calls for the destruction of the enemies of God’s people (9b), the gathering of “all the tribes of Jacob” (11a), and the lling of Jerusalem and the temple with celebration and glory (13–14). Many scholars have thought that the content of this prayer is out of place in Sirach. According to Middendorp, “One recognizes sudden explosions of nationalism and particularism in a book that is otherwise lled with a humane and universalistic spirit.”12 The problem here may be a misapprehension of genre expectations. One certainly nds hints at a “humane and universalistic spirit” in Sirach (his fondness for international travel [39:4] and 12 T. Middendorp, Die Stellung Jesu Ben Siras zwischen Judentum und Hellenismus (Leiden: Brill, 1973) 125, n. 1.

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his use of foreign wisdom traditions),13 but these are not characteristic of Ben Sira or of his wisdom instruction. Wischmeyer correctly characterizes Ben Sira’s religion as exclusivistic and elitist.14 Ben Sira nds holiness, she goes on to say, at various points in Jerusalem and in the rest of Israel; the land of Israel, the city Jerusalem, the people Israel, the Temple in Jerusalem are all called as holy.15 In retrospect this prayer seems to be more like wishful thinking than part of a real political program, but the ever-present potential for political instability may have caused hopes to rise. It was only a few years later that this prayer was partially realized under the Maccabees. Nor is this wish incidental to Ben Sira’s thinking. It is integral to his doctrine of opposites and his idea that all things have been created for a purpose and “will prove good in their season” (39:16–35). The purpose of things like winds, re, hail, famine, pestilence, wild beasts and war is to execute the vengeance of God. His wrath is directed not only at ungodly individuals (39:30), but also the nations (39:23). A comparison of Ben Sira’s claims and rhetoric with what we know from other sources about Ben Sira’s society reveals certain telling discrepancies. It seems that the book does not simply describe the social reality and public duty of the sage, but seeks also to construct that reality. He does so in at least 3 ways. 1. He presents the high priest as an absolute ruler with no dependence or relation to imperial rule and provides ideological foundation for high priestly rule. 2. He exaggerates the role and authority of the scribe and provides ideological foundation for that authority. 3. He minimizes the authority and function of the gerousia to the point that it is irrelevant as a legislative or judicial body. It is well known that the nal “Hymn of the Fathers” at the end of the book of Sirach focuses on the high priest as the possessor of an

13

See J. Sanders, Ben Sira and Demotic Wisdom (SBLMS 28, Chico: Scholars, 1983) and Middendorp, Die Stellung, 7–34, for a study of the foreign inuences on Ben Sira’s wisdom. B. L. Mack (Wisdom and the Hebrew Epic: Ben Sira’s Praise of the Fathers [Chicago Studies in the History of Judaism; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985]) has demonstrated the inuence of Greek rhetoric on chapters 44–50. 14 O. Wischmeyer, Die Kultur des Buches Jesus Sirach (Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde der älteren Kirche 77; New York: de Gruyter, 1995) 256–7. 15 See especially Wisdom’s self-praise in chapter 24.

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eternal covenant with God and the most glorious of all the heroes of Israel’s history. Far greater attention is lavished on Aaron than on any other gure, including Moses and David. Even Moses is subordinated to Aaron’s ofce. It is Aaron who is anointed by Moses as priest and has the “lasting covenant” (45:15). The purpose of Moses’ reception and transmission of divine revelation (“to teach his precepts to Jacob, his covenant decrees to Israel” [45:5]) is taken over by Aaronide priesthood (45:17). The everlasting covenant of the priesthood, established for Aaron and his descendants, is structurally connected with the everlasting covenants made with the fathers, Noah, Abraham, and Jacob. The priestly covenant is explicitly and favorably compared with the covenant with David, which was only an “individual heritage” whereas the covenant with Aaron was for all his descendants (45:25). Besides their respective fame for warfare and wisdom, David and Solomon function principally to establish the cult in Jerusalem (47:8–10, 13). The poem as a whole climaxes in the elaborate praise of Simon, who receives more attention even than Aaron. Moreover, it is clear from the characterization of Simon that the high priesthood has taken over the functions of kingship (fortications and water supply, cf. 48:17 and 50:2–4), while remaining focused on the temple-cult. It is signicant that Ben Sira never, or almost never, mentions the gerousia. Sir 38:32 mentions the “people’s council” or “council over the people” in parallelism with assembly (2!). This, however, probably does not refer to any regularly constituted institution. There were various assemblies where one could speak ( lhq, 2! in 15:5; μyrç td[O, .* $ in 7:14), where the blameless could receive praise ( l[h]q, 2! in 34[31]:11; lhq, 2! and hd[, ! in 44:15), and before which Simon would ofciate at the altar (larçy lhq, 2! [ %] > in 50:13, 20), but these were not regular, legislative bodies (with the possible exception of the assembly of rulers in 7:14). There are a few passages that may refer to juridical councils. The reference to adulterous women being brought before the assembly (2!; 23:24) indicates that the assembly may have had juridical responsibilities in cases where imperial law was not involved, but we do not know what assembly he was referring to. There are also references to elders (8:9 [μybç], 25:4–5 [$ , "]; 32:3 [bç], 9 [μynqz]), but none of these refer to an assembly or even an ofcial title. They are honoric terms, and the contexts in which they are used are invariably concerned with honoring the aged. Thus, while Ben Sira refers to the people who would have been members of

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the gerousia, he does not mention the gerousia itself, perhaps because of his intent to accentuate the authority of the high priest and the Mosaic Law as interpreted by scribes like himself. Likewise, the Temple-Singers, also granted privileges by Antiochus III, are mentioned, but only to highlight the splendor of Simon as he concludes his priestly service at the altar (50:18). The principal role or function of the scribes or sages was “to serve the chiefs (μyrç, μ ? )” (8:8). According to 38:24–39:11, scribes were sought as advisers, if not members, of the collective leadership of Jerusalem and they attained eminence among the citizenry as a whole (38:32–33). But in the same passage, Ben Sira clearly indicates that the sage is subordinate to the ruling class and therefore economically and politically dependent on the good will of the rulers. This explains Ben Sira’s admonition to bow low to the rulers and his extensive “professional” advice on deferential behavior and caution when dealing with the powerful (4:7; 13:9–11; 31:12–24; 8:1–2,14). Ben Sira is careful to make clear the importance of the wise scribe in government. The wise and understanding ruler will have a well-ordered rule (10:1–2) and will bring about growth instead of the ruin that results from lack of discipline (10:3). Wisdom, understanding, and discipline are precisely the qualities that Ben Sira attributes to those who study wisdom, that is the scribes. Thus the successful ruler must either be a scribe or have good scribes at his disposal. It appears, in fact, that one of Ben Sira’s goals was to enhance the authority and honor of the scribal class. His book is full of claims that the greatest honor is for the wise, those who fear the Lord and obey his commands. The role of the priests as authoritative interpreters and teachers of the law is supplanted by the sage. Besides being the heirs of earlier generations of sages, they are the successors of the prophets as well (24:33), speaking by divine inspiration. This relatively lofty social status may have been at least partly due to their unique skills; “to devise proverbs requires painful thinking” (13:26b), and not anyone could do it. Ben Sira’s catalogue of honor is revealing in this regard (10:19–25). Above the nobleman, judge, and ruler in honor is “the man who fears the Lord” (24). For Ben Sira, the “fear of the Lord” can be concretely measured by obedience to the commandments, since dishonor is due anyone who transgresses the commandments (19d). The sage who is wise (as measured by his obedience to the laws of Moses) is to be honored above all. Social status and the right to speak in the assembly are for the wise (15:5).

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The honor conferred by wisdom enables the sage to “rescue the oppressed from the oppressor” presumably in his ofcial or professional capacity (4:1–10). Ben Sira criticizes those who take advantage of the poor to enhance their own wealth (“offering sacrice from the property of the poor” and “taking away a neighbor’s living” in 34:24–27, reminiscent of Amos 2:6–8, may refer to creditors’ “foreclosing” on debts). The motivation for such concern for the poor is, as always for Ben Sira, the prospect of divine judgment (21:5; “The poor man’s prayer goes from his lips to his [God’s] ears, and his judgment comes quickly.”). God refuses a bribe, shows no partiality, and executes judgment on the wicked (35:12–20), and so should the wise. Presumably the rulers accepted this semi-independent role of the sages because it was part of the foundation of their claim to divine authority and thus made it possible for the sages to provide the ideological basis for the priests’ rule. Indirectly it served the interests of the wealthy in that the existence of a powerful class which defended the interests of the poor also legitimated the rule of those who were in a position to oppress the poor. The basis for the authority of the scribe was not self-evident but was the matter of debate among the various groups of sages. For Ben Sira, his authority and the basis of his wisdom was rmly grounded in the Torah (although in practice Torah generally recedes to the background). This is most clearly seen in the praise of wisdom (24:1–33), which found a resting place in Jerusalem and ministered before the Lord in the holy tabernacle (24:8–12). In this hymn wisdom is explicitly identied with “the book of the covenant of the Most High God” (24:23; cf. Exod 24:7; Deut 33:4). The close identication of the person of the scribe and personied wisdom is seen in the almost imperceptible transition from wisdom’s self-description (1–22) to Ben Sira’s description of wisdom (23–31) to Ben Sira’s self-description (30–34) in language that recalls wisdom’s own speech. His authority is her authority. Like the biblical writers he “will again pour out teaching like prophecy, and leave it to all future generations” (24:33). This is not due to his own native intelligence, but he calls himself “the last on watch,” “one who gleans after the grape-gatherers” (33:16). Ben Sira’s authority is grounded not in himself but in the source of his wisdom, namely those who preceded him (39:1–2) and the Law, which is as reliable as Urim (36[33]:3). Ben Sira’s treatment of the rulers, if read uncritically, would lead one to conclude that Judea was ruled by an undifferentiated, aristocratic group of honorable, wise, and fair men. They apparently had little

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to do with imperial politics but were active in local politics and civic affairs, beloved and respected by their people. Those who exhibited too much pride were overthrown by God, and their places were taken by their more humble associates. Otherwise, there was little competition for inuence, and those who possessed the greatest authority were those who ruled most wisely, in obedience to the Law and with the fear of God. This, however, is scarcely believable. Ben Sira’s idealized view of the centrality of the high priest collides with the reality implied by Antiochus’ charter which excludes the high priest and instead grants priority to the gerousia, which is scarcely mentioned by Ben Sira at all. The ofce of high priest was not as monolithic as tradition tells us. Ofce holders had to compete for authority and received the support of scribes like Ben Sira, military ofcers, and other legal and bureaucratic retainers to do so. His idealized view of the sage is in some ways more realistic, in that the sages could certainly inuence political realities by their authoritative teachings. Daniel’s maskilim, the compilers of 1 Enoch, the “righteous teacher” of the DSS, and others would have provided competing authoritative political visions, some of which would have supported political-economic-religious individuals or groups in competition with others. Summary of the evidence Even after taking the available evidence into account, very little is known with certainty about the social organization of pre-Macabbean Judea. What we do know is that it was ruled by Ptolemaic Egypt and then by Seleucid Syria as a part of the province Coele-Syria. There was a tradition of high priestly rule, and it seems that the high priest and his fellow priests usually functioned as imperial agents and as local leaders. The high priest had rivals, one of whom, Joseph the Tobiad, was apparently able to gain the right to collect imperial taxes toward the end of Ptolemaic rule. By the time of Antiochus IV, however, the high priesthood had (again) become a lucrative and powerful position, as evidenced by the expensive and deadly struggles to obtain the position. In addition there was a council of elders (the gerousia), but its makeup and responsibilities are unknown. High priestly rule was maintained both militarily and ideologically. The imperial rulers no doubt supplied military support, but the high

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priest seems to have had some of his own troops as well (2 Macc 4:40; Josephus Ant. 12.239–40). The ideology was traditional but needed to be renewed and maintained by the constant reinforcement of the performance of the temple cult and the teaching of sages such as Ben Sira. The book of Sirach presupposes a society in which the high priest and his fellow priests rule an orderly society with sages like Ben Sira serving as teachers of the people, advisors, judges, diplomats, etc. This picture is partially conrmed by the decree of Antiochus III preserved in Josephus, Ant. 12.138–144 which established Jerusalem as the center of a temple state within the Seleucid Empire led by a council of elders and the priests with the scribes and temple-singers as privileged aristocracy. James Ellis Taylor summarizes his conclusions about this decree: “Seleucid rule in Jerusalem rested on a series of privileges and benefactions that are fairly simple and direct in nature and easily paralleled in ancient political life”.16 These “privileges and benefactions” were granted to the council of elders, the priests, and other temple personnel. Ben Sira’s portrait of Judea as a harmonious society that revolved around the political, economic, and religious rule of the high priest is, however, false. Both Ptolemaic and Seleucid rule were maintained in part by establishing competing and independent authorities, all of whom reported directly to the king. There is a hint of this competition in the fact that Antiochus’ decree establishes the gerousia (the council of elders) as the chief in the Jerusalem hierarchy, but by the time of Antiochus IV it is the high priest. The fact that provincial ofcials were dependent directly on the king and not on some local chief is illustrated by the Scythopolis Inscription published by Y. H. Landau17 and studied in detail by James Ellis Taylor in his dissertation.18 The inscription is a record of correspondence with the Syrian king concerning disputes between Ptolemy and other agents of the empire, including even local garrison commanders. Taylor has shown that Ptolemy, the strategos and high priest of Coele-Syria and the addressee of Antiochus’s decree concerning Jerusalem, functioned as governor with supervisory role over all of the sanctuaries in the land, including the one in Jerusalem. Yet, despite his apparently powerful position, Ptolemy had little or no

16 17 18

Taylor, Seleucid Rule, 170. Y. H. Landau, “A Greek Inscription Found Near Hefzibah,” IEJ (1966) 54–70, Taylor, Seleucid Rule, 108–168.

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authority over other local nancial and logistical administrators (dioiketai) and had to appeal to the king to resolve disputes. In addition, there was the very real conict between the two external powers as they fought war after war over Syro-Phoenicia. Sages were members of the privileged aristocracy that depended in part upon imperial and/or priestly benefactions for their position and stature in society. Inasmuch as their patrons had conicting interests and loyalties, the interests and loyalties of the sages/scribes would also conict.19 It is in this context that we should think about the social context in which the Enochic visions and other literature were produced. The Social Setting of the Early Books of Enoch There is little information about social location in the books of 1 Enoch, but are a few hints. All of the Enochic books reect a scribal origin. The simple fact that only professional scribes would have had the skill to write these books gives us a pretty clear indication that the compilers of enochic traditions belonged to the scribal class. In several passages, Enoch (with whom the writers presumably identify) is called a scribe (12.3–4; 15.1; 92.1). Moreover he functions as a teacher of wisdom for his children (82.1–3; 91:1–4), using vocabulary that is reminiscent of instruction to “sons” in wisdom literature. The emphasis on reading and writing also points to a scribal milieu (13.3–7; 81.1–2; 82.1; 93:2; 89.61, 68, 76–77). That the writers of 1 Enoch and Ben Sira both belonged to the same socio-economic class does not mean that they would agree on ideology. Ben Sira provides the theological and ideological underpinnings for Oniad priestly rule subject to the foreign emperor. The enochic writers oppose both Oniad priestly rule and foreign dominance. The Book of the Watchers, collected and composed during the rule of the Ptolemies reects an anti-imperial stance that rejects not only the foreign rulers, but also their local, priestly representatives. It has already been proposed that the Book of the Watchers was composed as a polemic against the Greek overlords who claimed divine descent and con-

19 R. A. Horsley and P. Tiller, “Ben Sira and the Sociology of the Second Temple,” in Philip R. Davies and John M. Halligan (eds.), Second Temple Studies III: Studies in Politics, Class, and Material Culture ( JSOTSup 340; London: Shefeld Academic Press, 2002) 74–107.

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sumed goods and brought violence upon the land.20 It was apparently expanded to provide a more pointed critique of the priesthood over the issue of family purity and intermarriage.21 None of the Enochic compositions displays very much interest in the temple, priesthood, or Mosaic law. The Animal Apocalypse is positively against the second temple as such, and the Apocalypse of Weeks (1 Enoch 93; 91.11–17), by implication, agrees.22 It seems, therefore, that while the Enochic sages fullled a sociological role identical to that of Ben Sira and his students, the Enochic sages served a priestly party that (at least in the third and second centuries) unsuccessfully competed for inuence and authority and resisted or opposed the cooperation of the high priests with the Hellenistic empires.23 The Epistle of Enoch, written probably in the rst third of the second century bce also reects a scribal ethos that formally agrees with Ben Sira, but probably does so in opposition to the leaders that Ben Sira supports. The writers pronounce judgment against the wealthy for their oppression of the righteous. In one case the righteous are identied with the “lowly” (96.5), but the word “poor” is never used.24 It seems likely that the Israelite traditions about justice for the poor and oppressed have been applied by the writers to the oppression of the powerful against themselves, the righteous.

20 G. W. E. Nickelsburg, “Apocalyptic and Myth in 1 Enoch 6–11,” JBL 96 (1977) 383–405; and R. Bartelmus, Heroentum in Israel und seiner Umwelt (ATANT 65; Zurich: Theologischer, 1979) 175–9 (cited by J. C. VanderKam, Enoch and the Growth of an Apocalyptic Tradition [CBQMS 16; Washington: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1984] 128, n 67). It might appear to be inconsistent that the watchers are condemned for bringing knowledge of divination and astrology, when those are very similar to the skills for which Enoch himself is famous. Presumably the Greek diviners practiced divination and astrology that was based upon illicit sources and included kinds of divination that were unacceptable to the Enochic sages, while that of Enoch and his followers was based upon licit revelations by God and good angels and include interpretation of visions but not other sorts of auguries. 21 D. Suter, “Fallen Angel, Fallen Priest: The Problem of Family Purity in 1 Enoch 6–16,” HUCA 50 (1979) 115–35; and G. W. E. Nickelsburg, “Enoch, Levi and Peter: Recipients of Revelation in Upper Galilee,” JBL 100 (1981) 575–600. 22 P. A. Tiller, A Commentary on the Animal Apocalypse of I Enoch (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993) 39–40, 97. 23 See D. Bryan, Cosmos, Chaos and the Kosher Mentality ( JSPSS 12; Shefeld: Shefeld Academic Press, 1995) 168–85 for an argument for “the strong priestly background of the seer” (183). 24 G. W. E. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch, Chapters 1–36; 81–108 (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001) 426–7.

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Indications in both Sirach and 1 Enoch (especially book 5) show that Ben Sira and the Enochic sages operated in conscious opposition to each other.25 Both books present their authors as sages and teachers, each with their own unique traditions. Both make use of the same Israelite traditions. One appeals to dreams and visions, while the other warns against them. Both propose innovations over against the structure prescribed by Antiochus’s decree, which seems to establish the gerousia over the priests and does not mention the high priest at all. Ben Sira wants to rearrange the power structure, while the Enochic visionaries want to dismantle it and replace it with something radically different. The close literary (or oral tradition) relationship between the Book of the Watchers and the Animal Apocalypse indicates a succession of Enochic teachers who maintained and passed on the enochic tradition.26 This is different from Jubilees where traditions about Enoch are retold, but with less faithfulness to the traditions told in the name of Enoch. This, however, does not imply the existence of a social group. When we speak of community or sociological group we usually have in mind an organized social structure with dened boundaries and constraints. Having a common hero and theology does not imply social structure. Horsley makes a similar argument concerning the Epistle of Enoch: “We should not think that 1 Enoch 92–105 is the product of a movement or group any more than we would understand the text of Sirach as testimony to Ben Sira heading a social movement.”27 Nothing in any of the books of Enoch implies a social structure for the wise/righteous, or that they have any exclusive claim to election. Like Daniel the books assume that the wise will function as teachers for many others who are not among the wise and that this teaching will be based on revealed wisdom.28 It seems extremely unlikely that any real social groups ever dened their boundaries in terms of adherence to the teachings of “Enoch” or “Daniel.” As we are reminded by Lester Grabbe, “There 25 B. G. Wright III, “ ‘Fear the Lord and Honor the Priest’: Ben Sira as Defender of the Jerusalem Priesthood,” in P. C. Beentjes (ed.), The Book of Ben Sira in Modern Research (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1997) 189–222; R. A. Argall, 1 Enoch and Sirach: A Comparative Literary and Conceptual Analysis of the Themes of Revelation, Creation and Judgment (EJL 8; Atlanta: Scholars, 1995) 249–55. 26 Tiller, Commentary, 88–9. 27 R. A. Horsley, “Social Relations and Social Conict in the Epistle of Enoch” in R. Argall, B. A. Bow, and R. A. Werline (eds.), For A Later Generation: The Transformation of Tradition in Israel, Early Judaism, and Early Christianity (Harrisburg: Trinity, 2000) 115. 28 G. W. E. Nickelsburg, “The Epistle of Enoch and the Qumran Literature”, JJS 33 (1982) 333–48.

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is no necessary connection between apocalypses and apocalyptic communities.”29 It is, in fact, difcult to imagine what sort of community or social movement could have been devoted to the cultivation of Enochic wisdom. It is far more likely that the sages who produced this literature were members of a larger social group and that their teachings were largely compatible with the ideals of the group. Books like Daniel, Enoch, Sirach or other books of the period should no longer be mined for theological evidence of groups that were either the same or different. Rather they are evidence that their writers and compliers belonged to a class of professional sages and teachers, trained in the traditions of aristocratic and/or apocalyptic wisdom (whether native or foreign), whose politically charged teachings had an impact on their own and subsequent generations.

29

L. Grabbe, “The Social Setting of Jewish Apocalypticism” JSP 4 (1989) 29.

“SITTING BY THE WATERS OF DAN,” OR THE “TRICKY BUSINESS” OF TRACING THE SOCIAL PROFILE OF THE COMMUNITIES THAT PRODUCED THE EARLIEST ENOCHIC TEXTS Pierluigi Piovanelli University of Ottawa, Canada Bart D. Ehrman provides a useful description of the goals and methods of the socio-historical approach applied to the biblical texts—in this case, the Gospel of John.1 In his opinion, “[t]he theory behind the method can be stated simply: the social history of a community will affect the way it preserves its traditions.” For instance, even if they are going to explain the same passage of Scripture, different preachers will deliver different kinds of sermons to different churches around the globe because each preacher will try to relate the biblical text and its message to the life of his or her own community. Accordingly, it would be possible to reconstruct, at least to some extent, the social context of an unknown congregation on the basis of such a sermon. Our knowledge of contemporary Christendom—as Ehrman seems to suggest—should enable us to distinguish, for example, a sermon pronounced “in a black church in Soweto, South Africa, in the 1980s, when apartheid was ofcial policy,” from an homily given “in a white upper-class church in suburban America.”2 However, things become

1 B. D. Ehrman, The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings (3rd ed.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) 168 (from which are also taken the following quotations). In what follows, I will make a frequent use of studies carried out either from a Hebrew Bible or a Christian Testament perspective. The reason for such a choice is that these particular branches of research have also made the more signicant advances in the eld of social-scientic and anthropological exploration of late Second Temple Judaism. See, for example, L. L. Grabbe, Priests, Prophets, Diviners, Sages: A Socio-Historical Study of Religious Specialists in Ancient Israel (Valley Forge: Trinity Press International, 1995); E. Stegemann and Wolfgang Stegemann, The Jesus Movement: A Social History of Its First Century (trans. O. C. Dean, Jr.; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1999 [German original edition, 1995]). 2 As a matter of fact, nowadays the phenomenon of the globalization contributes to blur the traditional boundaries between the different communities. See, for example, P. Jenkins, The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).

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difcult when our knowledge of the social context is less satisfying or even non-existent. “Then if we want to learn something about the underlying social history we have no recourse but to use the text itself, reasoning backward from what it says to the social experiences that it appears to presuppose.” In other words, we are left with the text alone and our personal readings and hypotheses. This is the kind of “tricky business” in which are presently engaged not only the specialists of John but also the large majority of the Enoch scholars. Before tackling the issue of tracing the social history of any hypothetical community that is supposed to have produced an otherwise perfectly isolated text, the rst question that we should ask is if such a community ever existed. Theoretically, we cannot rule out the possibility that an unknown author wrote down such and such text in order to address not some specic issues at stake within his or her own group but a larger—not to say a universal—audience.3 Even if this option does not seem to correspond to what we know of the “collectivistic personalities” controlling the dynamics of Second Temple Judaism and other ancient Mediterranean societies,4 it is true that the production of literary texts follows special patterns that are sometimes at odds with the dominating cultural and social trends. Thus, authors could deliberately adopt the perspectives of other religious or social groups different from the one to which they originally belong,5 or they could take up storylines and motifs that were originally used by other groups different from their own. In fact, nobody can condently reconstruct either who the original author of a given text was, or his or her pristine intentions. Scholars can only guess about the chances that the images of the implied or ideal author and audience correspond, more or less, to some historical persons and situations.6

3 This is the point that the contributors to the volume edited by R. Bauckham, The Gospels for All Christians: Rethinking the Gospel Audiences (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), try to make. 4 According to B. J. Malina, The New Testament World: Insights From Cultural Anthropology (Louisville: Knox, 20013) 58–80. 5 This is especially true for the priestly authors belonging to Judaean power-holding groups that voiced their social and religious uneasiness in such proto-apocalyptic texts as Ezekiel 38–39, Zechariah 1–8, and Joel 2:1–11, 3–4. See S. L. Cook, Prophecy and Apocalypticism: The Postexilic Social Setting (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1995). 6 For the notions of the “implied author” and the “ideal reader,” see D. Marguerat and Y. Bourquin, How to Read Bible Stories: An Introduction to Narrative Criticism (trans. J. Bowden; London: SCM, 1999 [French original edition, 1998]) 11–5.

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The great number of over-interpretations put forward in perfect bona de during the last thirty years clearly demonstrates that these are matters of personal and subjective reading. Too many late Christian texts were identied as early Jewish pseudepigrapha;7 Jewish Christian and/or Gnostic motifs were arbitrarily found almost everywhere,8 and thanks to the indiscriminate use of source criticism, late Christian apocryphal texts were systematically driven back to the rst centuries of early Christianity.9 Of course, the risk of transforming exegesis into eisegesis is omnipresent when we deal with literary works. However, the uncertainty of traditional approaches could be considerably reduced by the use of more rigorous and holistic methods. Thus, for example, if we take into account the socio-rhetorical model of textual communication developed by Vernon K. Robbins,10 such a new approach would investigate, at least, the complementary phenomena of (1) the text as a narrative act of communication, (2) the intertext as the cultural world of a given text, and (3) what we could call the “sociotext,” or the social perspectives inscribed into the text.11 What is also of paramount importance is the need to keep well separated the different steps of such an analysis in 7 That it is actually the case of the Paraleipomema of Jeremiah, as I suggested as early as 1997 (P. Piovanelli, “Les Paralipomènes de Jérémie dépendent-ils de l’Histoire de la captivité babylonienne?,” Bulletin de l’AELAC 7 [1997] 10–4), has been recently and independently conrmed by R. Nir, The Destruction of Jerusalem and the Idea of Redemption in the Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch (SBLEJL 20; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003) 203–37. 8 See, for example, P. Piovanelli, “Connaissance de Dieu et sagesse humaine en Éthiopie: Le traité Explication de la Divinité attribué aux hérétiques ‘mikaélites’,” Mus 117 (2004) 193–227. 9 The more telling example is provided by the “orthodox” Apocalypse of Paul written between 388 and 416 CE that is still wrongly considered as the second edition of an early third century otherwise unknown apocalyptic text. See P. Piovanelli, “Les origines de l’Apocalypse de Paul reconsidérées,” Apocrypha 4 (1993) 25–64; “The Miraculous Discovery of the Hidden Manuscript, or The Paratextual Function of the Prologue to the Apocalypse of Paul,” in J. N. Bremmer and I. Czachesz (eds.), The Apocalypse of Paul (SECA 8; Leuven: Peeters, 2007), forthcoming. 10 V. K. Robbins, Exploring the Texture of Texts: A Guide to Socio-Rhetorical Interpretation (Valley Forge: Trinity Press International, 1996); The Tapestry of Early Christian Discourse: Rhetoric, Society and Ideology (London: Routledge, 1996). On the different facets of contemporary rhetorical approaches, see S. K. Foss, Rhetorical Criticism: Exploration & Practice (Long Grove: Waveland, 20043). 11 Actually, Robbins proposes a more sophisticated template that also includes (4) ideological texture and (5) sacred texture. H. S. Kvanvig, “Origin and Identity of the Enoch Group,” in G. Boccaccini (ed.), The Origins of Enochic Judaism: Proceedings of the First Enoch Seminar (University of Michigan, Sesto Fiorentino, Italy, June 19–23, 2001) (Turin: Zamorani, 2002) 207–212, also applies to the Enochic myths a similar tripartite

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order to avoid any superimposition of the literary over the social and anthropological elements, or the other way round. In the past, literary considerations were generally leading to the disclosure of the milieu or Sitz im Leben. Today, sometimes social-scientic and anthropological models are too hastily applied to the texts almost without noticing the literary nature of the works under scrutiny.12 Accordingly, the rst part of the present essay will be devoted to the question of the existence of one or more Enochic communities and how Enoch scholars conceptualize them. While in the second part I will try to apply, for the rst time, some elements of the threefold socio-rhetorical analysis described above to the Book of the Watchers. Finally, in the last part I will draw some conclusions about the people behind Enochic texts and traditions. Our task was made considerably easier by the publication of the rst volume of George W. E. Nickelsburg exhaustive commentary of 1 Enoch.13 Such a groundbreaking work provides a new English translation carried out on a better textual basis—especially as far as the Ethiopic version is concerned—than the ones used in previous translations and commentaries,14 as well as detailed literary analyses and useful textual and exegetical comments. approach based on Paul Ricœur’s redenition of Aristotle’s three mimeses, i.e., preguration (mimesis 1), conguration (mimesis 2), and reguration (mimesis 3). 12 One should meditate the warnings against such a habit expressed, for example, by D. G. Horrell, “Social Sciences Studying Formative Christian Phenomena: A Creative Movement,” in A. J. Blasi, J. Duhaime, and P.-A. Turcotte (eds.), Handbook of Early Christianity Social Science Approaches (Walnut Creek: AltaMira, 2002) 3–28, esp. 19–20. 13 G. W. E. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch, Chapters 1–36; 81–108 (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001), to which we can now add the complete translation of G. W. E. Nickelsburg and J. C. VanderKam, 1 Enoch: A New Translation. Based on the Hermeneia Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2004). Concerning the commentary, see the reviews of P. A. Tiller, J. J. Collins, J. C. VanderKam, D. W. Suter, I. Gruenwald, as well as Nickelsburg’s own response in J. Neusner and A. J. Avery-Peck (eds.), George W. E. Nickelsburg in Perspective: An Ongoing Dialogue of Learning (2 vols.; JSJSup 80; Leiden: Brill, 2003) 2.365–423. Also see M. A. Knibb, “Interpreting the Book of Enoch: Reections on a Recently Published Commentary,” JSJ 33 (2002) 437–50. 14 See P. Piovanelli, “Sulla Vorlage aramaica dell’Enoch etiopico,” StClOr 37 (1987) 545–94; “Il testo e le traduzioni dell’Enoch etiopico: 1976–1987,” Henoch 10 (1988) 85–95; J. C. VanderKam, “The Textual Base for the Ethiopic Translation of 1 Enoch,” in D. M. Golomb (ed.), “Working with no Data”: Semitic and Egyptian Studies Presented to Thomas O. Lambdin (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1987) 247–62 (repr. in J. C. VanderKam, From Revelation to Canon: Studies in the Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Literature [ JSJSup 62; Leiden: Brill, 2000], 380–95); P. A. Tiller, A Commentary on the Animal Apocalypse of I Enoch (SBLEJL 4; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993) 129–38; E. J. C. Tigchelaar, Prophets of Old and the Day of the End: Zechariah, the Book of Watchers and Apocalyptic (OTS 35; Leiden: Brill, 1996) 144–51; Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 15–20, 115–7.

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The discussions held during the rst two meetings of the “Enoch Seminar,” organized by Gabriele Boccaccini, were also extremely benecial for the clarication of the different issues at stake in the contemporary scholarly debate.15 1. Elusive Communities The possibility of the existence of some Enochic groups—perhaps as large and developed as to constitute organized communities—is suggested by the uninterrupted sedimentation of the Enochic traditions and texts. Such works seem to follow a coherent path of development. The same foundational myths—the different versions of the story of the watchers and the giants that serve as a pretext for Enoch’s heavenly journeys and revelations—provide the narrative storylines for the rst episodes (the Book of the Watchers and the Astronomical Book) as well as for their subsequent rewritings (the Book of Giants, the Book of Dream Visions, the Epistle of Enoch, the Book of Parables, as well as 2 and 3 Enoch).16 Furthermore, at the interior of the main literary units of the Enochic cycle previous texts and traditions have been reprocessed and newly interwoven into the actual texture. Thus, in 1 Enoch 6–11 the nal editor of the Book of the Watchers added some elements taken from the story of Asael to the original myth describing the angelic rebellion lead by Shemihazah.17 An originally independent Animal Apocalypse (1 En 85–90) was inserted into the Book of Dream Visions, and similarly, the Apocalypse of Weeks (1 En 93:1–10; 91:11–17) found its way into the Epistle of Enoch. Accordingly, it is difcult to imagine such an ongoing process at work elsewhere than in

15 Boccaccini (ed.), The Origins; Enoch and Qumran Origins: New Light on a Forgotten Connection (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005). 16 On the literary career of Enoch within Judaism, see J. C. VanderKam, Enoch: A Man for All Generations (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1995); P. S. Alexander, “From Son of Adam to Second God: Transformations of the Biblical Enoch,” in M. E. Stone and T. A. Bergren (eds.), Biblical Figures outside the Bible (Harrisburg: Trinity Press International, 1998) 87–122; Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 71–82. 17 For an insightful reconstruction of the layers of the Book of the Watchers, see P. Sacchi, “The Book of the Watchers and the Apocalyptic,” in Jewish Apocalyptic and Its History (trans. William J. Short; JSPS 20; Shefeld: Shefeld Academic Press, 1997 [Italian original edition, 1990]) 32–71. On the Shemihazah myth, also see Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 165–72.

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what we could legitimately call some “Enochic” circles from at least the third century BCE onward. To this we could also add that the language, namely, Aramaic, is another special feature of those texts whose fragments were found in Qumran caves (the Book of the Watchers, the Book of Dream Visions, and the Epistle of Enoch: 4Q201, 202, 204–207, 212; the Astronomical Book: 4Q208–211) including the Book of Giants (1Q23, 24, 26, 4Q203, 530–533).18 According to Klaus Beyer, the literary idiom in which were written the oldest manuscripts of 1 Enoch (4Q201, 202, 208) was the Jüdisch-Altpalästinisch, or, more exactly, Jüdisch-Altostjordanisch, while the language of its latest copies clearly belongs to the Hasmonäisch variety of Aramaic, which was also used in other documents from Qumran.19 We will examine later the literary implications of the use of such a Reichsaramäisch in the earliest Enoch documents. For the moment, sufce to say that the linguistic continuity also seems to point to an uninterrupted chain of textual production and elaboration within the same circle(s). As for the original location of the Aramaic Enoch literature, in 1976 the paleographic dating of the rst Qumran manuscripts of Book of the Watchers and the Astronomical Book prompted Józef Tadeusz Milik to argue for an early date of the oral traditions about the fallen angels and the Enochic solar 365-days calendar—a date that was, in any case, earlier than the nal redaction of the book of Genesis and the Pentateuch. In his opinion, the composition of 1 Enoch 6–19 should be dated to the Persian period, while the Samaritan priests of Shechem could be considered as the authors of the Astronomical Book.20

18 Eventually, this could also be the case of the Aramaic Levi (CTLevi; 1Q21; 4Q213–214b, 4Q540, 541), the Testament of Qahat (4Q542), and the Visions of Amram (4Q543–548), a group of Aramaic texts that, even if they do not belong to the Enoch cycle, seem ideologically related to it. 19 See K. Beyer, Die aramäischen Texte vom Toten Meer samt den Inschriften aus Palästina, dem Testament Levis aus der Kairoer Genisa, der Fastenrolle und den alten talmudischen Zitaten (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1984) 227–30, 259; The Aramaic Language: Its Distribution and Subdivisions (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1986 [English trans. of the rst chapter, “Die Verbreitung und Gliederung des Aramäischen,” 23–76]); Die aramäischen Texte vom Toten Meer. Ergänzungsband (2nd ed. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1994 [2004]) 117. One should also note that the original language of, at least, the Book of the Watchers, the Astronomical Book, and the Book of Giants was, in Beyer’s opinion, Hebrew. 20 J. T. Milik, The Books of Enoch: Aramaic Fragments of Qumrân Cave 4 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1976) 9–10, 31. According to E. J. C. Tigchelaar, “Some Remarks on the Book of the Watchers, the Priests, Enoch and Genesis, and 4Q208,” in Boccaccini (ed.),

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In 1977 Paul D. Hanson suggested that the Shemihazah and Asael traditions contain the mythical transposition of a criticism expressed against the compromised purity and efcacy of the rituals performed in the Jerusalem Temple.21 The same year, George W. E. Nickelsburg proposed to set the same myths against the background of the early Hellenistic crisis in the days of the Diadochoi and their claims of divine descent.22 A couple of years later, David W. Suter detected in 1 Enoch 6–16 another kind of criticism that was mainly directed, in his opinion, against the impurities and sexual transgressions of the Jerusalem priestly families.23 In spite of such a hostile attitude, the possibility that the authors of the Book of the Watchers were, in fact, themselves disenchanted priests has been advocated by Michael E. Stone24 and Benjamin G. Wright III, among others.25 Nickelsburg too reached similar conclusions about an early opposition to the Jerusalem priesthood, and found new geographical evidence (the mention of the waters of Dan, Abel-Main, Lebanon, and Senir in 1 En 13:7–9) that would point, in the case of 1 Enoch 12–16, to an origin in Upper Galilee.26 “Thus two motifs emerged, sometimes independently: response to persecution by

The Origins, 143–45, “4Q208 was not a copy of the Astronomical Enoch, but only of a Synchronistic Calendar, with or without an Enochic introduction or framework” (145). A Samaritan origin, not for the earliest Enochic documents, but for the Aramaic Levi, is now defended by E. Eshel and H. Eshel, “Toponymic Midrash in 1 Enoch and Other Second Temple Jewish Literature,” in Boccaccini (ed.), The Origins, 115–30, esp. 120–6. 21 P. D. Hanson, “Rebellion in Heaven, Azazel and Euhemeristic Heroes in 1 Enoch 6–11,” JBL 96 (1977) 195–233. 22 G. W. E. Nickelsburg, “Apocalyptic and Myth in 1 Enoch 6–11,”JBL 96 (1977) 383–405. 23 D. W. Suter, “Fallen Angel, Fallen Priest: The Problem of Family Purity in 1 Enoch,” HUCA 50 (1979) 115–35. 24 M. E. Stone, “The Book of Enoch and Judaism in the Third Century BCE,” CBQ 40 (1978) 479–92, esp. 489. 25 B. G. Wright III, “Fear the Lord and Honor the Priest: Ben Sira as Defender of the Jerusalem Priesthood,” in P. C. Beentjes (ed.), The Book of Ben Sira in Modern Research: Proceedings of the First International Ben Sira Conference, 28–31 July 1996, Soesterberg, Netherlands (BZAW 255; Berlin: de Gruyter, 1997) 189–222, esp. 198–201, 218–219; “Sirach and 1 Enoch: Some Further Considerations,” in Boccaccini (ed.), The Origins, 179–87. 26 G. W. E. Nickelsburg, “Enoch, Levi, and Peter: Recipients of Revelation in Upper Galilee,” JBL 100 (1981) 575–600 (repr. in Neusner and Avery-Peck [eds.], George W. E. Nickelsburg in Perspective, 2.427–57, together with a rejoinder of H. Eshel and E. Eshel, “Separating Levi from Enoch,” ibid., 2.458–68, as well as Nickelsburg’s own “Response on the Commentary on 1 Enoch,” ibid., 2.469–71).

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the Hellenistic kings and opposition to the temple and its institutions,” as Nickelsburg aptly summarizes this phase of the research.27 In an excursus devoted to the “Sacred Geography in 1 Enoch 6–16” appended to his recent commentary, Nickelsburg was able to build up on the new ndings brought to light by the young generation of Israeli archaeologists.28 Thus, for example, the presence of the Paneion, a shrine sacred to the god Pan, on the southwest shoulder of Mount Hermon, raises the question of the similarities between the sexually explicit myths of Pan and of the watchers, and “thematic parallels between the Enochic story and the Pan myth may indicate an old Semitic mythology associated with Mount Hermon.”29 Interestingly enough, Suter too came to the same conclusion about a Northern Galilean setting for the watchers traditions.30 In contrast, if Esther and Hanan Eshel are ready to concede that “the origins of the status ascribed to Hermon in the Book of the Watchers may lie in Ituraean traditions,” such materials could have been, in their opinion, “adopted to buttress Jewish claims to Hasmonean-conquered territory.”31 Finally, Gabriele Boccaccini has provided the most comprehensive attempt to inscribe the trajectories of the Enochic literature into the framework of Second Temple apocalypticism and sectarianism. In two seminal monographs, published in 1998 and 2002, he argued for the identication of the group(s) behind 1 Enoch and related literature with what he considers to be the “Enochic Judaism,” that is to say, “a

27

Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 119. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 238–47 (referring to the works of Avraham Biran, Shimon Dar, and Zvi Uri Ma‘oz). 29 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 245. Concerning the northwest Semitic origins of such traditions, also see E. Lipinski’s insightful study, “El’s Abode: Mythological Traditions Related to Mount Hermon and to the Mountains of Armenia,” OLP 2 (1971) 13–69, esp. 15–41. 30 D. W. Suter, “Revisiting ‘Fallen Angels, Fallen Priests,’” in Boccaccini (ed.), The Origins, 137–42; “Why Galilee? Galilean Regionalism in the Interpretation of 1 Enoch 6–16,” Henoch 25 (2003) 167–212. Also see P. M. Venter, “Spatiality in Enoch’s Journeys (1 Enoch 12–36),” in F. García Martínez (ed.), Wisdom and Apocalypticism in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the Biblical Tradition (BETL 168; Leuven: Peeters, 2003) 211–230, who builds on the conclusion of an unpublished article of Russell Gmirkin (215–216, 227–228) 31 Eshel and Eshel, “Toponymic Midrash,” 116–120, esp. 120. However, a date as late as the end of the second century BCE is not only incompatible with the paleographical dating of 4Q201, 202, but also with the dates that are traditionally attributed to, at least, the Animal Apocalypse and the Apocalypse of Weeks, two works that presuppose the existence of the watchers traditions. 28

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variety of second temple Judaism.”32 In his opinion, the Essenes were an outgrowth of the group that produced the earliest Enochic literature and so part of the same movement, while the people from Qumran would be a later schismatic offshoot of Essenism.33 2. Discourse and Rhetoric Before proceeding to a socio-rhetorical examination of the text, the intertext, and the sociotext of the Book of the Watchers,34 we have to stress the fact that we are going to take into consideration this literary work in its nal, nished, and (so to speak) denitive form.35 What we are customary to call the Book of the Watchers is an Aramaic text that probably came into existence during the third century BCE. According to its superscription, it contains “the words of blessing” that the patriarch Enoch addressed to “the righteous chosen who will be present on the day of tribulation, to remove all the enemies” (1 En 1:1).36 It actually begins with an introductory oracle of judgement (1:2–5:9); a vivid description of the rebellion of the watchers expounds the reasons of the rst major crisis in the history of humankind (6–11); then Enoch is commissioned to act as a broker between the watchers on earth and God in heaven (12–16); in such a role, Enoch is taken on a celestial journey to the four corners of the earth that allows him to discover the secrets of cosmology (17–36). The text ends quoting Enoch’s last 32 G. Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis: The Parting of the Ways between Qumran and Enochic Judaism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998) 11–7, 165–96, esp. 13; Roots of Rabbinic Judaism: An Intellectual History, from Ezekiel to Daniel (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002) 89–103, 165–9. 33 Boccaccini put forward the rst proposal of his new hypothesis in 1995, in his lecture, “E se l’essenismo fosse il movimento enochiano? Una nuova ipotesi circa il rapporto tra Qumran e gli esseni,” in R. Penna (ed.), Qumran e le origini cristiane: Atti del VI Convegno di studi neotestamentari (L’Aquila, 14–17 settembre 1995) (RStB 9.2; Bologna: Dehoniane, 1997) 49–67. For an appraisal of Boccaccini’s reconstruction, see W. van Peursen, “Qumran Origins: Some Remarks on the Enochic/Essene Hypothesis,” RQ 20 (2001) 241–53. For an updated version of the Enochic/Essene hypothesis, see now Boccaccini’s contribution in the present volume. 34 One should bear in mind that socio-rhetorical analyses of apocalyptic texts are only at their beginnings. For a rst collection of successful attempts, see G. Carey and L. G. Bloomquist (eds.), Vision and Persuasion: Rhetorical Dimensions of Apocalyptic Discourse (St. Louis: Chalice, 1999). 35 For a similar approach, see J. J. Collins, “The Apocalyptic Technique: Setting and Function in the Book of Watchers,” CBQ 44 (1982) 91–111. 36 All the translations of the Book of the Watchers are taken from Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, and Nickelsburg and VanderKam, 1 Enoch.

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blessing, “And when I saw, I blessed—and I shall always bless—the Lord of glory, who has wrought great and glorious wonders, to show his great deeds to his angels and to the spirits of human beings, so that they might see the work of his might and glorify the deeds of his hands and bless him forever” (36:4). The reader is now aware that the crisis has been (temporarily) resolved and, like the hero of the story, can praise the Lord and condently look on the bright side of life. In this synchronic perspective, to tackle in a form-critical way with the audience, setting, and function of each “fragment” of the Book of the Watchers, as if it were a clumsy patchwork made of preexisting disparate pieces, becomes superuous. It is not the addition of the meanings of the single literary units that will help us to understand the actual work as a whole.37 On the contrary, we need to begin to look—using Vernon K. Robbins’ metaphor—at the global tapestry (or macro-story) in order to appreciate the way the different textiles (or micro-stories) were harmoniously interwoven. Thus, from a narrative point of view, the different versions of the Watcher story or the cosmic journeys of Enoch are no longer the remnants of alternative versions of the same old myth, but the key elements of a rhetorical strategy. To uncover the strategy that controls the narrative discourse of the Book of the Watchers is to unlock its ideological message and socio-religious program.38 2.1. Narrative Texture Even if at the beginning (1 En 1:2) and later on, at a turning point of the story (12:1–2), the text introduces him in the third person, the role of the narrator clearly falls to Enoch, “the righteous scribe.” He is the visionary who immediately delivers a prophetic discourse (a “parable,” 1:2–3) that proleptically announces the lesson he learned from his otherworldly experiences, i.e., that “there will be a judgment on all” (1:7), the

37

Obviously enough, this does not mean that the study of the individual sections of the Book of the Watchers is not a rewarding task. Among the best examples of such an approach, one could mention L. Hartman, Asking for a Meaning: A Study of 1 Enoch 1–5 (ConBNT 12; Lund: Gleerup, 1979); M.-T. Wacker, Weltordnung und Gericht: Studien zu 1 Henoch 22 (FB 45; Würzburg: Echter Verlag, 1982); K. Coblentz Bautch, A Study of the Geography of 1 Enoch 17–19: “No One Has Seen What I Have Seen” ( JSJSup 81; Leiden: Brill, 2003). 38 For an excellent example of narrative analysis, see H. S. Kvanvig, “Jubilees— Between Enoch and Moses. A Narrative Reading,” JSJ 35 (2004) 243–61.

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fallen angels and the humankind as well (1:4–9; 5:5–9).39 The real plot takes shape with the episode of the rebellion of Shemihazah and his associates (6:1–7). The union of the angelic beings with the daughters of men provokes a chain reaction that devastates the creation when the women give birth to hybrid and gigantic beings that slaughter humans and animals, before beginning to kill and devour each other (7:1–8:4). This pandemic contamination leads to a chorus of responses from the polluted earth (7:6), the defenseless human beings (8:4), and even the four archangels Michael, Sariel, Raphael, and Gabriel (9:1–11). It is interesting to note that at this point of the narrative, contrary to expectation, the transformative action that should bring the crisis to an end—in this case, the ood and the punishment of both the fallen angels and their offspring—is simply announced in the instruction that the Lord gives to his archangels. Thus, Sariel is sent to warn Noah of the impending deluge (1 En 10:1–3), Raphael is commissioned to imprison Asael (10:4–8), Gabriel to destroy the giants (10:9–10), and Michael to bind Shemihazah and his colleagues (10:11–14) and to destroy the spirits of their sons (10:15), before cleansing and renovating the earth (10:16–11:2). Instead of the predictable outcome, the narrator intervenes to explain how he, Enoch, became involved in the watchers affair. He was summoned by the angels of God and sent to the watchers and Asael (12:3–13:3), who asked him to intercede on their behalf in the presence of the Lord (13:4–7), which he did. The rest of the Book of the Watchers—from 14:1 to 36:4, more than half the work—is the faithful report of the visions that Enoch had seen in dreams concerning not only the decree pronounced against the fallen angels (14:4–7; 15:1–16:4), but also and especially the places and the phenomena discovered during his otherworldly tour (17:1–36:4). The actual narrative bipartition40 of the Book of the Watchers is conrmed by the analysis of the different geographical references and spatial moves, either horizontal (on earth and in heaven) or vertical (ascents to and descents from heaven), which frame the story. In the rst thirteen chapters are mentioned two descents from heaven, a future (the 39 On the much debated question whether 1 Enoch 1–5 was written as an introduction to the Book of the Watchers, with or without chapters 6–11, or to a larger Enochic collection, see Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 24–6, 132. In Nickelsburg’s opinion, “a full-blown Enochic testament” would include 1 Enoch “1–5 (+ 6–11) + 12–33 or 36 + 81:1–82:4 + 91 + at least some parts of 92–105” (1 Enoch 1, 25). 40 Or, more exactly, a tripartition, if we consider 1 Enoch 1–5, 6–11, and 14–36 as three distinct cycles of narrative sequences linked by the transition of 12–13.

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eschatological theophany that will happen on Mount Sinai, 1 En 1:4) and a past one (the watchers who descended onto the top of Mount Hermon, 6:5). Then the action takes place on earth within an Upper Galilean geographical setting.41 Thus, Enoch receives his vision “by the waters of Dan in the land of Dan, which is south of Hermon, to the west” (13:7); then he reads his report to the watchers assembled together “at Abel-Main, which is between Lebanon and Senir” (13:9). In contrast, the next twenty-three chapters begin with an ascent to heaven and describe an impressive number of ights over the earth. Thus, in the course of his mystical experience the winds make Enoch y up and bring him to heaven (14:8), where he is allowed to enter into the divine palaces (14:10–23); during his cosmic journeys he is able to reach “the extremities of all things” (19:3) that are normally inaccessible to humans. Among the exceptional sites that Enoch has the privilege of visiting, there are “the place of the luminaries and the treasuries of the stars and of the thunders” (17:3); “the treasuries of all the winds” (18:1); the mountain throne of God with two ranges of three other mountains each at its sides (18:6–9 // 24:2–25:7); the pits of punishment for the fallen angels (18:9b–11 + 19:1–2 // 21:7–10) and the disobedient stars (18:12–14 // 21:1–6); the mountain of the dead (22:1–14); an unspecied blessed place ( Jerusalem) with a holy mountain and an accursed valley at the center of the earth (26:1–27:5); the distant oases, the valleys, and the mountains that produce exotic spices and perfumes (28:1–32:1), and nally, beyond the Red Sea (32:2), the paradise of righteousness with the tree of wisdom (32:3–6). We could graphically represent the main movements described in the Book of the Watchers in the following diagram: Heaven:

Watchers Enoch

Earth:

41 With the remarkable exception of the heavenly interlude in 1 Enoch 9:1–11:2. It is at this point that the Lord gives to his archangels the order to imprison the fallen angels on earth, Asael “in the wilderness that is in Doudael” (10:4), Shemihazah and the other watchers “in the valleys of the earth” (10:12).

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One should note that, even if Enoch’s descent from heaven is not described in the narrative, any cooperative reader could easily visualize it. In fact, all the Book of the Watchers, from the beginning to the end, can be considered as a long report—a testament?—that Enoch delivered after his second and last meeting with the watchers. The modern reader is probably astonished—not to say disoriented— by the presence of doublets, the lack of clarity, the different directions taken by the heavenly traveler in order to reach apparently the same place. Actually, in the rst part of his journey, Enoch goes as far as the northwest extremity of the earth (1 En 17–19), while in the second part he comes back from the west, visiting again the same places that he saw on his way there. He passes over the center of the earth, and goes on up to the eastern edge of the world (20–36). The different attempts to identify the ancient sources of the Enochic geography as well as some of the sites mentioned in the text (e.g., Petra in 28:1–3) also speak in favor of the concern for plausibility of the author(s) and editor(s) of the Book of the Watchers.42 Nonetheless, one should not forget that the primary function of these episodes probably was more rhetorical than “scientic,”43 aiming to persuade the reader of the soundness of the Enochic cosmology and eschatology—we could safely speak of the Enochic construction of reality—by means of repetition and redundancy.44 From this point of view, the comparison with other Jewish and Christian apocalyptic texts clearly demonstrates that the technique of organizing the narrative in series of overlapping sequences was the favorite strategy chosen to convey a specic meaning.45

42

For the mythic geography of the Book of the Watchers, see P. Grélot, “La géographie mythique d’Hénoch et ses sources orientales,” RB 65 (1958) 33–69; Milik, The Books of Enoch, 15–18, 29–30, 33–41; J. C. VanderKam, “1 Enoch 77,3 and a Babylonian Map of the World,” RQ 11 (1983) 271–8; J. Stock-Hesketh, “Circles and Mirrors: Understanding 1 Enoch 21–32,” JSP 21 (2000) 27–58; Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 278–280, 290–293; Bautch, A Study of the Geography, 157–274. 43 See, however, P. S. Alexander, “Enoch and the Beginnings of Jewish Interest in Natural Science,” in C. Hempel, A. Lange, and H. Lichtenberger (eds.), Wisdom Texts from Qumran and the Development of Sapiential Thought (BETL 159; Leuven: Peeters, 2002) 223–43. 44 “The repetition of an event or a formula allows readers to weave links, to bring things together, to remind themselves of the general lines of the work” (Marguerat and Bourquin, How to Read Bible Stories, 127). 45 See, for example, the highly climactic visionary sequences that characterize the books of Daniel, Revelation, 4 Ezra, and 2 Baruch, or the otherworldly representations of the Apocalypse of Peter and the Apocalypse of Paul. This literary feature was the rst to be detected as a specically apocalyptic characteristic by K. Koch in

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At this very preliminary stage of our narrative inquiry into the Book of the Watchers I would argue that the purpose of the text was to steer the reader towards a new reality map by shaping a new cosmology. The interest for the natural phenomena and their perfect working order is clearly stated in the introductory oracular discourse (1 En 2:1–5:3) and demonstrated all through the episodes of Enoch’s otherworldly trip up to its conclusive summary (34:1–36:2). Behind the concern for the “works,” “luminaries,” and “stars” of heaven (2:1; 17:2; 23:4 [?]; 33:2; 36:3)46 we can easily perceive a calendrical, and consequently liturgical, agenda.47 However, this is by no means the unique focus of the work. As Kelley Coblentz Bautch rightly remind us, the vision of the places of punishment and the repositories for the souls of the dead points to a similarity between the cosmic journey of Enoch and the Greek nekyia descents to the underworld.48 Thus, the Book of the Watchers seems to introduce the reader to the esoteric knowledge of some of the most mysterious aspects of the universe—the geography of the regions beyond the limits of the inhabited earth, the physics of atmospheric and celestial phenomena, and the fate of the dead and the rebel angels.

his classic essay, The Rediscovery of Apocalyptic (London: SCM, 1972 [German original edition, 1970]) 24–5, 133–4. 46 These are the heavenly bodies that faithfully obey the natural laws xed by God. Contrast the “seven stars like great burning mountains” that are imprisoned beyond the boundaries of heaven and earth because they “transgressed the command of the Lord in the beginning of their rising, for they did not come out in their appointed times” (1 En 18:12–16 // 21:1–6). At the end of their celestial tour, Enoch and Uriel write down all the details concerning the revolutions and “functions” of the stars of heaven (33:2–4), a clear allusion to the content of the Astronomical Book. 47 Concerning the Enochic solar calendar and its sectarian implications, see G. Boccaccini, “The Solar Calendars of Daniel and Enoch,” in J. J. Collins and P. W. Flint (eds.), The Book of Daniel: Composition and Reception (2 vols.; VTS 83; Leiden: Brill, 2001) 2.311–28; M. Elliott, “Covenant and Cosmology in the Book of the Watchers and the Astronomical Book,” in Boccaccini (ed.), The Origins of Enochic Judaism, 23–38; J. J. Collins, “Theology and Identity in the Early Enoch Literature,” ibid., 57–62. 48 Bautch, A Study of the Geography, 248–57. Such a connection had already been established by T. F. Glasson, Greek Inuence in Jewish Eschatology, with Special Reference to the Apocalypses and Pseudepigraphs (London: S.P.C.K., 1961) 8–11, and it is now accepted by Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 280. M. A. Knibb, “The Use of Scripture in 1 Enoch 17–19,” in F. García Martínez and G. P. Luttikhuizen (eds.), Jerusalem, Alexandria, Rome: Studies in Ancient Cultural Interaction in Honour of A. Hilhorst ( JSJSup 82; Leiden: Brill, 2003) 165–78, nds it “helpful” (169), while J. M. Scott, in his review of Bautch’s monograph published in JBL 123 (2004) 752–56, prefers to suggest that “1 En 17–19 is an example of the well-established periodos ges or ‘around-the-earth journey’ literature” (755).

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2.2. Intertextual Texture Concerning the intertextual world of the Book of the Watchers, the question of the contacts between 1 Enoch 6–11 and Genesis 6:1–4 has largely dominated the scholarly debate.49 This is probably a false dilemma because, even if the short notice in Genesis were the pretext to pick up and develop the story of the sons of God and the daughters of the sons of men, its Enochic version certainly supplemented it with the help of traditional legendary tales as ancient as, or even more ancient (e.g., the Babylonian Atra-Hasis Epic) than, the actual book of Genesis. From an intertextual point of view, the Book of the Watchers constantly resonates with echoes of Genesis. Thus, the regularity of the natural phenomena reminds the reader of the rst four days of the creation story (Gen 1:1–19), while the variety and beauty of the great beasts and birds that Enoch sees at the ends of the earth (1 En 33:1) evokes not only the description of the fth and sixth days (Gen 1:20–31), but also the episode of the naming of the animals by Adam (Gen 2:19–20).50 The Garden of Eden and the trees of life and knowledge (Gen 2:8–9) are also shown to Enoch (1 En 24:4–25:7; 32:3–6) with the promise that the rst tree will be given back to the righteous after the great judgment and an explicit reference (1 En 33:6) to the episode of the expulsion from Eden (Gen 3).51 If the lamenting spirit of Abel (1 En 22:5–7) certainly recalls the miserable ghosts in the Homeric Hades (Odyssey 11), it also presupposes the knowledge of the circumstances of his murder as they are related in Genesis 4:1–16. Finally, the commissioning of the archangel Sariel to instruct Noah easily brings to the

49 See J. C. VanderKam, “The Interpretation of Genesis in 1 Enoch,” in P. W. Flint (ed.), The Bible at Qumran: Text, Shape, and Interpretation (SDSSRL; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001) 129–48; H. S. Kvanvig, “The Watchers Story, Genesis and AtraHasis, a Triangular Reading,” in Boccaccini (ed.), The Origins, 17–21; “Gen 6,3 and the Watcher Story,” Henoch 25 (2003) 277–300 (with extensive bibliography). Useful clues for an intertextual approach can also be found in Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 57–62, and Knibb, “The Use of Scripture.” 50 This means that, in the course of his journey, Enoch is allowed to rediscover the primeval knowledge of—and possibly to regain the control over—all the created beings and realities, a power that the humankind lost after the fall and will recover—according to a protology/eschatology scheme that is here used for the rst time in full—after the last judgment. 51 This demonstrates that, even if the story of the fall is not narrativized as such in the Book of the Watchers, the text provides the reader with sufcient intertextual clues to recall it and meditate about its fatal consequences.

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reader’s mind the story of the ood and God’s rst covenant with the humankind (Gen 6:5–9:17).52 One could legitimately ask if such an Enochic rewriting of, at least, Genesis 1–9 was intended to correct, or even to supersede, the rst book of the Torah. However, the knowledge of the Genesis stories that the Book of the Watchers requires from the reader is so important that it is difcult to take too seriously such an eventuality. Just as the Aeneid was not aimed to replace its main literary source, the Odyssey, the Book of the Watchers takes up the rst chapters of Genesis in order to tell a more detailed story that will complete, from a different perspective, the preexisting narrative. After all, Genesis was not a rsthand record of the primeval events, but according to Jubilees 1:27; 2:1, the faithful transcription of a divine revelation that Moses had received on Mount Sinai many centuries later. Following the same line of thought that every cooperative reader of the Enochic literature would have accepted, if Moses wrote down a “summary” of it in Hebrew, the language adopted by the descendants of Jacob in Israel and Egypt, someone who lived many generations before that the family of the “wandering Aramean” (Deut 26:5) began to speak Hebrew, someone who lived “three hundred sixty-ve years” and “walked with God” before being “taken” by the Lord (Gen 5:21–24), such a character was the best candidate to write the true story of what really happened in the language originally spoken by Jacob and his ancestors, namely, Aramaic.53 This brings us to deal with the delicate question of the position of the Lawgiver and his work, the Torah, in the Book of the Watchers. As far as the latter, from an intertextual point of view, actively interacts in a complementary way with Genesis, the rst of the ve Mosaic books, it seems to me that there is no ground—at least at the narrative level—that would allow us to postulate the existence of an antagonism.54 Even the 52 The ambivalently sacred nature of blood is also largely implied all through the narrative: to drink the blood of the animals is a great sin (1 En 7:5); to shed human blood is the worst of the crimes (9:1, 10), and the blood of the women is what deled the rebel angels (15:4). 53 This distinction could also explain the reason why the Genesis Apocryphon (1QapGen) and other texts attributed to the patriarchs (see above, n. 18) were written in Aramaic, while the book of Jubilees ascribed to Moses was written in Hebrew. 54 This is the traditional view espoused, for example, by G. W. E. Nickelsburg, “Enochic Wisdom: An Alternative to the Mosaic Torah?,” in J. Magness and S. Gittin (eds.), Hesed ve-Emet: Studies in Honor of Ernest S. Frerichs (BJS 320; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1998) 123–32. However, a phenomenon of progressive “Mosaisierung” of the Enochic traditions is detectable in the aftermath of the Maccabean crisis, especially in Jubilees. See Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis, 86–98, 167; A. Bedenbender, Der

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drastic condemnation of necromancy expressed in Leviticus 19:31; 20:6, 27, and Deuteronomy 18:10–11 is only apparently in contradiction with the Enochic interest in the realm of the dead. In this case too, a sympathetic reader would readily concede that Enoch’s “white magic” approach has nothing in common with the harmful practices forbidden by the Torah, while a critical reader (e.g., Qoheleth or Ben Sira)55 would probably reject them altogether. Actually, the best intertextual demonstration of the compatibility and complementarity of the Enochic and the Mosaic perspectives is offered by the dramatic oracular description that opens the Book of the Watchers (1 En 1:3c–9). In this passage the visionary announces the coming on earth of the Lord, depicted as the divine warrior, to judge the human beings and the fallen angels. “This section—as Nickelsburg rightly points out—employs traditional language and imagery also found in several biblical theophanic texts, especially Deut 33:1–3; Jer 25:31; Mic 1:3–4.” 1:3c 1:4a

1:5

The Great Holy One will come forth from his dwelling The Eternal God will tread on the earth upon Mount Sinai he will appear with his host ends of the earth singing from ends of the earth

Hab 3:3 Mic 1:3; Deut 33:2; Isa 26:21 Jer 25:30 Deut 33:27 Mic 1:3 Deut 33:2 Deut 33:2 Ezek 1:14 Jer 25:31 Isa 24:16

Gott der Welt tritt auf den Sinai. Entstehung, Entwicklung und Funktionsweise der frühjüdischen Apokalyptik (ANTZ 8; Berlin: Institut Kirche und Judentum, 2000) 175–200, 215–30; “Als Mose und Henoch zusammenfanden. Die Entstehung der frühjüdischen Apokalyptik als Reaktion auf die Religionsverfolgung unter Antiochus IV. Epiphanes,” in H. Lichtenberger and G. S. Oegema (eds.), Jüdische Schriften in ihrem antik-jüdischen und urchristlichen Kontext (SJSHRZ 1; Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2002) 182–203; Kvanvig, “Jubilees.” 55 For neither Qoheleth nor Ben Sira is there any possibility of retribution after death (see Qoh 3:16–22; 9:1–6; Sir 41:1–4). Nonetheless, one should consider that Ben Sira had no trouble in acknowledging that an exceptional gure as Samuel was able to “lift up his voice from the earth in prophecy” (46:20). See L. Mazzinghi, “Qoheleth and Enochism: A Critical Relationship,” in Boccaccini (ed.), The Origins, 157–67; R. A. Argall, 1 Enoch and Sirach: A Comparative Literary and Conceptual Analysis of the Themes of Revelation, Creation and Judgment (SBLEJL 8; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995); “Competing Wisdoms: 1 Enoch and Sirach,” in Boccaccini (ed.), The Origins, 169–78; Wright, “Fear the Lord,” 204–17; “Sirach and 1 Enoch,” 181–2.

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hills, mountains wax before re rent asunder judgment on all comes with myriads of his holy ones to judge all esh

Mic 1:3–4 Mic 1:4 Mic 1:4 Jer 25:31 Deut 33:2 Jer 25:31; Isa 66:1656

From this complex cluster of biblical allusions Deuteronomy 33:2–3 clearly emerges as the privileged reference text because of the shared mention of Mount Sinai as the place of the divine manifestation.57 The referral to such a Deuteronomic passage at the beginning of the Book of the Watchers is not so fortuitous. Deuteronomy 33 relates “the blessing with which Moses the man of God blessed the sons of Israel before his death” (Deut 33:1); it is Moses’ farewell which appropriately concludes, at the same time, the book and the Torah. “This idea—as Nickelsburg observes—would elicit in the minds of Jewish readers the memory of Israel’s decisive and formative theophany at Sinai, and because judgment is the purpose of the coming theophany, the text might suggest that the Torah given on Sinai would be the basis of that judgment.”58 To this we could also add that the parallel between the blessing of Enoch and Moses prompts the reader to establish a retroactive continuity, to create connivance between the two illustrious personalities, and in the end, to see in Enoch a forerunner of Moses and in Moses a continuator of Enoch. Accordingly, it seems to me that, in the light of the intertextual strategies deployed in the Book of the Watchers, it is difcult to imagine such a work as the manifesto of an “Enoch-alone” party.

56 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 143–4 (adapted from Hartman, Asking for a Meaning, 23–4). Also see J. C. VanderKam, “The Theophany of 1 Enoch 1:3b–7, 9,” VT 23 (1973) 129–50 (repr. in VanderKam, From Revelation to Canon, 332–53); Argall, 1 Enoch and Sirach, 167–72. 57 In the Book of the Watchers this early identication is probably intended to lead the reader to recognize, later on, that the majestic mountain that is “the seat where the Great Holy One, the Lord of glory, the King of eternity, will sit, when he descends to visit the earth in goodness” (1 En 25:3; cf. 17:2; 18:8) is no other than Mount Sinai. 58 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 145. However, Nickelsburg tempers this judgment by arguing that “the Sinaitic covenant and Torah were not of central importance” for the authors of 1 Enoch, for whom “Law and its interpretation [were] embodied in the notion of revealed ‘wisdom’ ” (1 Enoch 1, 50). Personally, I don’t think that we should apply to these categories an “either . . . or” logic.

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2.3. Social Texture A limited number of social and cultural values have left their imprints on the Book of the Watchers. Not so surprisingly for a text that narrates an antediluvian story, no human houses, buildings, streets, or towns are mentioned, but the heavenly “sanctuary” (1 En 9:1; 12:4; 15:3), the two “great houses” of God in heaven (14:10, 13, 15), and the “house of God” on earth (25:5–6). Only a few objects occur in the narrative, and their distribution follows a highly polarized pattern. On the one hand, we have the evil artifacts and commodities (weapons, breastplates, jewels, and cosmetics) produced thanks to the techniques revealed by the fallen angels (8:1); on the other, the “petition” written by Enoch on behalf of the watchers (13:4, 6–7; 14:1, 4, 7), and the astronomical “book” that he compiles with the help of Uriel (33:1, 4). The same observation is true for the different activities present in the text. All the crafts that imply an articial reversal of the natural order (sorcery, divination, and, interestingly enough, mining and metallurgy) are evil (7:1; 8:1–3; 9:8), while traditional agricultural activities (grape, cereal, and olive harvests) are greatly praised (10:19). There are no indications of social hierarchy or origins,59 no allusions to religious specialists, with the single exception of the references to Enoch’s scribal profession (12:4; 15:1). The cultural values that most prominently emerge from the narrative are those of a Mediterranean, rural, traditional society: honor and shame, purity and impurity. Both principles are closely interlocked in the Watchers Story that can also be read as the narrative of how the human families and groups failed to control and/or protect the modesty of their beautiful daughters;60 as a result, the sons of God were able to see and desire them (6:2)—exactly as Shechem, the son of Hamor the Hivite, saw and took by force Jacob’s daughter, Dinah (Gen 34:2)—thus provoking the pollution that affected the whole earth because, as is eloquently explained in 1 Enoch 15:3–10, angels in heaven neither marry nor are given in marriage.61

59 To argue—as Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 194, does—that the “[m]ention of the precious metals [in 1 En 8:1] indicates that the author has well-to-do women in mind,” is probably to go beyond the evidence. 60 On the Mediterranean gender division of honor and shame and its social consequences, see, for example, Malina, The New Testament World, 46–51 (based on the works of P. Bourdieu, J. G. Peristiany, and J. A. Pitt-Rivers). 61 The need to hide the women from alien gaze—especially when angelic beings are involved!—could help explain Paul’s embarrassed—and embarrassing—declaration

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We could interpret the exact nature of such a great contamination as the introduction of Evil on earth, as the radical disruption of the cosmic order, as a new and chaotic situation provoked by the intervention of the fallen angels. The apocalyptic tone of the Book of the Watchers, with its strong insistence on a coming judgment, certainly encourages adopting such a reading.62 However, one should also bear in mind that, waiting for the eschaton and the nal destruction of the evil forces, humankind is still under the threat of the malevolent spirits of the dead giants and their imprisoned fathers. And the spirits of the giants ‹lead astray›, do violence, make desolate, and attack and wrestle and hurl upon the earth and ‘cause illness’. They eat nothing, but abstain from food and are thirsty and smite. These spirits (will) rise up against the sons of men and against the women, for they have come forth from them. From the day of the slaughter and destruction and death of the giants, from the soul of whose esh the spirits are proceeding, they are making desolate without (incurring) judgment. Thus they will make desolate until the day of the consummation of the great judgment, when the great age will be consummated. It will be consummated all at once (1 En 15:11–16:1). And their spirits [of “the angels who mingled with the women”]—having assumed many forms—bring destruction on men and lead them astray to sacrice to demons as to gods until the day of the great judgment, in which they will be judged with nality (1 En 19:1).

This imagery is hardly “metaphorical,”63 quite the opposite, it realistically describes the concrete situation of the readers of the Enochic literature, the honest Jew and Jewess who were either morally distressed by what they considered to be an act of apostasy of their fellows, or physically suffering from having a miscarriage, a headache, stomach pains, epilepsy, or any other disease. Actually, a too theological reading of the Book of the Watchers could overshadow the basic fact that

that “the woman ought to have (a symbol of ) authority on her head, because of the angels” (1 Cor 11:10). 62 See especially P. Sacchi, “Cosmic Order and Otherworldly Perspectives in the Post-Exilic Period: The Problem of Evil and the Origins of Apocalyptic,” in Jewish Apocalyptic, 72–87; “The Theology of Early Enochism and Apocalyptic: The Problem of the Relation between Form and Content of the Apocalypses; The Worldview of Apocalypses,” in Boccaccini (ed.), The Origins, 77–85; J. J. Collins, “The Origins of Evil in Apocalyptic Literature and the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in J. A. Emerton (ed.), Congress Volume, Paris 1992 (VTSup 61; Leiden: Brill, 1995) 23–58 (repr. in J. J. Collins, Seers, Sibyls and Sages in Hellenistic-Roman Judaism [ JSJSup 54; Leiden: Brill, 1997] 287–99); P. R. Davies, “The Origin of Evil in Ancient Judaism,” ABR 50 (2002) 43–54. 63 In this sense, Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 274.

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this narrative also addresses every day life problems by answering the question of the reasons of idolatry and illness. The solution provided by the Book of the Watchers is that both the individual and the social bodies are the victims of evil spirits, the rst of the giants, and the second of the fallen angels. If the way to avoid sin and indelity to the Lord is to resist the inuence of the watchers through the adoption of severe moral standards and (probably) the obedience to the precepts of the Torah, the Book of the Watchers is apparently silent about any therapy against the spiritual aggressions that afict suffering humanity. But is this really the case? In any human group, past and present, the social construction of reality inuences the way pathological troubles are expressed and treated. The Book of the Watchers clearly constructs the reality of disease as the result of what we could call a “demonic” threat. If we are ready to admit such a possibility, we should easily acknowledge that the narrative also provides some indirect means to deal with it. Firstly, the texts gives a detailed list of the names and functions of those responsible for either the evil inuences—not the giants but their fathers (1 En 6:7–8; 8:1–3)—or the proactive defense of humankind—the seven archangels (20:1–8). The knowledge of the identities of the supernatural beings involved in such invisible activities cannot but facilitate the intervention of the angels and the neutralization of the spirits.64 Secondly, the text shows the path to be followed to the practitioners that would imitate

64 On ancient and late antique magic and demonology, see, in general, M. Meyer and P. Mirecki (eds.), Ancient Magic and Ritual Power (RGRW 129; Leiden: Brill, 1995); R. Lesses, “Speaking with Angels: Jewish and Greco-Egyptian Revelatory Adjurations,” HTR 89 (1996) 41–60; P. Schäfer, “Jewish Liturgy and Magic,” in H. Cancik, H. Lichtenberger, and P. Schäfer (eds.), Geschichte—Tradition—Reexion. Festschrift für Martin Hengel zum 70. Geburtstag (3 vols.; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1996), 1.541–56; G. Veltri, Magie und Halakha. Ansätze zu einem empirischen Wissenschaftsbegriff im spätantiken und frühmittelalterlichen Judentum (TSAJ 62; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1997); M. Meyer, R. Smith, and N. Kelsey (eds.), Ancient Christian Magic: Coptic Texts of Ritual Power (Mythos; Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999); A. Moreau and J.-C. Turpin (eds.), La magie. Actes du colloque international de Montpellier, 25–27 mars 1999 (4 vols.; Montpellier: Université Paul Valéry, 2000); M. W. Dickie, Magic and Magicians in the Greco-Roman World (London: Routledge, 2001); M. Becker, Wunder und Wundertäter im frührabbinischen Judentum. Studien zum Phänomen und seiner Überlieferung im Horizont von Magie und Dämonismus (WUNT 2.144; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2002); P. Mirecki and M. Meyer (eds.), Magic and Ritual in the Ancient World (RGRW 141; Leiden: Brill, 2002); T. E. Klutz (ed.), Magic in the Biblical World: From the Rod of Aaron to the Ring of Solomon ( JSNTS 245; London: T. & T. Clark, 2003). On magic among the Essenes and at Qumran, see the bibliography quoted by P. Piovanelli, “A Theology of the Supernatural in the Book of the Watchers? An African Perspective,” in Boccaccini (ed.), The Origins, 87–98, esp. 93, n. 19.

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Enoch’s approach, namely, triggering oneiric, visionary, ecstatic, and other altered state of consciousness experiences (13:7–8)65 that would allow the seer to explore the otherworldly territories in order to nd the supernatural causes of the illness and the means of curing it.66 That this interpretation is not the result of a subjective and tendentious reading of the evidence is demonstrated by the fact that—as I pointed out in a previous study—this is actually the way the Ethiopian practitioners that still keep and use 1 Enoch as a sacred book read the Watchers Story.67 As the learned däbtärä Gedewon told the French ethnographer Jacques Mercier, Among the spirits teaching sorcery alongside Azaziel was Penemu, who revealed the hidden Wisdom and the art of writing with red and black ink [1 En 69:8–10]. Penemu brought the talismans: “Demons come to strike in the guise of wild beasts, or of men . . . To protect yourself from them, to summon them without danger, you must have images like these [the images painted on the talismans]; it’s their medicine, and words like these [the formula inscribed on them] command them.” Thus were the Names of God, written on the hands of the Archangel Michael, provided for our protection. Names and talismans were revealed together.68

3. The People of Enoch In conclusion, the preceding brief socio-rhetorical analysis of the Book of the Watchers should allow us to check some of the hypotheses about the groups that produced the rst Enochic apocalypse. Reading the whole text as a coherent narrative, and not as a collage of heterogeneous literary units, we nd, at this level, no trace of any criticism or opposition to the Jerusalem priesthood, quite the contrary.69 (Actually, the 65 For the evidence of incubation practices in 1 Enoch 12–16, see Suter, “Why Galilee?,” 190–201. 66 In this connection, it is interesting to note that the oriental fragrances mentioned at the end of the Book of the Watchers (1 En 28:1–32:1) could be used not only for liturgical—as it is commonly acknowledged—but also for therapeutic purposes. 67 Piovanelli, “A Theology,” 89–93. 68 J. Mercier, Art That Heals: The Image as Medicine in Ethiopia (New York: The Museum for African Art and Prestel-Verlag, 1997) 47–8, quoted by Piovanelli, “A Theology,” 92–3 (emphasis added). 69 See above, nn. 21–23. The high esteem in which Jerusalem and the Temple are held is demonstrated by the passage concerning the topography of the Holy City (1 En 26:1–27:5) and the prophecy announcing the eschatological transplantation of the tree of life into the New Jerusalem (25:5–6). It is true that “[v]erses [25:]5b–6b provide no clue to the author’s attitude about the present state of Jerusalem and its

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latter attitude seems to be the product of an allegorical interpretation of 1 Enoch 6–1170 and not of a continuous reading from chapter 1 to chapter 36.) Exploring the intertextual world of the Book of the Watchers and the effects that the allusions to other texts and traditions produce on the reader, we discover a relationship of continuity and complementarity between the revelations of Enoch and Moses. (To see an antagonism between them is to overemphasize the absence in the text of any direct citation of the Mosaic Torah, forgetting the effective presence of allusive references to it and their role in the construction of the act of reading.) Collecting the scanty social and cultural evidence embedded in the text, we notice the honor and shame tonalities of the episode of the watchers and the magico-therapeutic possibilities of Enoch’s teachings. (To ignore such aspects is—perhaps unconsciously—to read in a too “colonialist”71 and/or theological way an old Mediterranean text written about seven centuries before Augustine.) Accordingly, we should at least reconsider these problematic issues before describing the earliest Enochians as adversaries of the Jerusalem establishment. Compatibility, however, does not mean identity. The people beyond the ancient Enochic texts—to paraphrase the title of a fascinating recent monograph of James R. Davila72—seem to have a special interest not

sanctuary” (Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 315). Nonetheless, nothing in the text noties the reader that their present conditions are either endangered or corrupt. 70 In this connection, Collins, “The Apocalyptic Technique,” nds an “allegorical potential” in the Watchers Story (97) and concludes that “[t]he Sitz im Leben of the Book of Watchers cannot be specied with any historical precision, but its allegorical language is such that it can be applied to various situations” (110). 71 Consider, for example, Lester Grabbe’s enlightening discussion of the western perception of divination among “primitive” peoples. “This is of ignorant superstitions held by uncivilized peoples, by savages with their thinking dominated by primitive or ‘mythopoeic’ mentality, by people without the benet of a scientic understanding of the world.” James Frazer, the founder of anthropology, also shared this negative attitude. However, as Grabbe rightly notices, “[s]ocial anthropology has moved on from Frazer’s pioneering efforts. Most anthropologists who now write about magic, divination, and the like do so from a position of respect and empathy. This is in contrast with some in biblical circles where the concept of primitive mentality or mythopoeic thought still lurks” (Grabbe, Priests, Prophets, 136–7). 72 J. R. Davila, Descenders to the Chariot: The People behind the Hekhalot Literature ( JSJSup 70; Leiden: Brill, 2001). Davila adopts as a working denition Åke Hultkrantz’s description of the shaman as “a social functionary who, with the help of guardian spirits, attains ecstasy in order to create a rapport with the supernatural world on behalf of his group members” (44). The main features of Hultkrantz’s model include: the “Means of becoming a shaman” (generally, election by the spirits); “Ecstasy or trance and ascetic techniques”; “Initiatory disintegration and reintegration”; “The otherworldly journey”; “Control of the spirits”; “Serving a community” (healing, divination, psychopompy, propitiation, addressing various social

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only in calendrical, but also in supernatural matters. More precisely, if we are entitled to transfer to them Davila’s conclusion about their late heirs responsible for the so-called 3 Enoch, they seem to have been involved in some kind of “magic” and/or “shamanic” activities.73 Therefore, it is difcult to imagine that the authors and readers of such early texts as the Book of the Watchers and the Astronomical Book are to be located among the members of the Jerusalem clergy—at least among its Zadokite elites74—that precisely rejected such an approach to the sacred.75 We could eventually speculate about a difference of socioeconomic status between Enochian and Zadokite priests, even if, in the light of the existing evidence, it would be probably more prudent to content ourselves with qualifying the rst as “shamanic practitioners” and the second as “cultic functionaries.” Were the earliest Enochians coming from the northern part of Israel, from Upper Galilee, as the geographical setting of 1 Enoch 6–13 seems to imply? If the Aramaic dialect in which were written the oldest manuscripts of 1 Enoch really is—as Klaus Beyer assumes—the

problems) (45–8). Also see J. R. Davila, “The Hekhalot Literature and Shamanism,” in E. H. Lovering, Jr. (ed.), Society of Biblical Literature 1994 Seminar Papers (SBLSP 33; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1994) 767–89; “Shamanic Initiatory Death and Resurrection in the Hekhalot Literature,” in Mirecki and Meyer (eds.), Magic and Ritual, 283–302. Before Davila, similarities between the Hekhaloth literature and shamanic phenomena had been noticed by P. S. Alexander, “The Historical Setting of the Hebrew Book of Enoch,” JJS 28 (1977) 156–80, esp. 169–73. 73 As already suggested, in her seminal study, by S. Niditch, “The Visionary,” in J. J. Collins and G. W. E. Nickelsburg (eds.), Ideal Figures in Ancient Judaism: Proles and Paradigms (SBLSCS 12; Chico: Scholars Press, 1980) 153–79, esp. 159–63, 176 (see Collins, “The Apocalyptic Technique,” 105). For the possibility that the Book of the Watchers was “recuperating, regulating, and re-legitimating some elements of the forgotten ‘popular’ and ‘syncretistic’ beliefs and practices of Second Temple Judaism,” see Piovanelli, “A Theology,” 95–7. Also see Grabbe, Priests, Prophets, 141–5 (on the cult of the dead in ancient Israel), 148–9, 185 (on shamanism). 74 For a general introduction, see Grabbe, Priests, Prophets, 41–65, 182–3; Judaic Religion in the Second Temple Period: Belief and Practice from the Exile to Yavneh (London: Routledge, 2000) 129–49. For a historical reconstruction of the Zadokite movement in the Persian and Ptolemaic periods, see Boccaccini, Roots. For a survey of Second Temple sectarianism including the Enochic groups, see P. Piovanelli, “Was There Sectarian Behavior before the Flourishing of Jewish Sects? A Long-Term Approach to the History and Sociology of Second Temple Sectarianism,” in D. Chalcraft (ed.), Sectarianism in Early Judaism: Sociological Advances (London: Equinox, 2007), forthcoming. 75 Even if it is obviously true that “[t]he wisdom pursuits of cosmology, the natural world, and the esoteric arts are likely to have been of interest to some priests,” and “[t]his may well have led to a strong priestly contribution to the mantic wisdom and apocalyptic tradition” (Grabbe, Priests, Prophets, 65).

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Jüdisch-Altostjordanisch dialect spoken in Galilee,76 this could be invoked as a signicant clue pointing to a Galilean origin of the Enochic traditions and practices. An indirect conrmation of their provenance could be found in the shamanic traits detectable in the story of a northern prophet such as Elisha.77 Moreover, the survival of shamanic “popular” practices (if we consider them as a part of the old Israelite cultural heritage), or their new introduction (if we prefer to conceptualize them as the result of Hellenistic inuences), could be best explained in a peripheral region like Galilee that was less exposed to the political control of Samaria or the religious stranglehold of Jerusalem.78 Be that as it may, it is essential to realize that, already in the third century BCE, the Galilean or Judaean reader of the Book of the Watchers, the rst of a long collection of Enochic texts, was also reminded of the centrality and holiness of Jerusalem in Jewish thought and ritual.

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See above, n. 19. See R. P. Carroll, “The Elijah-Elisha Sagas: Some Remarks on Prophetic Succession in Ancient Israel,” VT 19 (1969) 400–15. For other parallels between biblical traditions and shamanism, see A. S. Kapelrud, “Shamanistic Features in the Old Testament,” in C.-M. Edsman (ed.), Studies in Shamanism: Based on Papers Read at the Symposium on Shamanism, Held at Abo on the 6th–8th of September, 1962 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1967) 90–6; K. Goldammer, “Elemente des Schamanismus im Alten Testament”, in Ex Orbe Religionum: Studia Geo Widengren (2 vols.; NumenSup 21–22; Leiden: Brill, 1972) 2.266–85; J. P. Brown, “The Mediterranean Seer and Shamanism,” ZAW 93 (1981) 374–400. 78 Admittedly, our knowledge of the Galilean situation during the Persian and Hellenistic periods is very little. See, for example, S. Freyne, Galilee, from Alexander the Great to Hadrian, 323 BCE to 135 CE: A Study of Second Temple Judaism (Wilmington: M. Glazier, 1980) 22–56; R. A. Horsley, Galilee: History, Politics, People (Valley Forge: Trinity Press International, 1995) 25–33, 290–2. 77

“ENOCHIC JUDAISM” AND THE SECT OF THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS John J. Collins Yale University, United States The oldest extant copies of books of Enoch are found among the Dead Sea Scrolls. Since they are found in multiple copies, it is reasonable to assume that they were of more than passing interest to the people who hid the scrolls in the caves. Moreover, there are clear and wellknown afnities between the early Enochic books and some of the core sectarian writings from the Scrolls. The Apocalypse of Weeks and the Animal Apocalypse each describes the rise of an elect group, in veiled language that is commonly understood to point to events in the Hellenistic age. A similar development is described in the opening column of the Damascus Document, which refers to a “plant root” that rises from Aaron and Israel, 390 years after the Exile. The Enochic apocalypses share with the Damascus Document a theology of history which regards the emergence of this group as climactic, and also an interest in the agency of supernatural powers, which is typical of apocalyptic literature and of other sectarian texts found at Qumran, such as the Community Rule and the War Scroll. In light of these afnities it is widely accepted that the Enochic texts are representative of the milieu in which the movement described in the Damascus Document developed. The authors of the sectarian scrolls were evidently familiar with the Enochic writings and were inuenced by them in various ways. All of this has been widely accepted from a relatively early point in the history of research on the scrolls.1

1 The relation between the Scrolls and the Enochic literature, or more broadly “the Palestinian apocalyptic tradition,” is discussed with various nuances by P. Grelot, “L’eschatologie des Esséniens et le livre d’Hénoch,” RQ 1 (1958) 113–31; M. Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1974) 1.175–210; D. Dimant, “Qumran Sectarian Literature,” in M. E. Stone (ed.), Jewish Writings from the Second Temple Period (CRINT 2/2; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984) 483–550, esp. 544–5; F. García Martínez, “Qumran Origins and Early History: A Groningen Hypothesis,” Folia Orientalia 25 (1988) 113–36, esp. 119; P. R. Davies, “Three Essene Texts,” in P. R. Davies, Behind the Essenes. History and Ideology in the Dead Sea Scrolls (BJS 94; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1987) 107–34; “The Prehistory of the Qumran Community,” in D. Dimant and

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Much less clear, however, is the exact relationship between the authors and tradents of the early Enoch literature (“Enochic Judaism”) and the members of the “new covenant” of the Damascus Document, or the followers of the Teacher of Righteousness. This relationship has been formulated in various ways. In recent years, Gabriele Boccaccini has staked out a distinctive position on this issue, arguing that “Enochic Judaism is the modern name for the mainstream body of the Essene party, from which the Qumran community parted as a radical, dissident, and marginal offspring.”2 This radical proposal is based on several assumptions about the Essenes and “the Qumran community” that have taken hold in the course of the history of research. In my judgment, several of these underlying assumptions are seriously awed and confuse rather than clarify the relationship between the Enochic writings and the sect known to us from the Scrolls. The Essenes The idea that the Dead Sea Scrolls were of Essene provenance was proposed almost immediately after the discovery of the rst scrolls in 1947 by E. L. Sukenik, and argued in some detail by A. Dupont-Sommer as early as 1950.3 Two considerations were fundamental to this identication. One was the testimony of Pliny the Elder that there was an Essene settlement near the shore of the Dead Sea.4 The excavation of the site by Roland de Vaux was widely accepted as conrming the view that the ruins at Khirbet Qumran were the remains of this Essene settlement.5 The other was the similarity between the kind

U. Rappaport (eds.), The Dead Sea Scrolls. Forty Years of Research (Leiden: Brill, 1992) 116–25, esp. 123; J. J. Collins, “Was the Dead Sea Sect an Apocalyptic Movement?” in L. H. Schiffman (eds.), Archaeology and History in the Dead Sea Scrolls ( JSPS 8; Shefeld: Shefeld Academic Press, 1990) 25–51; Apocalypticism in the Dead Sea Scrolls (London: Routledge, 1997) 18–24; G. Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis. The Parting of the Ways between Qumran and Enochic Judaism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998). 2 Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis, 16. 3 A. Dupont-Sommer, Apercus préliminaires sur les manuscrits de la mer Morte (Paris: Maisonneuve, 1950); The Essene Writings from Qumran (trans. G. Vermes; Gloucester, MA: Smith, 1973) 11. 4 For the text see G. Vermes and M. Goodman, The Essenes According to the Classical Sources (Shefeld: Shefeld Academic Press, 1989) 32–3. 5 R. de Vaux, Archaeology and the Dead Sea Scrolls (rev. ed.; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973).

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of community described in the Community Rule and the Essenes as described by Josephus and Philo. The similarity lay in the segregated life of a community with common possessions, and the multi-year process of admission.6 As many scholars have pointed out in later years, the correspondences are by no means perfect. Pliny and Philo emphasize that the Essenes lived without women, although Josephus reports that a second order of the sect allowed marriage.7 Celibacy is not explicitly required in the Scrolls, although the Community Rule makes no mention of women or children. Whether women were present at the site of Qumran remains a contentious issue, especially with regard to the number of female skeletons in the cemetery.8 Moreover, many concerns that are prominent in the Scrolls (messianic expectations, apocalyptic beliefs) do not gure at all in the accounts of the Essenes. Whether or not one accepts the identication of the community as Essene depends on whether one is more impressed by the quite distinctive similarities or by the absence of prominent features of the Scrolls from the Greek and Latin accounts. Two points should be stressed, however. First, the Qumran text that provides the strongest basis for the Essene identication is the description of the yahad in the Community Rule. There are also signicant points of contact with the Damascus Rule. The latter provides explicitly for women and children, but Josephus informs us that there was a second order of Essenes who married and had children. Hence the view arose that the differences between the two Rules could be explained on the assumption that the Community Rule related to the “monastic” Essenes who lived at Qumran, while the Damascus Rule related to the “marrying” Essenes who lived at other locations.9 This view is problematic, as we shall see, but in any case the attribution of any of these texts to the Essenes depends primarily on their description of community structures. The case for identifying texts (such as the Enoch books or Jubilees), that do not describe community structures, as Essene, is much more tenuous than the case for the rule books.

6 T. S. Beall, Josephus’ Description of the Essenes illustrated by the Dead Sea Scrolls (SNTSMS 58; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988); J. J. Collins, “Essenes,” ABD 2.619–26. 7 JW 2.160. 8 See J. Magness, The Archaeology of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002) 163–87. 9 E.g. G. Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English (London: Penguin, 1997) 34–45.

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The second point to be stressed is that the accounts of the Essenes in Pliny, Philo and Josephus do not, on any reckoning give a complete or accurate description of the communities known from the Hebrew rulebooks. This in itself is not surprising. Philo and Josephus most probably relied on a source that stood in the tradition of Greek ethnography, whether its author was Jewish or Gentile.10 They are not eye-witness accounts, despite the claim of Josephus that he had experimented with life as an Essene.11 Given the unreliability of the Greek and Latin accounts, one may question whether anything is gained by referring to the communities known from the Scrolls as Essene. To do so is to privilege outsider accounts over the primary evidence. It is even more problematic when texts that do not correspond to these accounts at all are labelled “Essene” because they correspond at some point with the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Hasidim At an early point in research on the scrolls, a consensus developed that the sect described in the Dead Sea Scrolls had its origin in the Hasidim who are mentioned in the books of Maccabees.12 The reasons for this consensus were circumstantial, and were related to the intuition that the emergence of the sect was related to the usurpation of the high priesthood by the Hasmoneans. Since the phrase “sons of Zadok” is used as an honoric title in the Damascus Document, the sectarians were assumed to be supporters of the Zadokite line. The Hasidim, we are told, abandoned their resistance to the Seleucids when a Zadokite, Alcimus, was appointed high priest.13 Moreover, the movement described in CD 1 had wandered like blind men for twenty years, a period that could be equated with the years from the rise of

10 See R. Bergmeier, Die Essener-Berichte des Flavius Josephus (Kampen: Kok Pharos, 1993) 60–72; M. Smith, “The Descriptions of the Essenes in Josephus and the Philosophoumena,” HUCA 29 (1958) 273–313. 11 Josephus, Life, 9–11. 12 J. T. Milik, Ten Years of Discovery in the Wilderness of Judaea (SBT 26; London: SCM, 1958) 80. F. M. Cross, The Ancient Library of Qumran (3rd ed.; Shefeld: Shefeld Academic Press, 1995, originally published in 1961) 104; Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism, 1.175–80; H. Stegemann, Die Entstehung der Qumrangemeinde (Bonn: published privately, 1971) 250. 13 1 Macc 7:12–13.

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the Hasidim to the usurpation of the high priesthood by Jonathan Maccabee in 152 BCE. Unfortunately, we have very little information about the Hasidim.14 Nonetheless, some scholars painted an elaborate picture of them, and saw them as the authors of the apocalyptic books of Enoch and Daniel, which refer to the rise of some distinctive group around the time of the Maccabean revolt.15 It was in this context that the idea that the tradents of the Enoch literature were the forerunners of “the Qumran community” was rst introduced into scholarship. The scholarly reconstruction of the Hasidim, however, was highly hypothetical and was widely criticized.16 It does not seem possible to attribute every book that refers to the rise of a group in the Maccabean era to a single party. The references to the Hasidim in the books of Maccabees do not hint at the kind of apocalyptic ideas found in the books of Enoch. Accordingly, the “Hasidim hypothesis” fell into disrepute. Philip Davies questioned whether the Hasidim existed as an organized party at all.17 It is apparent that some group of people, whether organized or not, were identied as Hasidim at the time of the Maccabean revolt, but unfortunately very little can be said about them except that for a time they supported the Maccabees. A split in the emerging movement The discussion of the origins of the sectarian movement was given a new impetus by the dissertation of Hartmut Stegemann, Die Entstehung der Qumrangemeinde which was completed in 1965 and published privately

14 In addition to the reference in 1 Macc 7, they are mentioned in 1 Macc 2:42, where they are described as “mighty warriors of Israel, everyone who offered himself willingly for the law,” and in 2 Macc 14:6, where they are said to be followers of Judas Maccabee. See J. Kampen, The Hasideans and the Origin of Pharisaism (SCS 24; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1988); “Hasidim,” ABD 3.66–67. 15 Hengel, Judaism and Hellenism, 1.175–80; O. Plöger, Theocracy and Eschatology (Richmond: Knox, 1968) 23; M. Delcor, “Le milieu d’origine et le développement de l’apocalyptique juive,” in W. C. van Unnik (ed.), La Littérature Juive entre Tenach et Mischna (Leiden: Brill, 1974) 101–17. 16 J. J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Vision of the Book of Daniel (HSM 16; Missoula: Scholars Press, 1977) 201–5; P. R. Davies, “Hasidim in the Maccabean Period,” JJS 28 (1977) 127–40; G. W. E. Nickelsburg, “Social Aspects of Palestinian Jewish Apocalypticism,” in D. Hellholm (ed.), Apocalypticism in the Mediterranean World and the Near East (Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1983) 641–54, esp. 647–8. 17 Davies, “Hasidim,” 140; “The Prehistory of Qumran,” 118.

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in 1971. Building on the earlier work of G. Jeremias,18 Stegemann distinguished clearly between the gures known in the scrolls as “the wicked priest” and “the man of the lie.” The latter was a gure within the Hasidim, who rejected the claims to authority of the Teacher of Righteousness. The followers of “the man of the lie” became the Pharisees. Those who accepted the authority of the Teacher became the Essenes or “the Qumran community.” Stegemann argued that the Teacher was actually the legitimate High Priest in Jerusalem, and that he was displaced by Jonathan.19 This view is highly hypothetical, and rests on an unwarranted inferences from the fact that the Teacher is called “the priest” without qualication (4Q171 3:15 =4QpPsa).20 In his later work, Stegemann realized that the movement founded by the Teacher could not be equated with “the Qumran community.” Rather, he argued that “the Essene union” founded by the Teacher was “the largest religious organization in the Palestinian Judaism of that time.”21 The Qumran settlement was only established around 100 BCE, some 50 years after the foundation of the “union.”22 Stegemann was not concerned with the place of the Enoch literature in this process. He was essentially in continuity with the work of earlier scholars such as Cross and Milik insofar as he regarded the Essenes, or “the Qumran community” as an offshoot of the Hasidim. Stegemann’s work was taken up by Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, who added to it some hypotheses of his own.23 Most important of these was the suggestion that “Damascus” in the Damascus Document was a code name for Babylon, and that the movement had actually originated in the eastern Diaspora. Murphy-O’Connor claimed that the laws preserved in the Damascus Document reect this early stage in the history of the movement. The movement did not originate in Palestine as a reaction

18 G. Jeremias, Der Lehrer der Gerechtigkeit (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1963). 19 Stegemann, Die Entstehung, 102. 20 See my criticism of this position in J. J. Collins, “The Origin of the Qumran Community,” in J. J. Collins (ed.), Seers, Sibyls, and Sages in Hellenistic-Roman Judaism ( JSJSupp 54; Leiden: Brill, 1997) 246–7; also M. O. Wise, “The Teacher of Righteousness and the High Priest of the Intersacerdotium: Two Approaches,” RQ 14 (1989–90) 587–613. 21 Stegemann, The Library of Qumran. On the Essenes, Qumran, john the Baptist and Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998) 150. 22 Magness, The Archaeology of Qumran, 65, dates the ocupation of the site to “some time between 100–50 BCE.” 23 J. Murphy-O’Connor, “The Essenes and their History,” RB 81 (1974) 215–44.

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to Hellenism, but arose from reection on the causes of the Exile.24 Consequently, Murphy-O’Connor did not associate the early stage of this movement with the Hasidim, but referred to it as “Essene” from the beginning. He accepted Stegemann’s view that the Teacher was High Priest, deposed by Jonathan. Then “the ejected Sadokite took refuge with the Essenes.”25 An effect of his arrival was “a split within the Essene movement in which he found himself confronted by the Man of Lies.”26 In Murphy-O’Connor’s reconstruction, both the followers of the Teacher and those of “the man of the lie” were Essenes. The followers of the Teacher withdrew to the desert and established the community at Qumran, while the others became “non-Qumran Essenism,” which, claims Murphy-O’Connor, “preserved its identity long after the split.”27 At no point does Murphy-O’Connor attempt to justify his use of the name “Essene” with reference to the movement before the arrival of the Teacher. Even if one accepts his theory that the laws of the Damascus Document belong to that phase,28 they provide little if any basis for such an identication. As we have noted already, the key points of similarity with the Greek accounts of the Essenes are found in the Community Rule, which Murphy-O’Connor regards as the rule for the Teacher’s community at Qumran. Moreover, while Josephus says that there was a second order of Essenes, and both he and Philo claim that the Essenes were numerous and not conned to one location, neither gives any hint that there was a schism between the two orders, or that the “monastic” Essenes were conned to one location. On the contrary, he says that the marrying Essenes were in agreement with the others on “the way of life, usages and customs,” except for the issue of marriage.29 Underlying Murphy-O’Connor’s theory is the unexamined assumption that the Community Rule was written specically for Qumran, and that that community was sui generis. As we shall see below, this assumption cannot withstand a careful reading of the Community Rule. Murphy-O’Connor’s theses were taken up enthusiastically by Philip Davies. Davies also added his own distinctive suggestions, most notably 24

Murphy-O’Connor, “The Essenes,” 222. Murphy-O’Connor, “The Essenes,” 233. 26 Murphy-O’Connor, “The Essenes,” 233. 27 Murphy-O’Connor, “The Essenes,” 235. 28 For subsequent literature on this issue, see C. Hempel, The Damascus Texts (Shefeld: Shefeld Academic Press, 2000) 49–53. 29 JW 2.160. 25

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that CD 6:10–11 reected the expectation of the Teacher of Righteousness as a future messianic gure and so belonged to a “pre-Qumran” stage of the history of the sect.30 In Davies’ view “CD has been now seen to reect the organization of the parent community from which the Qumran group emerged.”31 The “Qumran community” was formed by breaking away from this parent group, not by breaking away from the rest of Judaism. References to the Teacher as a past gure at the beginning and end of CD were attributed to a “Qumran recension.” Davies equated “Essene” with “pre-Qumran,”32 and regarded the “Qumran Essenes” as an offshoot of the main body of Essenes. Finally, he declared that “it seems unnecessarily pedantic” not to call the Apocalypse of Weeks or Jubilees “Essene,”33 thereby in effect reconstituting the allinclusive Hasidim of earlier scholarship under a new name.34 Unlike Davies, Florentino García Martínez and Adam van der Woude wrote in part to correct the proposal of Murphy-O’Connor, by reasserting the Palestinian roots of the movement. Nonetheless, they accepted some key features of his proposal. So they proposed, inter alia, “to make a clear distinction between the origins of the Essene movement and those of the Qumran group” and “to seek the origins of the Qumran group in a split which occurred within the Essene movement in consequence of which the group loyal to the Teacher of Righteousness was nally to establish itself in Qumran.”35 García Martínez and van der Woude differed clearly from Murphy-O’Connor and Davies insofar as they rejected the proposed Babylonian origin of the movement. They also postulated “ideological roots in the apocalyptic tradition in which

30

P. R. Davies, The Damascus Covenant ( JSOTS 25; Shefeld: JSOT, 1983) 124; “The Teacher of Righteousness at the End of Days,” RQ 13 (1988) 313–7. See the criticism of this position by M. Knibb, “The Teacher of Righteousness—A Messianic Title?” in P. R. Davies and R. T. White (eds.), A Tribute to Geza Vermes: Essays on Jewish and Christian Literature and History ( JSOTSup 100; Shefeld: Shefeld Academic Press, 1990) 51–65, and J. J. Collins, “Teacher and Messiah? The One Who Will Teach Righteousness at the End of Days,” in E. Ulrich and J. VanderKam (ed.), The Community of the Renewed Covenant (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame, 1994) 193–210. 31 Davies, Behind the Essenes, 18. 32 Davies, Behind the Essenes, 30. 33 Davies, Behind the Essenes, 109, 129. 34 Davies (“The Prehistory of Qumran,” 118) protests that “Murphy-O’Connor’s designation ‘Essenes’ at least correspods to a real movement attested and described in several ancient sources.” He does not bother to ask whether these descriptions in any way correspond to the entities associated with “the prehistory of Qumran.” 35 F. García Martínez and A. S. van der Woude, “A Groningen Hypothesis of Qumran Origins,” RQ 14 (1990) 521–541, esp. 537.

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we nd determinism, the type of biblical interpretation, the angelology, the idea of the eschatological temple, etc., that emerge as characteristic of the Essene ideology.”36 Murphy-O’Connor had not concerned himself with the ideological roots of the movement, but Davies, as we have seen, was eager to extend the name “Essene” to the Epistle of Enoch and Jubilees. Gabriele Boccaccini builds explicitly on the work of Davies and García Martínez. “Their approach,” he writes, “has the great merit of having introduced a fundamental distinction between Essene origins and Qumran origins . . . The history of the Qumran community may not coincide with the history of the Essene movement.”37 Boccaccini, however, is more specic in his identication of Essenism: “what the ancient historians called Essenism encompasses not only the Qumran community but also what modern scholars have identied, on the basis of its extant documents, as Enochic Judaism.”38 His understanding of “Enochic Judaism” is a reformulation of the view of “apocalyptic” proposed by his teacher, Paolo Sacchi.39 It was a stream of thought, or intellectual movement, characterized by a “generative idea” the understanding of evil as “an autonomous reality antecedent to humanity’s ability to choose.”40 Boccaccini does not conne “Enochic Judaism” to the Enoch literature, but extends it to writings in which the gure of Enoch is not central, such as Jubilees, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, or 4 Ezra. In his view, however, it does not include all apocalyptic literature, but is ideologically opposed to such works as Daniel and Revelation. “Enochic Judaism” originated in an ancient schism within the Jewish priesthood, and emerged as a distinct, anti-Zadokite, movement somewhere in the fourth or third centuries BCE.41 The Book of Jubilees, dated to the Maccabean era after the overthrow of the Zadokite line, marks an important transition in the development of this tradition, as it “makes Moses a revealer like Enoch and Jacob.”42 It thus paves the way for the emphasis on Mosaic revelation in the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Damascus Document is regarded as “pre-Qumran.”

36

García Martínez and van der Woude, “A Groningen Hypothesis,” 537. Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis, 7. 38 Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis, 11. 39 P. Sacchi, Jewish Apocalyptic and its History ( JSPSup 20; Shefeld: Shefeld Academic Press, 1997). 40 Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis, 12. 41 Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis, 77. 42 Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis, 89. 37

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The split between the group that became the Qumran community and the main body of the Essenes came about because the Teacher called for a greater degree of separation from Israel and the temple than many were willing to accept.43 In Boccaccini’s view, “the Qumran sectarians did not seek an organized relationship with the Essenes.”44 Rather, “the community of the Dead Sea Scrolls virtually ignored other groups, including its parent movement, and received from them an equally open disdain.”45 Boccaccini relates the “split” between Qumran and the Essenes to the different accounts of the latter in the Greek and Latin sources. Pliny knew only one Essene settlement, by the Dead Sea. Philo and Josephus speak of an association spread throughout the land. Boccaccini suggests that the Jewish authors were referring to the main body of the Essenes, while Pliny knew only the marginal group at Qumran. Neither the Jewish nor the Gentile authors, however, show any awareness of a schism in the Essene movement. Boccaccini is certainly right that the Essenes cannot be equated without remainder with the Qumran community. He is also right that there is signicant ideological continuity between “Enochic Judaism” and the yahad. At several points, however, the discussion is confused by the uncritical acceptance of hypotheses advanced in earlier discussion that have gradually, and mistakenly, been treated as established facts. “The Qumran Community” Perhaps the most basic and widespread confusion concerns what is called “the Qumran community.” It is widely assumed that the Community Rule, Serek haYahad, was the rule for the Qumran settlement, which could therefore be regarded as a distinct entity. This view is untenable. The Rule explicitly refers to “all their places of residence” (1QS 6:2) and to “every place where there are ten men of the Community council” (6:3).46 It is, then, in Stegemann’s words, “composed not for the Qumran settlers especially but for all of the Essenes everywhere

43

Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis, 152. Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis, 188. 45 Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis, 188. 46 See J. J. Collins, “Forms of Community in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in S. M. Paul, R. A. Kraft, L. H. Schiffman, and W. W. Fields (eds.), Emanuel. Studies in Hebrew Bible, Septuagint and Dead Sea Scrolls in honor of Emanuel Tov (Leiden: Brill, 2003) 97–111; “The 44

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in the country,”47 or at least for all members of the yahad. The yahad is not a single community, but an association of people who live in many communities. Whether the Qumran settlement (assuming that it was a sectarian settlement) was at all distinctive is unclear. Stegemann regards Qumran as a “settlement for the large-scale production of writing scrolls,” established after the death of the Teacher.48 Many scholars have seen a reference to the founding of the Qumran settlement in a passage in 1QS 8: “And when these have become a community in Israel in compliance with these arrangements, they are to be segregated from within the dwelling of the men of sin to go to the desert, to prepare there the way of Him, as it is written, “in the desert prepare the way of . . .” (8:13–14).49 While the passage goes on to equate the preparation of the way with the study of the Law, it is quite possible that it refers to an actual withdrawal to the desert.50 The group that withdraws, however, is not schismatic, but is specially set aside and trained within the yahad for a period of two years, and instructed in everything that is hidden from Israel but discovered by the Interpreter (8:11–12). These, in short, are “the men of perfect holiness” who constitute an elite within the yahad but do not “break away” from it. If this passage refers to the establishment of the Qumran settlement, which is an attractive possibility but not provable, then we should think of Qumran as a place where the same law and rules were observed as in other settlements, but in a higher degree of perfection.51 Much remains unclear about the relation between the Damascus Rule and the yahad described in the Serek. It will not do, however, to assign the Serek to Qumran and the Damascus Rule to the “non-Qumran Essenes.” Both rules envision a network of communities. Both also make some distinction between those who pursue perfect holiness and other members of the association—compare CD 7:5–8. In the case

Yahad and the Qumran Community,” in C. Hempel, and J. M. Lieu (ed.), Biblical Traditions in Transmission. Essays in Honour of Michael A. Knibb (Leiden: Brill, 2006), 81–96. 47 Stegemann, The Library of Qumran, 142. 48 Stegemann, The Library of Qumran, 156. 49 E. F. Sutcliffe, “The First Fifteen Members of the Qumran Community,” JSS 4 (1959) 134–8; J. Murphy-O’Connor, “La genèse littéraire de la Règle de la Communauté,” RB 76 (1969) 528–49. 50 G. J. Brooke, “Isaiah 40:3 and the Wilderness Community,” in G. J. Brooke and F. García Martínez (eds.), New Qumran Texts and Studies (Leiden: Brill, 1994) 117–32. 51 Collins, “Forms of Community,” 105–7.

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of the Damascus Rule, some members marry and have children. It is possible that one rule reects an earlier phase of the same movement than the other, but then it is difcult to explain why copies of both rules continued to be copied contemporaneously. And while the Damascus Rule may preserve rules that were formulated before the arrival of the Teacher, the extant text clearly looks back to the Teacher as an authoritative gure. Despite the widespread assumption that the yahad was the movement of the Teacher’s followers, which may well be correct, the fact remains that the Teacher is acknowledged in the Damascus Rule but not in Serek ha-Yahad. In light of this situation, it makes little sense to distinguish between “Qumranic” and “pre-Qumranic” or “non-Qumranic.” With the possible exception of the passage in 1QS 8, we have no literature that can be said with condence to have been composed specically for the Qumran settlement. There is no evidence at all that the Qumran settlement resulted from a schism within the yahad, or that Serek ha-Yahad and the Damascus Rule reect the two sides of a “split.” The Essenes revisited As noted already, the main correspondences between the accounts of the Essenes in Philo and Josephus and the Dead Sea Scrolls are found in Serek ha-Yahad. It is here that we nd the multi-year process of admission, and the detailed stipulations for living in community. It is also here that we nd striking similarities in eschatological expectations, formulated in terms of reward and punishment after death but not of resurrection. There are, to be sure discrepancies. The Serek does not explicitly forbid marriage, and the Greek authors do not mention spirits of light and darkness or messiahs. But neither do they mention a covenant, the central category of the Damascus Rule. Whatever problems there may be in identifying the yahad described in the Serek as Essene, these problems are innitely greater if we extend the term to any other literature found at Qumran. It seems to me quite unjustiable to apply the label “Essene” to the Enochic books or even Jubilees, which contain no description of community life and have only incidental features in common with the accounts in Philo and Josephus.52 We simply do not

52

For these features, see Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis, 166–70.

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know how “the chosen righteous” of the Apocalypse of Weeks were organized, but we have no warrant for assuming that they lived a common life in the manner attributed to the Essenes. There are, however, still substantial grounds for relating the Hebew rule-books to the Essenes. Like the yahad, and the camps of the Damascus Rule, the Essenes were not conned to one location. The two orders of the Essenes, one of which married, can be correlated with the distinction in the Damascus Rule between those who walk in perfect holiness and those who live in camps according the order of the land and marry and have children (CD 7:4–8). Neither Josephus nor the Damascus Rule suggest that there was any schism; rather they suggest that the movement tolerated more than one life-style. In short, there is still a good case to be made that the movement initiated by the Teacher of Righteousness should be identied with the Essenes. There is no justication, in my view, for extending that label to the so-called “parent community” that existed before his arrival. Enochic Judaism and the Scrolls If we leave aside the question of identication with the Essenes, however, how should we describe the relation between the early Enoch literature and the movement described in the Scrolls? Or more specically, what is the relationship between the “chosen righteous” of the Apocalypse of Weeks, or the “lambs” of the Animal Apocalypse and the “plant root” described in the opening column of the Damascus Document? Many scholars have been impressed by the fact that the Enochic apocalypses describe the rise of a distinct group on the eve of the Maccabean revolt and have noted that the chronology can be reconciled with that of the “plant root” described in CD 1. Unfortunately, we know nothing of the organization of these groups. We can, however, infer a certain amount about their beliefs and ideology from the texts in which they are mentioned. The Enochic texts may be said to have an apocalyptic view of history. Its course is predetermined; it is the arena of conict between angels and demons; it will culminate in a judgment. The destiny of the righteous dead is to live with the angels in heaven. The angelic life has no place for sex and marriage (1 Enoch 15–16), and the idealization of this life-style could easily lead to a rejection of marriage, although there is no such rejection in the early Enoch literature. This view of history and of human destiny is broadly

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similar to what we nd in the Dead Sea Scrolls. But it is also similar to what we nd in Daniel, a book which, as Boccaccini recognizes, cannot be attributed to the same circles as the Enoch apocalypses. The ways in which this worldview is articulated varies. Boccaccini acknowledges that “the sectarian literature of Qumran gave a distinctive emphasis to the generative idea of Enochic Judaism, that is, the superhuman origin of evil. The concepts of cosmic dualism and individual predestination ultimately made God the origin of evil on both the cosmic and the individual level.”53 The story of the Watchers, which is foundational in the Enoch literature, was known to the sectarian authors, but it did not provide the basic paradigm for the origin of evil in the sectarian scrolls. Boccaccini claims that “the denial of angelic and human freedom became the main cause of disagreement between Qumran and the larger Essene movement.”54 But the Scrolls give no indication that such issues were the main cause of disagreement with anyone. The grounds for separation from the rest of Judaism were disagreement over the calendar and halachic issues, while the dispute with the Man of the Lie concerned the authority of the Teacher and the interpretation of the Law. The ideological continuity between “Enochic Judaism” and the Scrolls is a matter of a common apocalyptic worldview, which was also shared by others, such as the authors of Daniel. This common apocalyptic worldview might be described as an intellectual movement, in Boccaccini’s terms, but it is not so specic as to require that the authors of the Enoch apocalypses and the sectarian rule books once belonged to the same group or organization. Accordingly, when we nd variations in the worldview, such as the different myths about the origin of evil in the Book of the Watchers and the Community Rule, there is no need to suppose that a schism has occurred in an organization that was previously unied. By far the most important feature shared by the Enochic books and the sectarian scrolls is adherence to the 364 day calendar. Related to this is a critical attitude towards the temple. On both of these counts, the Enochic books differ from Daniel. The calendar was a fundamental issue for the sectarians of the Scrolls, and so the common calendar is an important link between them and the Essenes. Nonetheless, the signicance of the common calendar is disputed. James VanderKam has

53 54

Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis, 170. Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis, 170.

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noted that the cultic calendar was disrupted during the persecution by Antiochus Epiphanes, and suggested that the luni-solar cultic calendar was introduced by the Seleucids or by the Hasmoneans.55 If this were correct, then adherence to a traditional solar calendar need not be taken as a marker of sectarian identity. Nonetheless, the emphasis on the solar calendar is a distinctive feature in the literature that survives from this period. But while the calendar, and the critical attitude towards the temple, suggest some link between the sect of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Enochic Judaism, some other considerations weigh against it. Both the Damascus Document, in all its stages, and the Community Rule ascribe central importance to the Torah of Moses. In contrast, in the early Enoch literature, Enoch, not Moses, is the mediator of revelation. In the words of George Nickelsburg, “to judge from what the authors of 1 Enoch have written, the Sinaitic covenant and Torah were not of central importance to them.”56 This is not to say that the Torah was unknown or unheeded in Enochic circles; the entire Animal Apocalypse is a paraphrase of biblical history.57 But nowhere in the Enochic corpus does the Torah occupy a central place as it does in the Scrolls. The sectarian rule-books do not invoke Enoch as an authoritative gure, nor do they resort to pseudepigraphy at all. The reason for this seems to be the authority accorded to the Torah and to the Teacher as its interpreter.58 Boccaccini asserts that “the honor given to Moses does not contradict the association of the Essenes with Enochic Judaism.”59 He grants that the Torah is conspicuously absent from the earlier Enochic literature, but claims that “thanks to Jubilees, Moses became an important gure

55 J. VanderKam, “The Origin, Character, and Early History of the 364-Day Calendar: A Reassessment of Jaubert’s Hypotheses,” CBQ 41 (1979) 390–411; “2 Maccabees 6,7a and Calendrical Change in Jerusalem,” JSJ 12 (1981) 1–23; Calendars in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Measuring Time (London: Routledge, 1998) 114–6. Evidence for calendrical change is found in Dan 7:25 and 2 Macc 6:7. 56 G. W. E. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch, Chapters 1–36; 81–108 (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001) 50. 57 Compare A. Bedenbender, Der Gott der Welt tritt auf den Sinai. Entstehung, Entwicklung und Funktionsweise der frühjüdischen Apokalyptik (Berlin: Institut Kirche und Judentum, 2000) 215–30, who speaks of 1 Enoch 1–5 as “Mosaisierung des Wächterbuches.” 58 See further J. J. Collins, “Pseudepigraphy and Group Formation in Second Temple Judaism,” in E. G. Chazon and M. Stone (eds.), Pseudepigraphic Perspectives: The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Leiden: Brill, 1999) 43–58. 59 Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis, 167.

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in the Enochic movement.”60 But whether Jubilees can be assigned to “the Enochic movement” is questionable. It was certainly inuenced by the early Enoch literature, but does that necessarily require that it was written within the same group? Whether it even belongs to the same intellectual movement depends on how that movement is dened. Boccaccini denes Enochic Judaism on the basis of a supposedly generative idea,—the autonomous existence of evil. But, as he himself notes in another context, a shared worldview does not require that two texts have originated in the same group or party.61 Jubilees draws some material from the Enoch tradition, but it also has far-reaching halachic interests that are not attested at all in the Enochic corpus. In the matter of Mosaic authority and interest in halacha, the contrast between “Enochic Judaism,” on the one hand, and Jubilees and the Scrolls on the other, is far more impressive than the continuity. We should also bear in mind that the Enochic literature is not the only corpus that has afnities with the Scrolls. We have already noted the case of Daniel, which gures very prominently at Qumran. The publication of 4QInstruction has demonstrated that there were also signicant links between the sectarian scrolls, even in apocalyptic passages such as the Instruction on the Two Spirits, and the Jewish wisdom tradition.62 Conclusion That there were close links between “Enochic Judaism” and the sectarian movement described in the Scrolls is not in doubt. The foregoing analysis suggests, however, that it is far too simple to equate Enochic Judaism with the “parent-community” of the Damascus Document, and that there is no basis for identifying it with the Essenes. Both the accounts of the Essenes and the sectarian rule books describe a form of Judaism that was, whatever else, “Mosaic.” If the movement that produced the early Enoch literature was absorbed into the “new covenant” of the Damascus Document, it must have radically changed its character. And while the movement described in the Scrolls may well

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Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis, 167. Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis, 14–15. 62 See J. J. Collins, G. E. Sterling, and R. A. Clements, Sapiential Perspectives: Wisdom Literature in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls (Leiden: Brill, 2004). 61

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have drawn both ideas and personnel from the Enoch movement, there is ample evidence that it also drew from other sources. There is always a strong tendency in scholarship to reduce chaos to order and to schematize historical evidence. In his contribution to this volume, James VanderKam has highlighted the recurring tendency to explain Second Temple Judaism in terms of binary oppositions, whether hierocrats vs. visionaries or Zadokites vs. Enochians. Despite its attractions, such a tendency should be resisted. Historical reality is always less tidy than we would wish it to be.

ENOCHIANS, URBAN ESSENES, QUMRANITES: THREE SOCIAL GROUPS, ONE INTELLECTUAL MOVEMENT Gabriele Boccaccini University of Michigan, United States 1. Introduction Ten years have passed since I rst presented at the 1995 meeting of the Italian Biblical Association at L’Aquila, and then at the 1997 Princeton Symposium on the Dead Sea Scrolls, what is now known as “the Enochic-Essene Hypothesis.”1 I picked this term, hypothesis, very seriously. The value of a hypothesis lies primarily not in its power of persuasion but rather in the lasting capability of making the scholarly community reect on a possible way of reassembling proven yet scattered pieces of evidence within a broader framework to form a new picture of a familiar scene. A hypothesis always goes beyond accepted paradigms and in its most challenging perspectives even dares to be provocative and controversial, provided that it remains consistent to its methodological, philological and historical premises (iuxta sua propria principia). While contributing at large to the contemporary renaissance of Enochic studies, the Enochic-Essene Hypothesis has drawn attention specically to two related, yet distinct phenomena, that is, “the Enochic roots of the Qumran community” and “the parting of the ways between Qumran and Enochic Judaism.” A virtually ignored topic, such as the relationship between Enochians, Essenes and Qumranites, has quickly become one of the crucial issues in the research of Second Temple Judaism. Along with the publication of the proceedings of the Second Enoch Seminar (“Enoch and Qumran Origins”) and of the rst volume

1 Both papers were published shortly afterwards: G. Boccaccini, “E se l’essenismo fosse il movimento enochiano? Una nuova ipotesi circa i rapporti tra Qumran e gli esseni,” RSB 7/2 (1997) 49–67; and Idem, “The Origins of Qumran in Light of the Enoch Groups,” in The Hebrew Bible and Qumran, ed. J. H. Charlesworth (N. Richland Hills: Bibal, 2000) 63–92. See then G. Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis: The Parting of the Ways between Qumran and Enochic Judaism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998).

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of George Nickelsburg’s comprehensive commentary on 1 Enoch,2 four recent contributions (by David Jackson, Eyal Regev, Paolo Sacchi, and John Collins, respectively) seem to me the most relevant and challenging for an update of the Enochic-Essene hypothesis.3 These important developments are a much welcome invitation to revisit, clarify and, when necessary, correct some aspects of my hypothesis and highlight its potential for future research. 2. The Methodological Dilemma; or, From Communities of Texts to Intellectual Movements and Social Groups A methodological question has resurfaced consistently in the scholarly debate of these years—How can we move from “books” to “people” or from “communities of texts” to “communities of people”? A book is a book, not an intellectual movement or a social group. With Martin Goodman, we all agree that “it is unwarranted and misleading to treat each text and author as if it or he constituted a separate Judaism.”4 But as George Nickelsburg reminds us, “texts are historical artifacts, created in time and space, by real human beings”5 We have to look at ancient documents not only as a possible source of 2 See G. Boccaccini, ed. Enoch and Qumran Origins: New Light from a Forgotten Connection (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 2005) 327–435; and G.W.E. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1: A Commentary (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001). The volume Enoch and Qumran Oringins includes contributions by an international group of 47 specialists, who attended the Second Enoch Seminar in Venice (1–4 July 2003). The fth section of the volume is entirely devoted to a discussion of the Enochic-Essene Hypothesis with articles by David W. Suter, Annette Y. Reed, John J. Collins, Jeff S. Anderson, James R. Davila, Corrado Martone, Pierluigi Piovanelli, John C. Reeves, William Adler, James C. VanderKam, Benjamin G. Wright III, Paolo Sacchi, Torleif Elgvin, and Claudio Gianotto, followed by a response of the Author.. 3 See the books of David R. Jackson (Enochic Judaism: Three Dening Paradigm Exemplars, London: T&T Clark International, 2004), and Paolo Sacchi (Regola della Comunità, Brescia, Paideia, 2006), and the articles of Eyal.Regev (“From Enoch to John the Essene: An Analysis of Sects Development in 1 Enoch, Jubilees, and the Essenes,” in New Perspectives on Old Texts, ed. E. Chazon, et al. [Leiden: Brill, 2006]) and John J. Collins in the present volume. 4 M. Goodman, “Josephus and Variety in First-Century Judaism,” Proceedings of the Israel Academy of Science and Humanities 7.6 (2000) 201–213 (here 202). Seth Schwartz’s statement that “Boccaccini has generally adopted bad habits shared by Neusner and some New Testament scholars of assuming that books correspond to groups, or Judaisms,” (S. Schwartz, Imperialism and Jewish Society, 200 BCE to 640 CE, Princeton: Princeton University, 2001, 81) must be excused as a polemical blunder, as it is far removed from the principles of my methodology. 5 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 2.

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information about Judaisms but also as ideological remains of Judaisms—the equivalent of ruins in archaeology. Behind any book (as behind any wall, synagogue or church) there is an author (or authors) and, as Helge Kvanvig also noticed, where there is a “family of books” there is a “family of people” who handed them down.6 “The good historian resembles the ogre of the fairy-tale; where he scents the human esh, he knows that his prey is there.”7 Marc Bloch’s witty remark reminds us that ours is a dirty job that has nothing to do with anonymous and aseptic “intellectual phenomena” but with the actual lives and the temperamental behaviour of esh-and-blood people. In the words of Eugenio Garin, the intellectual historian’s task is “to be aware of the plurality of philosophies, understand the many voices, put them in context, identify the relations with the social groups in which they emerged, assess what they meant for these groups, how they acted if they acted, how they changed, and how they declined—human thoughts, how they were created by people, how they changed people.”8 In his contribution to the present volume, James VanderKam correctly emphasizes how difcult it is to detect movements and social groups and how cautious we need to be in mapping out the many varieties of Judaisms.9 While we have to ght against oversimplication, however, we have also to ght against overskepticism. To say, for example, that today in the United States there are two major political parties (the Democratic and the Republican Party) and three major religions (Christianity, Judaism and Islam) is an oversimplication. Even without considering the presence of signicant religious or political minorities, each of these major movements is in reality a proliferation of social groups and individuals, often in competition or disagreement with one another, and each of them bears evidence of multiple inuences. It may even be that the worldview and way of life of some Democrats are much closer to those of some Republicans than to those of some of their fellow Democrats. And the worldview and way of life of a Reformed Jew are probably closer to the world view and way of life of a Presbyterian than to those of a Hasidic Jew. To say that in the United States there are two major political parties and three major religions is

6

H. S. Kvanvig, “Jubilees—Read as Narrative,” in Enoch and Qumran Origins, 81. M. Bloch, Apologie pour l’histoire (Paris: Colin, 1949) 35. 8 E. Garin, “Osservazioni preliminari ad una storia della losoa,” Giornale critico della losoa italiana 38 (1959) 41. 9 See, above, J. C. VanderKam, “Mapping Second Temple Judaism.” 7

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an oversimplication; it is confusing, easy, simplistic, dangerously reductive, yet nevertheless, there are two major parties in the United States (the Democratic and the Republican Party) and three major religions (Christianity, Judaism and Islam). Although difcult to detect and dene, movements and social groups do exist. The historian cannot give up this task, no matter how hard, complex and controversial it might be. In the end it is a matter of sense and balance. We need names and categories to explain reality, even though we are aware that reality is always more complex than our simplied paradigms. We need the categories of Judaism and Christianity, even though we know that there are several Judaisms and Christianities. We need the categories of Zadokite Judaism, Enochic Judaism, Sadduceeism, Pharisaism, Essenism, early Christianity, Hellenistic Judaism, Qumranism, etc. even though we know that these are merely labels and there are many more groups and subgroups, and in the end there are individuals with their ever-changing opinions. As has happened to so many previous categories—categories that we have once used with much benet, and now have become obsolete for our historical reconstruction—some of these “new” categories will probably soon become obsolete, and will need to be replaced or adjusted. Skepticism is a healthy quality in scholarly research. We should not forget, however, that among the innite “contexts” we can imagine for ancient sources, some are more likely and some are totally unlikely or anachronistic. Categories such as Old and New Testament, Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, and similar ones, for example, impose on ancient sources anachronistic and misleading boundaries and yet too often we keep repeating them mechanically without the caution we correctly require when using “new” categories. Serious attempts at seeking a more rened taxonomy must therefore be encouraged, provided that the results are offered as a work in progress, submitted to scholarly scrutiny and susceptible to modication and renement. Any taxonomy is only the basis on which new, more advanced taxonomies have to be built. As tentative as our “new” scholarly categories may be, they are already innitively better and more reliable than any canonical schemes we have inherited from our religious traditions. The problem is not to use categories but to abandon misleading categories and identify more useful categories, which can help us advance in our research.

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3. Family and Individuals; or Intellectual Movements and Social Groups Writing an intellectual history of Second Temple Judaism is very much like reconstructing the genealogical tree of a large family where only scanty memories and a messy box of old pictures are left. We have documents instead of pictures, and historical accounts instead of family stories. Like family pictures, documents must be studied each on its own terms, within the broader social and intellectual framework provided by other sources. A common-denominator approach would only conate data from different documents to shape a single, eclectic subject (the theology of Second Temple Judaism) that never existed, while dismissing the individual traits (the conicting pieces of evidence) as marginal and negligible phenomena, only because they do not conform to the majority. On the other hand, an excessive emphasis on diversity would lead us to the opposite extreme of seeing documents in isolation, as if detached from each other, as representatives of as many diverse subjects, not as portraits of the same subjects at different stages of their existence. We face neither a single subject, nor an incalculable number of subjects, but genealogies of related subjects (the diverse and competing theologies of Second Temple Judaism). We should not be misled by the family likeness or the abundance of parallels. This was well stated by E. P. Sanders: “One may consider the analogy of two buildings. Bricks which are identical in shape, color, and weight could well be used to construct two different buildings which are totally unlike each other.”10 The identication of “chains of documents” or “communities of texts,” representing the diverse and competing trajectories of thought in Second Temple Judaism, is the major goal and the major challenge in the study of the period. It is not an easy task. We meet so many cases of false resemblance, forgetfulness, mistaken identity, and rejection (rst of all, the anachronistic separation between Jewish and Christian documents). Yet, it is an inescapable task, if we want to understand the diversity of Jewish thought in the Second Temple period. For some time I have maintained that a clear methodological distinction between “intellectual movements” and “social groups” is the basis for any sound reconstruction of the history of Jewish thought.

10

E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1977) 13.

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A movement is not a single social group but as also George Nickelsburg has pointed out, “a proliferation of individuals and groups.”11 The intellectual and the sociological level are not coincidental and must not be confused. The “Qumran chain of documents” I identied in my Beyond the Essene Hypothesis was not intended to suggest that the same social group wrote, one after the other, Dream Visions, Jubilees, the Temple Scroll, the Apocalypse of Weeks, the Halakhic Letter, and after an internal split the Epistle of Enoch, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs and the Parables (or Similitudes) of Enoch, on one hand, and the sectarian literature of Qumran, on the other hand. What my “systemic analysis” made apparent was the growth of an intellectual movement, not the history of a single, homogeneous social group. In this sense my work was an expansion and clarication of an intuition already formulated in 1958 by Frank M. Cross in the aftermath of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls: “The concrete contacts in theology, terminology, calendrical peculiarities, and priestly interests, between the editions of Enoch, Jubilees, and the Testaments of Levi and Naphtali found at Qumran on the one hand, and the demonstrably sectarian works of Qumran on the other, are so systematic and detailed that we must place the composition of these works within a single line of tradition.”12 From the sociological point of view, sources reveal a more complex situation. Behind the literature of the Dead Sea Scrolls were at least three major social groups—the Enochians, the Essenes, and the Qumranites. That the Essenes and the Qumranites were socially organized groups is obvious by the references in the sectarian literature as well as in the historical records to rituals of initiation, rules of membership, recognized forms of leadership, and liturgical and ceremonial practices. That there was some difference between the two groups is suggested by their different lifestyles (a network of urban communities vs. a community who lived isolated in the wilderness) and by the different attitude of Jewish authors, who mention only the urban communities, and Gentile authors, who mention only a secluded “city” near the Dead Sea. What we should make of these differences is still an open question. The tendency in the early phase of research was to see Qumran

11 Nickelsburg, “Context, Texts, and Social Setting of the Apocalypse of Weeks,” in Enoch and Qumran Origins, 241. 12 F. M. Cross, The Ancient Library of Qumran (Garden City: Doubleday, 1958) 148.

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as the headquarters of the Essenes. Now many scholars incline to the opposite conclusion and, following the studies of J. Murphy-O’Connor, Philip Davies and especially Florentino Garcia Martinez and Adam van der Woude and their Groningen Hypothesis, deem the Qumranites a radical, splinter group of Essenes.13 The sociology of the Enochians is not as apparent as that of Essenes and Qumranites. We do not have any ancient description of the Enochians, and only scanty information is contained in their literature about their sociology. Yet in recent years Enoch scholars appear more and more condent in talking of the existence of an Enoch group. Criticizing Steve Fraade’s understanding of the Enoch books as “socially disembodied” (a view that in my words would make them “an ingenious yet monstrously bodiless soul”), David R. Jackson calls this approach “deceptive,” and in the rst pages of his recent study of Enochic Judaism makes a strong case that in the Enoch literature we have clear evidence of the existence, within Second Temple Judaism, of a distinct group with a distinct “sectarian” identity.14 With his usual balance, George Nickelsburg summarized the problem in his commentary, as follows. Although “the 108 chapters of 1 Enoch provide little explicit information about an Enochic community . . . some textual evidence points in the direction of a community or group. Collective terms like ‘the righteous, the chosen, the holy’ indicate a consciousness of community.” The strongest evidence is given by the fact that “the Enochic literature . . . developed in stages, over three centuries, from a core narrative about the Watchers. To account for this ongoing, evolving tradition, one must posit concrete channels of transmission . . . The texts themselves indicate a process of developing composition in the name of Enoch.” It is therefore appropriate—concludes Nickelsburg—to speak of “a community or communities who believed that their possession of the divinely given wisdom contained in the Enochic texts, constituted them as the eschatological community of the chosen, who are awaiting the judgment and the consummation of the end time.”15

13 J. Murphy-O’Connor, “The Essenes and their History,” RB 81 (1974) 215–44; P. R. Davies, Behind the Essenes: History and Ideology in the Dead Sea Scrolls (BJS 94; Atlanta: Scholars, 1987); F. Garcia Martinez and A. S. van der Woude, “A Groningen Hypothesis of Qumran Origins,” Rev Q 14 (1990) 521–41. 14 Jackson, Enochic Judaism, 2–13; cf. S. D. Fraade, “Interpretive Authority in the Studying Communiuty at Qumran,” JJS 44 (1993) 46–69 (here 48), and Boccaccini, Beyond, 195. 15 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 64.

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I ended my Beyond the Essene Hypothesis with a “comparative analysis” between ancient historical records on the Essenes and the Dead Sea Scrolls, in which I focused on the many “ideological” parallels among Enochians, Essenes and Qumranites. Rather than suggesting any social “identication” of these groups, my analysis aimed to show that they had to be taken as components of the same, broader intellectual movement. The establishment of such a link made me look forward to a new chapter in the study of the Essenes—a new chapter in which the library of the Qumranites would be used to give voice again to the speechless Essenes vividly recorded by ancient historians as well as to add esh and blood to the outspoken yet bodiless literature of the Enochians.16 The struggle to dene the relationship among Enochians, Essenes and Qumranites had just begun. 4. Enoch and Qumran Origins Marc Bloch is often (mis)quoted as if addressing the problem of origins was in itself a sort of dangerous obsession. The great French historian sharply criticized the idea that tracing the origins of a historical phenomenon equals understanding it. Origins do not contain in themselves the causes of any development as “a historical phenomenon can never be understood apart from its moment in time.”17 The old Arab proverb quoted by Bloch, “People resemble their times more they do their parents,” does not mean, however, that people do not have parents, or that we shouldn’t address the question of parentage, no more than Bonhoeffer’s warning against turning God into an idol condemns as useless any discussion about God. Provided that we do not mistake the origins for a self-explicatory and self-sufcient “idol,” the search for the ancestors of a social group (like the Qumranites) is a serious, fascinating and inescapable historical problem. In history there is no such thing as a social group that suddenly emerges coming from nowhere, taking a little from everywhere. The

16 Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis, 195–196. Similar words had been expressed by Philip Davies: “Their Qumran secessionists have in one way given the Essenes a sectarian reputation, but they have also, it seems, redeemed themselves somewhat by handing over to us the means to rediscover a mainstream Jewish movement.” See Davies, Behind the Essenes, 134. 17 M. Bloch, “The Idol of Origins,” The Historian’s Craft, trans. by P. Putnam (Manchester: Manchester University, 1954) 29–35.

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problem of Qumran origins cannot be easily dismissed simply by arguing multiple (and equally relevant) inuences. Origins and inuences are not coincidental. Would we say that Christianity was not born from Judaism, as it was so heavily inuenced by Hellenic thought and religion? Of course, Christianity was inuenced by Hellenic thought and religion; nevertheless it was born from Judaism (and even within Judaism the acknowledgment of “multiple inuences” does not exonerate us from the responsibility of seeking the specic variety of Judaism from which the Jesus movement was born). In the case of Qumran, it is apparent that the sectarian literature was inuenced by both Enochic and Zadokite thought. However, since the Zadokite Torah played such an important role in the sectarian literature and the members of the Qumran sect referred to themselves as “sons of Zadok,” it seemed natural to conclude, as the classical Essene Hypothesis maintained, that the leadership at Qumran was provided by members of the priestly House of Zadok. Once they lost the power and the Maccabees became the new dynasty of high priests, they would have retreated into the wilderness in protest. The problem with such a reconstruction was that all ancient sources agree that the descendants of the Zadokite high priests ed not to Qumran, but to Egypt, where they built a rival temple at Heliopolis. The promoters of the classical “Essene Hypothesis” should have in the rst place more properly spoken of a split within the Zadokite family. The Enoch literature provides yet another major difculty. If the Qumranites were indeed a Zadokite movement, why did they preserve not only Zadokite texts (like the Mosaic Torah) but also a large collection of (anti)non-Zadokite texts (like the early Enoch literature)? The reference to Enochic texts cannot be downplayed as a reference to a common Jewish milieu shared by all Jewish groups, as Lawrence Schiffman or Daniel Schwartz have suggested. Schiffman views the Enoch book as “typical of the literature read by the intellectual and religious elites of Second Temple Judaism.”18 By transferring back some models in the interpretation of later Jewish mysticism, Schwartz goes even further so as to turn it into “the product of the same scribal and priestly elites and subelites who produced Jewish literature in general and

18 Schiffman, Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls: The History of Judaism, the Background of Christianity, the Lost Library of Qumran (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1994) 403.

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presumably it reects their attempt to neutralize, judaize (i.e., interpret in Jewish terms), and assert control over problematic, perhaps in part magical, elements of Judaean religion, while also providing a way of explaining, and perhaps controlling, the presence of evil in the world, as the Deuteronomic theology of most of the Bible fails adequately to do.”19 Such interpretation, dismissive of the revolutionary and nonconformist character of the ancient Enochic literature, is completely inappropriate for the period of the Second Temple. As Jackson also has recently reminded us, “pre-sectarian” or “pre-Qumranic” does not necessarily mean “non-sectarian” or “common to all Jewish groups in Second Temple times.”20 If there is something the Enoch specialists have proven, it is that the Enochic literature does not testify to “the common property of Second Temple Judaism prior to the formation of the Qumran sect”21 but to a distinctive stream of thought whose existence can be traced back to the late Persian or early Hellenistic period (fourth century BCE), the product of an apocalyptic milieu by people who were at odds with the Jerusalem priesthood. At the center of this non-conformist movement of dissent was neither the Temple nor the Torah but a unique concept of the origin of evil that made the “fallen angels” (the “sons of God” also recorded in Gen 6:1–4) as ultimately responsible for the spread of evil and impurity on earth. “The [Enochic] myths assert, deterministically on the one hand, that human beings are less the perpetrators than the victims of sin, which had its origin in the divine realm. On the other hand, they maintain that sin and evil originated not with God’s permission, but as the result of a rebellious conspiracy that was hatched behind God’s back.”22 Taking up traditions that predate the post-exilic origins of the movement,23 Enochic Judaism gave them a different interpretation than that provided within the Zadokite tradition. The cosmic rebellion of the fallen angels was not simply, as in the Mosaic Torah, one of the primeval sins that characterized the ancient history of humankind. By crossing the boundaries between heaven and earth, the evil angels led by Semyaz 19

Schwartz, Imperialism, 15. Jackson, Enochic Judaism, 2–3. 21 Jackson, Enochic Judaism, 2. 22 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 47. 23 Helge Kvanvig and Klaus Koch are the scholars who have most emphasized the ancient origins of Enochic traditions (see their contributions in Boccaccini, ed., The Origins of Enochic Judaism, Turin, Zamorani, 2002, as well as in this volume). 20

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and Asael/Azazel broke apart the divisions set by God at the time of creation. According to the Book of the Watchers, it was the mother of all sins, the original sin that corrupted and contaminated God’s creation and from which evil relentlessly continues to spring forth and spread. As God said to the angel Raphael: “The whole earth has been corrupted through the works that were taught by Azazel: to him ascribe all sin!” (1 En 6:8). In a cosmic battle the rebellious angels were defeated by the good angels and imprisoned in chains “in a hole in the desert which is in Dudael . . . [until] the day of the great judgment” (1 En 6:4–6). The giants, the monstrous offspring of the unnatural union between angels and women, were killed (1 En 10:9–10), but their immortal souls survived as the evil spirits and continue to roam about the earth (1 En 15:8–10). As disturbing as this idea can be, God’s reaction limited but did not eradicate evil, until God will put an end to this evil world and will create a new world qualitatively different from, and discontinuous with, what was before. The theological attempt to absolve the merciful God from being responsible for the presence of evil on earth leads to the conclusion that human beings are less the perpetrators than the victims of evil. Human freedom and responsibility are not denied. In the Enochic system of thought the two contradictory concepts of human responsibility and human victimization coexist between the Scylla of an absolute determinism and the Charybdis of an equally absolute anti-determinism. “The Enochic corpus explains the origin and presence of sin and evil on earth in two ways: (1) sin and evil are the function of a primordial heavenly revolt whose results continue to victimize the human race; (2) responsibility for sin and evil lies with the human beings who transgress God’s law.”24 Accept either of these extremes against the other and the entire Enochic system would collapse into the condemnation of God as the unmerciful source of evil or as the unjust scourge of innocent creatures. The importance of divine grace is however enhanced. Without God’s intervention humans would be totally at the mercy of evil, but the rebellious power of evil limits the effectiveness of God’s intervention. The very idea of a covenant between God and God’s people is disrupted by the presence of a third party, the devil, who acts maliciously outside and against the rules of any covenant.

24

Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 46.

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Now, if the Qumranites were indeed Zadokites and as such supporters of the Mosaic covenant and of the post-exilic priesthood, what would be the point of preserving the Enochic sectarian, anti-Zadokite literature? Why did they share the Enochic idea that the Second Temple was since the beginning a contaminated Temple led by an illegitimate priesthood? No members of the House of Zadok would have ever dismissed the legitimacy of the Second Temple without losing their own identity and undermining their claim to be the only legitimate priesthood. Furthermore, in spite of extensive references to the Mosaic Torah, it is the Enochic idea of the demonic origin of evil, not Zadokite covenantal theology, that provides the foundation for the trajectory of thought from which the Qumran predestinarian theology emerged. What would have been the point in maintaining that the angels are in fact responsible for the behavior of human beings, if only to stress that it was God who created both the good and the evil angels, and so indirectly to suggest that God was ultimately the one who predetermined the destiny of each individual? Why was it necessary to state the presence of angels in the chain of cause-effect elements that determine the destiny of each individual? Only if the myth of the fallen angels was in fact the starting point upon which the Qumranites built their predestinarian system of thought, would such a twisted theology about the origin of evil make sense. The genealogical link between Enoch and Qumran is supported by recent studies. According to Sacchi, “Enochism always believed in human freedom and responsibility . . . It accepted the two opposite principles (that ‘people are free’ and ‘God is omnipotent and rules history as it created the world’), without trying to nd a conciliatory answer . . . The Qumranites . . . solved the [Enochic] tension between human freedom and historical determinism by introducing the concept of individual predestination . . .”25 Analogously, Regev sees in the Enoch theology the premises of Qumran theology: “the notion that the forces of evil are intrinsic to the world is the most basic presupposition of the sectarian worldview . . . It is likely that the Qumranites inherited their perception of cosmic tension and eschatology from the Enochic circles.”26 Even an author like Collins, usually very careful in making general and conclusive statements, does not waver: “that there are clear

25 26

Sacchi, Regola, 47, 52, 60. Regev, “From Enoch to John the Essene.”

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and well-known afnities . . . signicant ideological continuity . . . close links between ‘Enochic Judaism’ and the sectarian movement described in the Scrolls is not in doubt.”27 In short, while calling themselves the “sons of Zadok,” the Qumranites seemed to despise everything the Zadokites had done, and held in great esteem the literature of their Enochic enemies. Should we then face the impossible paradox of a Zadokite movement rooted in an anti-Zadokite ideology? Or should we rather stop “talking Zadokite” and read the references to the “sons of Zadok” not as evidence of an actual genealogical relation but typologically, as Philip Davies already suggested many years ago,28 and I myself embraced in my Beyond the Essene Hypothesis? By the time in which the scrolls were written the Jerusalem priesthood (that we modern interpreters call “Zadokites”) had long ceased to dene themselves as “sons of Zadok.” Such identication had been superseded already in the early period of the Second Temple period by the Priestly edition of the Torah (and later in Chronicles) through the reference to a new Sinaitic ancestor, the grandson of Aaron, “Phinehas.” This is apparent at the beginning of the second century BCE in the Book of Sirach, where Phinehas (not Zadok) is “third in line” after Levi and Aaron as the ancestor of the Zadokite high priests: “a covenant of peace was established with him [i.e. Phinehas] that he should be leader of the sanctuary of his people, that he and his descendants should have the dignity of the priesthood forever” (Sir 46:23–24). Consistently, in the original Hebrew text, the eulogy of the high priest Simon II ends with a reference to Phinehas (not Zadok): “May [God’s] kindness toward Simon be lasting; may he fulll for him the covenant with Phinehas, so that it may be not abrogated for him or for his descendants while the heavens last” (Sir 50:24 [Heb]). It is not correct to claim that Ben Sira is not Zadokite or even anti-Zadokite (perhaps the promoter of a “panAaronite” rebellion), simply because he does not mention Zadok.29 On the contrary, he praises and supports the House of Zadok by referring to their Sinaitic ancestor Phinehas.

27

See Collins’ contribution in the present volume. P. R. Davies, “Sons of Zadok,” Behind the Essenes, 51–72. 29 Olyan, “Ben Sira’s Relationship to the Priesthood,” HTR 80 (1987) 261–86; and B. G. Wright, “Ben Sira and the Book of the Watchers on the Legitimate Priesthood,” in Intertextual Studies in Ben Sira and Tobit, ed. J. Corley, et al. (Washington: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 2005) 241–254. 28

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That Phinehas (not Zadok) was the access key to the high priesthood is demonstrated by the Hasmoneans’ persistent attempt to disinherit and replace the Zadokites by transforming their father Mattathias into a Phinehas redivivus (see 1 Maccabees 2:26). As the Sinaitic order made the descendents of Phinehas the only legitimate high priests, God’s promise could be maintained only by applying typologically “the covenant of everlasting priesthood” to the new ruling dynasty. It was a controversial move that not everybody agreed upon. Once the Zadokites lost power, the Aaronide families (who largely supported the Hasmoneans) appeared reluctant to grant to one of their peers a distinctive status and more inclined to support the more “democratic” position that as attested by Flavius Josephus, would become normative in Roman times: “it is a custom of our country, that no one should take the high priesthood of God, but he who is of the blood of Aaron” (Ant 20:226). Rather than repeating a promise that failed, or applying the covenant of Phinehas to the new Hasmonean priesthood (a move that the Maccabean propaganda would have certainly appreciated), at the end of the second century BCE the Greek translator of Sirach turned the prayer for Simon II and his descendants into a generic wish for prosperity on behalf of the entire people of Israel by erasing any reference to the “sons of Phinehas.” Had the Qumranites been Zadokites (that is, former members of the ruling high priesthood deposed by the Hasmoneans), they would have reclaimed for themselves the title of “sons of Phinehas” and appealed to their Sinaitic right to the high priesthood. Instead, the Qumranites went back to Ezekiel, claiming that his prophecy did not refer to the actual “Jerusalem priests” (the “sons of Phinehas” as well as the other “sons of Aaron”) but to a forthcoming priesthood (their priesthood “at the end of times”). In this way the Qumranites were dismissing the very foundation of the Zadokite (and Aaronite) legitimacy by making themselves (in place of the actual Jerusalem priesthood) the true and exclusive fulllment of Ezekiel’s prophecy, twisting the foundational passage of Zadokite authority into an anti-Zadokite statement. After all, does Ezekiel himself not present his (post-Sinaitic) prophecy as a modication of the previous order, an unfortunate consequence of the sin of the priests? The point of the Damascus Document is that that prophecy was never historically fullled and the promise of Ezekiel refers to the eschatological priesthood—hardly a Zadokite statement. We don’t have to bear any longer the unbearable paradox of a “Zadokite” group rooted in a bitter anti-Zadokite ideology. In spite of

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any other inuence, the relationship between the Enochic literature and the sectarian scrolls is so close that it seems indeed appropriate to describe the Qumran community as “a latter-day derivative of or a successor to the community or communities that authored and transmitted the Enochic texts.”30 The intellectual origins of the Qumran community are in the Enochic movement, not in the Zadokite movement. 5. Enochians, Urban Essenes, Qumranites That the intellectual roots of the Qumran community are in early Enoch literature is a view now shared by a growing number of scholars. Yet, on the sociological level I fully agree with Collins that it is unlikely that “the authors of the Enoch apocalypses and the sectarian rule books once belonged to the same group or organization.”31 In spite of any similarities there are two major elements of discontinuity (one ideological, and one sociological) that make it impossible to establish a parent-child relationship between the two groups: (a) The sectarian literature of Qumran ascribes central importance to the Torah of Moses. “In contrast, in the early Enoch literature, Enoch, not Moses, is the mediator of revelation . . . This is not to say that the Torah was unknown or unheeded in Enochic circles . . . But nowhere in the Enochic corpus does the Torah occupy a central place as it does in the Scrolls.”32 This view is shared by Nickelsburg (“to judge from what the authors of 1 Enoch have written, the Sinaitic covenant and Torah were not of central importance to them”), and by most specialists in Enoch literature.33 Andreas Bedenbenber and I have maintained that the interest in the Mosaic Torah grew within Enoch circles after the Maccabean revolt, when the Zadokite Torah became the Jewish Torah.34 However, in spite of any process of rapprochement or Mosaisierung of Enochic texts, the Mosaic Torah never acquired, even in the post-Maccabean Enochic literature (Epistle of Enoch; Parables of Enoch; 2 Enoch), the status and prominent role that it had in the sectarian literature of Qumran.

30

Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 65. See Collins’ contribution in the present volume. 32 Collins, in the present volume. 33 K. C. Bautch, “Excursus: Law and the Enochic Community,” A Study of the Geography of 1 Enoch 17–19 (Leiden: Brill, 2003) 289–298. 34 Boccaccini, Beyond. 31

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(b) Between Enochians and Qumranites, there is also a clear sociological discontinuity. While the Qumranites are a “sectarian organization,” the Enochians—although representing a distinct movement within Second Temple Judaism—are rather “a reform movement.” In the words of Regev, “unlike the Qumran sects, the movement(s) behind these apocalypses did not call for withdrawal from the rest of the Jews, but aimed at political activity and to lead Israel in the imminent and nal struggle.”35 This does not mean that the Enochians are representative of common Judaism in the Second Temple period. We should rather talk of them as a “semi-sectarian, reform group, that aimed to awaken the whole Jewish nation.”36 In spite of any ideological similarities, the gulf between Enochians and Qumranites is too wide to infer a direct sociological link. The relationship between the Enoch group and the Qumran group appear to have been somehow mediated by a third group. Systemic analysis reveals that in the library of Qumran, between the early Enoch books and the sectarian texts of Qumran are—conceptually and chronologically—a series of other “pre-Qumranic” documents, which in my Beyond the Essene Hypothesis I dened as “a group of texts that have only some sectarian features, and yet are compatible with the complex of ideas characteristic of the sectarian works.”37 No doubt the book of Jubilees is the most representative text that falls into this category. In Jubilees we already nd many of the most typical “Qumranic” features, yet the predestinarian framework is still not yet shaped. Jubilees already voices a group of chosen among the chosen, yet its attitude toward the rest of Israel is still that of a “reform,” “semi-sectarian” movement that aims to embrace the entire people of Israel, rather than parting from it. Paolo Sacchi has recently emphasized that Jubilees is a transitional text also in terms of its relationship to the Mosaic Torah. In this document, Enochic and Mosaic are for the rst time combined with balance and outside any predestinarian framework, while the earlier Enoch literature ignores the Mosaic traditions, and in the later sectarian literature of Qumran these traditions

35 36 37

Regev, “From Enoch to John the Essene.” Ibidem. Boccaccini, Beyond, 58.

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would be combined under a strong predestinarian framework, with Moses gradually overshadowing Enoch.38 Before having any impact on Qumran origins, Enochic Judaism inspired yet another set of documents. More than representing a new stage in the development of Enochic Judaism, these texts, like Jubilees and similar pre-sectarian texts, mark the emergence of a new subject with its own distinct identity, different from and parallel to the contemporaneous, post-Maccabean Enochic literature. Conceptually, it is this transitional literature (not the Enochic literature) that laid the foundations on which the sectarian literature of Qumran was built. Sacchi claims that this literature, which is conceptually between Enoch and Qumran, is the literature of the Essenes. Collins (and Regev) are more cautious, due to the lack of any “description of community life,”39 and label this literature as “pre-Essene” rather than “pre-Qumranic.” However, this transitional (semi-sectarian) movement seems to have many of the characteristics of the Essenes, as we know them from ancient sources. There is a long tradition in scholarship that has tied this literature to the Essene movement, even before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. From Adolph Jellinek in 1855 to Michel Testuz in 1960 to my Beyond the Essene Hypothesis in 1998, many elements have been accumulated in support of an ideological identication between the group who wrote Jubilees and the urban Essenes described by Philo and Josephus.40 Jubilees opened a path and gave birth to a tradition that did not lose its momentum with the establishment of the Qumran community but remained strong and alive—a sort of “third way” between Enoch and Qumran. The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, or better the Jewish material in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, is the best evidence that the trend inaugurated by Jubilees was developed outside the community of Qumran. This phenomenon implies the existence of some community. David Flusser talked of a group of dissident Essenes who “rebelled against the [Qumranic] doctrine of hatred” and left Qumran in protest to promote “a very humane and

38 Sacchi, “History of the Earliest Enochic Texts,” in Enoch and Qumran Origins, 401–407. 39 See Collins’ contribution in the present volume. 40 A. Jellinek, Über das Buch der Jubiläen und das Noah-Buch (Leipzig: Vollrath, 1855); M. Testuz, Les idées religieuses du livre des Jubilés (Genève: Droz, 1960); G. Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis.

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humanistic doctrine of love.”41 Would it not be more likely, especially in light of the arguments of the Groningen hypothesis and of the Enochic-Essene hypothesis, to think that it was the Qumranites who were dissident, radical Essenes who left the rest of the Essene movement to follow their own extreme way of life in the desert of Judah? In 2007 the Fourth Enoch Seminar at Camaldoli will focus on the book of Jubilees, which more and more appears to be the key text for understanding both Essene and Qumran origins, on the one hand, and on the other, the complex phenomena that led to and derived from the merging of Enochic and Mosaic traditions. 6. The Parting of the Ways between Qumran and Enochic Judaism The relationship between Enoch and Qumran was not limited to the period of the origins of the community, but is far more complex and fascinating. After Enochic Judaism played such an important role in Essene and Qumran origins, something happened to separate the Enoch and the Qumran group. In the library of Qumran, which preserved and cherished all Enoch books composed before the birth of the community, the later literature of Enoch is conspicuous by its absence; not only the Parables of Enoch but also, probably, signicant portions of the Epistle of Enoch are missing.42 This suggests the existence “outside Qumran . . . [of ] circles that transmitted” the ancient Enoch literature.43 Furthermore, in the later Enoch literature (the Epistle and the Parables) we read statements and see the development of ideas that openly contradict the principles of individual predeterminism held by the sectarians of Qumran.44 The Parables of Enoch are a case in point. The superhuman nature of the Messiah Son of Man enables him to defeat the angelic forces responsible for the origin and the spread of evil, a task that no human 41

D. Flusser, The Spiritual History of the Dead Sea Sect (Tel Aviv: MOD Books, 1989)

79. 42 Boccaccini, Beyond; Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1. The argument that fragments from the Epistle of Enoch were preserved at Qumran is unconvincing, see G. W. E. Nickelsburg, “The Greek Fragments of 1Enoch from Qumran Cave 7: An Unproven Identication,” RevQ 21 (2004) 631–634. 43 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 77. 44 See G. Boccaccini, “Enochic Documents Unknown at Qumran; or, Enoch vs. Qumran,” Beyond the Essene Hypothesis, 131–149.

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messiah (either priestly or kingly) could ever accomplish. The antiQumranic implications of such an idea of the Messiah are obvious. Why should God be concerned about conversion and deliverance from evil, if individuals are what they are by God’s choice? The sectarian literature of Qumran knows the existence of angelic, eschatological gures, but the Parables’ emphasis on personal freedom and choice facing the coming of the eschatological judge from heaven does not make much sense at Qumran, where good and evil are from God and are given according to God’s unchangeable decision.45 As Enoch theology lost its touch with Qumran, at the same time Qumran lost its interest in the Enoch literature.46 The last quotation of Enoch is in the Damascus Document, therefore at a very early stage in the life of the community. The more the community strengthened its dualistic and predestinarian worldview, the more they lost interest in a literature that although “assert[ing] deterministically, on the one hand, that . . . sin . . . had his origin in the divine realm . . . on the other hand, maintain[ed] that . . . evil originated not with God’s permission, but as the result of a rebellious conspiracy that was hatched behind God’s back.”47 That the Book of Parables is missing from the Qumran library does not come as a surprise. Its exclusion is no mystery or accident; it was the logical consequence of a schism between Qumran and Enochic Judaism.48 How did this separation affect the relationship between the Enochians and the entire Essene movement? What does it tell us about the relationship between the Qumranites and the rest of the Essene movement?

45

Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis, 144–149. J. H. Charlesworth, “The Origins and Subsequent History of the Authors of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Four Transitional Phases among the Qumran Essenes,” RevQ 10 (1980) 213–234. 47 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 47. 48 On the Parables as an Enochic pre-Christian document, see G. W. E. Nickelsburg and J. C. VanderKam, 1 Enoch: A New Translation (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2004) 3–6; P. Sacchi, “Qumran and the Dating of the Parables of Enoch,” in The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. J. H. Charlesworth (Waco TX: Baylor University, 2006) 2:377–395; P. Sacchi, “Qumran e la datazione del Libro delle Parabole di Enoc,” Henoch 25 (2003) 149–166; J. H. Charlesworth, “The Date of the Parables of Enoch,” Henoch 20 (1998) 93–98. For a survey of the contemporary debate on the issue, see D. W. Suter, “The Third Enoch Seminar (Camaldoli, Italy, June 2–6, 2005) and the Problem of Dating the Parables of Enoch,” Henoch 28 (2006) 185–192. 46

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My contention is that while losing touch with Qumran, the Enochic movement maintained a closer relationship with the larger Essene movement. There are essentially four pieces of evidence that lead to that conclusion: (a) First, we have to consider the many substantial similarities between Enochic Judaism and the description that Philo and Josephus provide of the urban Essenes. In my Beyond the Essene Hypothesis I noticed that Josephus and Philo tend to agree with Enochic literature any time that their description of the Essenes differ from what we know from the sectarian literature of Qumran. Philo’s statement that according to the Essenes “the deity is the cause of all good, but not of evil” (Omn. Prob. Lib. 84) is probably the most striking piece of evidence of the ideological discontinuity between Qumranites, on the one hand, and Essenes and Enochians, on the other. On the main theological issues, and in their general attitude toward Jewish society, Enochians and Essenes (although not identical) looked and acted if not as twins, indeed as close relatives. (b) The second element is given by the very existence—even after Jubilees and the schism between Enoch and Qumran—of a non-Qumranic, non-Enochic literature that preserved characteristics that are common to the two movements. In the Testaments of Twelve Patriarchs, Enoch is mentioned as an important character and the “Enochic paradigms” are used, yet the writing can hardly be seen as the product of the Enoch group. Whether the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs is an Essene text that was later interpolated by Christians, or a Christian text that preserves Essene material, the text shows the presence outside Qumran of a tradition in which Enochic and Mosaic traditions were combined, but predestinarian ideas were rejected. Among these Essene “heretics” (such—we have seen—were dened by Flusser)49 Enoch continued to be cherished as an important source of revelation side by side with Moses. (c) Third, the Jesus movement shows awareness of both Enochism and non-Qumran Essenism, while it does not reveal any direct knowledge of Qumran and of its more radical theology. Whether or not the theology of the Son of Man goes back to the preaching of Jesus, the Book of the Parables clearly had some inuence on the rst stages of

49

D. Flusser, The Spiritual History of the Dead Sea Sect (Tel Aviv: MOD, 1989) 79.

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the new messianic movement,50 and as a whole Christianity still shows continuity with the Enochic paradigm in its view of the Messiah and of the superhuman origin of evil.51 In a long series of publications Bargil Pixner and Rainer Riesner have argued for a close relationship, in terms of structure, organization, and way of life, between the Essenes of Jerusalem and the earliest Christian community.52 In comparison, the relation between Qumran and the Jesus movement, after the initial enthusiasm that followed the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, has faded away in contemporary scholarship. The distance between the sectarian theology of Qumran and the salvic message of Jesus is so strong that it can be overcome only by fanciful theories about the Christian nature of the Scrolls, or speculations about the secret years of their youth when John the Baptist or Jesus would have lived at Qumran. There was no need to go to Qumran in order to be familiar with the principles of Essenism. James Charlesworth was right: “Jesus was closer to the non-Qumran Essenes than to the strict and withdrawn Essenes living in the desert of Judah.”53 The success and popularity of both Enochic and Essene texts within the Jesus movement shows that the theologies of these two groups were perceived to be closely related by at least another contemporary group of Second Temple Judaism. (d) This continuous exchange of ideas between Enochians and urban Essenes as well as the sociological similarities between the two groups contrasts with the grim isolation of Qumran. Credit goes to the Gronigen Hypothesis for rst raising the question of the relationship between Qumran and the larger Essene movement. Collins may be right that the Groningen hypothesis went too far in talking of the relationship between the two communities in terms of a dramatic “schism” or “split” between the “parent group” and the Qumranites,54 50 On this point there was almost unanimous agreement among the specialists who attended the Third Enoch Seminar at Camaldoli in 2005, even thought the extent of such inuence is deeply disputed. See G. Boccaccini, ed., Enoch and the Messiah Son of Man: Revisiting the Book of Parables (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007). 51 S. Chialà, The Parables of Enoch (Brescia: Paideia, 1994). 52 See R. Riesner, “Essener und Urkirche auf dem südwesthügel Jerusalems (Zion III): Die archäologisch-topographischen Forshungen von Bargil Pixner OSB (1921–2002),” in Laetare Jerusalem, ed. N. C. Schnabel (Münster: Aschendorff, 2006) 200–234. 53 J. H. Charlesworth, “The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Historical Jesus,” in Jesus and the Dead Sea Scrolls, ed. J. H. Charlesworth (New York: Doubleday, 1992) 1–74 (here 40). 54 See Collins’ contribution in the present volume.

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but the problem remains: was Qumran the headquarter of the Essenes or a marginal community? No doubt the Qumranites looked at themselves as the leading elite of the entire movement, but this appears to be more a wishful thought than reality. What kind of leadership was the one provided by the Qumran Essenes, who produced a vast corpus of documents that nobody read, and elaborated a highly sophisticated theology that nobody knew, and shut their doors and ceased to listen to and interact with the society at large!55 It may be that the term “schism” is too strong to dene the relationship between urban and Qumran Essenes. It may be that diversity within the Essene movement was graciously tolerated. After all, the Qumranites continued to recruit members and managed to prosper for two centuries; many people living in Essene communities outside Qumran may have looked at them with admiration and respect. In the complex ideological and paleographical diversity of the Dead Sea Scrolls, James Davila also sees evidence that the ties between Enochians, Essenes and Qumran Essenes were never broken.56 However, the idea that the Essene movement was centered at Qumran seems to me quite unlikely. Philo and Josephus might have been ill informed or even biased, but contrary to what we do in our scholarly publications, in the rst century it was perfectly reasonable to offer a picture of the Essenes without even mentioning Qumran. A community that lived isolated in the desert and went completely unnoticed in ancient Jewish sources, and in more than two centuries neither imported nor exported a single document to make it part of the theological and intellectual discourse of Second Temple Judaism, can hardly be considered a leading group.57 In sum, there is plenty of evidence of the many ideological and sociological connections between Enochians and urban Essenes. This does not prove that the Enochians should be identied sic et simpliciter 55 G. Boccaccini, “Qumran: The Headquarters of the Essenes or a Marginal Splinter Group,” in Enoch and Qumran Origins, 303–309. 56 “It is possible that there was an extremist Essene conclave at Qumran, . . . during the war with the Romans the Judeans Essene groups or congregations cooperated at least enough to transport many of their (synagogue? personal?) libraries to the caves of Qumran and hide them there.” J. R. Davila, “Enochians, Essenes, and Qumran Essenes,” in Enoch and Qumran Origins, 356–359 (here 358). 57 Boccaccini, “Qumran.” The absence in the Qumran library of any document composed outside the community after the second century BCE, as well as the apparent lack of inuence of the sectarian literature outside Qumran is a phenomenon noticed by several authors and argued in some length in my Beyond the Essene Hypothesis.

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with the Essenes, as some pages in my Beyond the Essene Hypothesis may have suggested. The Enochians and the urban Essenes now appear to me more clearly as two distinct social groups, each with its own distinct identity. Yet they appear to have maintained strict mutual contacts while both parted from the more radical wing of Qumran Essenes. 7. A Matter of Terminology None of the ancient historical sources speak of the Enochians or connect them to the Essenes. Systemic analysis, however, shows that Enochians, Essenes and Qumranites, although distinct social groups, were part of the same intellectual movement and interacted in a very complex way. After generating the Essenes (from which the Qumran community emerged as a radical group), the Enoch group lost neither its ideological nor its sociological identity. It steadily continued to exist side by side with the Essenes, closer to mainstream Essenes than to the radical Qumranites. We therefore face three distinct Jewish groups that coexisted and somehow competed in Roman Palestine. Does the term “Essene” apply to all of them, or to any of them in particular? Paolo Sacchi has recently suggested that we limit the term “Essene” to the urban Essenes and the literature he related to them ( Jubilees, Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, etc.), not to the Qumran community (and the sectarian scrolls) or the Enoch group (and its literature collected in 1 Enoch). We have three sharply distinct forms of Judaism: Enochism, Essenism and Qumranism.58 The problem with such a position is that Pliny and Dio apply to the Qumran group the same term “Essene” that Philo and Josephus use in their description of the urban Essenes. And the literature of Qumran seems to imply that the boundaries of the yahad are broader than the Qumran Community, making it difcult to separate it from the larger Essene movement. The ties among Enochians, urban Essenes and Qumranites are so close that the goal to create a common term to denote collectively the entire intellectual movement to which they all belong is simply inescapable. John Collins deems “quite unjustiable to apply the label ‘Essene’ to the Enochic books and even Jubilees, which contain no description of community life and have only incidental features in common with 58 P. Sacchi, “History of the Earliest Enochic Texts,” in Enoch and Qumran Origins, 401–407.

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the accounts in Philo and Josephus.”59 He would rather limit the term “Essene” to the yahad (Qumran and the related network of urban communities) and use the term “apocalyptism” to denote the entire movement; including the Enochians.60 “The ideological continuity between ‘Enochic Judaism’ and the Scrolls is a matter of a common apocalyptic woldview.”61 The problem is that, on the one hand, we are not sure that the boundaries of the yahad are perfectly coincidental with those of the entire and very diverse Essene movement described by Philo and Josephus. Besides, in spite of the statements contained in the sectarian scrolls, the relation between the Qumran elite and the rest of the Essenes may not have actually worked the way the Qumranites envisioned. On the other hand, apocalypticism is a phenomenon that goes far beyond the boundaries of the intellectual movement of which Enochians, urban Essenes and Qumranites were part, and tends to establish a misleading identication between a literary genre and an intellectual movement. Jackson would rather use the term “Enochic Judaism” to denote the entire movement (including the Enoch group and the Qumran community). “The Qumran sect, understood as including those followers who lived in communities other than Qumran, would appear to be the only known social embodiment of what we have termed Enochic Judaism, a form of Judaism which expired following the Jewish War of 66–73 CE.”62 The problem is that the label “Enochic” tends to downplay the sociological differences and seems quite improper to denote the Enochic texts (where Enoch is the central revealer), a text like Jubilees (where Enochic and Mosaic traditions are combined) and the sectarian literature of Qumran (where Enoch ends having only an ancillary role, if any role at all). As the ancient sources apply the term Essene to two of the major components of the movement, and because of the many afnities between Enoch and the Dead Sea Scrolls, it seems to me not unreasonable to use the term “Essene” or “para-Essene” to denote the entire movement. After all, ancient historians also seem to be aware

59

See Collins’ contribution to the present volume. J. J. Collins, Apocalypticism in the Dead Sea Scrolls (London: Routledge, 1997); Idem, “Enoch, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Essenes: Groups and Movements in Judaism in the Early Second Century BCE,” in Enoch and Qumran Origins, 345–350. 61 So in the present volume. 62 Jackson, Enochic Judaism, 221. 60

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that “Essenism” was not a single social group but rather a large and diverse intellectual movement. Josephus speaks of a “second order” of urban Essenes with different attitudes toward marriage (Ant 2:160). Pliny and Dio apply the same term to the people of Qumran, living in an isolated enclave or “polis” near the Dead Sea. In De vita contemplativa 1–2, Philo seems to encompass under the same label even the Egyptian Therapeutae, although in his view they are a distinct social group from the Palestinian Essenes, which in turn are also called therapeutai (Omn. Prob, Lib. 12). Already in ancient sources the term “Essenes” seems to have been functioned as a sort of umbrella to cover a wide variety of social groups, and none of them in particular.63 In this sense, I happily and unrepentantly stick to my claim that the Enochians also could be dened as an Essene (or para-Essene) group, yet I would not say that they were the Essenes or the “parent group” from which the community of Qumran split. Speaking in genealogical (metaphorical) terms, it would be more correct to say that the Enochians were rather the “parents” of the urban Essenes and the “grandparents” of the Qumranites, and like the old patriarch who was their hero, survived both. It remains valid what I stated in my Beyond the Essene Hypothesis: (a) Enochians, urban Essenes and Qumranites were all part of the same family (as they all belonged to the same intellectual movement); (b) as a social group, the Enochians were closer to the urban Essenes that to the Qumranites; (c) the Qumranites parted so drastically from the premises of Enochic theology that we may talk of a sort of schism between the two groups—a schism that also separated the Qumranites from the urban Essenes. I think that the ancient use of the term “Essene” somehow justies its application as a label for the much broader intellectual movement that historically manifested itself in a proliferation of different social groups such as the Enochians, the urban Essenes, and the Qumran community (and probably, the Therapeutae, and later the groups led by John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth, respectively). With Davila I

63 For a detailed discussion of the Essenes in ancient historiography (including their possible relation with the Egyptian Therapeutae), see Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis, 21–49.

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would not hesitate to say that all these distinct social groups were part of “a broadly cohesive but multifaceted and internally inconsistent Essene/sectarian movement.”64 For the sake of clarity, however, I agree with Paolo Sacchi that the term Essenes should be restricted as much as possible to the urban Essenes, to which it most properly belongs, and be applied only in a very generic sense (and with much caution) to the other “para-Essene” groups. 8. Conclusion There is no agreement among Enoch scholars on these complex issues. Even the Enoch Seminar is—and will remain—a neutral forum where the most diverse opinions are presented and assessed. But we do share a lot of fascinating questions to answer and discuss together. We do not agree on what Enochic Judaism was or on who the Enochians were, yet a growing number of us would now recognize the presence since pre-Maccabean times of an intellectual tradition that was at odds with the Jerusalem priestly establishment (some call it “Enochic Judaism”), corresponding to a still ill-dened yet actual social entity (the “Enoch group”). We do not agree on what relation this movement of dissent had with the Essene movement and the Qumran community, yet many of us have become convinced that Enochic ideas had a decisive inuence on the rise of Essenism and Qumran so much so that some see the roots of both the Essene and Qumran groups more likely traced back to the Enochic movement rather than to the Zadokite movement. Finally, we do not agree on the relationships between Enochians, urban Essenes and Qumranites; we do not even have a shared term to denote the phenomenon. Yet many of us would concede that Enochians, urban Essenes and Qumranites were three distinct social groups within the same intellectual movement. Whether we look at the distinction between urban Essenes and Qumranites as part of Essene diversity or as evidence of a dramatic schism, it remains that the Enoch group, whose origins predated the Maccabean revolt, played an essential role in the origins of both the Essene and the Qumran group without losing its own distinctive identity.

64

Davila, “Enochians,” 359.

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The parting of the ways between Enochic Judaism and Qumran seems to me to be an equally apparent phenomenon, even though we may not agree on its implications for the relations between the Enoch group and the non-Qumran Essenes. Did the parting of the ways between Enochic Judaism and Qumran separate Enochic Judaism from the non-Qumran Essenes as well, or—as I have here argued—correspond to an actual separation within the Essene movement between the Qumranites and the urban Essenes, with the Enochians remaining closer to the non-Qumranic wing of the movement? One does not need to be a prophet to foresee that these questions will be with us for many years to come.

CONCLUSION: MAPPING THE THREADS Florentino García Martínez KULeuven, Belgium—RUGroningen, Holland Perhaps because I was unable to attend the latest meeting of the Enoch Seminar, I have been asked to look with fresh eyes at the papers collected in this book and to try to extract from them some common lines on the form of conclusions. Or, if extracting conclusions proved to be impossible, at least to delineate the core problems brought to the fore and important enough to be deal with in the future. For this purpose, a very brief summary of the contributions, in the order they are presented in the book, may be of help. VanderKam’s “Mapping Second Temple Judaism,” after delineating the position of R. H. Charles, describes the more widespread models proposed to understand the Judaism of the Second Temple Period (the two-categories model of Plöger and Hanson and the three-categories model of Boccaccini), and concludes that none of them give a complete explanation, and that more attention should be paid to the cross-fertilization attested in the sources. Knibb’s “The Book of Enoch or Books of Enoch?,” looking carefully at all the evidence preserved, concludes that the Aramaic fragments of the Book of Enoch, the Greek translation, and the Ethiopic version cannot be simply equated, but they represent three different stages in the development of the writings that eventually formed the Enochic corpus we know in Ethiopic, and they belong to three different literary and historical contexts Stuckenbruck’s “The Early Traditions Related to 1 Enoch from the Dead Sea Scrolls,” focusing on all the Aramaic evidence preserved (including XQpapEnoch), concludes that the Book of Giants and the Birth of Noah are not clearly related to the Enoch materials in Aramaic, and that there is no clear evidence that the Astronomical Book was ever united to the Aramaic manuscripts of Enoch. Bedenbender’s “The Place of the Torah in the Early Enoch Literature,” solves the problem of the place of the Torah in the Enoch literature by distinguishing two phases: in the “really old” traditions the Torah were not present, they appear in the “not quite so old”

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traditions of around the second c. BCE. This ideological reorientation of Enochic Judaism would have been motivated by the persecution under Antiochus. Nickelsburg’s “Enochic Wisdom and its Relationship to the Mosaic Torah,” contradicts directly these conclusions and insists that the non-Mosaic character of 1 Enoch does not amount to an anti-Mosaic character, that their authors do not use the literary forms typical of the Mosaic Torah and do not concern themselves with major issues of the Torah, that on this they are not very much different from the prophetic and the wisdom tradition, and that their concerns and emphases differ from those of the Mosaic Torah. Sacchi’s “Measuring Time among the Jews: the Zadokite Priesthood, Enochism and the Lay Tendencies of the Maccabaean Period,” looks for the origins of the Jewish calendars and studies its evolution in the light of the changes of the structures of thought, going back to Ezekiel and the time of the exile. Koch’s “The Astral Laws as the Fundaments of Time, Universal History, and the Eschatological Turn in the Astronomical Book and the Animal Apocalypse,” considers the Mesopotamian roots of the astrological part of 1 Enoch, but shows that the fatalistic kernel of Babylonian astrology has been modied in order to protect the freedom of God and of humanity. The addition of the Book of Dream Visions, with its pessimistic and deterministic outlook, provides an eschatological perspective on the Astronomical parts and makes of both compositions a coherent whole, the regularity of the cosmic order of the Astronomical Book providing the correct understanding of the Book of Dream Visions. Kvanvig’s “Cosmic Laws and Cosmic Imbalance: Wisdom, Myth and Apocalyptic in Early Enochic Writings,” focuses on the Apocalypse of Weeks and on the way it blends the mythic world of the Book of the Watchers, with its “cosmic insanity,” with the efforts of the Astronomical Book to discover the laws of the cosmos. As a result the Watchers story functions in the Apocalypse of Weeks both as an etiology of evil and paradigm of evil, and as a rational search for the laws of history. Wright’s “1 Enoch and Ben Sira: Wisdom and Apocalyptic in Relationship,” argues not only for literary connections between Ben Sira and 1 Enoch but also for a social connection between the people responsible for both works. Looking at the shared literary themes, at the social location, and at the indications of a possible conict, he concludes that both compositions represent groups of Jews who know

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each other’s arguments and who are engaged in active polemic over central issues, specically over the behavior and legitimacy of the priests who have control over the Jerusalem cultic apparatus. Tigchelaar’s “Wisdom and Counter-Wisdom in 4QInstruction, Mysteries, and 1 Enoch,” compares two peculiar fragments of 4QInstruction, generally considered as apocalyptic (4Q418 55 and 69 ii), and nds there implicitly the same opposition between the wise and those having the wrong kind of wisdom that is explicit in Mysteries and 1 Enoch, proving in this way the fusion of styles and genres considered to be different. Suter’s “Temples and the Temple in the Early Enoch Tradition: Memory, Vision, and Expectation,” surveys the images of the temple (the celestial temple, the eschatological temple) in the Book of Watchers, the Apocalypse of Animals and the Apocalypse of Weeks and compares them with the images of the temple in other Jewish writings (like the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrice, the Temple Scroll and the New Jerusalem) and concludes that the Early Enochic literature leads not to the celestial temple but to the one to be revealed at the end of days for all eternity. Himmelfarb’s “Temple and Priests in the Book of the Watchers, the Animal Apocalypse and the Apocalypse of Weeks,” looks also to the images of the temple in the same early Enochic tradition, but analyzing independently the image of the temple in each single composition. The Book of Watchers, which only depicts the heavenly temple, offers criticism of some priests of the Jerusalem temple (on the basis that priest should only marry women from priestly families). The Animal Apocalypse has a thoroughly negative view of the Second Temple, and, even if less negative, also of the First Temple, and never mention the priesthood and its place in Israel’s history; it is totally oriented to the eschatological city/temple. The Apocalypse of Weeks, has a positive image of the First Temple and of the eschatological temple, but ignores totally the Second Temple and the priests. Tiller’s “The Sociological Settings of the Components of 1 Enoch,” after a brief description of the social structure of Ptolemaic and of Seleucid Judea (on the basis of the decree of Antiochus III and of the Book of Ben Sira), sketches the social location of Enoch’s Books: they reect a scribal origin and point to a scribal milieu, although their ideology disagrees with that of Ben Sira in essential matters, like the support or opposition to Oniad priestly rule and foreign dominance or interest in the priesthood and in the temple. Tiller concludes that it

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is extremely unlikely that there was any real social group (community or social movement) behind the books of Enoch. Piovanelli’s “‘Sitting by the Waters of Dan,’ or The ‘Tricky Business’ of Tracing the Social Prole of the Communities That Produced the Earliest Enochic Texts,” after having summarized how Enoch scholars conceptualize the existence of one or more Enochic communities, applies to the Book of the Watchers the socio-rethorical analysis of Vernon K. Robbins and nds in the texts no trace of any criticism of the Jerusalem priesthood and a relationship of continuity and complementarity between the revelations of Enoch and Moses. What comes to the fore are the honor and shame tonalities of the episode of the Watchers and the magic—therapeutic possibilities of Enoch’s teachings, which would allow us to qualify the Enochians priests as “shamanic practitioners.” Collins’s “‘Enochic Judaism’ and the Sect of the Dead Sea Scrolls,” analyzes the relationship between the authors and tradents of the Enochic literature and the members of the “new covenant” of the Damascus Document, the members of the yahad, and the Essenes; for him there are not “urban Essenes” as a distinct group from Qumran, nor is Qumran a radical break-away-group, and all rst hand evidence of the Essenes we have comes from Qumran; he concludes that Enochic Judaism can neither be equated with the “parent-community” of the Damascus Document nor with the Essenes; the ideological continuity between Enochic Judaism and the Scrolls is a matter of common apocalyptic wordview, shared by many others. Boccaccini’s “Enochians, Urban Essenes, Qumranites: Three Social Groups, One Intellectual Movement,” on the contrary, argues that behind the Enochic literature, as well as behind the classical descriptions of the Essenes and behind the sectarian writings from Qumran, we can nd three distinct and related sociological entities, and that we can move from literary texts to sociological movements. On his view the Enochians would have been the parents of the urban Essenes and the grandparents of the Qumranians. Although he recognizes that the intellectual and the sociological level are not coincidental and should not be confused, he asserts that there were at least three major social groups: the Enochians, the Essenes and the Qumranites, three parts of the same, broader intellectual movement. The Enochians (a semisectarian, reform group) have not a parent-child relationship with the Qumranians is spite of the similarities, because of two major elements of discontinuity; they have a closer relationship with the urban Essenes,

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and we should have “plenty of evidence of the many ideological and sociological connections between Enochians and urban Essenes” (which appear as two distinctive social groups, each with it own distinctive identity) and which “appear to have maintained strict mutual contacts while both parted from the more radical wing of Qumran Essenes.” It is evident that this very short summary cannot adequately represent the richness and variety of the excellent contributions, even if I think it is a fair summary of their essential contents. It helps nevertheless to see some of the important lines of the meeting, the threads underlining the tapestry. Although any exercise in synthesis is highly subjective, I dare to say that the most relevant threads are the following: – The evidence is fragmentary and, more often than not, unclear; in a word: it is messy. And this messiness should be respected. What we have is not enough to obtain the complete and clear picture of the situation we should wish. This holds for the models available to understand the Second Temple writings (VanderKam) as well as for the concrete materials of the Books of Enoch (Knibb and Stuckenbruck). Perhaps one of the main conclusions is that we need to learn to live with fragmentary evidence and not try to reach a synthesis that goes beyond what the evidence would permit. This is precisely the explicit conclusion of the VanderKam article, and it also applies to the plea of Knibb for considering independently each one of the three literary and historical contexts of Enoch and of Stuckenbruck for separating the Book of Giants, the Birth of Noah, and even the Astronomical Book, from Aramaic Enoch. – The book is structured around a dual approach (the only isolated contribution is the one by Sacchi on Calendars) in which two scholars look at each one of the six main topics: Enoch and Torah, Enoch and its Babylonian roots, Enoch and Wisdom, Enoch and the Temple, Sociological prole of Enoch, and Enoch and the Dead Sea Scrolls. This approach is very fruitful and allows for the presentation of contrasting opinions, but it makes the messiness of the evidence more acute. The results of the diachronic approach of Bedenbender to explain the relationship of Enoch and Torah, are contradicted by the synchronic approach of Nickelsburg, which only recognizes a very subdued presence of Mosaic Torah in the Books of Enoch. The comparison of Enoch with the Wisdom of Ben Sira leads Wright to see both as conicting, in polemic and opposition, while the comparison of Enoch with other wisdom compositions found

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at Qumran leads Tigchelaar to discover in all of them a common sort of wisdom and counter-wisdom, in spite of the different literary genres and styles. On both topics, thus, there is still much work to be done in the future. – More concordant are the results obtained by Koch (the addition of the Book of Dream Visions provides a balance to the Astronomical Book) and by Kvanvig (the inclusion of both the Book of the Watchers and of the Astronomical Book, gives the correct interpretation of the Apocalypse of Weeks). This is perhaps due to the fact that both authors are sensitive not only to the Babylonian roots of the materials, but to the nal form they have in the Books of Enoch. Also basically concordant are the analysis of the idea of the Temple by Suter and by Himnmelfarb, in spite of the global comparative approach of Suter which leads him to emphasize the eschatological Temple, and the differentiating analysis of the three compositions by Himmelfarb which guides her attention to the position regarding the historical temples. On these two topic a consensus of the scholars seems to have been reached, although of course issues can be more rened. – The two sociological analysis of the compositions are inconclusive. For Tiller the existence of a social group behind the Books of Enoch is extremely unlikely; for Piovanelli is also unlikely but not totally excluded, and he even qualies the Enochic priests as “shamanic practitioners.” No wonder that the two studies which focus on the relationship with other social groups reach opposite conclusions depending among other things on the different starting point. For Collins, the authors and tradents of the Books of Enoch are only related to the sect of the Dead Sea Scrolls insofar they, as many others, share a common apocalyptic worldview. For Boccaccini, on the contrary, the Enochians were a real social group which as such can genetically related to the other. Perhaps here lies the biggest challenge for the future: to verify the existence of a sociological community behind the literary compositions which are the Enochic works, or to disprove totally its existence and dismiss it as a scholarly construct. It is easier to assert the sociological reality behind the texts of the yahad and of the Damascus Documents, even if some scholars are skeptical about this reality, because we do have in the text rules that legislate for concrete communities. But for literary works, as 1 Enoch, Jubilees, or the Testaments of the XII Patriarchs,

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the assumption of a sociological group, not only of tradents of the compositions but of distinct people who may identify with the contents of these compositions, is less evident and much more problematic. Or should we accept the messiness and limits of the evidence also on this case and go on with the study of the compositions that we have and focus more on the ideas and the worldview they transmit and less on the shadowy people behind the texts?

ENOCH AND THE ENOCH TRADITION: A BIBLIOGRAPHY, 2000–PRESENT* James Waddell University of Michigan, United States Adler, William. “A Dead-End in the Enoch Trajectory: A Response to Andrei Orlov.” In Enoch and the Messiah Son of Man: Revisiting the Parables of Enoch, ed. Gabriele Boccaccini (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007) 137–142. Alexander, Philip S. “The Enochic Literature and the Bible: Intertexuality and Its Implications.” In The Bible as Book: The Hebrew Bible and the Judaean Desert Discoveries, ed. Edward D. Herbert and Emanuel Tov (London: British Library, 2002) 57–69. ——. “Enoch and the Beginnings of Jewish Interest in Natural Science.” In The Wisdom Texts from Qumran and the Development of Sapiential Thought, ed. Charlotte Hempel, et al. (Leuven: Leuven University, 2002) 223–243. Anderson, Jeff S. “Two-Way Instruction and Covenantal Theology in the Epistle of Enoch.” Hen 28 (2006) 125–140. ——. The Internal Diversication of Second Temple Judaism (Lanham: University Press of America, 2002). Arbel, Daphna V. “Seal of Resemblance, Full of Wisdom, and Perfect in Beauty: The Enoch-Metatron Narrative of 3 Enoch and Ezechiel 28.” HTR 98 (2005) 121–142. Arcari, Luca. “A Symbolic Transformation of an Historical Event: The Parthian Invasion in Josephus and the Parables of Enoch.” In Enoch and the Messiah Son of Man: Revisiting the Parables of Enoch, ed. Gabriele Boccaccini (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007) 478–486. ——. “A proposito dell’esistenza di una tradizione sul Figlio dell’Uomo tra giudaismo del periodo ellenistico-romano e proto-cristianesimo.” Materia Giudaica 11 (2006) 239–250. ——. “Il Nachleben del testo greco di 1 Enoc in alcuni scritti del cristianesimo antico: è esistita una traduzione greca di 1 Enoc?” Materia Giudaica 10 (2005) 57–72. ——. “[On] G. Boccaccini, Oltre l’ipotesi essenica [2003].” Materia Giudaica 8 (2003) 407–413. ——. “Il vocabolario della conoscenza nel testo greco del Libro dei Vigilanti: per una denizione del Sitz im Leben della versione greca di 1 Enoc.” Materia Giudaica 8 (2003) 95–104. ——. “Intorno al concetto di genere letterario apocalittico: osservazioni di merito.” Hen 24 (2002) 343–353. Argall, Randal A. “Competing Wisdoms: 1 Enoch and Sirach.” In The Origins of Enochic Judaism, ed. Gabriele Boccaccini (Turin: Zamorani, 2002) [= Hen 24 (2002)] 169–178.

* The present bibliography includes major works on Enoch published after the year 2000; for earlier works see the bibliographies of G. W. E. Nickelsbug (2001), L. DiTommaso (2001), J. H. Ellens (2002), and J. von Ehrenkrook (2007).

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——. “[On] G. Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis [1998].” ASE 19 (2002) 503– 506. ——. “Ethos and Identity in Jewish Apocalyptic Literature.” In Ethos und Identität, ed. Matthias Konradt (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2002) 51–65. ——. “Enoch, Books of.” In Dictionary of New Testament Backgrounds, ed. Craig A. Evans and Stanley Porter (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2000) 313–318. Dacy, Marianne. “Paradise Lost: The Fallen Angels in the Book of Enoch.” Australian Journal of Jewish Studies 17 (2003) 51–65. Davies, Philip R. “And Enoch was not, for Genesis Took Him.” In Biblical Traditions in Transmission, ed. Michael A. Knibb, et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2006) 97–107. Davila, James R. The Provenance of the Pseudepigrapha: Jewish, Christian, or Other? (Leiden: Brill, 2005). ——. “The Animal Apocalypse and Daniel.” In Enoch and Qumran Origins: New Light on a Forgotten Connection, ed. Gabriele Boccaccini (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005) 35–38. Denis, Albert-Marie (ed.), Introduction à la littérature religieuse judéo-hellénistique (2 vols.; Turnhour: Brepols, 2000). Dimant, Devorah. “1 Enoch 6–11: A Fragment of a Parabiblical Work.” JJS 53.2 (2002) 223–237. Dingman, Terry William. The Inuence of the Angelology of 1 Enoch on Judaism in the Second Temple Period (diss., University of South Africa, 2002). DiTommaso, Lorenzo. “1 (Ethiopic Apocalypse of) Enoch.” A Bibliography of Pseudepigrapha Research, 1850–1999 (Shefeld: Shefeld Academic, 2001) 355–430. Dubovsky, Peter. “Cosmology in 1 Enoch.” Archív Orientální 68.2 (2000) 205–218. Ego, Beate. “Vergangenheit im Horizont eschatologischer Hoffnung: die Tiervision (1 Hen 85–90) als Beispiel apokalyptischer Geschichtskonzeption.” In Die antike Historiographie und die Anfänge der christlichen Geschichtsschreibung, ed. Eve-Marie Becker (Berlin: deGruyter, 2005) 171–195. Ehrenkrook, Jason von. “The Parables of Enoch and the Messiah Son of Man: A Bibliography, 1773–2006.” In Enoch and the Messiah Son of Man: Revisiting the Parables of Enoch, ed. Gabriele Boccaccini (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007) 513–539. Elior, Rachel. “Enoch Son of Jared and the Solar Calendar of the Priesthood in Qumran.” In Von Enoch bis Kafka, ed. Manfred Voigts (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2002) 25–42. Ellens, J. Harold. “[Enoch] Bibliography.” In The Origins of Enochic Judaism, ed. Gabriele Boccaccini (Turin: Zamorani, 2002) [= Hen 24 (2002)] 235–254. ——. and Florentino García Martínez, “Enochians and Zadokites.” In The Origins of Enochic Judaism, ed. Gabriele Boccaccini (Turin: Zamorani, 2002) [= Hen 24 (2002)] 147–153. Elliott, Mark. “Covenant and Cosmology in the Book of the Watchers and the Astronomical Book.” In The Origins of Enochic Judaism, ed. Gabriele Boccaccini (Turin: Zamorani, 2002) [= Hen 24 (2002)] 23–38. ——. “Origins and Functions of the Watchers Theodicy.” In The Origins of Enochic Judaism, ed. Gabriele Boccaccini (Turin: Zamorani, 2002) [= Hen 24 (2002)] 63–75. ——. The Survivors of Israel: A Reconsideration of the Theology of Pre-Christian Judaism (Grand Rapids: Eeerdmans, 2000). Eshel, Esther. “New fragments from Qumran : 4QGen(f), 4QIsa(b), 4Q226, 8QGen, and XQpapEnoch.” DSD 12 (2005) 134–57. Eshel, Esther—Eshel, Hanan. “Toponymic Midrash in 1 Enoch and in Other Second Temple Jewish Literature.” In The Origins of Enochic Judaism, ed. Gabriele Boccaccini (Turin: Zamorani, 2002) [= Hen 24 (2002)] 115–130. Eshel, Hanan. “An Allusion in the Parables of Enoch to the Acts of Matthias Antigonus in 40 BCE?” in Enoch and the Messiah Son of Man: Revisiting the Parables of Enoch, ed. Gabriele Boccaccini (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007) 487–491.

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——. “Dibre Hame’orot” and the Apocalypse of Weeks.” In Things Revealed: Studies in Early Jewish and Christian Literature, ed. Esther G. Chazon, et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2004) 149–154. Flint, Peter W. “Non-Canonical Writings in the Dead Sea Scrolls: Apocrypha, Other Previously Known Writings, Pseudepigrapha.” In The Bible at Qumran: Text, Shape, Interpretation, ed. Peter W. Flint (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001). Fröhlich, Ida. “The Parables of Enoch and Qumran Literature.” In Enoch and the Messiah Son of Man: Revisiting the Parables of Enoch, ed. Gabriele Boccaccini (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007) 343–351. ——. “From Pseudepigraphic to Sectarian.” RevQ 21.3 (2004) 395–406. Furuli, Rolf—Terje G. Simonsen, Enokc Bok (Trondheim, Bokklubbene, 2004). Gieschen, Charles A. “The Name of the Son of Man in the Parables of Enoch.” In Enoch and the Messiah Son of Man: Revisiting the Parables of Enoch, ed. Gabriele Boccaccini (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007) 238–249. Gil, Moshe. “The Ethiopic Book of Enoch Reconsidered.” Related Worlds: Studies in Jewish and Arab Ancient and Early Medieval History (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004). Grabbe, Lester L. “The Parables of Enoch in Second Temple Jewish Society.” In Enoch and the Messiah Son of Man: Revisiting the Parables of Enoch, ed. Gabriele Boccaccini (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007) 386–402. ——. Judaic Religion in the Second Temple Period: Belief and Practice from the Exile to Yavneh (London: Routledge, 2000). Gruenwald, Ithamar. “The Cultural Setting of Enoch-Apocalypticism: New Reections.” In The Origins of Enochic Judaism, ed. Gabriele Boccaccini (Turin: Zamorani, 2002) [= Hen 24 (2002)] 213–223. Hannah, Darrell D. “The Book of Noah, the Death of Herod the Great, and the Date of the Parables of Enoch.” In Enoch and the Messiah Son of Man: Revisiting the Parables of Enoch, ed. Gabriele Boccaccini (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007) 469–477. ——. “The Throne of His Glory: The Divine Throne and Heavenly Mediators in Revelation and the Similitudes of Enoch.” ZNW 94 (2003) 68–96. Hempel, Charlotte. “[On] G. Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis [1998].” JTS 53 (2002) 161–165. Henze, Matthias. “The Parables of Enoch in Second Temple Literature: A Response to Gabriele Boccaccini.” In Enoch and the Messiah Son of Man: Revisiting the Parables of Enoch, ed. Gabriele Boccaccini (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007) 290–298. ——. “Enoch’s Dream Visions and the Visions of Daniel Reexamined.” In Enoch and Qumran Origins: New Light on a Forgotten Connection, ed. Gabriele Boccaccini (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005) 17–22. Hessayon, Ariel. “Og, re di Basan, Enoc e i libri di Enoc: testi non canonici e interpretazioni di Genesi 6,1–4.” RSLR 41.2 (2005) 249–295. Himmelfarb, Martha. “The Book of the Watchers and the Priests of Jerusalem.” In The Origins of Enochic Judaism, ed. Gabriele Boccaccini (Turin: Zamorani, 2002) [= Hen 24 (2002)] 131–135. Horsley, Richard. “Social Relations and Social Conict in the Epistle of Enoch.” In For a Later Generation: The Transformations of Tradition in Israel, Early Judaism, and Early Christianity, ed. Randall A. Argall, et al. (Harrisburg: Trinity, 2000) 100–115. Horst, Pieter Willem van der. “Antediluvian Knowledge: Jewish Speculations about Wisdom from before the Flood in Their Ancient Context.” In Jüdische Schriften in ihrem antik-jüdischen und urchristlichen Kontext, ed. Hermann Lichtenberger and Gerbern S. Oegema (Gütersloh: Gütersloher, 2002) 163–181. Isaac, Ephraim. “Enoch and the Archangel Michael.” In The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Vol 2: The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Qumran Community, ed. James H. Charlesworth (Waco: Baylor University, 2006) 363–375. ——. “Textual problems in 4QEnoch.” In The Dead Sea Scrolls Fifty Years after Their Discovery, ed. Lawrence H. Schiffman, et al. (Israel: Exploration Society, 2000) 426–433.

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——. The Enoch-Metatron Tradition (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005). ——. “Overshadowed by Enoch’s greatness; ‘two tablets’ traditions from the ‘Book of Giants’ to ‘Palaea Historica’.” JSJ 32.2 (2001) 137–158. Pearson, Birger A. “Parallel Paths to Heaven: Enoch & Jesus.” Bible Review 19.2 (2003) 25–31, 50. ——. “Enoch in Egypt.” In For a Later Generation: The Transformations of Tradition in Israel, Early Judaism, and Early Christianity, ed. Randall A. Argall, et al. (Harrisburg: Trinity, 2000) 216–231. Piovanelli, Pierluigi. “A Testimony for the Kings and the Mighty Who Possess the Earth: The Thirst for Justice and Peace in the Parables of Enoch.” In Enoch and the Messiah Son of Man: Revisiting the Parables of Enoch, ed. Gabriele Boccaccini (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007) 363–379. ——. “A Theology of the Supernatural in the Book of the Watchers? An African Perspective.” In The Origins of Enochic Judaism, ed. Gabriele Boccaccini (Turin: Zamorani, 2002) [= Hen 24 (2002)] 87–106. Poorthuis, Marcel J. H. M. “Enoch and Melchizedek in Judaism and Christianity: A Study in Intermediaries.” In Saints and Role Models in Judaism and Christianity, ed. Marcel Poorthuis, et al. (Leiden: Brill: 2004) 97–120. Reed, Annette Yoshiko. Fallen Angels and the History of Judaism and Christianity: The Reception of Enochic Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 2005). ——. “The Textual Identity, Literary History, and Social Setting of 1 Enoch: Reections on George Nickelsburg’s Commentary on 1 Enoch 1–36; 81–108.” Archiv für Religionsgeschichte 5.1 (2002) 276–296. ——. “What the Fallen Angels Taught: The Reception-History of the Book of the Watchers in Judaism and Christianity” (diss., Princeton University, 2002). ——. “From Asael and Semihazah to Uzzah, Azzah, and Azael; 3 Enoch 5 (par. 7–8) and Jewish reception-history of 1 Enoch.” JSQ 8.2 (2001) 105–136. Ruffatto, Kristine J. “Polemics with Enochic Traditions in the Exagoge of Ezekiel the Tragedian.” JSP 15.3 (2006) 195–210. Ruiten, Jacques T. A. G. M. van. “A Literary Dependency of ‘Jubilees’ on ‘1 Enoch’? A Reassessment of a Thesis of J.C. VanderKam.” Hen 26.2 (2004) 205–209. ——. “The Creation of Man and Woman in Early Jewish Literature.” In The Creation of Man and Woman, ed. Gerard P. Luttikhuizen (Leiden: Brill, 2000) 34–62. Sacchi, Paolo. “The 2005 Camaldoli Seminar on the Parables of Enoch: Summary and Prospects for Future Research.” In Enoch and the Messiah Son of Man: Revisiting the Parables of Enoch, ed. Gabriele Boccaccini (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007) 499–512. ——. “Qumran and the Dating of the Parables of Enoch.” In The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Vol 2: The Dead Sea Scrolls and the Qumran Community, ed. James H. Charlesworth (Waco: Baylor University, 2006) 376–395. ——. “Qumran e la datazione del Libro delle Parabole di Enoc.” Hen 25 (2003) 149– 166. ——. “The Theology of Early Enochism and Apocalyptic; the Problem of the Relation between Form and Content of the Apocalypses; the Worldview of Apocalypses.” In The Origins of Enochic Judaism, ed. Gabriele Boccaccini (Turin: Zamorani, 2002) [= Hen 24 (2002)] 77–85. ——. “La teologia dell’enochismo antico e l’apocalittica.” Materia Giudaica 7.1 (2002) 7–13. ——. The History of the Second Temple Period ( JSOTSup; Shefeld: Shefeld Academic, 2000). Schmidt, Brian. “The Origins of Enoch Traditions: The Views from Outside.” In The Origins of Enochic Judaism, ed. Gabriele Boccaccini (Turin: Zamorani, 2002) [= Hen 24 (2002)] 49–53.

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345

Schreiber, Stefan. “Henoch als Menschensohn; zur problematischen Schlussidentikation in den Bilderreden des äthiopischen Henochbuches (äthHen 71,14).” ZNW 91.1–2 (2000) 1–17. Simonsen, Terje G. “Enok—den glemte profet.” In Rolf Furuli and Terje G. Simonsen, Enoks Bok (Trondheim: Bokklubbene, 2004) ix–lxxxviii. Stock-Hesketh, Jonathan. “Circles and Mirrors: Understanding 1 Enoch 21–32.” JSP 21 (2000) 27–58. Stone, Michael E. “Enoch’s Date in Limbo; or, Some Considerations on David Suter’s Analysis.” In Enoch and the Messiah Son of Man: Revisiting the Parables of Enoch, ed. Gabriele Boccaccini (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007) 444–449. ——. “The Book(s) Attributed to Noah.” DSD 13.1 (2006) 4–23. ——. “Pseudepigraphy Reconsidered.” Review of Rabbinic Judaism 9 (2006) 1–15. ——. Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha, and Armenian Studies: Collected Papers (Leuven: Peeterss, 2005). Stuckenbruck, Loren T. “The Parables of Enoch according to George Nickelsburg and Michael Knibb: A Summary and Discussion of Some Remaining Questions.” In Enoch and the Messiah Son of Man: Revisiting the Parables of Enoch, ed. Gabriele Boccaccini (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007) 65–71. ——. “Reading the Present in the Animal Apocalypse (1 Enoch 85–90).” In Reading the Present in the Qumran Library: The Perception of the Contemporary by Means of Scriptural Interpretations, ed. Kristin De Troyer, and Armin Lange (Atlanta: SBL, 2005) 91–102. ——. “[On] George W.E. Nickelsburg, ‘1 Enoch: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch’ (2001).” RBL 7 (2005) 1–12. ——. “Genesis 6:1–4 as the Basis for Divergent Readings during the Second Temple Period.” In The Origins of Enochic Judaism, ed. Gabriele Boccaccini (Turin: Zamorani, 2002) [= Hen 24 (2002)] 99–106]. ——. “4QInstruction and the Possible Inuence of Early Enochic Traditions: An Evaluation.” In The Wisdom Texts from Qumran and the Development of Sapiential Thought, ed. Charlotte Hempel, et al. (Leuven: Leuven University, 2002) 245–261. ——. “Daniel and Early Enoch Traditions in the Dead Sea Scrolls.” In The Book of Daniel, Composition and Reception, ed. John J. Collins and Peter W. Flint (Leiden: Brill, 2001) 2:368–386. ——. Portions of the Book of Giants (DJD 36; Oxford: Clarendon, 2000) 8–94. Suter, David W. “Enoch in Sheol: Updating the Dating of the Parables of Enoch.” In Enoch and the Messiah Son of Man: Revisiting the Parables of Enoch, ed. Gabriele Boccaccini (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007) 415–443. ——. “The Third Enoch Seminar (Camaldoli, Italy, June 2–6, 2005) and the Problem of Dating the Parables of Enoch.” Hen 28 (2006) 185–192. ——. “Why Galilee? Galilean Regionalism in the Interpretation of 1 Enoch 6–16.” Hen 25 (2003) 167–212. ——. “Revisiting Fallen Angel, Fallen Priest.” In The Origins of Enochic Judaism, ed. Gabriele Boccaccini (Turin: Zamorani, 2002) [= Hen 24 (2002)] 137–142. Tigchelaar, Eibert J. C. “Remarks on Transmission and Traditions in the Parables of Enoch: A Response to James VanderKam.” In Enoch and the Messiah Son of Man: Revisiting the Parables of Enoch, ed. Gabriele Boccaccini (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007) 100–109. ——. “Some Remarks on the Book of the Watchers, the Priests, Enoch and Genesis, and 4Q208.” In The Origins of Enochic Judaism, ed. Gabriele Boccaccini (Turin: Zamorani, 2002) [= Hen 24 (2002)] 143–145. ——. “[On] G. Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis [1998].” JSJ 31 (2000) 308– 311.

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Tiller, Patrick A. “The Sociological Context of the Dream Visions of Daniel and 1 Enoch.” In Enoch and Qumran Origins: New Light on a Forgotten Connection, ed. Gabriele Boccaccini (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005) 23–26. ——. “[On] G. W. E. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch [2001].” In George W. E. Nickelsburg in Perspective, ed. Jacob Neusner (Leiden: Brill, 2003) 2:365–372. Tite, Philip L. “Textual and redactional aspects of the Book of Dreams (1 Enoch 83–90).” Biblical Theology Bulletin 31.3 (2001) 106–120. VanBeek, Lawrence. “First Enoch among Jews and Christians: A Fringe Connection?” In Christian-Jewish Relations through the Centuries, ed. Stanley E. Porter and Brook W. R. Pearson (Shefeld: Shefeld Academic, 2000). VanderKam, James C. “The Book of Parables within the Enoch Tradition.” In Enoch and the Messiah Son of Man: Revisiting the Parables of Enoch, ed. Gabriele Boccaccini (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007) 81–99. ——. “1 Enoch 80 within the Book of the Luminaries.” In From 4QMMT to Resurrection, ed. Florentino García Martínez, et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2006) 333–355. ——. “Daniel 7 in the Similitudes of Enoch (1 Enoch 37–71).” In Biblical Traditions in Transmission, ed. Charlotte Hempel and Judith M. Lieu (Leiden: Brill, 2006) 291–307. ——. “Open and Closed Eyes in the Animal Apocalypse (1 Enoch 85–90).” In The Idea of Biblical Interpretation (Festschrift James L. Kugel), ed. James L. Kugel, et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2004) 279–292. ——. “Scripture in the Astronomical Book of Enoch.” In Things Revealed: Studies in Early Jewish and Christian Literature, ed. Esther G. Chazon, et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2004) 89–103. ——. “Enoch’s Vision of the Next World.” Bible Review 19.2 (2003) 32–36, 46–48. ——. “The Interpretation of Genesis in 1 Enoch.” In The Bible at Qumran: Text, Shape, Interpretation, ed. Peter W. Flint, and Tae Hun Kim (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001). ——. An Introduction to Early Judaism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001). ——. From Revelation to Canon: Studies in the Hebrew Bible and Second Temple Literature (Leiden: Brill, 2000). VanPeursen, Wido Th. “Qumran Origins: Some Remarks on the Enochic/Essene Hypothesis.” RevQ 78 (2001) 241–253. Vegas Montaner, Luis. “Tradiciones de Henoc en la literatura rabínica.” Miscelánea de Estudios Árabes y Hebraicos [Sección de Hebreo] 53 (2004) 509–533. Venter, Pieter M. “Spatiality in the Second Parable of Enoch.” In Enoch and the Messiah Son of Man: Revisiting the Parables of Enoch, ed. Gabriele Boccaccini (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007) 403–412. ——. “Spatiality in Enoch’s Journeys.” In Wisdom and Apocalypticism in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the Biblical Tradition, ed. Florentino García Martínez (Leuven: Peeters, 2003) 211–230. ——. “The Connection between Wisdom Literature, Apocalypses, and Canon.” Old Testament Essays 15.2 (2002) 470–488. ——. “Die funksie van ruimte in die reisverhale in 1 Henog 12–36.” Hervormde Teologiese Studies 56 (2000) 38–62. Wacholder, Ben Zion. “Calendar Wars between the 364 and the 365–day year.” RevQ 20.2 (2001) 207–222. Wacker, Marie-Theres. “Rettendes Wissen im äthiopischen Henochbuch,’ in Rettendes Wissen, ed. Karl Löning (Münster: Ugarit, 2002) 115–154. Walck, Leslie. “The Son of Man in the Parables of Enoch and the Gospels.” In Enoch and the Messiah Son of Man: Revisiting the Parables of Enoch, ed. Gabriele Boccaccini (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007) 299–337. Wright, Archie T. “Evil Spirits in Second Temple Judaism: the Watcher Tradition as a Background to the Demonic Pericopes in the Gospels.” Hen 28.1 (2006) 141–159.

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347

Wright, Benjamin G. “The Structure of the Parables of Enoch: A Response to George Nickelsburg and Michael Knibb.” In Enoch and the Messiah Son of Man: Revisiting the Parables of Enoch, ed. Gabriele Boccaccini (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007) 72–78. ——. “Ben Sira and the Book of the Watchers on the Legitimate Priesthood.” In Intertextual Studies in Ben Sira and Tobit, ed. Jeremy Corley and Vincent Skemp (Washington: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 2005) 241–254. ——. “Wisdom, Instruction, and Social Location in Sirach and 1 Enoch.” In Things Revealed: Studies in Early Jewish and Christian Literature, ed. Esther G. Chazon, et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2004) 105–121. ——. “Sirach and 1 Enoch: Some Further Considerations.” In The Origins of Enochic Judaism, ed. Gabriele Boccaccini (Turin: Zamorani, 2002) [= Hen 24 (2002)] 179–187. Yarbro Collins, Adela. “The Secret Son of Man in the Parables of Enoch and the Gospel of Mark: A Response to Leslie Walck.” In Enoch and the Messiah Son of Man: Revisiting the Parables of Enoch, ed. Gabriele Boccaccini (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007) 338–342. ——. “The Theology of Early Enoch Literature.” In The Origins of Enochic Judaism, ed. Gabriele Boccaccini (Turin: Zamorani, 2002) [= Hen 24 (2002)] 107–112.

INDEX OF AUTHORS Adler, W. 23, 34, 42, 302 Ahlström, G. 201 Al-Rawi, F. N. H. 157 Albani, M. 104, 121, 124, 142, 147, 148 Alexander, P. 147, 214, 261, 269, 280 Anderson, J. S. 302 Argall, R. A. 84, 161, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 172, 254, 273 Aune, D. 144 Bagnall, R. S. 238, 239 Baillet, M. 60, 61 Baltzer, K. 91 Barker, M. 81, 88 Barr, J. 27, 33 Bartelmus, R. 156, 253 Bartlett, J. R. 69 Bauckham, R. 258 Bautch, K. C. 68, 270, 315 Beall, T. S. 285 Becker, M. 277 Beckwith, R. T. 95, 233 Bedenbender, A. 66, 74, 75, 77, 78, 81, 85–87, 88, 93, 143, 272, 297, 329, 333 Ben-Dov, J. 95 Bergmeier, R. 286 Beyer, K. 56, 60, 61, 135, 150, 151, 262 Bezold, C. 115 Bickerman, E. 240, 241 Bidez, J. 115 Bienkowski, P. 148 Black, M. 33, 41, 199, 200, 203, 207, 208 Blenkinsopp, J. 69, 106 Bloch, M. 303, 308 Bloomquist, L. G. 265 Boccaccini, G. 10–15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 78, 81, 86, 88, 101, 113, 114, 116, 143, 144, 161, 164, 165, 166, 197, 261, 264, 265, 270, 272, 280, 284, 291, 292, 294, 296, 297, 298, 301, 308, 315, 316, 317, 318, 319, 320, 322, 325, 332, 334 Boll, F. 115

Bonner, C. 35, 42 Borger, R. 141 Bouriant, U. 42 Bourqin, Y. 258, 269 Boyce, M. 125 Brin, G. 95 Brooke, G. J. 293 Brown, J. P. 281 Bryan, D. 253 Burstein, S. M. 149 Butler, S. A. L. 157 Cagni, L. 99 Calduch-Benages, N. 188 Camp, C. V. 170 Carroll, R. P. 16, 281 Carey, G. 265 Cerutti, D. 109 Charles, R. H. 1, 2, 140, 197, 329 Charlesworth, J. H. 319, 321 Chialà, S. 321 Clay, A. T. 96 Clements, R. A. 298 Coblentz Bautch, K. 266 Collins, J. J. 75, 92, 93, 120, 141, 143, 144, 145, 146, 159, 160, 177, 178, 260, 265, 270, 276, 279, 284, 285, 287, 288, 290, 292, 293, 297, 298, 302, 312, 313, 315, 317, 323, 324, 332 Cook, S. L. 258 Cross, F. M. 7, 286, 288, 306 Cryer, F. 96 Chyutin, M. 211 Cumont, F. 115, 126 Dalley, S. 149 Davies, P. R. 154, 276, 283, 287, 289, 290, 291, 307, 308, 313 Davila, J. R. 279, 280, 302, 322, 325 Delcor, M. 287 Delitzsch, F. 99 Denis, A.-M. 22, 33, 36 Dexinger, F. 154 Di Lella, A. A. 188 Dickie, M. W. 277 Dimant, D. 49, 52, 59, 228, 229, 230, 231, 233, 283

350

index of authors

Dix, G. H. 59 Doudna, G. 57 Dozeman, T. B. 99 Drawnel, H. 185 Dupont-Sommer, A. 284 Ehrman, B. D. 257 Elgvin, T. 177, 179, 180, 183, 302 Eliade, M. 198 Elliot, M. 270 Epping, J. 104 Eshel, E. 24, 43, 54, 95, 185, 263, 264 Eshel, H. 24, 43, 54, 263, 264 Ferrer, J. 188 Flusser, D. 317, 318, 320 Foss, S. K. 259 Fraade, S. 174, 307 Frei, P. 131 Freyne, S. 281 Fusella, L. 116 García Martínez, F. 25, 31, 56, 57, 58, 60, 141, 150, 151, 153, 199, 201, 205, 208, 216, 283, 290, 291, 307 Garin, E. 303 George, A. R. 157 Gianotto, C. 302 Gillet-Didier, V. 95, 101 Gitlauber, M. 42 Glasson, T. F. 270 Glessmer, U. 104, 121 Goff, M. 159, 172, 177, 178, 179, 180 Goldammer, K. 281 Goodman, M. 284, 302 Grabbe, L. 69, 175, 254, 255, 257, 279, 280 Greeneld, J. C. 18–19, 59, 148, 185 Grelot, P. 141, 269, 283 Gruenwald, I. 120, 260 Gundel, H. G. 125 Gundel, W. 115, 125 Hanson, P. D. 7–10, 15, 16, 140, 263 Harrington, D. J. 91, 159, 179, 181, 183, 187, 188 Hartman, L. 266, 274 Haussig, H. W. 125 Hayes, C. 226 Hellholm, D. 143, 144 Hengel, M. 7, 283, 286, 287 Henning, W. B. 59

Himmelfarb, M. 70, 90, 171, 173, 174, 198, 202, 204, 215, 217, 220, 222, 224, 226, 227, 331, 334 Hempel, C. 289 Hölscher, G. 140 Horrel, D. G. 260 Horsley, R. A. 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 252, 254, 281 Hughes, J. 109 Hultkrantz, Å. 279 Hunger, H. 122, 124 Hunt, A. S. 42 Jackson, D. R. 302, 307, 310, 324 Jansen, H. 141 Jaubert, A. 100 Jellinek, A. 317 Jenkins, P. 257 Jeremias, G. 288 Jong, M. de 233 Kaiser, O. 106 Kampen, J. 224, 287 Kapelrud, A. V. 281 Kelsey, N. 277 Kirk, G. S. 153 Kister, M. 178, 183, 186 Klawans, J. 228 Klutz, T. E. 277 Knibb, M. A. 21, 22, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 31, 33, 36, 38, 39, 41, 57, 62, 120, 121, 134, 139, 151, 197, 227, 231, 260, 270, 271, 290, 329, 333 Knierim, R. 105 Koch, K. 119, 121, 124, 125, 127, 128, 131, 140, 141, 142, 143, 146, 147, 152, 269, 310, 330, 334 Koch-Westenholz, U. 122, 124, 125 Kugler, F. X. 104 Kugler, R. A. 225 Kurtz, M. R. 240 Kvanvig, H. 120, 121, 124, 125, 141, 147, 148, 151, 152, 156, 157, 259, 266, 271, 273, 303, 310, 330, 334 Lambert, W. G. 148 Landau, Y. H. 251 Langdon, S. 98 Lange, A. 159, 178, 183 Larson, E. W. 41 Lategan, B. C. 92 Laurence, R. 139 Lesses, R. 277

351

index of authors Liesen, J. 188 Lim, T. 35 Lipinski, E. 264 Liverani, M. 109 Lods, A. 42 Lücke, F. 139, 141 Mach, M. 125, 127 Mack, B. L. 246 Magness, J. 285 Maier, J. 197, 214, 215, 216, 222 Mair, A. W. 133 Mair, G. R. 133 Malina, B. J. 258, 275 Manns, F. 117 Marcus, R. 240 Marguerat, D. 258, 269 Martone, C. 95, 101, 109, 110, 302 Mazzinghi, L. 273 Mendels, D. 197, 210, 211 Mercier, J. 278 Meyer, M. 277 Meyer, W. R. 99 Meyers, C. 215 Middendorp, T. 245 Milik, J. T. 18, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 29, 30, 31, 33, 34, 35, 36, 39, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 120, 121, 123, 135, 142, 150, 151, 154, 201, 208, 262, 269, 286, 288 Millard, A. 148 Mirecki, P. 277 Muro, E. A. 43 Murphy-O’Connor, J. 288, 289, 290, 291, 293, 307 Mosshammer, A. A. 34, 42 Najman, H. 94 Nebe, G.-W. 43 Newsom, C. 221 Nickelsburg, G. 20, 22, 28, 30, 31, 36, 36, 37, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 54, 57, 62, 65, 66, 70, 71, 75, 76, 77, 79, 81, 82, 83, 86, 87, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 120, 121, 126, 129, 130, 131, 134, 135, 136, 139, 144, 145, 146, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 161, 162, 163, 166, 167, 184, 185, 191, 192, 193, 196, 199, 200, 203, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 209, 213, 214, 220, 221, 222, 223, 224, 226, 228, 230, 231, 232, 233, 234, 253, 254, 259, 260, 261,

263, 264, 265, 267, 269, 272, 274, 275, 276, 279, 287, 297, 302, 306, 307, 310, 311, 315, 318, 319, 330, 333 Niditch, S. 280 Nir, R. 259 Noth, M. 97 Olyan, S. 170, 313 Olson, D. 53, 54 Orlov, A. A. 191 Osten-Sacken, P. von der Otzen, B. 214

141

Pettinato, G. 99, 107 Peursen, W. van 265 Pfann, S. 54 Pingree, D. 122, 124 Piovanelli, P. 259, 260, 277, 278, 280, 302, 332 Pixner, B. 321 Plöger, O. 3–6, 7, 8, 10, 15, 16, 140, 287 Pomykala, K. E. 71, 154 Puech, É. 31, 35, 43, 50, 56, 60, 61, 62, 181 Qimron, E.

226

Rad, G. von 73, 141, 159, 201 Reade, J. 109 Reeves, J. C. 49, 59, 60, 61, 302 Regev, E. 302, 312, 316, 317 Rendtorf, R. 106 Riesner, R. 321 Robbins, V. K. 259, 266, 332 Rooke, D. W. 69 Rowley, H. H. 140 Russell, D. S. 140 Sacchi, P. 95, 97, 101, 107, 112, 143, 152, 154, 261, 276, 291, 302, 312, 316, 317, 319, 323, 326, 330, 333 Saldarini, A. 169 Sanders, E. P. 305 Sanders, J. T. 91, 92, 246 Schäfer, P. 277 Schaper, J. 69 Schiaparelli, G. 104 Schiffman 182, 206, 212, 215, 309 Schmid, H. H. 99 Schmid, K. 99 Schmidt, J. M. 139, 140, 141

352

index of authors

Schuller, E. 181 Schürer, E. 242 Schwartz, D. 309, 310 Schwartz, S. 302 Scott, J. M. 270 Skjaervø, O. 59 Smith, J. Z. 169 Smith, M. 286 Smith, R. 277 Stadelmann, H. 170 Steck, O. 17, 18 Stegemann E. 257 Stegemann, H. 50, 286, 287, 288, 289, 292, 293 Stegemann W. 257 Sterling, G. E. 298 Stock-Heskith, J. 269 Stol, M. 157 Stone, M. E. 18–19, 59, 83, 159, 161, 165, 166, 169, 175, 185, 263 Strassmaier, J. N. 104 Strobel, A. 95 Strugnell, J. 91, 159, 179, 181, 183, 187, 188, 226 Stuckenbruck, L. 27, 30, 31, 45, 49, 50, 56, 59, 60, 61, 62, 177, 329, 333 Sukenik, E. 284 Sundermann, W. 59 Sutcliffe, E. F. 293 Suter, D. W. 20, 70, 120, 156, 175, 196, 203, 204, 223, 224, 226, 253, 260, 263, 264, 278, 319, 331, 334 Taylor, J. E. 240, 251 Tcherikover, V. 240 Testuv, M. 317 Tigchelaar, E. 25, 31, 57, 58, 159, 177, 179, 180, 181, 183, 187, 188, 189, 190, 199, 223, 260, 262, 331, 334

Tiller, P. A. 120, 130, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 228, 231, 252, 253, 254, 260, 331, 334 Tov, E. 46, 50 Troiani, L. 115 Tufn, P. 23, 34, 42 Uhlig, S. 36, 37, 38, 40, 41, 120, 132 Ullendorf, E. 38 VanderKam, J. 69, 82, 95, 114, 117, 119, 120, 121, 126, 141, 145, 146, 150, 154, 174, 253, 260, 261, 269, 271, 274, 297, 299, 302, 303, 319, 329, 333 Vaux, Roland de 284 Veltri, G. 277 Venter, P. M. 264 Vermes, G. 284, 285 Villiers, P. G. R. de 83, 92, 93 Wacholder, B. Z. 95 Wacker, M.-T. 266 Waerden, B. L. van der 97, 102, 104, 121 Whitley, C. F. 105 Wilkens, J. 59 Wischmeyer, O. 246 Wise, M. O. 288 Woude, A. van der 290, 291, 307 Wright, B. G. 165, 167, 168, 170, 171, 172, 173, 178, 254, 263, 273, 302, 313, 330 Wyatt, N. 153 Yadin, Y. 213 Yoshiko Reed, A. 45, 222, 231, 302 Youtie, H. C. 42

INDEX OF PASSAGES Hebrew Bible Genesis 1 1–9 1–11 1:1–19 1:2 1:3 1:20–31 1:28 1:31 2–3 2:4–3:24 2:8–9 2:19–20 3 4:1–16 4:10 5:18–6:4 5:21–24 5:23 5:24 6 6:1–4 6:5 6:5–9:17 6:9 6:12 7–8 7:11 7:17 8:4 8:5 8:14 9:4–6 16:12 17:1 28 43:2 Exodus 3:12 13:4 15:25–26 15:18–19:21 20–24

11, 68, 82, 132 272 65, 68 271 124 124 271 85 68 88 81 271 271 271 271 67, 81 46 72–73, 272 73, 120, 122 73, 81 68 11, 20, 68, 72, 81, 88, 271, 310 68 272 73 56 112 112 112 112 112 112 75 130 73 124, 201 275 88 107 100 83 91 83

24:7 26:1 26:31 32:11–14 33:12–16 34:9 36:8 36:35 37:6–9 40:34–38

249 220 220 89 89 89 220 220 220 206

Leviticus 11 12–15 12:4 18 19:19 19:31 20 20:6 20:7 21:1 21:4 21:7 21:14 21:15

130 227 227 227 225 273 227 273 273 224 224 224 224, 225 224

Numbers 3:10 3:38 16 16:31–35 18:7 24:15–17

222 222 70 129 222 82

Deuteronomy 4:19 6:5 18:10–11 23:19 26:5 32:28–29 32:29 33 33:1 33:1–3

20 115 171 273 221 272 184 184 75, 76, 274 65, 274 82, 273

354 33:2 33:2–3 33:4

index of passages 65, 75, 199, 273, 274 274 249

1 Samuel 13:1 17:43

110 130

2 Samuel 7:14 12:1–4 20:26

110 131 69

1 Kings 6–7 6:1 6:23–28 6:29 6:32 6:35 6:37 6:38 7:40 7:45 7:48 7:51 8:2 8:10 8:11 8:19 8:28–30 8:63 8:64 19:34 20:6

210 100 220 220 220 220 221 100 221 221 221 221 100 221 221 110 200 221 221 110 110

2 Kings 12–12 16:10–16 25:26

69 69 112

Isaiah 6 7:16 8:2 11 11:1 19:11 19:11–13 19:12 24–26 24–27 24:16

70, 221 105 69 82 106 182, 192 186 192 5, 16 4,9 273

26:7–18 26:11–12 26:21 27 30:26 40–55 43:35 44:6 44:7 46:10 47:10–14 54:11–12 56–66 60–62 63:11–12 65:15–16 66:16 Jeremiah 8:7 8:8 15:1 23:5 25:30 25:31 41:5 50:17 Ezekiel 1:1 1:1–2 1:1–3:11 1:14 1:15–21 1:17 1–2 3:23 3:15–16 8:1 10 10:15–16 20 20:1 20:13 20:25–26 24:1 26:1 28 28:8 28:9 29:1 29:17

5 6 273 5 19 90, 114, 230 115 115 115 115 186, 191 206 8, 9, 230 9 91 193 274 192 182, 192 91 108 273 273, 274 65 130 11, 17, 100, 107, 110, 114, 203, 214, 230, 314 102, 105 105 197 273 220 105 81, 90 197 102 103 106 197 106 102 106 106 102 103 186 182 182 103 102

355

index of passages 30:20 31:1 32:1 32:17 33:21 34:23–24 37:25–26 38–39 40–42 40–46 40–48 40:1 43:3

102 103 103 103 103 108 108 248 210 221 90, 198, 211, 213 103 197

132 134

221 221

Proberbs 1 1:2–5 1:4 1:22 1:22–33 1:23 1:25 1:30 8

11, 91 189 188 188 188 188 188, 189 188 188 162

Hosea 12:14

105

Job 5:13 38

11, 164 181 161

Joel 2:1–11 3–4

4, 5 258 258

Qohelet

11, 13, 164, 273

Daniel

1, 3, 5, 7, 10, 14, 27, 113, 116, 139, 140, 142, 143, 183, 250, 254, 255, 269, 287, 291, 296, 298 15, 82, 132, 221 145 130, 132 221 131 95, 113, 117 132 15 136 131 6

Amos 1–2 2:6–8

105 249

Jonah

19

Micah 1:3 1:3–4 1:4

65, 75, 76, 273 20, 273, 274 274

Habakkuk 3:3

273

Zechariah 1–6 1–8 2:3–5 9–14 9–10 11–14 14–14

230 90 258 206 9 9 9 4, 5, 6, 16

Psalms 2 11:4 27 68:5 68:24 104:3 104:4 104:13 122

82 199 221 105 105 206 127 206 221

7 7–12 7:4 7:9–10 7:13 7:25 8:5 9 9:24 10:12 12 Ezra 7:6 7:28 9 10:35 13:31

4, 5, 11, 17, 224 174 174 17 241 241

Nehemiah

4, 5, 11, 17, 112, 224 17 239 239 239 239 239

1 2:19 4:3 4:7 6:1 6:14

356 6:17–19 9 13:28–29

index of passages 239 17 228

Chronicles 1 Chr 28:11 2 Chr 5:27–41 2 Chr 3:9

4, 6, 11, 17, 313 206 69 206

New Testament Mark 10:2–11

89

John

139, 257

1 Corinthians 11:10

276

Jude 14–15

33

Revelation 21 21:10–11 21:18–21 21:22

139, 269 208, 212 205 205 231

Apocrypha Tobit 13:15–18

17, 19, 92, 93, 94 206

Judith 4:8 11:14 15:8

241, 242 242 242 242

Wisdom of Solomon

92, 93, 94

Ben Sira

17, 90, 92, 93, 94, 160, 161, 163, 165, 167, 168, 169, 171, 172, 173, 175, 176, 189, 190, 210, 244, 246, 250, 251, 252, 254, 255, 273, 313, 331, 333 161 190 167 249 248 247 171 248 170, 248 247 248 170 248 248 245 248

1:3 1:9–10 3:22 4:1–10 4:7 7:14 7:29–31 8:1–2 8:8 8:9 8:14 9:17–10:5 10:1–2 10:3 10:4 10:19

10:19–25 10:24 13:9–11 13:26 15:5 16:24 16:24–18:14 16:25 17:17 21:5 23:24 24 24:1–3 24:1–22 24:1–33 24:8–12 24:23 24:23–31 24:30–34 24:33 25:4–5 31:12–24 32:3 32:9 33:16 34:1–8 34:11 34:24–27 35:12–20 35:18–19 36:1–17 36:3 36:9 36:11 36:13–14

248 248 248 248 247, 248 188 188 188, 189 245 249 247 85, 91, 168, 190, 246 206 249 249 249 249 249 175, 190, 249 248, 249 247 247 247 247 249 168 247 249 249 245 245 249 245 245 245

357

index of passages 37:23 38:24–34 38:24–39:11 38:32–33 38:24–39:4 38:32 38:32–33 38:34 39:1 39:1–2 39:1–3 39:4 39:5 39:6 39:7 39:8 39:16–35 39:22–31 39:23 39:30 42:24–25 43:1–22 43:1–26 44:15 44:16 44–50 45:1–5 45:5 45:15 45:16–17 45:17

170 170 169, 248 170 170 247 248 244 170 249 245 245 245 245 245 245 246 164 246 246 163 163 167 247 165 91 91 247 247 174 170, 247

45:25 46:23–24 47:8–10 47:13 48:17 50:2–4 50:13 50:18 50:20 50:24 [ Heb] 50:27 51:23

247 313 247 247 247 247 247 248 247 313 244 244

Baruch 4

92 85, 168

1 Maccabees 2:26 2:42 7 7:12–13 12:6 14:20

241, 242 314 16, 287 287 286 242 242

2 Maccabees 4:9–12 4:11 4:28 4:40 4:44 6:1 14:6

241, 242 117 241, 244 243 243, 251 241 117 287

Pseudepigraphpa Apocryphon of Ezekiel

34

2 Baruch

269

Book of Giants

34, 43, 48, 49, 52, 55, 59, 60–62, 63, 261, 262, 333

1 Enoch Book of the Watchers 11, 19, 20, 22, 26, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 41, 43, 45, 47, 48, 50, 61, 65, 68, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 92, 134, 142, 153, 160, 164, 171,

1 1:1 1:1–6 1:1–9 1:2 1:2–3 1:2–5:9 1:3 1:3–4

172, 174, 175, 186, 195, 196, 219, 220, 221, 223, 224, 226, 228, 232, 252, 254, 261, 262, 265, 269, 271, 272, 274, 276, 277, 278, 280, 330, 331 93 65, 82, 89, 135, 265 44 90 85, 266 82, 266 265 65 82, 199

358 1:3–9 1:4 1:4–9 1:5 1:9 5–5 1–16 1:1–32:6 36–36 1:6–7 1:9 2:1 2:1–2 2:1–5:3 2:1–5:6 2–5 2:17 2–5 5–10 5:4 5:5–9 5:6–9 5:8 5:8–9 6:1–7 6:1–8:4 6:1–9:4 6–11

6:1–11:4 6–13 6–16 6–36 6:2 6:4–6 6:4–8:1 6:5 6:7 6:7–8 6:8 7:1 7:1–8:4 7:2–6 7:5 7:6 7:7–8:4 8–9

index of passages 89, 273 75, 200, 268 267 65 65 44, 45, 66, 78, 81, 90, 142, 158, 267, 297 45 33, 42 44, 45 62 33 270 62 184, 270 44 184 91 76 47 76, 84, 85 267 184 83, 184, 185, 192 185 267 154, 156 34 56, 62, 66, 72, 81, 86, 87, 90, 152, 154, 185, 186, 191, 200, 223, 261, 265, 267, 271, 279 42 280 70, 84, 142, 154, 155, 263 66, 67, 68, 70 275 311 44 268 122 277 311 275 267 150 272 154, 267 154 185

8:1 8:1–3 8:1–4 8:3 8:3–9:3 8:4 8:4–9:3 8:4–10:14 9 9:1 9:1–11:2 9:1–11 9:2 9:3 9:3–4 9:3–21:9 9:4–11 9:6 9:8 9:10 9:12–11:2 10 10:1–3 10:3–4 10:4 10:4–8 10:9 10:9–10 10:10 10:11–14 10:12 10:14 10:15 10:15–16 10:16 10:16–11:2 10:19 10:20–22 10:21–11:1 16–16 12 12–13 12–16

12–33 12:1–2 12:1–3 12:1–13:10 12:3–4 12:3–13:3

275 158, 275, 277 150 23, 115, 186 44 267 24, 29, 55 34, 42 202 24, 56, 150, 199, 272, 275 154, 268 154, 267 200 55 56 33 200 44, 186 44, 275 56, 200, 272 154 62 154, 186, 267 44 268 154, 267 154 267, 311 155 155, 267 146, 151, 268 151 45, 267 155 45 155, 267 275 213 44 45 200 62, 267 81, 86, 87, 88, 152, 154, 155, 185, 200, 220, 223, 263, 265, 278 267 266 155 155 222, 252 267

index of passages 12:4 12:4–6 13 13:1–3 13:3–7 13:4 13:4–6 13:4–7 13:6–7 13:7 13:7–8 13:7–9 13:8 13:9 14

14–15 14–36 14:1 14:1–7 14:1–16:4 14:4 14:4–7 14:7 14:8 14:8–24 14:9 14:10 14:10–23 14:11 14:11–12 14:13 14:15 14:17 14:17–18 14:18 14:21–22 14:22–23 14:23 14:24–16:4 15–16 15:1 15:1–6 15:1–16:4 15:2 15:2–3 15:3 15:3–10 15:4

201, 275 44 196, 201, 202 185 252 275 222 267 275 268 156, 195, 201, 278 263 45, 46, 155 268 174, 195, 196, 200, 202, 203, 204, 206, 210, 211, 213, 215, 216 81 267 275 185 155 275 267 275 268 220 202, 220 202, 203, 214, 220, 275 268 204, 206, 220 214 275 202, 220, 275 204, 206 206 203, 220 200 220 221 185 62, 295 174, 252, 275 84 267 214 222 201, 275 275 227, 272

15:4–7 15:4–9 15:8–10 15:8–12 15:8–16:1 15:8–16:7 15:11–16:1 16:2–4 17–19 17–36 17:2 17:3 18:1 18:6–8 18:6–9 18:8 18:9–11 18:12–14 18:12–16 18:14–15 18:16 19:1 19:1–2 19:3 20–36 20:1–8 21:1–6 21:1–7 21:6 21:7–10 22:1–14 27–27 22:4 22:5 22:5–7 23:4 24–26 24:2–25:7 24:4–25:7 24:3 24:4 25–26 25:3 25:4–6 25:5–6 26 26:1 26:1–27:5 26:2 28:1–3 28:1–32:1 32 32:2 32:3

359 223 156 311 125, 149 42 34 276 185 88, 269 153, 265, 267 270, 274 268 268 206 268 274 268 268 270 84 110 276 268 268 269 277 84, 268, 270 125 110 268 268 51 151 55 67, 81, 84, 271 270 207 268 271 207 207 195 207, 274 207 275, 278 207 70, 207 268, 278 207 269 268, 278 88 268 185

360

index of passages

32:3–6 32:6 33:1 33:2 33:4 33:6 34:1–36:2 36:3 36:4

268, 271 67, 81, 83, 185 271, 275 270 275 271 270 270 266

Book of Parables

26, 27, 29, 39, 41, 43, 48, 82, 84, 90, 92, 261, 306, 315, 318, 319, 320 127 83 85 191 125 62 125

37 37:1–2 37:2 42 60:1 65 69:15–25

Astronomical Book 11, 18, 19, 21, 22, 29, 32, 34, 36, 41, 48, 66, 70, 74, 82, 84, 90, 92, 101, 116, 117, 119, 123, 124, 125, 126, 127,128, 129, 134, 136, 137, 142, 143, 147, 158, 160, 164, 167, 261 72:1 135, 136, 172, 174, 234, 262, 280, 330, 333 72 9, 135 72–91 135 72:2 123 72:5 124 72:13 123 72:14 122 72:26 122 72:32 120 72:35 123 72–75 58 72–79 119 72–82 57, 58 72:37 120 73:1 123 73:1–74:9 58 73:2 120, 124

73:4–8 74 74:1 74:2 74:3–9 74:10 74:12 74:17 75:1 75:1–2 75:2 75:3–8 76–78 79–79 76:4 76:5 76:6 77 77:2 77:3 77:4–8 77:7–78:1 78 78:6–9 78:8 78:12 79:5 80 80–82 80:2–3 80:2–7 80:4–8 80:6 80:6–8 80:7 80:8 81 81:1–2 81:1–3 81:2 81:4 81:8 81:1–82:3 81:1–82:4 82 82:1 82:1–3 82:1–4 82:2–3 82:4 82:4–7 82:5 82:6

21 58 123 120 21, 58 120 147 147 102, 122 101 114, 120 124 31 21, 25, 31, 58, 59 24 24 24 124 24 24 120 42 124 120 42 121 122 120, 123 163 84 66 84 147 128 119, 125 121 120, 127, 148 252 158 126, 148 123 121 45, 85 66, 267 25, 31, 58, 59, 120, 121, 123 135, 252 185, 252 174 85 121 122 126 114, 120

361

index of passages 82:7 82:7–9 82:9 82:13–20 82:20 Book of Dream Visions

83:1 83:11 83–84 83–90 83–91:19 84:2 84:3 84:2–4 84:54 Animal Apocalypse

85–89:38 85–90 85:10–86:2 85:36 85:55 86–88 86:4 87:2 87:3 88:3 89 89:1 89:1–9 89:2 89:2–4 89:4 89:9 89:11

122 84 121, 123 32 58 14, 26, 29, 30, 31, 33, 34, 35, 36, 41, 47, 48, 52, 62, 66, 116, 129, 134, 136, 137, 219, 261, 262, 306 135, 136 136 62 90, 128 129 137 190 62 131 7, 41, 43, 47, 52, 65, 66, 67, 74, 77, 78, 82, 88, 130, 134, 145, 195, 196, 207, 208, 209, 212, 216, 217, 219, 220, 228, 230, 231, 232, 234, 253, 254, 261, 264, 283, 295, 297, 331 90 129, 260 42 229 130 132 130 132 208, 229 130 51, 87 132 129 25 133 133 132 126, 130

89:13 89:18 89:28 89:29 89:29–35 89:31 89:32–35 89:36 89:37 89:40 89:42 89:42–49 89:50 89:54 89:55 89:61 89:65 89:66 89:68 89:72 89:72–73 89:72–74 89:73 89:73–74 89:74 89:76–77 90 90:1 90:2 90:6 90:6–7 90:9–16 90:12 90:17 90:18 90:21 90:24–27 90:28–29 90:28–36 90:29 90:33 90:34 90:36 90:37 90–93 90–94 90–94:4

130 232 74, 83, 136 75 83 89 229, 232 208, 232 232 208 130, 133 42 208, 229 131 130 252 136 133, 229 136, 252 136 208 229 195 86 233 252 211, 213 136 130 85 86 145 136 136 128 132 128 208, 230 210 212 133 212, 230 208, 212 131 89 89 90

Epistle of Enoch

26, 29, 30, 33, 35, 36, 41, 43, 47, 48, 52, 53, 66, 91, 144, 160, 167, 178, 184, 191, 219, 220,

362

91 91:1–4 91:1–10 91:3–10 91:10 91:11 91:11–13 91:11–17 91:11–92:2 91:12 91:12–15 91:12–17 91:13 91:14 91:15 91:16 91:16–17 91:17 91:18–19 91:18–92:1 92–105 92:1 92:1–2 92:2 92:3 92:1–93:10 92:3–93:10 93:1–10 93:2 93:3 93:3–4 93:4 93:6 93:7 93:7–8 93:8 93:8–10 93:9 93:9–11 93:10 93:11–14 94 94:1–5 96:5 97:6–107:3 98:1 98:1–3 98:3 98:4

index of passages 253, 254, 261, 262 135, 267, 306, 315, 318 252 22, 45, 54, 63 53 184 22, 144 86 22, 53, 129, 261 54 234 145 53 209, 234 213 146, 150 146, 209 145 147 53 54 267 22, 83, 85, 135, 191, 252 53 54 54 53 54 82 145, 148, 252 146, 147, 148 145 75, 146, 149, 15 75, 82, 209, 233 233, 234 209 234 86 195, 309 150 54, 85, 144, 145, 146, 184 22, 53 22 45 253 34, 42 184 85 168 85, 89

98:8 98:9 98:9–99:10 99:10 98:11 98:12 98:15 99:2 99:6–9 99:10 100–102 100:6 100:12 103 103:3–4 103:4 103:7–8 103:15 104:1–105:2 104:12 104:12–13 104:13 105 105:1 105:2

83 168, 191 184 192 43, 90 192 191 82, 90, 191 89 83, 191 163 85, 184 43 226 43 43 43 43 45 185 85 83 34 43 83

Apocalypse of Weeks (93:1–10; 91:11–17) 7, 41, 47, 53, 65, 66, 67, 74, 77, 78, 129, 144, 145, 146, 158, 195, 196, 209, 217, 219, 232, 234, 253, 261, 264, 283, 290, 295, 306, 330, 331 Birth of Noah 107–107 106:1 106:4 106:8 106:10 106:12 106:13–14 106:15

47, 333 41, 43, 56, 62 56 56 56 56 56 85 56

Another Book of Enoch 108 34, 41 108:13 83 2 Enoch 5

261, 315 125

363

index of passages 3 Enoch

214, 261, 280

Paraleipomena Jeremiou

259

4 Ezra

139, 269, 291

Psalms of Solomon

16

Jubilees

65, 93, 94, 113, 116, 117, 134, 136, 196, 254, 272, 285, 290, 291, 297, 306, 316, 323, 334 272 125 272 101 197 56 116 122 118

Sibylline Oracles

139

1:27 2 2:1 2:9 4:25–26 5:2 6:34–36 6:36 49:7

Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs

291, 306, 317, 320, 323, 334 Testament of Levi 214, 306 17:10 233 17:11 233 Testament of Naphtali

306

Testament of Moses 10

94 93

Dead Sea Scrolls 1Q19 1 2–3 3 1–5 11 13 15

56, 57, 63 56 56 61 61 61

1Q19bis

56, 63

1Q21

262

Book of Giants 1Q23 1Q24 1Q26 1Q27

60, 262 61, 262 262 see below, Mysteries

1QGenApoc

58, 272

1QHa ix 9–13 xiv 15 xvi 4–14

58 125 207 207

1QIsaa

50, 186, 191

1QIsab

58

1QM

58, 283

1QS iii 13 vi 2 vi 3 viii viii 4 viii 11–12 viii 13–14

50, 283, 285, 292, 297 190 292 292 294 207 293 293

2Q26

60

4Q171 iii 15

288

4Q186

188

Enoch 4Q201 4Q201 4Q201 4Q201 4Q201 4Q201 4Q201 4Q201 4Q201 4Q201 4Q201

1 1 iii 5–13 1 iv 1 iv 1–5 1 iv 2 1 iv 5–6 1 iv 7 1 iv 8 2–8 22

30, 31, 44, 46, 47, 50, 63, 78, 142, 153, 262 55 158 23 158 186 154 199 150 30, 43, 45, 63 45

364

index of passages

4Q201 2 3 4Q201 6 4Q202 4Q202 1 ii 15–17 4Q202 1 iii 4Q202 1 iii 1–5 4Q202 1 iii 6 4Q202 1 iii 13–14 4Q203 (Bk. of Giants) 4Q203 9 4Q203 10 4Q204

4Q204 4Q204 4Q204 4Q204 4Q204 4Q204 4Q205 4Q206

4 10 ii 24–29 v2 vi 2–5 vi 5 vi 9

4Q206 2 ii 2–3 4Q206a (Bk. of Giants) 4Q206 4 i 16–17 4Q207 4Q208 4Q209

4Q209 23 4Q209 26 4Q210 4Q210 1 ii 4Q211 4Q211 i 1 4Q211 ii–iii 4Q212 4Q212 1 ii 22–25 4Q212 1 23–24

45 45 30, 31, 45, 46, 47, 50, 63, 153, 262 158 23 158 154 56

4Q212

26, 27, 30, 47, 49, 50, 60, 62, 63, 62 62 26, 27, 29, 43, 47, 48, 50, 51, 52, 63, 262 208 158 151 156 155 155 30, 51, 52, 30, 31, 51, 262 151

4Q213 4Q213 4 2 4Q213 4 6–7

262 18 18

4Q214

262

4Q214a

262

4Q214b

262

4Q259

101

4Q299–301

see below, Mysteries

4Q319

101

4Q321

101

4Q338

46

4Q390

95, 232

43, 51, 262 30, 49, 62,

262 52,

52, 60 25 31, 52, 262 21, 26, 31, 57, 58, 59, 63, 119, 142, 262 21, 25, 26, 31, 57, 58, 59, 63, 119, 123, 124, 262 24 25 25, 26, 31, 57, 58, 59, 124, 262 24 26, 32, 57, 58, 59, 262 32 32 31, 53, 63, 144, 262 22 146

4Q212 4Q212 4Q221 4Q212 4Q212 4Q212 4Q212

1 1 1 1 1 1

iv iv iv iv iv v

13 13–14 14 23 26

1 iii 24–25 149 1 iii 25 146, 150 185 150 22, 147 151 147 22

4QInstruction (4Q415–418, 423) 91, 92, 93, 94, 159, 172, 173, 177, 180, 181, 185, 189, 192, 193, 298 4Q415 188 4Q416 1 179 4Q416 2 ii 12 181 4Q416 2 iii 9 188 4Q417 1 i 6 181 4Q417 1 i 9 181 4Q418 8 13 181 4Q418 9 8 188 4Q418 55 179, 180, 183, 184, 186, 189, 193, 331 4Q418 55 5 181 4Q418 55 8 183 4Q418 60 179

365

index of passages 4Q418 69 ii

4Q418 4Q418 4Q418 4Q418 4Q418 4Q418 4Q418 4Q418 4Q418 4Q418 4Q418 4Q418 4Q418 4Q418 4Q418 4Q418

69 ii 4–5 69 ii 4–15 69 ii 6 69 ii 8 69 ii 10 69 ii 11 69 ii 13 69 ii 15 126 ii 5 220 221 221 4 221 + 220 222 222 2 220 + 221

4Q418 238 4Q418b 1 4 4Q418b 4

179, 183, 186, 193, 179 179 182 186 184 181, 182 182 181 186, 186, 187, 4–5 192 187, 187, + 222 186, 191, 188 181 181

4Q489–490

180, 181, 184, 185, 189, 192, 331

4Q543–548

262

6Q8 2

54, 61 50

6Q14

61

7Q2

43

7Q4 (7QpapEn gr)

35, 43

7Q8

43

187 187, 189 188

7Q11

43

7Q12

43

188, 189 188, 189 187, 188, 193

7Q13

43

11QPsa xviii

50 190

11QTemple

197, 198, 210, 212, 213, 214, 229, 306, 331

XQpapEnoch

24, 29, 43, 46, 54, 55, 63, 329

Aramaic Levi

11, 12, 18, 172, 224, 225, 226, 262 185

182

61

4Q513 3 i 2–3 3i4

118 118

4Q530 14 2 ii + 6–7 I + 8–12

62, 262 55 50, 52

4Q531

60, 62, 262

4Q532

60, 262

4Q533

52, 61, 262

4Q534 7

61

4Q536

61

4Q537

61

4Q540

262

4Q541

262

4Q542

262

3:6–7 Damascus Document (CD)

1 4:2 5:6–7 6:10–11 7:4–8 7:5–8 11:17–18

226, 286, 293, 298, 332, 295 225 227 290 295 293 118

284, 289, 294, 314, 334

285, 291, 297, 319,

Miqsat Ma{aseh haTorah (4QMMT) 224, 226, 306 B75–82 225 B76–78 225 B79 225 B80 225 B80–82 225

366 Mysteries 1Q27 1 i 2–4 4Q299 3c I 4Q299 8 7 4Q299 53 + 59 4Q300 1a–b ii 3

index of passages 178, 183, 191, 186, 183 181 189 182

179, 181, 185, 186, 192, 331 191

4Q300 3 3–4 4Q301 1 1

186 188, 189

New Jerusalem

198, 212, 214, 331

Songs of the Sabbath Sacrice

210, 221, 331

Josephus Against Apion 1.22 1.30–35

238 224

Antiquities 2.160 3.227 8.63–65 12.138–144 12.140–141 12.142 12.145–146 12.158–161 12.163

325 224 216 240, 251 241 241 241 239 240

12.184 12.239–240 15.380–387 15.391–393 15.411–412 20.226

240 244, 251 216 216 216 314

Jewish War 2.160 5.222–223

285, 289 204

Life 9–11

286

Philo Contemplative Life 1–2

Special Laws 1.110

325

224

Every Good Man Is Free 12 325 83 321 Christian Apocrypha Apocalypse of Paul

259, 269

Apocalypse of Peter

33, 269

Gospel of Peter

33

Greek and Latin Authors Berossos

149

Diodorus Siculus 40.3

238

Eupolemos

210

Homer Odyssey 11

271

Lycophron Alexandra Alexandra Alexandra Alexandra Alexandra Alexandra Alexandra Alexandra

1.85 1.309 1.245 1.260 1.267 1.309 1.458 1.1230

133 133 133 133 133 133 133 133

367

index of passages Alexandra 1.1292 Alexandra 1.1309 Alexandra 1.1439

133 133 133

Melito Homily on the Passion

Polybius 5.63–65

240

Pseudo-Hecataeus

238

34 Rabbinic Literature Greek Witnesses to Enoch

Akhmim (Codex Panopolitanus)

23, 24, 33, 34, 36, 37, 42, 56

Chester Beatty-Michigan Papyrus 33, 35, 37, 42

Codex Vaticanus Gr. 1809

33, 34, 42

P. Oxyrhynchus 2069

34, 42, 134

Syncellus Chronography

23, 33, 34, 36, 42, 199, 200

Cuneiform Texts Atra ›asis

155, 157, 271

Enuma Elish V 8–12

124

Enuma Anu Enlil

148, 149

MUL.APIN

121, 125, 142, 148 124

I i 36

II i 68 II ii 25, 35 II ii 10–12 II iii 15 II iii 16–iv 12 III 35–37

124 122 122 124 123 124

YOS 3.115

96

YOS 3.196

97

Inscriptions and Papyri Deir xAllah

129

Zenon Papyri

238, 239