The Books of Enoch, Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4

ENOCH IN CABBALISTIC LITERATURE 135
Others recall themes developed in the early Enochic writings (Aramaic,
Greek, Ethiopic) or even in the Slavonic Enoch; others again seem to be
unknown elsewhere.^
The Sefer ha-Yasary in the parashah Beresity contains a short and rather
meagre 'Life of Enoch', ^lin ^'^n.^
The 'Hebrew Book of Enoch' and other cabbalistic works deaUng with,
among others, the person of Metatron-Enoch were read avidly by European
Jews at the height of the Renaissance and on the threshold of the modern
period. At that time there was a renewal of critical literary studies, as the
curiosity of European scholars turned gradually towards a recognition of
early Christian texts, and among them the Enochic writings. They were
first recognized in the Greek extracts of Syncellus, then in the Ethiopic
version of the Book of Enoch the prophet; next came the discoveries of the
codices and fragments of Enoch in the sands of Egypt; and finally the samples
of the Aramaic originals of the books of Enoch were recovered among the
fragments of scrolls from Cave 4 at Qumran.
' See Odeberg, loc. cit., p. 22. Midra^tm, i (1915), 182-3; German trans-
2 Cf. A. Jellinek's edition. Bet ha-Midrasch, lation by A. Wiinsche, Aus Israels Lehrhallen,
iv (1857), 129-32; J. D. Eisenstein, 'Ojar i(i907), 1-6.