The Books of Enoch, Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4

CHAPTER I
ARAMAIC BOOKS OF ENOCH IN PERSIAN AND
HELLENISTIC
TIMES
THE fragments of leather scrolls belonging to the Books of Enoch which
come from Cave 4 of Qumran represent eleven manuscripts, seven of which
have been given the sigla En^ to En«, while the other four, of the Astronomical
Book alone, are denoted Enastr* to Enastr*^. No single manuscript fragment
which might correspond in any way to the second section of the Ethiopic
Enoch, chapters 37-71 (Book of Parables), has been identified in the countless
mass of fragments of 4Q or in the less extensive collections of manuscripts
from ten other Qumran caves. This negative, but very eloquent
pointer, in terms of the calculation of probabilities, to the post-Qumran
dating of this work, will be further reinforced by considerations of a literary
nature. On the other hand, I have been able to identify quite recently a very
important Enochic document entitled the Book of Giants which, in the third
century A.D., was 'canonized' by the Manichaeans. I have located about
ten, if not some twelve, of the manuscripts of this book among the Qumrdn
fragments, both pubUshed and unpublished; of these only 4QEnGiants*
is edited in full here. We shall inquire later on (below, pp. 59-69) whether
the authorship of other Qumran texts, in particular a beautiful fragment of
an Aramaic apocalypse and several astronomical and calendrical documents,
may be attributed to the antediluvian sage.
But, whatever the truth about that may be, the Qumran Enochic corpus
was composed essentially of five Aramaic literary works: the Astronomical
Book, the Book of Watchers, the Book of Giants, the Book of Dreams,
and the Epistle of Enoch. An analysis of the Book of Watchers will allow us
to distinguish the very archaic Enochic document which was probably entitled
Visions of Enoch. At the beginning of the first century B.C. there existed
in all probability the Pentateuch of Enoch, which was copied on two separate
scrolls, containing respectively the Astronomical Book and the four other
works. This pentateuchal collection was to be altered during the Christian
era by the elimination of the Book of Giants and the insertion of the Book of
Parables.