The Books of Enoch, Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4

ARAMAIC BOOKS OF ENOCH 7
acknowledge that there is a fairly wide margin of error), it is significant in every
respect that, apart from one manuscript of the Astronomical Book (Enastr^)
and some copies of the Book of Giants, no manuscript of 4QEn has been
found in the beautiful 'classical' writing of the Herodian era or from the
last period of the Essene occupation of Hirbet Qumran. Qumran scribes and
readers must have gradually lost interest in the literary compositions attributed
to Enoch, just as happened, though more rapidly and more drastically,
in Pharisaic circles. We should note likewise that an early scroll. En*, had
already been withdrawn from circulation and its detached leaves used for
other purposes—for example, the verso of the first leaf for a schoolboy's
exercise. Equally significant, finally, is the absence of the Books of Enoch
from other caves at Qumran, whose stores formed private libraries. Our
copies of 4QEn were no doubt covered with dust on the shelves, in the
chests, or in the earthenware jars of the main library, and only a small
number of Essene readers consulted and borrowed them, particularly
during the first century A.D.
Enochic literature was to have a full-blown renaissance in the early
Christian communities, but this would come about through the medium of
Greek translations.
THE ASTRONOMICAL BOOK
(En. 72-82)
The four copies of the Aramaic astronomical document attributed to Enoch
cover a period of more than two hundred years: Enastr * dates from the end of
the third or the beginning of the second century; Enastr*' is from the middle
and Enastr^ from the second half of the first century; Enastr^ is copied
in classical Herodian writing and thus belongs to the early years A.D.
The majority of the fragments, those of Enastr* in their entirety and the
great majority of those of Enastr^, belong to an elaborately detailed and
monotonous calendar in which the phases of the moon, day by day, were
synchronized with the movements of the sun in the framework of a year of
364 days; the calendar also described the movements of the two heavenly
bodies from one 'gate' of the sky to another. This part of the work no longer
exists in the Ethiopic version. Enastr^ and Enastr*" contain passages which
correspond to various paragraphs of the third section of the Ethiopic, but in