The Books of Enoch, Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4

246 THE BOOKS OF ENOCH
similar. There are no guide-lines, which explains the irregular length of the
lines of the text, which indeed run on into the space between columns iv
and V to the point of encroaching upon the text of column v. Ink very dark
blue, which spreads easily and blurs.
A beautiful semi-cursive script, dated by Cross to the years 50-1 B.c.^
In my opinion the handwriting of En^ dates from the middle of the first
century B.C. rather than from its end.
The arrangement of the text is highly economical: the lines of writing are
packed close together, with very small gaps between words and spaces
between lines, without any blank spaces between the sections of the text.
When he was copying column iv the scribe must have been very tired,
to judge from numerous errors and corrections (see notes on the readings
for I iv).
The orthography of En^ is relatively archaic; the scribe was fairly discreet,
though also inconsistent, in his modernization of the orthography of his
exemplar. The relative pronoun 'T (corrected immediately to **!) in iii 25 and
probably in v 17, and XDE^nS for XnunD ii 25 are very archaic. Archaic, too, is
the defective orthography of several words which, however, alternates with full
forms: ii 17, but ii 24, iv 16, etc.; H^D iv 20, but H^ID iv 21 and v 21,
and likewise iii 22; Wlp v 16 and X'Wlp iii 21, but f and |''S7*'B?T
iv 16; t3l&p iv 13, XD5?j? ii 18, iii 24, v 25, but t3Wp iv 15, 16, 17 and
KDB?lp ii 20; ]''S7ai& iv 25, but iv 15, 19; *'S72?n iv 19, but TSn iv 15;
n^DDI HDmX V 21, mt iv i8, mX iv 22 and n m x ii 18 and v 25, iv 14,
nms V 22.
The article is always marked by Aleph, whilst the final vowel -a of the
feminine absolute, etc., is marked by He, but the -e by Aleph: XlDfl*' iv 18,
X^in*' 19. The etymological77 is not retained: H/OD iii 21, mD3 iv 15, 19,
''11!? iv 25. The dissimilation of the dentals is not consistent: iv 13, but
^irvis.
Personal pronoun of the 2nd person plural masculine ]inX ii 25; suffixes of
the 2nd and 3rd person plural masculine ]1D' and ]in^. Relative pronoun 1
{prima manu), quoted above; ^1 before verbs, 1 before nouns {7]21 iv 15);
interrogative pronoun v 17, 20, 22. The short imperfect of mn: ]in*7 iv 14.
Aphel niriH iii 21.
The scroll of 4QEn« contained, in all probability, only the Epistle of
Enoch, En. 91 to 105. Of the first column there remain only two letters;
^ Table of this alphabet: Milik, DJD ii, p. 73, fig. 24, col. i, and Cross, loc. cit., p. 149, fig. 4,
line 5.