The Books of Enoch, Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4

252 THE BOOKS OF ENOCH
and listeners. I have not much doubt that it is precisely to this *Book of
Periods'^ that the passage in En. lo: 12 refers. Thus this chronological
work presented the sacred history divided into seventy ages corresponding
approximately to seventy generations, from Adam to Noah ten generationweeks,
from Noah to Abraham ten weeks, etc., up to the advent of the
eschatological era.
The commentator of 4QI8O and 181 summarized or quoted verbally
Biblical passages which describe the events marked by the intervention of
angels, messengers of God who is the special protector of Israel (Deut. 32:
9 ff.). To the example quoted above (note to 180 i 5) I add that of fragments
5-6 of 180, in which I find a reference to the sacrifice of Isaac: for
U^'Ti^ ''32? (line 3) compare Gen. 22: 4, 'On the third day, Abraham, lifting up
his eyes, saw the place afar off'; the expression [D]''*?(&n'' ]VS 17] X[in
(line 4) identifies as Mount Moriah (Gen. 22: 2) the hill of the temple of
Jerusalem (2 Chr. 3:1); intervention of the Angel of God (Gen. 22: 11 and
15). This event took place at the beginning of the third of the groups of ten
Weeks, since the birth of Isaac marks the end of the second group of ten
Weeks (180 i 5).
In the next part of the pesher, introduced by 180 i 7 ff., not one fragment
of which remains, the commentator described the maleficent activity
of the fallen angels throughout the whole seventy Weeks. *Semihaza and
his companions' of Books of Enoch become in his version ''Azaz'el and the
angels', as he restricts himself deliberately to the range of names and language
of the Bible. We shall meet these angels again in the guise of the seventy
shepherds in the Book of Dreams. There, however, the activity of the wicked
shepherds does not begin until after the destruction of the kingdom of Israel.
The author of the 'Book of Periods' portrays them as already active in Paradise,
or at the very least during the era of the patriarchs Enoch and Noah.^
The chronological scheme elaborated by an author living probably in
the Persian period was to be taken up and adapted by other Jewish writers.
The first of these was the author of the Testament of Levi in Aramaic, who
was writing in the third century or even at the end of the fourth. The fragments
of this early work that I have identified in the manuscript material
of Caves i and 4 do not include any corresponding to chapters 16 and 17
' Probably preserved partly in Aramaic on Strugnell, pp. 254-5), with its description of
papyrus fragments of a 4Q manuscript (to be eschatological bliss in the company of the
published in an article by me).
angels, should belong to column ii of the
* Fragment i of 4QI8I (Allegro, pp. 79-80; commentary; see Milik, JfJfSy loc. cit., 114-18.