The Books of Enoch, Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4

12 INTRODUCTION
Information analogous to that of Jub. 4: 17-24 is found in a Hebrew fragment
from Qumran, 4Q227. This fragment preserves the upper left-hand
corner of one sheet of a scroll:
margin
imSa"? nnx ^i3[n
n^w '''par r\m[
nb^D *?S7117^1 DiKH ''N
]o[
T'I[K
D^i2?hinn ]rixi DX3S •'Dm nxi D'^a!&[n 5
The Nun of the last word of line i was added by a different hand. The letter in line 2 which
is not transcribed is final: perhaps read [D'^aU^m] f pXH]; cf. below, p. 25.
It is the angels who are speaking here, 'we have taught him' (line i), just
as in the book of Jubilees (cf. Jub. 4:18 and 23). Enoch spent 'six jubilees of
years' (1. 2) with the angels (Jub. 4: 21; equivalent to 300 years of walking
with God, Gen. 5: 22) and then he came back on to the 'earth amongst the
sons of men and he witnessed against all of them [...], and also against the
Watchers, and he described all [...]' (U. 3-4 = Jub. 4: 21). Thus we have
an excellent r^sum^ of the first section of the Ethiopic Enoch. The patriarch
also described 'the sky and the paths of its hosts and the months [. . .] so
that the j[ust?] do not go astray...' (11. 5-6 = Jub. 4: 17). Line 6 of our fragment
takes up some phrases of En. 80: 7 ('. . . the sinners . . . will err'), of
82: 4 ('. . . the just ... do not sin in the reckoning of all their days, during
which the sun travels in the skies'), of 82: 5 ('men err, and they do not take
account of the reckoning of all time'), of 82: 7 ('for Uriel has shown me the
lights, and the months, and the festivals, and the years, and the days, and he
has breathed on me what the Lord of every creature of the world has commanded
him for me concerning the army of heaven').
This seems the place to emphasize the archaic features of the literary and
scientific content of the Astronomical Book of Enoch.
First, the actual legend of the patriarch has not yet taken on the complex
form which it possessses in other Enochic books and especially in Jub.
4: 17-25; 10:17; 7: 38-9; 21: 10 (according to the last two passages, even the
knowledge of ritual of Noah and Abraham goes back to the 'words of Enoch').