The Books of Enoch, Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4

THE SYNCHRONISTIC CALENDAR 277
Thanks to a recent study by O. Neugebauer, 'Notes on Ethiopic Astronomy',
which has appeared in Orientaliay N.s. 33 (1964), 49-71, we now
understand much better the astronomical ideas which form the basis of
computations and observations of this kind.
On the subject of En. 72 (cf. the first table of MS. 64, quoted above)
Neugebauer emphasizes the purely schematic character of the description of
the 'gates' of the sun (which have nothing to do with the signs of the Zodiac),
as also 'the primitivity of the methods' used in the description of the 'hours'
of the days and nights. He notes (loc. cit., p. 60): 'It is amusing to see
modern authors looking for geographical regions where a ratio 2:1 for the
extremal daylight would be correct, ignoring the fact that nowhere on earth
can the scheme as a whole be based on reality. The fact that linear schemes are
common in ancient astronomy and that the ratio 2: i is also attested in Babylonia^
seems to me not to constitute a sufficient basis for the assumption of
mutual contacts. Very primitive methods offer only little freedom of choice.'
He discusses the text of MS. 64 of the Bibl. Nat. on the subject of the
'gates' of the moon (to which he points out a parallel in the Ethiopic MS. 84
in Berlin, fol. 30^^-310 and explains it, in terms of mathematical astronomy,
by the idea of 'fixed arcs of the horizon divided into six parts, related in
a very simple way with the rising- and setting-amplitude of the sun during
the course of one year'. He concludes finally (p. 58) that it was 'an extremely
primitive level of astronomy which shows no relation to the sophisticated
Babylonian astronomy of the Seleucid period nor to its Hellenistic Greek
sequel. Of course no chronological conclusion should be based on such
negative evidence for procedures which might well be of local Palestinian
origin, uninfluenced by contemporary scientific achievements elsewhere.'
For our practical purposes, namely for the interpretation of the fragments
of the synchronistic calendar of 4QEnastr, we cite Neugebauer's table I
(p. 53), which schematizes the Ethiopic text on the risings of the moon in the
successive gates in the course of the year of 354 days (see p. 278).
For reasons which will soon be evident, it does not seem to me at all easy
to assign the majority of the fragments of Enastr^ and Enastr* belonging to
the synchronistic calendar to their exact place on the successive columns of
the original scrolls. SuflSce it here to quote in its entirety the largest fragment
of Enastr^, fr. 7, and to give a partial quotation of fr. 6 of the same
manuscript.
" Neugebauer, *The History of Ancient Astronomy, Problems and Methods', Journal of Near
Eastern Studiesy 4 (194s), 13.