The Books of Enoch, Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4

THE ASTRONOMICAL BOOK 15
On the other hand, the description of the terrestrial orb in En. 77 leads us,
with complete certainty, to the Mesopotamian centres of scholarship. The
original wording of 77: 36, preserved in large part by Enastr^ 23 8-9 (below,
p. 289) is as follows: '[And I saw the three circle]s(?) of the earth: one of
them was for the dwelling of the sons of men on it; and one of them was for
all [the seas and the rivers; and one of them] was for the deserts and for the
Seven and for the Paradise of righteousness.' In the same way as the plural
of l^'IDia in this passage expresses only the nuance of spatial greatness, since
'the deserts' is equivalent to X^DIH, 'the great desert', of the Book of
Giants (below, p. 306), so 'the rivers', [I^'IHI] must here signify 'the great
river', in other words the Ocean which surrounds the earth. The term
^[DJk? 'seven, the seven' denotes the regions situated beyond the circular
Ocean, which float in the dark emptiness, XDT X^ma y)T\^ in the Book of
Giants, XD12?n in En^ i xxvi 21 (En. 32: 2).^
This picture of the world is remarkably similar to that in the Babylonian
map compiled some time after the ninth century (the surviving copy dates
from the late Babylonian Period, ca. 600 B.C.).^ In this map the earth is
represented by a circle surrounded by the 'Bitter River' (or 'Circular River'),
ndru tnarratuniy beyond which seven triangular regions (nagUy 'region, district,
island') appear (see our Fig. 2). In one of these distant corners of the
universe is the dwelling-place of Utnapistim (text, obv., line 10), the hero of
the flood according to tablet XI of the Gilgamesh epic.^
^ For the substantival use of cardinal num- (unreliable translation and interpretation; cf.
bers cf. the Assyrian sibittu 'Seven (gods), id., 'Ancient Babylonian Maps and Plans',
Seven (as the name of a god)'; 'the seven'. Antiquity, ix (1935), 311-22); E. Douglas van
'the four' (XnS711N in En« 4 i 13), 'the three* Buren, Clay Figurines of Babylonia and Assyria,
angels in the Book of Dreams; 'seven from 1930, p. 273, no. 1309 (description of the map
among them (sc. the angels)', priS;ntt?, in the and bibliography); W. W. Hallo, JCS xviii
Bodleian fragment of the Aramaic Testament of (1964), 57 and 61 (on Babylonian cartography,
Levi, col. flj 9; cf. the Syriac ^^bVdyi 'the seven 'climaxing as they did in the famous but wholly
planets', etc. fanciful mappa mundi of the Babylonians');
^ Edited by E. A. W. Budge, Cuneiform G. Holscher, Drei Erdkarten, ein Beitrag zur
Texts from Babylonian Tablets . , .in the British Erdkenntnis des hebraischen Altertums, 1949 (old
Museum, Part XXII, 1906, pi. 48 (No. 92687) Hebrew parallels); B. Meissner, 'Babylonische
and p. 12; see F. E. Peiser, 'Eine babylonische und griechische Landkarten', Klio, 19 (1925),
Landkarte', ZA 4 (1889), 361-70 (editio prin- 97-100 (early Greek parallels); P. Grelot, 'La
ceps); E. F. Weidner, 'Der Zug Sargons von geographic mythique d'H6noch et ses sources
Akkad nach Kleinasien', Boghazoi-Studien, 6. orientales', RB Ixv (1958), 33-69 (Une mappe-
Heft (1922), 85-93 (reliable translation of the monde babylonienne, pp. 64-8 and Fig. 2).
text, unacceptable interpretation); E. Unger, ^ Weidner (loc. cit., pp. 90 and 91 n. 2)
Babylon, die heilige Stadt, nach der Beschreibung supposed that the text mentioned eight regions,
der Baby loner, 1931, pp. 254 if. and pis. 3-4 and suggested the restoration of eight triangles