The Books of Enoch, Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4

i6
INTRODUCTION
It is significant that the Jewish author of our astronomical treatise is not
explicit about the exact location of Paradise, his casualness in this respect
being quite the reverse of the interest shown by the author of the Book of
Watchers and by a later redactor (Greek Jewish or Christian ? Abyssinian ?)
of the same passage in En. 77: 3.
The information provided by En. 77: 4-8 already points to real, not mythological
geography, though highly schematized and lacking any toponymy,
in marked contrast to the profusion of angels' names in the astrological
part of the work. No precise details are given of the site of the seven
mountains permanently covered with snow (v. 4). Of the seven great rivers,
on the other hand, described in verses 5-7, three are identifiable: the Nile,
western tributary of the Mediterranean, which is 'the great sea' (X3T Xa**),
the Tigris, and the Euphrates, north-eastern tributaries of the Red Sea
(SpiaiZ? Xa'').^ Of the seven islands (v. 8) two are in the 'Red Sea': perhaps
the semi-legendary Babylonian countries of Dilmun (Bahrein Island in
the Persian Gulf) and Magan (Arabia and Ethiopia). Five others are
in the Mediterranean: Cyprus, Crete, the Peloponnesian islands, etc. (See
Fig. 3.)
on the map (only four are preserved). In my
opinion he was quite wrong. On rev., line 23,
one reads a-na 7* na-gu-H a-^ar tal-la-ku 7 biri
[. . .], *to the seventh district, where you go, 7
double hours [. . .]'. Weidner corrected 7* to
8* on the ground that the seventh region had
already been described in line 20 [a-na si'bi]'i
na-gU'ii a-^ar tal-la-ku [. . .]. He failed,
however, to notice that yet another mention of
the same region occurs in the description of the
fifth district, [a-na J}a-an\-h!i na-gu-ii a-ifar
tal'laku 7 biri [. . .], line 10; [a-na na-gu-H
a-Jfar ila-al-la-ku 7 [. . .], line 15. As for the
map, one cannot restore eight triangles; on such
a supposition, the alternate 'regions* would lie
at right angles, which is certainly not the case.
The fact is that the text mentions, and the map
represents, only seven nagd, as is admitted by
several other scholars.
Moreover, subsequent scholars have rejected
Weidner*s proposed identification of our text
as a recension of the epos ^ar tamhdri ('King
of the battle*), describing the exploits of Sargon
I of Akkad; it follows that his interpretation of
the map as *ein spatbabylonischer Versuch,
das Weltreich Sargons graphisch darzustellen*
(p. 92) must also be rejected. Consequently,
the mention of ^^^'''^^WUnapi^tM^'^ may
stand, as against Weidner's reading C^««]^»'"
Sama^ napi^tim*''", *§ama§ das Leben*, obv.,
10, where it appears beside Sarru-Mn u
mr-^Da-gan. Following H.-G. Guterbock,
ZA 42 (i934)> 22, one has to understand this
passage as meaning *dass ausser UtnapiStim,
Sargon und N