The Books of Enoch, Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4

LATER HISTORY 321
and *Aza'el, to whom we shall return presently. Nevertheless, in spite of
these errors, the Munich text allows us to work out the original reading of
the proper names, namely KTn*'aB? 12 X^TIIX, the reading, in fact, of the
Qumran manuscripts of the Book of Giants (pp. 300 and 312-5). In contrast
to the names of the two chiefs of the fallen angels in certain rabbinical texts,
lUW and ^KTS7, which are simply a retranslation emanating from transcriptions
in the Greek version of the Book of Watchers, the Niddah passage
refers back to the Aramaic text of the Book of Giants. The original text of
this latter work was accordingly still well known and read by the rabbis of
the second-third centuries (such as §im'6n ben Yohai and Yohanan ben
Nappaha), whilst the Enochic writings, or at the very least the Book of
Watchers, were accessible to them only indirectly, via the Greek version.
The Qumran and Manichaean manuscripts of the Book of Giants, however,
are too fragmentary to allow us to decide whether the relationship of
'Og and Sihon was already indicated in the Aramaic original or whether it was
invented by the rabbis by virtue of a simple assonance, 'Ohyd-'Ogy the same
phonetic similarity which caused the changing of Ohia to Ogia in the Gelasian
Decree and the placing of the conflict between the dragon and the son of
§emihaza/)orf diluvium instead of ante diluvium (cf. above, p. 299). This same
assonance has led scholars of the present day to find, in this reference in the
Gelasian Decree, a history of Og, king of Basan.^
More complex, on the other hand, is the literary information from the
midrash of Semhazai and 'Aza'el, which it is advisable to quote first in extenso
from four sources:
B Oxford, Bodleian, MS. Heb. d. 11, fol. 21''. Description by A. Neubauer
and A. E. Cowley, Catalogue of the Hebrew Manuscripts in the Bodleian
Library^ ii, 1906, cols. 208-15, no. 2797, and p. 543: 'a collection of various
treatises, compiled by Eleazar son of Asher hal-Levi, about 1325 A.D.', under
the title niinDTH nDD or ]nDTn '0 or even nHJK "0. English translation
by M. Gaster, The Chronicles of lerahmeel or the Hebrew Bible Historiale^
1899. PP- 52-4 § XXV.
S Yalqut Sim'Snt, Dni&S; ^717 ^1172 Xim ^l^^W Hlpll minn tJlp"?^
pB?mn mi ]is7a2? irm mn mm "jnm nnnn Kin x'7n * anDo S73nxi
Onmpni p^^a y^^]. Venice 1566, fl'. i2^ 11-12^; i, §44.^
' e.g. M. Rh. James, The Lost Apocrypha of see, e.g., L. Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews,
the Old Testament, 1936, pp. 40-2. On 'Og, i, p. 160 (and v, p. 181 note 35), iii, p. 340 (and
the only giant to have escaped from the flood, vi, p. 117 notes 667-8).
according to Talmudic and Midrashic texts, * The text of Yalqut was reprinted in various
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