The Books of Enoch, Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4

330 THE BOOK OF GIANTS
The origin of the 'midrash of Semhazai and 'Aza'el' remains very obscure;
see, however, below, pp. 338-9. It is not at all certain that it was an excerpt
from the Midrash 'Abkir (which disappeared after the fifteenth century),
or that it formed part of the Chronicle of Yerahme'el, as Gaster accepts, in
my opinion, somewhat arbitrarily. The existing information does not allow
us to trace its origin back beyond the eleventh century, when Moses ha-
Darsan of Narbonne composed his Genesis Rabba Maior, from which
Bereshith Rabbati is derived. A Karaite writer of the tenth century, who was
living in Jerusalem, mentions among the rabbinical works popular at that
period, 'the book about 'Uzza and 'Azi'el, who, according to their mendacious
assertions, had come down from heaven'.^ Another book mentioned by the
same author and likewise by a Karaite of the ninth century, namely Razd
Rabbd, 'the Great Mystery', was used in the twelfth century for the composition
of the book Bahtr which is fundamental to the development of
Jewish mysticism in Provence.^ The two chiefs of the wicked angels, 'Uzza
and 'Aza'el, are often quoted and described in Talmudic and cabbalistic
texts, e.g. in Yoma 67 6, Pesiqta Rabbati, ch. 34, and, later, in the Zohar
and in the Hebrew book of Enoch. However, they are not, at the very least
formally, identical with Semhazai and 'Aza'el of our midrash.
It is the motif of the virgin who escaped from the amorous adventures of an
angel, or of two angels, and was transformed into a star (most often Venus),
whilst the angel or the two angels were punished by hanging upside down,
which has particularly attracted the attention of scholars.^
In the midrash of Semhazai and 'Aza'el the girl is called 'Esterah ('Star'
in Greek and Persian; in the latter occasionally 'Venus'), and she becomes
a star of the Pleiades. This detail, peculiar to our narrative, is explained by
^ J. Mann, Texts and Studies in Jewish vatat-AmSrStat*: Revue des itudes arminiennes.
History and Literature, ii (i935), 82. vi (1926), 43-69; Sh. Spiegel, *Heyya and his
^ Cf. G. Scholem, Ursprung und Anfdnge der Brother in Rabbinic and Moslem Legend*:
Kabbala, 1962, pp. 29 ff. and 85 ff. L. Ginzberg Jubilee Volume, English Section,
3 See especially the works of M. Grunbaum, 1945, pp. 341-55 CNoah, Danel, and Job.
Gesammelte Aufsdtze zur Sprach- und Sagen- Touching on Canaanite Relics in the Legends
kunde, 1910, pp. 59~8o and 442-8 (= ZDMG of the Jews', pp. 305-55); P- J- de Menasce,
31 (1877), 224 ff.) and Neue Beitrdge zur semi- *Une legende indo-iranienne dans Tang^lolotischen
Sagenkunde, 1893, pp. 73-5, 80, 261-2; gie jud6o-musulmane: a propos de Hardt et
B. Heller, *La chute des anges Schemhazai, Mar