The Books of Enoch, Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4

THE BOOK OF WATCHERS 23
''ID 'many'), with the article of the singular and the plural marked by the
He and with the Aphel causative. This 'popular' orthography was to remain
in use among the Samaritans up to the present time, whilst in Judaea from
the Hasmonaean era onwards archaistic orthography with the Aleph for the
article and the Haphel for the verbal causative form was gradually introduced.
The more recent copies of 4QEn follow this style of writing without entirely
doing away with forms pecuUar to the archetype, in particular the use of the
Aphel, which is preserved in all five manuscripts (with a few exceptions in
En*). En^ dates from the last third of the first century B.C., but it was copied
from a manuscript of about the year 100 B.C., written in orthography identical
with that of iQIs* and iQS. En^ served in turn as a model for En*^.
The earliest allusion to the Book of Watchers is found in Aramaic in
4QTestLevi* 8 iii 6-7.' The context of the column mentioned is that of
chapter 14 of the Greek Testament of Levi, but with phrases which are
encountered again in chapters 15 and 16; all this part of the Testament
contains invectives against the Israelite priesthood. Lines zh-Sa of Test
Levi* 8 iii read:
p[ ]
"pap K'pn K[*'a»s7]
X N M N KINN p "7x71 X2[ ]
* This manuscript dates from the second f. 216^ i 12-ii 2 (cf. edn. M. de Jonge, 1970,
century. I have published an important frag- p. 19); variant readings of e (Athos, Koutment
from it in RB Ixii (i955)> 328-406.
loumous MS. 39, f. 204^ i 38-ii 8), of/(Paris,
* Cf. Test. Levi, 14: 3-4: Bibl. Nat. Gr. MS. 2658, f. 18', 3-10), of a
I. Kadapos 6 ovpavos (TJAIO? a, om. /) ^TT^p (Oxford Bodl. Barocci 133, f. 188-, 23-7).
TTjv yfjv, KOL vfi€L9 ol o)GT7Jp€9 TOV ovpavov 2. Kal yap avTw d)9