The Books of Enoch, Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4

28 INTRODUCTION
exotic merchandise from Gerrha, an important commercial town situated on
the Persian Gulf, whose caravan merchants and traders could naturally tell
stories about the Far Eastern countries from which the perfumes and the
spices such as nard, mastic resin, cardamom, and pepper were obtained
(En. 32: i).
The commercial convoys of Zenon also plied the coastal routes of Palestine
and Phoenicia, from Gaza towards Jaffa, Tower of Straton (later
Caesarea), Ptolemais, Tyre, Sidon, Beirut, Tripoli; from these ports his
representatives ventured towards the interior, to Galilee, Hauran, Lebanon.
The author of the Book of Watchers must have drawn on itineraries
such as Zenon's according to the needs of his profession as a trader, for he
seems to be well acquainted, perhaps through a personal visit, with the lake
and marshlands of 'Ain el-6arr in Lebanon, where the sweet reed and calamus
grew (En. 30:1-3). For every Jew, however, whatever his actual dwellingplace
might be, the holy city of Jerusalem was invested with particular
importance. Jerusalem, for instance, was where the people of Tobias awaited
Zenon's caravan before accompanying him in his tour of Transjordan:
[*l€poaoX\viJiois dXevp {ojv) dpija^as) a; [rots TraJ/oa Tov^vov dpird^as) a,^
We may conclude that it was in Palestine under Lagid hegemony, towards
the middle of the third century B.C., at the height of the intensive commercial
and cultural exchanges between East and West, that the Judaean author of the
Enochic Book of Watchers lived and prospered, as a merchant and a writer.
But the problem of the date and literary connections of the source incorporated
by this author into his work at En. 6-19, is much more delicate.
Let us analyse briefly the angelological content of this document. En. 6-16.^
The religious thinker reflects here on the problem of the evil existing in the
world and sees the origin of it in the union of the sons of heaven with the
daughters of men. The basic theme, which he develops in his own way, is
the celestial provenance of human technique and sciences. This myth, like that
of the universal flood, occurs in the religions of all peoples up to the primitive
tribes of the present time. So among the Indians in the interior of Brazil:
*A man, the first that they [the two sisters] had ever seen except in dreams,
came down from the sky and taught them agriculture, cookery, weaving, and
all the arts of civilization'; 'In an aquatic dwelling-place which he has created
the Father invents the finery and the adornments which are thus taught
^ PCZ 59009, 6-7. The itinerary of 59004 * For Enoch's journey to the West (En. 17-
refers to the same journey, mentioning 'hpoao- 19, see below, pp. 38-9.
XvfM[oLs] in col. i 3.