The Books of Enoch, Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4

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PREFACE
very great number of critical studies. In the same period the textual foundation
of Enochic literature was broadened by the finding at Akhmim (Panopolis)
in 1886/7 of ^ Greek parchment codex of the sixth, if not the end of
the fifth century, which contains almost in full the first section of the Ethiopic
book (preceded by a fragment of a second copy); by the edition of a large
part of the fifth section in Greek, from a papyrus codex of the fourth century
acquired around 1930 by the Chester Beatty and Michigan University collections
of papyri; and by the publication of various pieces of early versions
of the books of Enoch: Greek, Latin, Coptic, Syriac.
At the beginning of September 1952 I was thrilled to identify the first
Aramaic fragment of Enoch, which was found among a heterogeneous mass
of tiny fragments unearthed by the Ta'amre Bedouins in a cave hollowed
out of the marl bank above which rise the ruins of Hirbet Qumran. Towards
the end of the same month I had the satisfaction of recognizing other fragments,
while I was personally digging them out of the earth which filled
Cave 4 and before they had been properly cleaned and unrolled. In the course
of the years which followed, successive purchases progressively enriched this
precious Enochic material, with the result that I was able to recognize in it
seven manuscripts identifiable with the first, fourth, and fifth sections of the
Ethiopic text, and four other manuscripts corresponding approximately to
the third, astronomical, section. Towards the end of the month of April
1970 I succeeded in identifying various ^pseudo-Enochic' manuscripts of
4Q (one entrusted to me for editing, the remainder to J. Starcky), as also
several fragments published previously among the manuscripts of Caves i,
2, and 6 of Qumran, as forming part of an important Enochic work, the
Book of Giants. In an Eastern Aramaic adaptation, made by Mani himself,
this book was admitted to the Manichaean canon of sacred books and
translated into numerous languages of Asia, Africa, and Europe.
The Aramaic fragments of the Enochic books were assigned to me for
editing, together with other material from Qumran Cave 4 which will be
published in a volume of the series Discoveries in the Judaean Desert. The
purpose of the present work is to provide a comparative textual and literary
study of the Aramaic Enoch with its early versions, on a scale that would be
incompatible with the editorial principles laid down for DJD. Moreover, I
decided to restore the Aramaic text of the passages known in ancient translations
with which the fragments of 4Q overlap in varying degrees, ranging
from a few words to an almost continuous text. These restorations are
enclosed within brackets, so that the reader will see at a glance what is