The Books of Enoch, Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4

THE BOOK OF DREAMS 43
At the beginning of his 'zoomorphic' history, after the brief resume of
Gen. 2-5 (with the reference to the wife of Cain; see Jub. 4: i, 9), the
author interpolates a r^sum6 of the Book of Watchers (En. 86 ff.), not without
some significant alterations. The first star which falls from the sky (86: i)
is certainly identified with 'A^a*el, as follows from 88: i which summarizes
10: 4 (cf. 90: 21). We infer, therefore, a fairly lenient attitude towards
Semihazah, which will be taken up by the author of the Book of Giants, who
represents Semihazah as a penitent (below, p. 328). The author of the Book
of Dreams distinguishes three categories of children born of the union of
angels and women (86: 4; 87: 3; 88: 2; 89: 6). They are not known to the
author of the Book of Watchers, but they will reappear in Jubilees (7: 21-2).
The four and the three 'white men' of 87: 2 obviously reflect the four
archangels of 9: i and 10: i-ii and the three additional angels of the list
of the seven archangels given in 20; we find the same number again in 'these
first seven white [men]' (90: 21). The role of guides to the patriarch, which
87: 3-4 and 90: 31 attribute to Uriel, Raguel, and Remiel, is without
exact parallel, certainly not for the last-named angel, in the Book of
Watchers. The high tower in a high place from which Enoch will behold the
destruction of the angels, giants, and men (87: 3-4) unites into a single place
the first paradisiac abode of Enoch, the heavenly palace, and the mountainthrone
of God (14, and 24-5 = 18). In 88: 1-89: i En. 10 is faithfully
sununarized. According to 89: 52 the Lord of the flock brings a ewe, Elias,
up to Enoch, who is lodging in the tower.
From the fall of Israel and Judah onwards (89: 56 and 66) the author
introduces the seventy shepherds and their servants, who in succession rule
the people of Israel (89: 59 ff.). On this part of the Book of Dreams, which
presupposes the existence of a document dividing the sacred history into
seventy periods, see pp. 248-54. It is possible that the author of the Book of
Dreams attributed the composition of this chronological document to Enoch
himself, for he makes the patriarch intervene at this point: 'And I began to
cry out with all my strength, and to call upon the Lord of the sheep, and
I showed him that the sheep were devoured by all the wild beasts' (89:
57; cf. w. 67 and 69).
From the fourth epoch of the seventy periods, which begins towards the
year 200 B.C. (En 90: 6ff.), the writer recounts events which are contemporaneous
with himself: the formation of the party of the Hasidaeans (w.
6-7), the murder of the high priest Onias in the summer of 170 B.C. (v. 8),
the exploits of the Maccabaeans, in particular of Judas, the ram with a