The Books of Enoch, Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4

PREFACE
vii
effectively preserved of the actual fragments of the Qumran manuscripts.
The commentary supports the choice of text from among divergent readings,
if there are any, and poses problems of detail which the fresh information
provided by 4QEnoch raises or allows to be resolved. Similarly I have tried
to restore the position of the fragments of 4QEn in the columns and on the
lines of the original scrolls; such a numeration obviously has only an approximate
value.
The reader can check my decipherment on the Plates, which contain all
fragments published here, and on the diplomatic transcriptions appended
to this volume.
This monograph could not have come into being without the constant
encouragement of the late Pere R. de Vaux, O.P., and the friendly collaboration
of Professor Matthew Black of the University of St. Andrews. The
latter arranged to have an English translation made of my French manuscript.
He also prepared the first draft of the English version of the Aramaic
sections, and I owe to him several corrections, observations, and valuable
suggestions. I am grateful, too, for his help in checking the proofs.
I should also like to thank Professor Joseph Trinquet of the Catholic
Institute, Paris, for his continuous help in the reading of the Ge*ez text of the
Ethiopic Enoch; Professor Gerard Garitte of the University of Louvain,
who undertook on my behalf the Latin translation of the Coptic fragments
relating to Enoch; M. Jean Starcky and Mr. John Strugnell, my co-editors
of the manuscripts from Qumran Cave 4 for the loan of photographs and for
their transcriptions of the texts of 4Q which are directly or indirectly linked
with the subjects of this work; Professor G. Vajda for information on Jewish
medieval literature; and the late Professor Nougayrol for references to the
Babylonian cosmology. I thank most especially my wife, Yolanta Zaluska,
for day-to-day encouragement, for help in the preparation of the typescript,
and for information on the person of Enoch in iconography and in medieval
Latin literature; and I should like finally to acknowledge the assistance
given by the staffs of the publishing and printing divisions of the
Oxford University Press.
JOZEF T.
MILIK
PariSy September igy4