The Books of Enoch, Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4

54 INTRODUCTION
I restore at the end of Une 4 aXoxos^ 'wife, concubine, maid-servant', and
I understand this phrase as follows: 'And the sterile woman does not have
a maid-servant (only) for manual work'; the concubine can give her master
an heir. The idea of the fundamental equality of men is clearly formulated
in the next phrase: the condition of slavery has not been established by
God; it has its origins in tyrannical oppression. Likewise legal and moral
disorder, dvo/xta, does not come from on high (that is, by divine permission
for the descent of the angels), but springs from transgression, TrapajSacrt?,
the violation of the Law willed by man himself. Similarly sterility (a typical
example for the author of physical evil) is not an innate imperfection, but
constitutes a punishment of the sins of woman.
The good spirits, according to the author of the Epistle, are above all the
heavenly scribes who record the actions of the just and of the sinners (104:
i; cf. 97: 6; 98: 6-8; 103: 3; 104: 7). They will become guardian angels of
the just at the moment of the judgement of the impious (100: 5). The
Judgement will be executed by God himself (91: 7). The author speaks, it
seems, of the resurrection of the just in 91: 10 and in 92: 3, but the Aramaic
text of these two passages has not been preserved in 4QEn^. The windows of
heaven will be opened to the just, and they will shine like luminaries (104: 2;
cf. 92: 4 and 96: 3). But the just are not 'children of heaven', as the Ethiopic
claims at loi: i; CM reads dvOpcoircov. Neither does the Greek have the two
Ethiopic references to the association of the just with the angels (104: 4)
and with the army of heaven (104: 6). The beatific survival of just men is
thus essentially spiritual, concerning only their souls and spirits (103: 3-4).
Consistently with this, it will be the souls of the sinners which will suffer
eternally (102: 11 and 103: 7-8).
The passage 104: 11-105: 2 constitutes the explicit of the Epistle of Enoch,
with the customary wish of a writer that his work may be copied faithfully and
spread abroad assiduously. Chapter 105 existed in the original, apart from the
Christian gloss at verse 2 (see En^ 5 i 21-4); it was omitted in CM by homoeoteleuton.
The author of the Epistle certainly, in my opinion, intended to write
a fifth Book of Enoch, completing the four existing books (at jStjSAot /xou.
En. 104: 12) in the same way as Deuteronomy completes the four other
books of the Mosaic Pentateuch. Both Deuteronomy and the Epistle contain
yvvaiKi OVK iSoOrj aA[Aa' 8t]D (^ra) epya rwv {erj} Bonner, Kenyon; line ii: dre/CVTA Kenyon). Line 5 end: 8o[vX7]v] Bonner.
Bonner, 8o[t;Aov] Kenyon; line 6 beginning: