The Books of Enoch, Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4

THE EPISTLE OF ENOCH 55
the last exhortations of patriarchs, and they both constitute a 'second Law'
which makes precise and modifies doctrines and prescriptions contained in
the earlier writings. In the Epistle of Enoch the modification of the apocalyptic
teaching, and especially the tacit polemics against the doctrine on
the union of fallen angels with women are particularly striking when confronted
with the parallel contents of the preceding Enochic books.
En. 106-7 certainly does not come from the hand of the author of 91-xPSi
in this the scholars of the past were absolutely right. In 91-2 the instruction
of Methuselah and of his brothers took place at the time of Enoch's life on
earth. But in 106: 7-8 Methuselah betakes himself, for a consultation on the
miraculous birth of Noah, 'to the limits of the earth' where Enoch 'dwells
with the angels'. This so-called Noachic fragment is nothing but a summary
which serves as a reference (a sort of catchword) to a work in which the
birth and the life of the Hebrew hero of the Flood were recounted in
greater detail.
This 'Book of Noah' was summarized in Aramaic, undoubtedly its original
language, by the compiler of iQGenesis Apocryphon. Unfortunately the
original scroll is badly damaged, and only a few longer passages, notably
col. ii, and a handful of phrases have so far been made known to the learned
public. IA Hebrew version of such a summary may be preserved in fragments
of 1QI9.2 In En. 106-7, corresponding fragments of 4QEn'', we have
a third, and the most reduced, r^sum6 of 'the Book of Noah'.
The story of the birth of Noah occupied five columns of iQGenAp. One
of the most original themes of this story is the fear of the child's father that
the new-born baby might be the issue of the union of his wife with an
angelical being: XnSH ]^tJ?np XDXnn ]n^i7 p 'that the conception
had been from the Watchers, and the pregnancy from the Holy Ones'
(iQGenAp ii i).3 Lamech is assured solemnly by his wife. Bat'ends: ^lli
p Hb^ "jiD p x"?! "jiD p x"?!... ]i ximn ^lai p KS7nT
'that thine is this seed and from thee is this conception . . . and
it is no stranger's, nor is it of any of the Watchers or of the Sons of
Heaven' (col. ii 15-16). But the definitive assurance comes from Enoch,
^ Eds. N. Avigad and Y. Yadin, Jerusalem ^ i