The Books of Enoch, Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4

68 INTRODUCTION
much difficulty the earliest compositions attributed to Enoch: the sacred
calendars, the most comprehensive of which concerns the cycle of the seven
jubilees, the astronomical treatise (En. 72-82), and the Visions of Enoch
(En. 6-19).
To return to the Qumran manuscripts, we should note finally that there
is only one astronomical text which closely recalls the lunisolar calendar
found at the beginning of the Astronomical Book of Enoch. This is a Hebrew
text copied in cryptic writing (4QAstrCrypt = 4Q317) and represented by
seventy-six fragments. In it the phases of the moon are described, on a scale
of fourteenths of the area of the full moon, for the successive days of the
solar year of 364 days. From it I quote fr. i ii 2-14, concerning the fifth
to tenth days of an unspecified month :i
[ noDD] 13 ni&a[n3]
; nrb xian pi xnt&s] vf^bvf noDn
[ pi xnipy yanx n]DDn ia n^ai^a 5
[ vac]at nr^ xinn
; ^inn nv"? mix ^wajn n
[ iTiT vfwn X1331 "pjyaa rpnn
[ r\i7ynb ]DI] riioDn"? mix
[ n^pjii 13 n^vfD2]vac. f)2iDb nnxa 10
[ n'?'''?'? xian pi] hnx'npi'pna
[ xian ]Di D^nir n^pajn 13 ma^ya
[ n^pin in n»s7 ^n]!&»3 mc. n"?^"?"?
vac]at h'?^'?'? X12n ]D1
^ DDi^na MS.
'On the fifth (day) of this (month) [it is covered (up to) twelve (fourteenths)
(of its surface);] and so [it enters the day. On the sixth (day)] it is covered
' The restorations are made from other unit in the day of the month, so that as a
fragments; the text of lines 7-9, however, result the figures in lines 2, 5, 7 are corrected
remains uncertain. The scribe was out by one by him from HS^IIKD, nW3, nS73tt^3.