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I doubt it. Ramban woul have
adhered to the Rabbinical dictum as set forth inTalmud Bavli, Bava Batra
14b-15a.
Jonathan D. Safren
Chairman
Dept. of Biblical Studies
Beit Berl
College
44905 Israel
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, June 13, 2001 12:29
AM
Subject: Enoch and the Canon; was: Re:
Nachmanides - Scapegoat
In a message dated
6/12/01 10:00:51 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
info AT valediction.com writes:
So, long story short, I wouldn't be surprised if the Ramban
considered Enoch
part of the Holy Writ as
well.
It is inconceivable that Ramban (Nachmanides)
considered Enoch to be part of
the canon in opposition to mainstream
rabbinic practice. Why should anyone
think that because he quotes
from a book there is an implication of
canonicity? He quotes Rashi
also, and no one suggests that he considered
Rashi to be part of the
canon.
But of course, by "Holy Writ" you may not be referring to the canon
as such
but simply as writings inspired by G-d, in which case I can agree
that it's
possible he considered Enoch to have some degree of divine
inspiration. But
it is equally possible that he considered Enoch to
be secular but reliable.
Just as The Book of the Wars of Y-HWH etc.
were quoted in the Torah but were
not considered holy.
This
quotation is from _Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls: Their True Meaning
for
Judaism and Christianity_ by Lawrence H. Schiffman (p. 162):
Although it
is widely held that soon after the destruction of the Temple the
Rabbis
held a canonical convention at the rabbinical academy at Yavneh
(Jamnia),
on the coast south of what is today Tel Aviv, the textual evidence
does
not support that claim. In fact, the final catalog of the biblical
collection was fixed except for those few books of the Writings, the late
date of which left them in question. Thus, the Rabbis debated only
about a
few books, namely, Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes, and perhaps
Esther.
Because mishnaic Judaism had already inherited a tradition,
predating the
Yavnean period and ordaining which books were part of the
biblical canon, the
Rabbis at Yavneh had only to makes a few final rulings
to complete the
corpus. And even for this rather limited agenda
there is no evidence that
any such meeting ever took place at Yavneh.
/end quotation
From the same book (pp. 167-168) regarding Qumran
specifically:
We can also attack the issue of canonicity from another
direction. Much
ancient and medieval Jewish literature was composed
by the reuse of materials
found in the canonical Scriptures. ...
Only texts accorded such canonical
status served as the raw material
for new sacred compositions. ... At Qumran
all the biblical books,
that is, those in our canon of the Hebrew Bibles, are
used in this way,
but such is not the case with any other books. Therefore,
it is
highly probable that the biblical canon at Qumran was the same as that
of
the later Rabbis."
/end quotation
Schiffman discusses Enoch texts from
Qumran at length on pages 182-185.
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