Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Harold Holmyard <hholmyard3 AT earthlink.net>]

Rolf Furuli wrote:
> We cannot with certainty know whether the manuscripts of Jude are older or
> younger than the Greek text of Enoch, although the manuscripts we have
> suggest that the Greek Enoch is younger.

HH: No, the manuscripts we have do not suggest that 1 Enoch was younger, 
at least the part of Enoch that Jude quoted. There is a consensus that 
that part of 1 Enoch is older than Jude. 1 Enoch 1-36, called the Book 
of the Watchers, is dated by scholars to be older than the Book of Jude:
http://www.earlyjewishwritings.com/1enoch.html

James C. VanderKam writes of 1 Enoch 1-36: "The second early booklet 
connected with the name Enoch was also written in Aramaic. It too has 
been identified in several copies from Qumran cave 4 (4Q201-202, 
204-206), the oldest of which (4Q201) dates from between 200 and 150 
BCE. As a result, it may be another third-century text. The Book of the 
Watchers (BW) is best known for introducing the strange story (or 
stories) about the angels who sinned by marrying women and fathering 
giants. The story in various forms became a major theme in the Enoch 
tradition and in a surprisingly large number of other works both Jewish 
and Christian." (An Introduction to Early Judaism, p. 91)

HH: Here's another quote from Vanderkam:
http://reluctant-messenger.com/enoch.htm

"Chaps. 1-36 The Book of the Watchers may date from the third century 
BCE. Parts of its text have been identified on several copies from 
Qumran cave 4; the earliest fragmentary manuscript (4QEnocha) dates, 
according to the editor J.T. Milk, to between 200 and 150 BCE. All 
Qumran copies are in the Aramaic language."
    - James C. Vanderkam

James Charlesworth writes: "This pseudepigraph has evoked divergent 
opinions; but today there is a consensus that the book is a composite, 
portions of which are clearly pre-Christian as demonstrated by the 
discovery of Aramaic and Hebrew fragments from four of the five sections 
of the book among the Dead Sea Scrolls. One of these fragments, 
moreover, Hen(a), was copied in the second half of the second century 
B.C. The main question concerns the date of the second section, chapters 
37-71, which contains the Son of Man sayings. J. T. Milik (esp. no. 755) 
has shown that this section, which is not represented among the early 
fragments, is probably a later addition to 1 Enoch; but his contention 
that it was composed around A.D. 270 (no. 755, p. 377) is very 
speculative. If, as most specialists concur, the early portions of 1 
Enoch date from the first half of the second century B.C., chapters 
37-71 could have been added in the first century B.C. or first century 
A.D." (The Pseudepigrapha and Modern Research, p. 98)

Martin McNamara writes: "In the words of J. T. Milik, the Qumran 
evidence indicates 'that from the first half of the second century B.C. 
onwards the Book of Watchers had essentially the same form as that in 
which it is known through the Greek and Ethiopic versions.' It can be 
presumed that it circulated in this form already by 200 B.C. " 
(Intertestamental Literature, pp. 58-59)

>  The Aramaic fragment of Enoch 1:9,
> which Jude is supposed to have quoted, has only 21 letters in three
> lines, which tells us very little. The Greek words of Jude 1:14 and Ethiopic
> words of Enoch 1:9 are very similar, and the fact that an Ethipic perfect
> (QATAL) is used where the Greek text has an aorist also suggests a close
> relationship, since neither of the forms is the dafeult form used with 
> future
> reference. A prefix form (YENAGGER) is the usual form used with future
> reference in Ethiopic, but suffix forms (NAGARA) are used as well. As for 
> the
> relationship between the two texts there are three possibilities, 1) Jude
> quoted Enoch, 2) Enoch quoted Jude, and 3) both quoted a common source.
> There is no way to know what is correct, but I cannot recall a single
> instance where these possibilities have been mentioned. This illustrates the
> fundamental problems in Hebrew grammars and grammatical studies: the problem
> of induction is ignored, and conclusions are drawn and presented as truth
> without any quality control.
>
>   
HH: Jude 14-15 is essentially the same as 1 Enoch 1:9. Here is 1 Enoch 1:9:
http://www.ccel.org/c/charles/otpseudepig/enoch/ENOCH_1.HTM

9 And behold! He cometh with ten thousands of His holy ones
To execute judgement upon all,
And to destroy all the ungodly:
And to convict all flesh
Of all the works of their ungodliness which they have ungodly committed,
And of all the hard things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.

HH: 1 Enoch 1:9 is, of course, in 1 Enoch 1-36, the past of Enoch that 
scholars are confident is older than the Book of Jude.

Yours,
Harold Holmyard