Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Rolf Furuli" <furuli AT online.no>]

Dear Harold,

The data you have presented are correct, and I agree that the Aramaic
fragments of Enoch found at Qumran are older than the book of Jude. But
still you may have got the situation wrong. We have Greek and Etiopic
manuscripts of Enoch which probably are younger than Jude, and we have the
Qumran fragments that are older. When we say "Jude quoted Enoch," what
actually do we mean by "Enoch"? Most persons would answer as you do and
point to the Pseudepigraph of which fragments are found in Qumran. But there
is a problem. When you quote the on-line translation of Enoch 1:9 made by
Charles, do you know from which manuscripts he made his translation? From
the Aramaic fragments from B.C.E. or the first century C.E.? No, since they
had not been found at that time and those found later do not contain the
verse 1:9. Charles translated from Ethiopic manuscripts while he also had an
eye on the Greek text. Nonetheless, in his 1913 translation he wrote in a
footnote that Jude quoted Enoch. His only *evidence* was that the Greek and
Ethiopic texts were similar to Jude 1:14 and he *assumed* the existence of a 
text of Enoch containing these words
which was older than Jude. Today the situation is not very different.
To the best of my knowledge, we have no manuscript with Enoch 1:9 that
clearly is older than manuscripts of Jude. BTW, beware of "scholarly
concensus"; this may only be educated guesses as in the case of Charles,
Jude, and Enoch.

Please note that my point was not to argue that Enoch quoted Jude, but
rather to discuss the way evidence is treated. I have worked quite a lot 
with
the manuscripts of Enoch in different languages, including the Qumran
fragments. I find it likely that the Aramaic manuscript from which the
Qumran fragments stem, originally included the whole of chapter 1, including
verse 9, and that the text was quite similar to the Ethiopic one. But I can
of course not be certain. On the basis of my study, I find it likely that
the author of Enoch and the author of Jude quoted from the same older
source. But my guess is not better than anyone else´s guess. What is
fallacious in this situation is to say: We have manuscripts of Enoch which
clearly are older than Jude, therefore Jude must have quoted Enoch. We 
cannot
say this as long as this older manuscripts do not contain 1:9, and even then 
we cannot be certain that Jude quoted Enoch.


Best regards,

Rolf Furuli
University of Oslo


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Harold Holmyard" <hholmyard3 AT earthlink.net>
To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Sunday, March 25, 2007 10:48 AM
Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Prophetic or apocalyptic past


> 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