Liturgy and Cosmology in the 364-day Calendar Tradition (Studia Traditionis Theologiae) (Studia Traditionis Theologiae: Explorations in Early and Medieval Theology, 33) 9782503584270, 2503584276

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STUDIA TRADITIONIS THEOLOGIAE Explorations in Early and Medieval Theology

Theology continually engages with its past: the people, experience, Scriptures, liturgy, learning and customs of Christians. The past is preserved, rejected, modified; but the legacy steadily evolves as Christians are never indifferent to history. Even when engaging the future, theology looks backwards: the next generation’s training includes inheriting a canon of Scripture, doctrine, and controversy; while adapting the past is central in every confrontation with a modernity. This is the dynamic realm of tradition, and this series’ focus. Whether examining people, texts, or periods, its volumes are concerned with how the past evolved in the past, and the interplay of theology, culture, and tradition.

STUDIA TRADITIONIS THEOLOGIAE Explorations in Early and Medieval Theology 33 Series Editor: Thomas O’Loughlin, Professor of Historical Theology in the University of Nottingham

EDITORIAL BOARD

Director Prof. Thomas O’Loughlin Board Members Dr Andreas Andreopoulos, Dr Nicholas Baker-Brian, Dr Augustine Casiday, Dr Mary B. Cunningham, Dr Juliette Day, Dr Johannes Hoff, Dr Paul Middleton, Dr Simon Oliver, Prof. Andrew Prescott, Dr Patricia Rumsey, Dr Jonathan Wooding, Dr Holger Zellentin

A COSMIC LITURGY: QUMRAN’S 364-DAY CALENDAR

Alfred Osborne

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© 2019, Brepols Publishers n. v., Turnhout, Belgium All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher. D/2019/0095/75 ISBN 978-2-503-58427-0 e-ISBN 978-2-503-58428-7 DOI 10.1484/M.STT-EB.5.117091 ISSN 2294-3617 e-ISSN 2566-0160 Printed on acid-free paper

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv Abbreviations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii Abbreviations for Biblical Materials. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xvii Abbreviations for Editions of Non-Biblical Texts, Works of Reference, and Journals. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xviii Chapter One The 364-day Calendar and its Liturgy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Enoch. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Book of Jubilees. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A calendar like no other. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Why are Sunday, Wednesday and Friday so important? . . . . . Problems with Jaubert’s approach. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The significance of Saturday. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The significance of Wednesday. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The significance of Friday . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The significance of Sunday. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The covenant with Noah. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A hierarchy of covenants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The ultimate origin of the Festival of Weeks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1 1 5 8 9 10 11 12 14 16 17 18 19

Chapter Two When Were the Angels Created?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The creation myth in Jubilees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The primacy of the week . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The ‘heaven that is above’ is created first. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The place of the angels in God’s creation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The angels pervade the whole of creation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The universe at the end of the first day. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The universe at the end of the second day. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Early interpretations of the first and second days . . . . . . . . . . .

21 21 23 24 25 26 28 29 29

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The universe on the third and fourth days. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The universe on the fifth and sixth days. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A hierarchy of spirits. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . An angel-based cosmology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The angels and creation in the Hebrew Bible. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Jubilees creation narrative at Qumran. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter Three Cosmic Oath and Cosmic Covenant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Covenants and oaths in the Hebrew Bible . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The cosmic oath in the Book of Parables. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The cosmic oath and covenant in Jubilees. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The cosmic covenant in the Book of the Watchers. . . . . . . . . . Cosmic covenant and cosmology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The cosmic covenant appears in the story of Noah’s birth . . . Two further references to the cosmic covenant in the Book of the Watchers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The eternal covenant in the Epistle of Enoch. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The cosmic covenant in the Hebrew Bible. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Weeks or Oaths? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

30 31 31 33 34 35 36 39 39 40 46 47 49 49 52 53 54 55 56 58

Chapter Four The Rebellion of the Seven Stars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The three primordial rebellions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The rebellion of seven stars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Who are the seven stars? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Pleiades, comets, or planets?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

61 62 63 66 67

Chapter Five The Epistle of Jude and the Apostasy of the Seven Stars . . . . . . . . The ‘wandering’ stars. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A fundamental disagreement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A significant mistranslation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Why has Jude 13 not been understood?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Conclusions and a contradiction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

71 73 75 75 77 78

Chapter Six Cosmology and Theology in the Epistle of Jude. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81 Eschatological punishment in 1 Enoch and in Jude. . . . . . . . . 81

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God defers the final punishment of the Watchers and the spirits of the Giants. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jude advises the community to imitate the forbearance of God. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jude and the Enochian tradition. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The cosmological implications of Jude 13 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter Seven Jubilees Rewrites Enochian Theology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jubilees rewrites the theology of the Book of the Watchers. . . God sends the Watchers to earth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The punishment of the Watchers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The fate of the Giants. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The treatment of the spirits of the Giants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mastema/Satan is put in charge of the demons. . . . . . . . . . . . . Two visions of the world. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jubilees and Sirach. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Chapter Eight Jubilees Rewrites the Cosmology of the 364-day Calendar. . . . . . A ‘new creation’ after the Flood in Jubilees. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The ‘new creation’ is mentioned already in the first chapter of Jubilees. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The new creation is justified . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The ‘great day of judgment’ has already take place. . . . . . . . . . . The punishment of Cain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The heavenly tablets, the law, and the testimony. . . . . . . . . . . . A possible allusion to the heavenly tablets in Jude. . . . . . . . . . . The periodization of history in Jubilees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jubilees and Sirach again . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

82 84 87 88 89 91 91 94 95 97 97 99 101 102 104 105 106 111 114 115 118 119 121 122 124 126

Chapter Nine Rewritten Tradition in the Book of the Watchers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 The Overall Structure of the Book of the Watchers. . . . . . . . . 129 The Introduction (Chapters 1-5) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130 The ‘Nature Homily’. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 Links with the Astronomical Book. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132 The Apostasy of the Watchers (Chapters 6–8). . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136 Four Archangels Purify and Heal the Earth (Chapters 9–11). 137

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The significance of the healing of the earth. . . . . . . . . . . . . Enoch and the Watchers (Chapters 12–16). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Enoch’s First Journey (Chapters 17–19). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . An awkward interpolation: the seven stars. . . . . . . . . . . . . The gradual expansion of Enoch’s first journey . . . . . . . . . Enoch’s Second Journey (Chapters 21–36). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The cosmology of Jubilees reveals itself. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A river of fire in the west . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A greater interest in justice. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The second journey and the cosmology of Jubilees. . . . . . . The final conflagration in 2 Peter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Looking forward to the Astronomical Book. . . . . . . . . . . .

139 140 140 142 145 146 148 149 150 151 152 153 154

Chapter Ten The Gradual Growth of the Book of the Watchers. . . . . . . . . . . . . 157 Group One: The Early Work. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158 1 En 6:1–7:6: The Conspiracy of the Angels and the Birth of the Giants. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158 1 En 9:1–10:14: The Intervention of the Four Archangels. 158 1 En 12:1–16:4: Enoch and the Watchers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 1 En 17:1–18:11 and 19:1–3: Enoch’s First Journey. . . . . . 159 Group Two: Additions Which Do Not Affect the Work’s Cosmology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160 1 En 1:1–9 and 5:5–9: The Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160 1 En 6:7–8: The Names of the Fallen Watchers. . . . . . . . . 160 1 En 8:1–4: The Teaching of the Watchers . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 Group Three: Additions Designed to Modify the Work’s Cosmology. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 1 En 2:1–5:4: The ‘Nature Homily’. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 1 En 10:15–11:2: An Addition to the Commissioning of Archangel Michael. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161 Chapter 18:12–16: The Punishment of the Seven Stars . . 162 1 En 20:1–36:4: Enoch’s Second Journey. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162 The Three Groups and the Aramaic Fragments. . . . . . . . . . . . . 162 When did the Book of the Watchers reach its present form?. 164 Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165 Chapter Eleven Uriel Predicts the Apostasy of the Planets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167 1 En 80:1–8: An Incongruous Text. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168

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A lived reality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171 The apostasy of the sun. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173 The apostasy of the moon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175 An acknowledged corruption and a simple emendation. 177 The Babylonian lunar month . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179 Propinquation in Enūma Elish. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 Propinquation at Qumran. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182 Propinquation in 1 En 80:5. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183 The creation of the moon in 4Q320 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184 The moon shines more than it should. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187 The sun ‘looks to’ the moon in the Book of Parables . . . . 189 The moon is not an independent indicator of time. . . . . . 194 The 364-day calendar breaks the power of the moon . . . . 195 The Apostasy of the Stars. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195 Why ‘many heads of the stars’?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197 When did the apostasy of the ‘Wanderers’ take place?. . . . . . . 200 The Watchers investigate the phases of the moon. . . . . . . 204 ‘In the days of the sinners’ refers to the years before the Flood. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206 Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207 Chapter Twelve Rewritten Tradition in the Astronomical Book. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209 The general character of the Astronomical Book. . . . . . . . . . . . 210 1 En 72:1: The Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211 1 En 72:2–37: The Law of the Sun. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212 1 En 73:1–3ab: The Law of the Moon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214 1 En 73:3cd-8: The Law of the Phases of the Moon. . . . . . . . . . 218 1 En 74:1–9, 17: The Movements of the Moon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223 1 En 74:10–16: The Lunar and Solar Years . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225 1 En 75:1–3: The Four Leaders of the Stars and Correct Calendrical Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227 1 En 75:4–9: The Twelve Gates in the Sun and the Windows of Heaven. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231 1 En 76:1–14: The Twelve Winds and Their Twelve Gates. . . 232 1 En 77:1–8: The Four Quarters of the Earth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233 1 En 78:1–5: The Names of the Sun and the Moon. . . . . . . . . . 234 1 En 78:6–16, 79:3–5, 78:17, 79:6: The Waxing and Waning of the Moon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235 1 En 79:1–2: A Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 1 En 79:1–2 and the cosmic covenant. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 246

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1 En 79:6: Another Misplaced Verse?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247 Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249 Chapter Thirteen The Supplements to the Astronomical Book. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 En 80:1–8: Uriel Predicts the Apostasy of the Planets . . . . . 1 En 81:1–10: Enoch is to Pass On His Knowledge to Methuselah. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 En 82:1–3: Enoch’s Instruction to Methuselah. . . . . . . . . . . . 1 En 82:4–8: Enoch Again Summarises Uriel’s Revelations. . 1 En 82:9–20: The Law of the Stars, Their Leaders, and the Four Seasons. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4Q211 frg. 1: A Description of the Seasons. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

251 251 252 254 255 258 261 262

Chapter Fourteen The Growth of the Astronomical Book. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265 The Original Astronomical Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 265 The Characteristics of the Original Astronomical Book. . . . . 268 The Tables of Lunar Visibility and the Synchronistic Calendar 269 The additional supplementary material. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269 The Aramaic fragments of Astronomical Enoch. . . . . . . . . . . . 270 A liturgical observation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271 Chapter Fifteen Summary and Conclusions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The liturgical week. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The rebellion of the Watchers. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The apostasy of the ‘wanderers’. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Book of the Watchers is revised. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Astronomical Book is revised. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Four fundamental myths. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Six fundamental texts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The early tradition. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The revised tradition. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The properly astronomical texts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The development of the 364-day calendar tradition. . . . . . . . . Further investigation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The enduring trauma of change. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

273 273 274 274 276 276 277 277 277 278 278 279 280 280

Appendix The 364-day Calendar in the Priestly Account of Creation. . . . . . 283

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Why is the month not mentioned in Genesis 1:14–19? . . . . . . 284 An experiment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285 Verse 14 – ‘Let there be lights … to distinguish between day and night’. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285 Verse 14 – ‘let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years’. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 286 Verse 15 – ‘to give light upon the earth’. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290 Verse 16 – ‘the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night’. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 290 Verse 16 – ‘... and the stars’. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291 Verses 17, 18, and 19. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291 Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292 Why was the sun not created until after the plants?. . . . . . . . . 292 Some suggestions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293 A liturgical approach. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295 The calendrical significance of Wednesday. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296 The sun precedes the moon and the stars. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297 Conclusions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298 Bibliography. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I. Primary Literature. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A. Hebrew Bible, Apocrypha, and New Testament . . . . . B. 1 Enoch. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . C. Jubilees. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . D. Cuneiform Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . E. The Dead Sea Scrolls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . F. Rabbinic Literature. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . G. Greek and Roman Literature. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . H. Early Christian and Patristic Texts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . II. Reference Works. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . III. Secondary Literature. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

301 301 301 301 303 304 305 306 306 306 307 307

Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317 I. Scripture Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317 II. Index of Old Testament Pseudepigrapha and Qumran Texts 320 III. Other Ancient Religious Texts. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327 IV. Index of Names, Ancient and Modern . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328



ἁρμονίη ἀφανὴς φανερῆς κρείττων ‘The hidden connexion holds more powerfully than the visible.’ Heraclitus, Fragment LXXX Kahn (54 Diels), trans. Osborne

PREFACE

The present work was written against the background of some forty years of liturgical life in the Greek and Russian Orthodox Churches, where I found myself immersed in the world of the Byzantine liturgy, one of the only living relicts of the spiritual life of Late Antiquity. Both Churches use calendars that differ to a greater or lesser degree from those used by Western Christians and, in one case, from the civil society that surrounds them. This leads inevitably to a heightened awareness of how the liturgical calendar one follows can colour one’s relationships to those who follow another norm, and it is probably as a result of this that when I first came across the 364-day calendar and the work of Annie Jaubert I was immediately fascinated by the question of what this might mean for the religious history of Israel and Christianity. My academic background had prepared me to a certain extent for such an enquiry, since I had a doctorate in Classics and had been introduced to the field of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Syriac studies at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio. Actual work on the topic could not begin, however, until my retirement. I wish to thank from the heart my professors during my days as a student, true teachers who opened my mind to the joys of scholarly enquiry. Thanks also go to Margaret Barker and Dr George Bebawi, who brought home to me the importance of Second Temple Judaism in all its fascinating complexity. And then there is the grateful recognition that all scholars owe to those who have preceded them in pouring over the texts that link us to our past. In particular I would single out Professor James C. VanderKam for all he has done to deepen our understanding of Jubilees and for his masterly edition of the Astronomical Book in 1 Enoch.



Preface

I owe a particular thanks to Professor Tom O’Loughlin for encouraging me to prepare this text for publication. Professor Sebastian Brock and Dr Juliette Day helped through their comments and support. I would also like to extend my gratitude to Laldingluia, a young theologian from Mizoram, India, for his work in preparing the indices. And, finally, I thank my wife, Jessica, for her ability to see clearly and then analyse appropriately what I was trying to do, for her excellent editorial skills, and for the extraordinary forbearance she has shown during the writing and completion of this book. Alfred Osborne Oxford



ABBREVIATIONS

Abbreviations for Biblical Materials Gen Ex Lev Job Ps Isa Jer Dan Zech Sir Tob Mt Mk Lk Jn Jude 2 Pet

Genesis Exodus Leviticus Job Psalms Isaiah Jeremiah Daniel Zechariah Sirach Tobit Matthew Mark Luke John Jude 2 Peter



Abbreviations

Abbreviations for Editions of Non-Biblical Texts, Works of Reference, and Journals ARW BADG

BDB

CBQ CSCL CSCO DJD En DSD DSSSE HSS JA JBL JQR JSHRZ JSJ JSS Jub LCL LXX MS MT NRSV

Archiv für Religionswissenschaft A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, W.  Bauer, W.  F. Arndt et al. (eds), revised and augmented by F. W. Gingrich and F. W. Danker [2nd edition] (Chicago, MI: University of Chicago Press, 1979). A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament based on the Lexicon of William Gesenius, F. Brown, S. R. Driver, and C. A. Briggs (eds) (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1953). Catholic Biblical Quarterly Corpus scriptorum christianorum latinorum Corpus scriptorum christianorum orientalium Discoveries in the Judaean Desert Enoch Dead Sea Discoveries The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition Harvard Semitic Studies Journal asiatique Journal of Biblical Literature Jewish Quarterly Review Jüdische Schriften aus hellenistisch-römischer Zeit Journal for the Study of Judaism in the Persian, Hellenistic, and Roman Periods Journal of Semitic Studies Jubilees Loeb Classical Library Septuagint Manuscript Masoretic Text New Revised Standard Version



Abbreviations

NETS NTS OECT OTP OUP PGL RB ROC RQ SBLEJL SC TDNT VT WMANT ZNW

New English Translation of the Septuagint New Testament Studies Oxford Early Christian Texts Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, ed. J. Charlesworth, 2 vols (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1983–85) Oxford University Press G.  W.  H. Lampe (ed.), A Patristic Greek Lexicon (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961). Revue biblique Revue de l’Orient chrétien Revue de Qumran Society for Biblical Literature Early Jewish Literature Sources chrétiennes Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, 10 vols (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1964–76). Vetus Testamentum Wissenschaftliche Monographien zum Alten und Neuen Testament Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde der älteren Kirche



CHAPTER ONE THE 364-DAY CALENDAR AND ITS LITURGY

The present study addresses the question of the relationship between liturgy and cosmology in the strand of Second Temple Judaism that followed a divinely-revealed 364-day liturgical calendar. We now know that the followers of this tradition were active throughout the second half of the Second Temple period, say, from 300 bce to 70 ce, and no doubt earlier. The 364-day calendar is used in a whole series of calendrical texts found at Qumran and is defended as revelation in the Book of Enoch (1 Enoch) and the Book of Jubilees. The story of these last two works is fascinating and forms a suitable background for the enquiry that follows.

1 Enoch The Book of Enoch (or 1 Enoch) enjoys the unusual distinction of being the only text not found in the Hebrew Bible that is cited as scripture in the New Testament. In the Epistle of Jude, Enoch is called a prophet and his words are given divine authority: ‘It was also about these [individuals] that Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied, saying …’ (Jude 14). Christ refers to Isaiah in the same way: ‘You hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied rightly about you when he said …’ (Mt 15:7). The status of Enoch as a prophet and the authority of his work as scripture was widely accepted in the Early Church.1 This is clear from the way the Epistle of Barnabas 16:5, which was probably written be1 The references are collected and commented upon in Nickelsburg (2001), 87– 95. Cf. Charles (1913a), 181–84. See also VanderKam (1996), 35–60, for a close examination of the earlier citations.

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The 364-day Calendar and its Liturgy

fore 135 ce, introduces a paraphrase of 1 Enoch 89:56–67 with ‘For the scripture says …’. A century later Tertullian (c. 160–c. 225 ce) speaks of scriptura Enoch (De cult. fem. 1.2) and says of a particular tradition that it was transmitted per antiquissimum prophetam Enoch (De idolatria 15). Clement of Alexandria (c. 150–c. 215 ce) introduces a summary of 1 Enoch 8 with ‘Already Enoch also says … (êdê de kai Enoch phêsin)’, giving him the authority of a prophet (Eclogae propheticae 53). And an unknown author who was probably writing between 253 and 257 ce, prefaces a long quotation of 1 Enoch 1:8 with sicut scriptum est (Ad Novatianum 16–17). The situation begins to change, however, with Origen (c. 185– c. 254 ce). In his earlier works he too treats the writings of Enoch as authentic and cites them as scripture. In Contra Celsum 5.52–55, however, his latest work, he accepts that ‘in the churches the books that bear the name of Enoch do not at all (ou panu) circulate as divine.’ After Origen references to ideas found in 1 Enoch continue to appear in the Church Fathers, but without any indication that the work is thought of as scripture and generally without specific reference to Enoch. They have become simply part of the broader Christian tradition. In the end Jerome (c. 345–420 ce) can say of Enoch’s prophecy that ‘I read a certain apocryphal book (legimus ecogni librum apocryphum)’ that is ‘counted among the Apocrypha (inter apocryphos computatur)’.2 His statement that he had read the book is our last evidence that the work was read and used by a major Christian writer.3 After that Enochian ideas were still passed on and Enoch’s name continued to be mentioned from time to time, but effectively the book itself had disappeared from sight. The Great Church had already begun to turn its back on Enoch before the middle of the third century ce and by the end of the fourth century ce its reputation had collapsed. It was more than a thousand years before Enoch was rediscovered. In 1770–72, while searching in Ethiopia for the source of the Nile, the Scottish explorer and linguist James Bruce was presented with a number of Ethiopian manuscripts, among them three copies of what he was told was an Ethiopic (Ge‘ez) translation of the Book of Enoch. On his return he gave one copy to Louis XV of France, one to the Bodleian Library in Oxford, and kept for himself the third copy, which went to the Bodleian on his Brev. in Ps. 132:3 (CCSL 78:280–81). Fragments of two Greek codices from the fourth and fifth or sixth centuries found in Egypt, a few late fourth- early fifth-century excerpts in the Chronography of George Syncellus, and a short excerpt written into the margins of an eleventh-century manuscript in the Vatican are an indication that some knowledge of it did survive. See Nickelsburg (2001), 12–14. 2 3

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The 364-day Calendar and its Liturgy

death. Not only did these manuscripts give a new impetus to the study of Ethiopic, but they brought to the attention of Western scholarship for the first time since the fall of Rome the text of the whole of this previously lost work.4 What was perhaps most surprising about this discovery was that the Book of Enoch revealed to scholars for the first time the existence within Judaism of a divinely sanctioned 364-day calendar that was never referred to afterward in the texts of either the Jewish or the Christian tradition. Richard Lawrence of Oxford, later Anglican bishop of Cashel in Ireland, published an English translation of the Bodleian manuscript in 1821 and followed this with a transcription of the Ge‘ez original in 1838.5 Other texts and translations followed, the most important of which were those of August Dillmann, whose German text based on five manuscripts appeared in 1851, his translation and commentary in 1853.6 Dillmann’s work set the scholarly standard until R. H. Charles published an English translation and commentary based on additional manuscripts in 1893.7 Charles published an improved text, now based on twenty-three manuscripts, in 1906 and a substantially revised translation and commentary in 1912.8 In addition Charles was able to make use of a Greek manuscript found in a monk’s grave at Akhmim/Panopolis in Egypt that contained 1 Enoch 1–32. This gave access to an earlier form of the text in the language from which it had been translated into Ethiopic. Charles’s work set the academic standard for more than fifty years.9 Then, unexpectedly, fragments of 1 Enoch in Aramaic were found at Qumran. These were published for the first time in 1976 by Józef Tadeusz Milik.10 There were fragments from twenty-one different Enochic manuscripts, if one includes the ten manuscripts of the Book of the Giants, a text in which Enoch figures but which does not form part of 1 Enoch. Clearly Enoch and the traditions associated with him were of considerable importance for the Qumran community. On palaeographical grounds Milik estimated that they were produced over a period extending from the late third or early second century bce to around 50 ce – in other words, until the Qumran settlement was destroyed by 6 7 8 9

See the positive assessment of Bruce’s efforts in Ullendorff (1953), 133. Lawrence (1821) and (1838). Dillmann (1851) and (1853). Charles (1893). Charles (1906) and (1912). For a fuller publishing history see Nickelsburg (2001), 109–18. 10 Milik (1976). 4 5

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The 364-day Calendar and its Liturgy

the Romans during the First Jewish War in 66–70 ce, a period of over two hundred years. The question of the original language was now settled and for the first time a clear historical context was provided for its content. The whole of 1 Enoch was preserved in its entirety, however, only in Ge‘ez. The work is made up of five ‘booklets’: the Book of the Watchers, the Parables, the Astronomical Book, the Dream Visions, and the Epistle of Enoch. Between and after the last two of these a small amount of related material had been inserted. These five booklets would appear to have been written by different authors since they treat different subjects, and when they do treat the same subject they deal with it differently. After years of study Charles concluded: To describe in short compass the Book of Enoch is impossible. It comes from many different writers and almost as many periods. […] Nearly every religious idea appears in a variety of forms, and, if these are studied in relation to their contexts and dates, we cannot fail to observe that in the age to which the Enoch literature belongs there is movement everywhere, and nowhere dogmatic fixity and finality.11

Nevertheless, they are linked, as VanderKam says, by the way that ‘[o]ver­all they express a common world view that characterizes this present world and age as evil and unjust and in need of divine adjudication and renewal.’12 It must be said, however, that the work as a whole – and even as individual ‘booklets’ – resembles a bouillabaisse made up of different kinds of fish, the pieces of which one has been invited to separate out and analyse in the hope of finding out what these fish once looked like. Of the five booklets that make up 1 Enoch only the two earliest are considered in detail in this study: the Book of the Watchers and the Astronomical Book. The Book of the Watchers – ‘Watcher’ is another name for ‘angel’ in Aramaic – tells at length the story that lies behind the brief note in Genesis 6:1–4 about the heavenly ‘sons of God’ who looked down at the earth, became enamoured of the ‘daughters of men’, and through carnal intercourse with them sired a race of giants. It speaks of the effect this had on mankind, how Enoch interacted with these ‘Watchers’, and adds a description of two journeys Enoch made through the heavens, during which the archangel Uriel showed him the Charles (1912), x. Nickelsburg and VanderKam (2004), 1.

11

12

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The 364-day Calendar and its Liturgy

otherwise hidden workings of the universe. The Astronomical Book then describes with mathematical precision the movements of the heavens that bring about a 364-day year, adding to this a certain amount of geographical and meteorological information. These two texts were foundational for the developed 364-day calendar tradition.13 As a result of the disappearance of 1 Enoch, however, it was never properly integrated into the Church's understanding of Christian origins. The same is true of the second of the works upon which this study is based.

The Book of Jubilees The story of Jubilees resembles closely that of 1 Enoch. The existence of a work called ta iôbêlaia (‘the Jubilees’) or hê leptê genesis (‘The Little’ – or (better) ‘Detailed’ – Genesis’) was known because it is mentioned from time to time by early Christian writers. These citations – in Greek and Latin – were collected by the German scholar Johann Albert Fabricius in his Codex Pseudepigraphus Veteris Testamenti in 1722–23.14 They showed that Jubilees would often add words and explanations to the Hebrew text of Genesis, minor points that were of interest only to Christian theologians and scholars. For the purposes of this study the most important of these excerpts are those taken by Epiphanius of Salamis (c. 315–403) from chapter 2 of Jubilees and included in his De mensuris et ponderibus.15 This situation changed completely, however, when Ludwig Krapf, a German linguist and missionary working for the Anglican Church Missionary Society in Ethiopia between 1837 and 1842, found and had copied the text of the Mașhafa Kufālē, a Ge‘ez translation of Jubilees, and sent it back to Germany. The book proved to be a retelling of Genesis and the first half of Exodus covering the period from the time of creation until the entry into the Promised Land. Jubilees is selective in what it chooses to include and unafraid to add detail to what is said in the Hebrew Bible. What is perhaps most striking about it, however, is the way it defends the 364-day calendar as having been divinely revealed and gives precise dates to the events of Israel’s history. 13 The translations of 1 Enoch in Nickelsburg (2001) and Nickelsburg and VanderKam (2012) are used throughout this study unless otherwise indicated. 14 Fabricius (1722–23), vol. 1, 849–64; vol. 2, 120–22. 15 Greek text in VanderKam (1989a), 258–60, and English translation in VanderKam (1989b), 328–30. VanderKam’s translation is used throughout this study unless otherwise indicated.

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The 364-day Calendar and its Liturgy

The text sent back to Germany by Krapf was translated by Dillmann, who published it with an introduction and commentary in 1850–51.16 This particular manuscript was of inferior quality, however, and in 1859 Dillmann published a critical edition of the Ge‘ez on the basis of two more recent discoveries.17 Charles published the Ge‘ez text of Jubilees in 1895 using two additional manuscripts,18 and followed this with an English translation in 1902.19 After a gap of many years Chaim Rabin published in 1984 a revised form of Charles’s English version20 and in 1985 O. S. Wintermute produced a new translation based on Charles’s Ge‘ez text.21 The Ethiopic text was not published again, however, until 1989, when James C. VanderKam was able to base his text on twenty-seven manuscripts and added a translation and textual commentary.22 Not long after Dillmann first published the Ethiopic text a fifthsixth century Latin translation was discovered in a palimpsest in Milan’s Ambrosian Library. It had escaped notice because the Latin version of Jubilees had been rubbed out and an eleventh-century Latin text copied on top of it. Nevertheless Antonius Maria Ceriani was able to decipher and publish about one third of the whole work in 1861.23 More important for this study, however, are the fragments of Jubilees that Cardinal Tisserant extracted from an anonymous Syriac chronicle found by the Syrian Patriarch of Antioch, Ignatius Ephrem II Rahmani.24 Among the nineteen citations preserved in this text is a large portion of the account of the creation in Jubilees 2:2–18.25 As was the case with 1 Enoch, the discovery of fragments from fourteen (possibly fifteen) different manuscripts of Jubilees at Qumran changed the situation entirely. This settled the question of the original language of the work – it was Hebrew – and gave an accurate ad quem Dillmann (1850–51). Dillmann (1859). 18 Charles (1895). 19 Charles (1902). This was then reprinted in Charles (1913b). 20 Rabin (1984). 21 Wintermute (1985). 22 VanderKam (1989a, 1989b). 23 Ceriani (1861–63), 15–54, and VanderKam (1989a), 270–300. 24 Tisserant (1921), 45–86, 206–32. 25 Syriac text in VanderKam (1989a), 258–96, and English translation in VanderKam (1989b), 328–64. For the story of the text of Jubilees and its versions see VanderKam (1989b), i–xxxiv. 16

17

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The 364-day Calendar and its Liturgy

for its composition, since the manuscripts could be dated on a palaeographic basis from 125–100 bce down to the first century ce.26 Even more significant was the fact that the number of different manuscripts found indicated that Jubilees – like 1 Enoch – was an important text for the Qumran community. More copies of 1 Enoch and Jubilees were found at Qumran than of any other non-biblical text.

A calendar like no other The 364-day liturgical calendar described in Jubilees and 1 Enoch and defended as divinely revealed truth has a number of interesting characteristics.27 Ben-Dov calls it a ‘septenary’ calendar, in that it is based entirely on the seven-day week.28 This is made clear in Table 1, which presents this calendar in the form most familiar to Western readers. Because the liturgical year has exactly 364-days, it also has exactly fifty-two weeks and four thirteen-week quarters. Most months have thirty days, but an extra day is added to the third month of each quarter. And because each year has exactly fifty-two weeks, each year is exactly like every other and any day of any month that falls on a particular day of the week in one year will fall on the same day of the week in the next. It is the thirty-first day added to the third month of each quarter that brings this about. Although the full texts of 1 Enoch and Jubilees were first published in the 1830s and 50s, it was not until the 1950s that the French scholar Annie Jaubert was able to answer definitively a question that had puzzled scholars from the beginning: On which day of the week does the year begin? She did this by plotting on a grid the journeys of the patriarchs described – and given precise dates – in Jubilees. By assuming that they would never travel on the Sabbath she demonstrated that only if the year began on a Wednesday would none of their journeys take place on a Saturday. This made it possible to set out the calendar as in Table 1 for the first time. 26 VanderKam (1981a) argues persuasively that it was written in the immediate aftermath of the Maccabean revolt of 165 bce. Jubilees 23:16–23 seems to reflect the internecine warfare that broke out at that time while 23:26–31 seems to reflect an – unfulfilled – hope for a peaceful solution to civil and religious conflict on the basis of acceptance of the 364-day calendar and obedience to the Mosaic law as interpreted by the author. Cf. VanderKam (2001), 17–21. 27 An earlier form of this chapter appeared in Osborne (2017a). 28 Ben-Dov, (2011), 72.

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The 364-day Calendar and its Liturgy

Table 1: The ‘privileged’ days of the 364-day year Sun

Mon

Tue

Thu

Fri

Sat

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

IV (Jul)

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

VII (Oct)

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

X (Jan)

26

27

28

29

30 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

V (Aug)

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

VIII (Nov)

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

XI (Feb)

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

III (Jun)

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

VI (Sep)

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

IX (Dec)

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

XII (Mar)

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

Third Month of each Season:

II (May)

Second Month of each Season:

I (Apr)

First Month of each Season:

Wed

The numbers of the months according to the Priestly tradition are given in the lefthand column together with their approximate Western equivalent.

If the 364-day year begins on Wednesday, this has a decided effect on the dates of the festivals and feasts of the Hebrew Bible, since they then

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The 364-day Calendar and its Liturgy

fall invariably on either Sunday, Wednesday, or Friday. If the year begins on any other day, this is not the case. The pattern can be seen in Table 1, where the liturgical celebrations and Saturday, which also has its special liturgy, are shaded. The Festivals of Unleavened Bread (I/15) and Booths (VII/15) fall on Wednesday, the Festival of Weeks (III/15) and the Waving of the Sheaf (I/26) fall on a Sunday, while the Day of Atonement (VII/10) falls on Friday every year. The four ‘memorial days and days of the seasons’ that commemorate Noah’s salvation from the Flood according to Jubilees 6:23 fall on the first day of each season, a Wednesday, every year and the first day of every month falls on a Sunday, Wednesday, or Friday. Finally, according to the Temple Scroll, the non-biblical feasts of New Wine (V/3) and New Oil (VI/22) always fall on Sunday (11Q19 XIX 11–14; 11Q19 XXI 12–16). Their dates are fixed by using the same forty-nine-day, seven-week interval already established between the Waving of the Sheaf and the Festival of Weeks in Leviticus 23:15–16.

Why are Sunday, Wednesday and Friday so important? It is now more than sixty years since Jaubert identified this preference given to Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday when dating liturgical celebrations according to the 364-day calendar.29 Her conclusion was that these three ‘privileged’ days had special significance in the liturgical week for those who used this calendar – which included the authors of the Priestly portions of the Pentateuch and some of the prophets. Reviewing her work on the 364-day calendar twenty-five years later, VanderKam accepted this conclusion: ‘… the fact that the festivals fall on these days demonstrates their liturgical character.’30 Jaubert was writing in the run-up to the Second Vatican Council, and understandably the Christian liturgy was very much in her mind. It is therefore not surprising that she linked this preference for certain days of the week to the liturgy of the Qumran community and – ultimately – to the liturgy of the Early Church. Yet no Qumran text among

29 Jaubert presented her ideas in Jaubert (1953) and (1957a), summarizing them in Jaubert (1957b) and (1965). She based her work on an earlier insight of Dominique Barthélemy (1952), 199–203. For a presentation of Jaubert’s thesis and survey of the scholarly discussion it has aroused see Saulnier (2012), 19–63. 30 VanderKam (1979), 399.

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all those published since she first presented her ideas tells us why these days should be preferred. I shall argue that Jaubert’s primary insight was indeed correct: the significance of these ‘privileged’ days is related to the liturgy. We will challenge, however, her idea that their significance was based on their position in the week31 and argue that it is based on what happened on each of these days during the creation of the world.

Problems with Jaubert’s approach Jaubert thought it was their location in the sabbatical week which gave these days their significance. ‘Sunday, the first day of the week, the day after the sabbath, is the day of departures and of new undertakings. Friday, the day before the sabbath, is the day of arrivals and of assemblies that precede the sabbath.’32 Intentionally leaving aside ‘the extremely ancient Oriental mystique of the number four’, she concludes that ‘on the level of the week, the importance of the fourth day appears to be due to the central position which it occupies in the week, equidistant from the two extremes.’33 Some of the examples taken by Jaubert from the Hebrew Bible do seem to confirm her understanding. According to the 364-day calendar the beginning of the Flood (Gen 7:11) and the departure from Ahava (Ezra 8:31) fall on a Sunday, while the Ark comes to rest on Mount Ararat (Gen 8:4) on Friday, which is also day of the week the children of Israel reach the desert of Sin (Ex 16:1), enter the Promised Land (Josh 4:19), and arrive at Jerusalem on their return from exile (Ezra 7:9). The numbering of the children of Israel (Num 1:1) also takes place on a Friday, as does Moses’ last address to the Israelites before they enter the Promised Land (Dt 1:3). This explanation does not, however, cover all cases. Wednesday is the day on which the departure from Egypt begins (Num 33:3), as does the departure from Sinai (Num 10:11). It is also the day on which the Tabernacle is constructed (Ex 40:1), the peaks of the mountains appear after the Flood (Gen 8:5), and the earth becomes dry (Gen 8:14). It is hard to see a pattern. The same is true of Friday. The paschal lamb is chosen on Jaubert (1957a), 45. Jaubert (1965), 39. 33 Jaubert (1965), 39. 31

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Friday (Ex 12:1), which is also day on which Aaron dies (Num 33:38). There simply is no consistency. The same is true if we look at dated events in Jubilees. Although there is clearly something special about these days, nevertheless, as pointed out by VanderKam, Jubilees ‘gives no explicit warrant for claiming that the calendar serves to underscore these weekdays’.34 A marked preference for dating historical events to Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday can nevertheless easily be seen.35 The events themselves, however, cannot be consistently categorized in such a way as to make them suitable for the beginning, middle, and end of the week. The obvious preference for these three days must be based on some other criterion.

The significance of Saturday We can be sure of the origin of the liturgical significance of only one day of the week, the Sabbath: ‘So God blessed the seventh day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation’ (Gen 2:3).36 The Sabbath sets a seal on God’s work in creation, and for the author of the Priestly creation narrative the place of the Sabbath as a day of rest in the liturgy of Israel is inextricably bound up with God’s rest on the seventh day. On Sinai, for example, the Lord tells Moses to say to the Israelites: ‘You shall keep my sabbaths, for this is a sign between me and you throughout your generations … It is a sign for ever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he rested, and was refreshed’ (Ex 31:12, 17[P]). The connection between the Sabbath and creation is peculiar to the Priestly source in the Pentateuch. In Deuteronomy the Sabbath is linked to the escape from Egypt: ‘Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day’ (Dt 5:15). It is clear, therefore, that according to P the liturgical significance of Saturday is determined by what happened on the seventh day of crea VanderKam (1979), 402. See Jaubert (1957a), 51–52, for a selection of dated events in Jubilees. 36 Biblical quotations are taken from the NRSV unless otherwise indicated. 34 35

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tion. This link between liturgy and creation should be the starting point for any consideration of the liturgical significance of the other ‘privileged’ days the 364-day calendar.

The significance of Wednesday Apart from the Sabbath, Wednesday is by far the most favoured day for liturgical celebration. Not only does the first day of the year and the first day of each of the other thirteen-week seasons fall on a Wednesday, but the first day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread also falls on a Wednesday every year, as does the first day of the Festival of Booths and its last day, the Day of Addition. These are two of the three great ‘festivals of congregation’ in the liturgical year of the Hebrew Bible. What then is the origin of this special significance? No day other than the Sabbath is given such liturgical prominence. We know that the authors of Jubilees and the Astronomical Book in 1 Enoch 72–82 were concerned – even obsessed – with questions of time and the calendar. For their authors salvation itself is bound up with the correct calculation of time. This also seems to have been true of the Qumran community throughout its history. The fragmentary remains of two mishmarot texts, 4Q328 2–6 and 4Q329 2.1–3, list the priestly courses serving on the first day of each annual quarter for the six years of the priestly rotation.37 In doing so they highlight the link between the priesthood, the calendar, and the heavens since these ‘quarter-days’ coincide with the solstices and equinoxes. On the analogy of the Sabbath, the significance of Wednesday for the liturgical calendar should first be sought in what was done on that day during the first week of the world’s existence. In fact, the relationship between the calendar and the creation of the heavenly bodies on the fourth day is made clear in P itself: ‘And God said, “Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years”’ (Gen 1:14). The creation of the sun, the moon, and the stars on Wednesday marks the beginning of time. Wednesday is therefore inevitably the first day of the 364day year and the first day of every season. Before that first Wednesday there was no way to measure time – and therefore no calendar. The correlation between the solstices and equinoxes and the first days of the first, fourth, seventh, and tenth months and their celebration DJD, XXI (2001), 140–41, 145. This is pointed out by Scott (2005), 36.

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as ‘memorial days and days of the seasons’ (Jub 6:23) thus links the basic structure of the 364-day calendar immediately to the fourth day of creation. After all, the heavenly bodies were created ‘for seasons and for days and years.’ When Enoch summarizes for his son Methuselah ‘the law of the stars’ at the end of the Astronomical Book in 1 Enoch and describes the procession of the angels that are in charge of the stars he says: ‘Their four leaders who divide the four parts of the year [i.e., mark the change of season] enter first’ and before all the other angels that guide the stars (1 En 82:11). Ben-Dov points out that Enoch gives the highest place in the sidereal hierarchy to the four stars that ‘divide the four parts of the year’38 and goes so far as to call these stars ‘the leaders of Time’.39 The day of their first rising at dawn is always Tuesday, announcing the arrival of the new season that will begin that evening, the evening of Wednesday, liturgically a ‘memorial day’ according to Jubilees. Jubilees 6:23–27 says that the first days of the four seasons commemorate four different events in the story of the Flood. In calendar order they are the Lord’s command to build an Ark and the drying up of the earth, the closing of the openings into the depths of the abyss, the opening of these openings,40 and the appearance of the tops of the mountains. This correlates the notion of salvation very neatly with observation of the correct calendar, something that would have resonated profoundly in a community where salvation required calendrical orthodoxy. Those who followed the 364-day calendar will have been fully aware of the symbolism attached to the four Wednesdays that begin the seasons and their link to the fourth day of creation, the day on which time began. It is therefore be no surprise that two of the mishmarot texts from Qumran name the priestly course that should be celebrating at the beginning of each quarter of the year. The first day of the year has special significance, since according to Jubilees it is preceded by a day that commemorates both God’s instruction to Noah to build an ark and the drying up of the waters of the Flood. The celebration of the Festival of Unleavened Bread and the Festival of Booths on the fifteenth day of the first and seventh months – always a Wednesday – was originally determined by the fact that traditionally these festivals were celebrated at the time of the full moon according Ben-Dov (2008), 112. Ben-Dov (2008), 113. 40 It was the closing of these openings into the abyss that allowed the flood waters to build up and cover the earth, while their opening allowed the waters to flow downward again as they normally would. 38 39

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to a lunisolar calendar and therefore in the middle of the month. The way these fall on a Wednesday every year will have been a twice-yearly reminder of their link to the creation of the moon on the fourth day. In fact, it is only because the calendar year begins on Wednesday that the fifteenth days of the first and seventh months fall on a Wednesday as well. Thus Wednesday plays a fundamental role in the construction of the calendar. We should accept, therefore, that the liturgical significance of Wednesday, like that of Saturday, derives from what took place during the first week of creation. On Wednesday, the fourth day, the heavenly luminaries – the visible masters of time – came into existence. Both Wednesday and the Sabbath can be said to derive their liturgical importance from the events of that first week.

The significance of Friday As has been pointed out, Jaubert derived the significance of Friday from the fact that it is the last of the six non-sabbatical days on which ordinary activity is possible. She thought it understandable, therefore, that Friday was the privileged day for arrivals and for convocations of the people. We have seen, however, that the significance of Friday can by no means be justified on the basis of the examples from the Hebrew Bible that Jaubert presents. Some other justification for this day’s significance needs to be found and given what we have already seen about the link between creation and the liturgical significance of Saturday and Wednesday, it seems reasonable to look at what we know about worship on a Friday according to the 364-day calendar. The most important addition made to the liturgical life of Israel in the Priestly source of the Pentateuch is the introduction of the Day of Atonement. This feast does not appear in either J, E, or D, which know only the Sabbath and the three great festivals of congregation. Leviticus 23:27 specifies that the Day of Atonement should fall on the tenth day of the seventh month. According to the 364-day calendar VII/10 falls on the sixth day of the week, a Friday, every year. According to the Priestly creation narrative the creation of mankind on the sixth day of the week, a Friday, is the culmination of all that God had managed to achieve. Only after this are we told that God ‘saw everything that he had made, and indeed it was very good’ (Gen 1:31). Before that it had only been ‘good’.

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However, the original relationship between Creator and mankind at the time of creation was soon disturbed – at least according to J and E – by the way Adam and Eve disobeyed the will of God. Eventually sin would also disturb the relationship between God and the children of Israel. Thus, according to the Priestly source, at Sinai Moses introduced a ‘Day of Atonement’ designed to restore Israel to the relationship with God that it should always have, which is the relationship with God that mankind enjoyed when first created. The link between the Day of Atonement – the ‘at-one-ment’ of mankind and God – and the creation of mankind on Friday would seem to be obvious. Just as human rest on the Sabbath takes its participants back to the primordial rest of God at the end of the first week of creation, so the Day of Atonement restores to a sinful Israel the relationship with God that was the Creator’s first intention. As is its wont, Jubilees locates the origin of the Day of Atonement in the patriarchal period. Jacob is shown Joseph’s bloodstained clothing on the tenth day of the seventh month, and Moses is told that ‘[f]or this reason, it has been ordained regarding the Israelites that they should be distressed on the tenth of the seventh month … so that they may be saddened on it for their sins, all their transgressions, and all their errors … once a year’ (Jub 34:18–19). By pushing back in time the origin of the Day of Atonement, Jubilees clearly implies that the date and therefore the day of the week for its celebration were already fixed before detailed instructions for its celebration were given to Moses. Although any day other than Saturday – on which no other celebrations are allowed to take place – could in theory have been chosen for the Day of Atonement, no day of the week is as appropriate as is Friday. Those who created the 364-day calendar seem to have chosen – on the basis of theological reflection – to correlate the Day of Atonement with the creation of mankind on the sixth day of the week. This confirms what both Israel Knohl41 and Jacob Milgrom42 have pointed out: the profoundly theological character of the Priestly tradition, something that distinguishes it from the other primary sources of the Pentateuch. We should conclude, therefore, that the liturgy supported by the 364-day calendar was designed to reflect what happened on Saturday, Wednesday, and Friday according to the Priestly creation narrative. Knohl (1995), 6–7 and passim. Milgrom (2000), 1368–1443, especially 1371–75, ‘Rationales are theology’.

41

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The significance of Sunday Our investigation of the significance of Sunday in the liturgical week at Qumran and its relation to creation – which relies to a large extent on what we find in Jubilees – will need to be completed in several stages. For Annie Jaubert the significance of Sunday was related to its place at the beginning of the week, an explanation we have seen to be insufficient. We should therefore once again pursue our investigation by examining the character of the liturgical celebrations that took place on Sunday. The Festival of Weeks, which falls on a Sunday every year, was the focus of the yearly liturgical cycle at Qumran. It is also by far the most prominent feast in Jubilees. Recently Sejin Park has written at length on the relationship between the Festival of Weeks and the covenant on Sinai.43 His interest, however, is not so much the liturgical calendar as the background of the service of Covenant Renewal that took place annually on the Festival of Weeks at Qumran. He does not consider the possibility of a link between the Sunday celebration of the Festival of Weeks, the covenant on Sinai, and the events of the first day of creation. The Festival of Weeks was originally an agricultural festival celebrating the beginning of the wheat harvest. Park argues that this festival underwent a process of development and change of meaning that eventually led it to its being associated with the giving of the Law on Sinai.44 In fact, as he shows, our earliest evidence for the final stage of this process is found in Jubilees, where it is indeed associated with the giving of the Law. Although there is no indication in the Hebrew Bible that the Festival of Weeks was linked with the covenant on Sinai, the author of Jubilees clearly intends his readers to make this connection. At the very beginning of the book he places Moses’ ascent of the mountain on III/16 (Jub 1:1). Since this took place the day after the Israelites entered the covenant by declaring: ‘Everything that the LORD has spoken we will do’ (Ex 19:8, 24; 24:7, 12), it follows that the covenant oath itself took place on III/15, a Sunday.45 Park (2008). He makes use of the earlier work of VanderKam (2000) and (2002). 44 Park (2008), 239. 45 Park (2008), 90. So too Jaubert (1965), 103–04, and VanderKam (2000), 93; (2001), 125. 43

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Park believes that the connection between the Sinai covenant and the Festival of Weeks has been inferred from Exodus 19:1, where the Israelites are said to have entered the wilderness of Sinai on the first day of the third month.46 This detail offered the author of Jubilees the opportunity to link a traditional agricultural festival to a significant historical event, a process that had already taken place with the two other major festivals of congregation: the flight from Egypt had already been attached to the barley harvest that took place earlier in the year to become the Festival of Unleavened Bread (Ex 2:1–11), while the sojourn in the desert had been linked to the festival of ‘ingathering’ to become the Festival of Booths, at the end of the agricultural year (Lev 23:39–43). According to Park, once the author of Jubilees had created the link between the Festival of Weeks and the covenant on Sinai, he then used this connection to structure the dating of a whole series of covenants around III/15. The first of these is the covenant with Noah.

The covenant with Noah In Genesis we are not told when Noah entered into his covenant with God. It is not difficult, however, to infer from the text that this can only have happened after II/27,47 since this is the day on which the earth became dry according to Genesis 8:14. Park felt that this was enough to lead the author of Jubilees to associate Noah’s covenant with the Festival of Weeks on III/15.48 As is often the case, Jubilees adds detail to the Genesis narrative and gives a specific date for Noah’s departure from the ark: ‘On the first of the third month [Noah] left the ark and built an altar’ (Jub 6:1).49 We are then told only that ‘during this month [Noah] made a covenant before the Lord’ (Jub 6:10). But when the angel of the presence goes on to tell Moses that ‘[f]or this reason it has been ordained and written on the heavenly tablets that they [i.e., the Israelites] should celebrate the festival of weeks during this month – once a year – to renew the covenant every year’ (Jub 6:17), it becomes obvious that the author wants his readers to associate the covenant of Noah both with 48 49 46 47

Park (2008), 91. This is a Sunday according to the 364-day calendar. This is a Wednesday according to the 364-day calendar. Park (2008), 94; cf. VanderKam (2000), 96. A Sunday according to the 364-day calendar.

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the Festival of Weeks and with the annual service of Covenant Renewal that took place at Qumran.50 According to Genesis 9:16 the covenant with Noah was an ‘eternal covenant’ (berit ‘ ôlam). In the Priestly account in Genesis 9:8–11 God says that it also includes ‘every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark.’ In fact, as Helge Kvanvig has pointed out, since it also concerned the waters of the earth and the heavens it was in effect a covenant ‘with the whole of creation’.51 This understanding of the Noachic covenant as both eternal and embracing the whole earth is clearly implied in Second Isaiah: ‘Just as I swore that the waters of Noah/ would never again go over the earth … my steadfast love shall not depart from you,/ and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,/ says the LORD, who has compassion on you’ (Is 54:9–10). Isaiah implies here that the ‘covenant of peace’ includes not just Noah and thus the whole of mankind, but the whole of creation.

A hierarchy of covenants The author of Jubilees ‘took seriously the fact that the Bible described the covenant with Noah, Abraham and Israel as eternal.’52 The covenant with Noah was the first of a series of eternal covenants. Kvanvig points out that in Jubilees ‘there is only one everlasting covenant instituted through Noah. The covenant at Sinai was no new covenant, but a renewal of a covenant already instituted in primeval time.’53 Each renewal is a further expression of God’s compassion and each defines more narrowly the group to whom it is directed. The second in the series is God’s covenant with Abraham. According to Jubilees the covenant with Abraham was also established on the Festival of Weeks: During the fifth year of the fourth week of this jubilee [i.e., in 1986 anno mundi] – in the third month, in the middle of the month – Abram celebrated the festival of the firstfruits of the wheat harvest. […] The Lord 50 The core of the service seems to be preserved in the Community Rule (1QS I 16 – III 12 [=DSSSE (2000), I, 70–75. See Pfann (1999) and VanderKam (2002), 243. 51 Kvanvig (2011), 194. 52 VanderKam (2001), 123. 53 Kvanvig (2004), 255.

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appeared to him, and the Lord said to Abram: ‘I am the God Shaddai. Please me and be perfect, [and] I will place my covenant between me and you. I will increase you greatly.’ (Jub 15:1–3; cf. 14:20; 22:1)

Again, the exact date is not specified, but for Jubilees ‘the middle of the month’ can only refer to the fifteenth of the month, even if the third month has thirty-one days. As if to confirm this, in Jubilees 16:12–13 Sarah is said to have conceived on VI/15 and given birth to Isaac on III/15 – the Festival of Weeks. Then, according to Jubilees 22:1–23:1, Abraham dies – most appropriately – on III/15, the Festival of Weeks. With Abraham the scope of the covenant is narrowed considerably. Whereas with Noah and his descendants it concerned mankind as part of the whole of creation, here it focuses on Abraham and his descendants, even if it still includes – as it must – the whole of creation since the covenant with Noah was eternal. The process then continues, since soon it is further limited to Isaac and his descendants and then to Jacob and his descendants, the children of Israel. At every stage, however, it remains an eternal covenant, a berit ‘ ôlam, and has its original cosmic dimension. Thus in Jubilees – as in the Hebrew Bible – the covenants of Noah, Abraham, and Moses form a series of covenant relationships whose focus steadily becomes narrower while their scale remains the same. In effect, of course, this series takes us back to the time of creation itself, since Noah has replaced Adam as the father of the human race. We are reminded of this when Noah, like Adam, is told by God to ‘increase and become numerous on the earth’ (Jub 6:9; cf. Gen 9:1), just as Adam was told: ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth’ (Gen 1:28).

The ultimate origin of the Festival of Weeks Jubilees itself highlights the link between creation and the Festival of Weeks in a most unexpected way. After retelling for Moses’ benefit the story of God’s covenant with Noah and commanding Moses to renew the Sinai covenant every year, the angel of the presence says: ‘This entire festival [i.e., the Festival of Weeks] had been celebrated in heaven from the time of creation until the time of Noah – for 26 jubilees and five weeks of years [= 1309 years]’ (Jub 6:18). An interesting statement. Who celebrated the Festival of Weeks in heaven? The only candidates would appear to be the angels. But why?

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We know that according to Jubilees the Festival of Weeks links a whole series of covenants: Noachic, Abrahamic, and Mosaic. Was there another covenant that the Festival of Weeks celebrated in heaven ‘from the time of creation’ until Noah finally celebrated the Festival of Weeks on earth? In fact, if the Festival of Weeks was actually kept by the angels ‘from the time of creation’, then we know precisely the date on which the first celebration took place. The first opportunity arose on the fifteenth day of the third month in the first year of the world’s existence. Jubilees makes this clear. The way that Jubilees consistently associates the notion of covenant with the Festival of Weeks raises the possibility that the angels’ celebration of this festival in heaven commemorated an eternal covenant that predated the covenant with Noah in the same way that the eternal covenant of Noah predated the eternal covenants of Abraham and Moses. Before addressing this issue, however, we need to ask and answer the question: When were the angels created?

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CHAPTER TWO WHEN WERE THE ANGELS CREATED?

In chapter 1 we saw that the significance of Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday in the liturgical calendar used at Qumran derives from the events that took place on those particular days during the first week of creation according to the Priestly creation narrative in Genesis. We also saw that the series of covenants extending from Noah through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to Moses is consistently linked to the Festival of Weeks, a celebration which falls on III/15 according to the 364-day calendar. This is a Sunday every year. And finally we saw that according to Jubilees 6:18 the Festival of Weeks ‘had been celebrated in heaven from the time of creation’ – presumably by the angels. Yet the Priestly creation narrative in Genesis 1 says nothing about the creation of the angels. This gap is filled, however, by Jubilees, which has a version of the creation myth that provides a suitable cosmological context for the angels’ celebration of the Festival of Weeks ‘from the time of the creation’.

The creation myth in Jubilees After an introductory chapter setting the stage for God’s supplementary revelation to Moses that forms the subject matter of Jubilees, an ‘angel of the presence’ provides him with an expanded version of the story of creation (Jub 2:1–18). What he says about God’s work on the first day of creation develops in a surprising way what we read in Genesis. The Greek Septuagint translation of Genesis, probably made towards the middle of the third century bce, provides us with an early interpretation of Genesis and should give us some idea of how Genesis was understood when

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When Were the Angels Created

Jubilees was written in middle of the next century. This translation has been used to modify slightly the NRSV in the English translation given below. Some individual words are italicized to facilitate comparison of the two narratives: (1)  In the beginning God created the heaven1 and the earth. (2) And the earth was invisible and unformed,2 and darkness was upon the face of the deep;3 and the spirit of God4 hovered over the face of the waters. (3) And God said: ‘Let there be light.’ And there was light. (4) And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. (5) And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, day one. (Gen 1:1–5)

The angel of the presence tells a different story to Moses in Jubilees. The translation given below is that of VanderKam but follows Wintermute as regards presentation on the page in order to make the changes introduced in Jubilees more easily visible.5 A few fragments from the Hebrew of this passage are preserved in 4Q216 frg. 1 v 1–11.6 (1) On the Lord’s orders the angel of the presence said to Moses: ‘Write all the words about the creation – how in six days the Lord God completed all his works, everything that he had created, and kept sabbath on the seventh day. He sanctified it for all ages and set it as a sign for all his works. (2) ‘For on the first day he created the heaven that is above,7 the earth, the waters, and all the spirits who serve before him, namely: the angels of the presence; the angels of holiness; the angels of the spirits of fire; 1 Although the Hebrew ha-šemayim is plural in form its meaning – unless the context requires otherwise – is singular. The Septuagint translates it as ton ouranon. 2 MT tohû wa-bohû LXX aoratos kai akataskeuastos NRSV ‘a formless void’. 3 MT ‘al peneh tehûm LXX epanô tês abyssou. 4 MT rûaḥ ’elohîm LXX pneuma theou NRSV ‘a wind from God’/’the spirit of God’/’a mighty wind’. 5 VanderKam (1989b), 7–8; Wintermute (1985), 55. 6 DJD XIII, 13–16 (=DSSSE, 460-61). 7 Heb ha-šemayi]m ha-‘elyônim. VanderKam (1989b), 7, ‘the heavens that are above’. As we shall see, the author has only one heaven in mind.

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When Were the Angels Created

the angels of the spirits of the winds; the angels of the spirits of the clouds,8 of darkness, snow, hail, and frost; the angels of the voices,9 the thunders, and the lightnings; and the angels of the spirits of cold and heat, of winter, spring, autumn, and summer, and of all the spirits of his creatures which are in the heavens, on earth, and in every (place); and the depths, and darkness and light, dawn and evening which he prepared through the knowledge of his heart.’10 (3) Then we saw his works and blessed him. We offered praise before him regarding all his works because he had made seven great works on the first day. (Jub 2:1–3)

In Jubilees the description of the first day of creation in Genesis 1:1–5 is expanded to give a vital role in the structuring and governance of creation to a ‘whole array of angels who are in charge of different parts and features of God’s creation.’11 The significance of the changes introduced is most easily appreciated if they are considered individually and in the order in which they occur.

The primacy of the week In Jubilees the angel of the presence introduces his account of creation by stressing the significance of the Sabbath as the seventh day of the week, the unit of time that structures the 364-day calendar. He thus Heb malakê rûḥot ha-[‘enanim. Only two Ethiopic manuscripts have ‘voices’, but this is supported by Epiphanius’ phônôn and was accepted by Charles (1902), 13, who takes it to represent a Hebrew qôlîm. Publication of the Qumran fragments in 1994 showed that the Hebrew had malake ha-qolot. Wintermute (1985), 55, has ‘resoundings’, following Charles, but interprets the presumed qôlîm to be the equivalent of the following ‘thunders’. VanderKam (1989b), 8, also follows Charles but translates simply as ‘sounds’. 10 This is the literal translation of the last phrase and is found in Charles (1902), 13, and Wintermute (1985), 55. VanderKam (1989b), 8, replaces ‘heart’ with ‘mind’. Rabin (1984), 14, goes further and renders the whole of the last clause as ‘which he had prepared and planned.’ Although the Hebrew fragment misses out the reference to God’s ‘heart’, Brooke (1998), 54, nevertheless argues that Jubilees has preserved the original text. 11 VanderKam (2001), 126. 8

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When Were the Angels Created

makes it completely clear from the start that the Sabbath rest, which structures the liturgical life of Israel, is based on the seven-day period during which God created the world. This tells us at once that for him liturgical time links its participants with the Urzeit of the world.12 Genesis 2:2–3 mentions only the significance of the Sabbath for God and says nothing about its significance for Israel. In fact, the significance of the seventh day as a day of rest for Israel is not mentioned in the Pentateuch until Moses refers to it in connection with the gathering of the manna in Exodus 16:22–30(P). He was apparently aware of its liturgical significance even before the revelation on Sinai (Ex 20:8–11; 31:12–17).

The ‘heaven that is above’ is created first According to Jubilees ‘the heaven that is above’ is the first thing that God creates, while in Genesis God first creates just ‘the heaven/heaven’ (ha-šemayim). A fragment of the Hebrew text of Jubilees found at Qumran (as restored) has preserved the Hebrew original of Jubilees at this point, ha-šemayi]m ha-‘elyônim.13 The author of Jubilees thus distinguishes from the start between the heaven created on the first day and the firmament (ha-raqî‘a) that God created on the second day and decided to call ‘heaven (šemayim)’ (Gen 1:8).’14 Jubilees then adds ‘the earth’ (ha-’areș) to his list, the next item in Genesis 1:1, but afterwards skips to ‘the waters’ (ha-mayim) that are first mentioned in Genesis 1:2. The author then moves back to ‘the spirit of God’ (Heb ruaḥ ’elohîm) of Genesis 1:2, treats it as something God has created and expands it to include ‘all the spirits who serve before him’. Berger suggests that the author of Jubilees 2:2 thinks of the spirit of God as created and somehow embracing the totality of spirits.15 These created spirits are actually angels, as we can see from the list of angels that follows. There are some eighteen different categories, but the author knows that his list is not ex-

12 On the relation between liturgical time and the beginning of all things see Arnold (2006) and the literature cited there. 13 4Q216 frg. 1 v 4 in DJD XIII (1994), 13. Epiphanius has tous anôterous ouranous; see VanderKam (1989a), 258; VanderKam (1989b), 328. The Syriac Chronicle has only šmayā, ‘heavens’; see VanderKam (1989a), 258. 14 MT šemayim LXX ouranon NRSV ‘Sky’. 15 Berger (1981), 322. In the Book of Parables (1 En 37–71) God is constantly being referred to as ‘the Lord of Spirits’.

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haustive and adds: ‘… and [the angels]16 of all the spirits of his creatures which are in the heavens, on earth, and in every (place)’ (Jub 2:2). Thus it turns out that there is both an angel corresponding to everything that God will create during the next five days and a ‘spirit’ charged with producing change and motion within the visible universe. Berger notes that MS Bibliothèque Nationale Eth. 1 has replaced ‘the angels of the winds’ in Jubilees 2:2 with ‘the angels of everything that moves’.17

The place of the angels in God’s creation According to Jubilees 2:3 God ‘made seven great works on the first day.’ Wintermute lists these in order as: ‘heaven, earth, the waters, all the ministering spirits, the abyss, darkness, and light’.18 The author of Jubilees apparently did not think that a visible ‘dawn and evening’ were created on day one. Their presence on day one is his nod toward the literary device used by Genesis to bring each of the first six days to an end. It is noticeable that the sequence of creative acts on day one as enumerated in Jubilees 2:2 does not track the text of Genesis 1:1–5. Having begun with ‘the heaven that is above’ Jubilees adds ‘the earth’ but then leaps over ‘darkness’ and the ‘deep’ to add the ‘waters’ from the end of Genesis 1:2. He then goes back and inserts the creation of the angels in place of ‘the spirit of God’ before continuing his list by going further back and adding ‘the deep’.19 In VanderKam’s translation from the Ethiopic this is called ‘the depths’. It is the vast water-filled chasm under the earth. The author then goes back yet further to pick up ‘darkness’ from Genesis 1:2 and then forward again to add ‘light’ from verse 1:3, before finally closing with ‘dawn and evening’ from Genesis 1:5. The effect of this manoeuvring is to put the creation of the angels in fourth place – in the centre of the list. This seems to reflect the fact that in the cosmology of Jubilees the world of the spirits is so important that Noah can address God as ‘God of the spirits of all animate beings’ (Jub 10:3), a designation that includes everything that moves, even the heavenly bodies, since they too have their angels and animating spirits. I have inserted ‘the angels’ here to clarify the meaning. Berger (1981), 323. 18 Wintermute (1985), 55, note i. 19 Epiphanius has tas abyssous and adds tên te upokatô tês gês, kai tou khaous. See VanderKam (1989a), 258, (1989b), 328. 16

17

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This manoeuvring back and forth must be intentional. The author apparently wished to imitate what the author of Genesis did with the first week of creation when he placed the luminaries on the fourth day, thus departing from the obvious order of ‘firmament’ followed by ‘heavenly bodies’ that is found in Enūma Elish IV 135–V 44. Genesis inserts the creation of dry land and vegetation between the creation of the firmament and the creation of the heavenly bodies, thereby forcing the creation of the heavenly bodies onto the fourth and central day of the week, a day of great significance for the liturgy of the 364-day calendar year. Not only is Wednesday the first day of every year and of every season, it is also the day on which two of the three great festivals of the liturgical year begin. When the author of Jubilees read Genesis he seems to have taken the relative position of the events in the week of creation set out there to be significant and applied the same technique to his description of the first day: a central position serves to emphasise the significance of what has occurred. In the Jubilees account of the first day this is the creation of the angels, in Genesis it is the creation of the luminaries and therefore time.

The angels pervade the whole of creation The range of activity assigned to the angels in the alternative creation narrative fully justifies their being placed fourth in the list of things created on the first day. They are in charge of ‘all the spirits of [God’s] creatures which are in the heavens, on earth, and in every (place)’. These will include not only birds, land animals, and fish, but presumably also all the plants that grow on the earth and in the seas, such as trees, flowers, fruit, and seaweed. There are also angels of natural phenomena that we would not normally think of as having ‘spirits’ or ‘souls’, such as the winds and clouds, hail and frost. To these are added such things as cold and heat, darkness, and – perhaps strangest of all – winter, spring, autumn, and summer. There are also ‘angels of the voices, the thunders, and the lightnings’. The ‘voices’ in this list are probably the equivalent of what the rabbinic tradition would later call the bat qôl, the ‘daughter of a voice’, an expression used to avoid suggesting that when God spoke he was heard directly.20 20 See the lengthy article on the Bat Ḳol by Kaufmann Kohler (1902), 588–94. Wintermute (1985), 55, note ad loc., thinks ‘voices’ is used here as a synonym for ‘thunder’.

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What characterizes all things that have angels is that they move and they change. Jubilees clarifies what is meant here by ‘angels of the voices’ through the way it interprets the intervention of the angel of the Lord in the story of the sacrifice of Isaac. In Genesis the passage reads: ‘The angel of the Lord called to Abraham a second time from heaven, and said, “By myself I have sworn, says the Lord: Because you have done this, and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will indeed bless you …”’ (Gen 22:15–17). In Jubilees this is represented by: And the Lord called Abraham by his name again from heaven just as he caused us to appear21 so that we might speak to him in the name of the Lord. And he [i.e., the angel] said, ‘I swear by myself, says the Lord, because you have done this thing and you have not denied your firstborn son, whom you love, to me that I shall surely bless you …’ (Jub 18:14–15).

Jubilees makes explicit what is implicit in Genesis – that in this passage the angel does not just speak on behalf of the Lord, he actually says what the Lord has said. The voice Abraham hears is not the voice of the Lord, but the words he hears are the words of the Lord. The voice is the voice of an angel, ‘the angel of the voice’, but the words are the words of the Lord. It therefore seems likely that the omission of an intermediary ‘spirit’ in ‘the angels of the voices’ (Jub 2:2) is intentional and that angels are also directly responsible for the ‘thunders’ and ‘lightnings’ of Jubilees 2:2 when God uses them to communicate with mankind. One is reminded of John 12:28–29: ‘“Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice (phônê) came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” Jesus answered, “This voice (phônê) has come for your sake, not mine.”’ The cosmology of Jubilees 2:2 may well cast some light on this passage. Jesus seems to accept that an angel spoke from heaven and that his voice was heard directly on earth without the need of an intermediary ‘spirit’. The words spoken, however, were the words of God. In Jubilees 12:16–18 we learn that while Abraham was consulting the stars to see what would happen to the rains in the following year,

21

So Wintermute (1985), 97. VanderKam has ‘just as we had appeared’.

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‘A voice22 came to his mind and he said: “All the signs of the stars and signs of the moon and the sun – all are under the Lord’s control. Why should I be investigating (them)? If he wishes he will make it rain in the morning and evening; and if he wishes, he will not make it fall. Everything is under his control.”’ On the basis of what the ‘voice’ has told him Abraham is convinced that God does not use the stars to convey his intentions.23 This ‘voice’ (qôl) Abraham hears is actually the voice of an angel communicating to him what God wants him to hear. If the ‘voices’ that convey the words of God have their own angels, as do the ‘thunders’ and ‘lightnings’, this creates in Jubilees 2:2 a coherent group made up of ‘voices’, ‘thunders’, and ‘lightnings’, all of which God uses to communicate with mankind.24

The universe at the end of the first day We are now in a position to attempt a description of the world as it was at the end of the first day. The earth is probably best thought of as a large disc, perhaps ellipsoidal in section, floating in the midst of a watery abyss. Waters surround the earth both above and below, as can been seen from the fact that it is necessary for the waters above the earth to be ‘gathered together’ on the third day if the dry land is to appear. As in the Septuagint translation the earth is therefore both ‘invisible’ (aoratos) because it cannot yet be seen and ‘unformed’ (akataskeuastos) because the dry land has not yet been uncovered so as to exist in its own right. Above the waters that are upon the earth is what Jubilees calls ‘the heavens that are above’, which form a distinct realm of their own. Also above the waters and presumably inhabiting ‘the heavens that are above’ are the angels which in Jubilees expand and develop the ‘spirit of God’ that is said in Genesis 1:2 to have ‘moved on the face of the waters’ (AV). Had we been present at the time, of course, we would have seen none VanderKam (1989b), 71, notes that the Syriac has maltâ, ‘word’, at this point. This raises the possibility that the Hebrew had dabar since the Ethiopic can mean either ‘voice’ or ‘word’. Cf. Genesis 15:1: ‘After these things the word of the Lord (dbaryhwh) came to Abram in a vision …’. The cosmology of Jubilees can provide an angel for an audible ‘word’ just as easily as for a ‘voice’. 23 Cf.  Jubilees 6:22, where the angel of the presence says of Abraham: ‘… then the word of the Lord was sent to him through me’. 24 Cf. Ex 19:16; 20:18 for God’s use of thunder and lightning; cf. also 1 En 59:2–3; 60:14–15. 22

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of this since the angelic powers are by nature invisible and in any case ‘darkness covered the face of the deep’ (Gen 1:2 NRSV). The heavenly bodies that would later illumine the earth and the sky were not yet in existence.

The universe at the end of the second day According to Genesis 1:6 on the second day God said: ‘Let there be a firmament (Heb raqî‘a NRSV ‘dome’) in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.’ The basic meaning of the root r-q-‘ is to ‘beat/stamp down’ or to ‘press down/compress’.25 The Septuagint understands it in the latter sense and translates the Hebrew word as stereôma, ‘something firm, solid’, from the verb stereô, to ‘make firm, solid’. This second, lower and visible heaven has to be substantial enough to be capable of dividing the waters into those spread over the surface of the earth and those that fall as snow, hail, and rain.26 Although Jubilees does not make this clear, the firmament also helps to divide the sphere of the angels who are in charge of governing creation from that of the spirits that actually produce motion and change in the perceptible world. At the end of the second day, therefore, the space above the earth has been divided into two sections, a lower realm bounded above by a ‘firmament’ – called ‘heaven’ in Genesis – and an upper realm – called ‘the heavens that are above’ in Jubilees – bounded below by the firmament and filled with angelic powers. The firmament forms the outer limit of the perceptible world. Even the waters that are above it cannot be seen until they pass below in the form of rain.

Early interpretations of the first and second days Whoever compiled the excerpts included in the Syriac Chronicle knew that the author of Jubilees was thinking in terms of two heavens, the one above the other. When he comes to the second day he says: ‘On the second day [God] created the lower heaven and named it the firmament. The upper heaven was that of light; it is, according to the doctrine of the 25 It is used, for example, in the Syriac translation of Luke 6:38: ‘A good measure, pressed down (rqi‘tā) … will be put in your lap’. 26 Epiphanius refers even on the first day to ‘the waters from which come snow, ice, hail, frosts, and dew’. Texts in VanderKam (1989a), 328; (1989b), 258.

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church, the spiritual paradise – that is to say, the heavenly Jerusalem.’27 Here too the firmament is the outer limit of human perception and the upper heaven – the heavenly Jerusalem – is invisible. The Syriac Chronicler had already interpreted Jubilees’ list of things created on the first day by inserting into it ‘the diffused light’: ‘In the beginning, on the first day which is the first of the week, God created the heavens, the earth, the waters, the diffused light, and all the classes of the angels who serve before God: all the angels of the presence; the angels of holiness; and the ones that make the winds blow; the depths, darkness; and the angels of the winds that blow.’28 The insertion of this expression, ‘the diffused light’ distinguishes the light God created on the first day from the light provided by the sun and the moon after the fourth day. The Chronicler seems to have taken exception to the way the Jubilees mentions ‘light’ as the last of God’s great works on the first day. He moves it forward in the list and stresses its distinctive character. Although the Chronicler does not refer to an ‘upper’ heaven on day one, this ‘diffused light’ is clearly intended to characterize the ‘heaven that is above’ and the realm of the angelic powers in general. The ‘diffused’ light is invisible like the angels and does not dispel the ‘darkness’ that ‘covered the face of the deep’. Thus the Chronicler thinks of the world of Jubilees after two days as being formed of an earth surmounted by an arching dome-like firmament called ‘heaven’ that divides a ‘upper heaven’ filled with ‘diffused light’ from the world that we perceive.

The universe on the third and fourth days Jubilees 2:5–7 does little more than repeat in its own words what Genesis 1:9–13 says about the third day. God tells the waters that they ‘should pass from the surface of the whole earth to one place and that the dry land should appear.’ He then causes the earth to bring forth vegetation. At this point, for the first time, creatures are created whose angels were 27 VanderKam (1989a), 258; (1989b), 328. Berger (1981), 322, accepts the interpretation of the Syriac Chronicle and translates ‘the heavens that are above’ in Jubilees 2:2 as ‘die Himmel, die über den Himmeln sind’. 28 Syriac text in VanderKam (1989a), 258, and translation in VanderKam (1989b), 328. The translation of nuhrâ bdirâ as ‘diffused light’ (la lumière diffuse) is taken from Tisserant (1921), 61. The basic meaning of the root b-d-r is ‘scatter, disperse’; see Payne Smith (1878,1901), col. 454. For early rabbinic comment on the nature of this light see Genesis Rabbah III.6 in Freedman (1951), 22–23.

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created on the first day. The spirits that cause them to grow will presumably also have been created on the third day. For the fourth day Jubilees 2:8–10 also simply retells Genesis 1:14– 19, saying nothing about the fact that when the visible sun, moon, and stars are created, their angels already existed. It does expand the Genesis account, however, in two respects. In Genesis God creates the sun, the moon, and the stars ‘for signs and for seasons and for days and year’. In Jubilees, however, it is the sun alone that is appointed ‘as a great sign above the earth for days, sabbaths, months, festivals, years, sabbaths of years, jubilees, and all times of years.’ Apparently for Jubilees the sun alone measures the passage of time and not the moon or even the stars. Jubilees then further emphasize the importance of the sun by pointing out that it ‘(serves) for wellbeing so that everything that sprouts and grows on the earth may prosper.’

The universe on the fifth and sixth days Again Jubilees 2:11–12 retells the story of creation of the birds and creatures of the sea on the fifth day as told in Genesis 1:20–23. It also takes the opportunity to emphasise once again the importance of the sun by saying that it shines over the earth for the well-being of ‘all that sprouts from the ground, all fruit trees, and all animate beings.’ When God creates mankind on the sixth day, Jubilees makes it clear that man and woman were created at the same time – ‘as one man and a woman he made them’ (Jub 2:14) – just as in Genesis 1:27 (P). In doing this Jubilees’ creation narrative leaves to one side the story found in Genesis 2:4–24 (J), where after an interval woman is fashioned from the first man’s rib. In fact, the whole of Jubilees’ account is based on the Priestly source alone. Again, the angels of the creatures created on the fifth and sixth days – including Adam and Eve – will have already been in existence when the perceptible beings they control and the invisible spirits animating them were created.

A hierarchy of spirits Having now looked at each of the first six days in the light of the cosmology of Jubilees 2:2–14, it becomes clear that Jubilees has introduced into the first day – and therefore into the week as a whole – a hierarchy of

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invisible powers on four different levels: (a) the ‘angels of the presence’;29 (b) the ‘angels of holiness’; (c) the ‘angels … of all the spirits of his creatures which are in the heavens, on earth, and in every (place)’ that are responsible for the next lower class of spirits, which is (d) ‘all the spirits of his creatures which are in the heavens, on earth, and in every (place).’ The first three classes were created on the first day, while these ‘fourthclass’ spirits were presumably created when the visible creatures whose motion and change they drive were created on their respective days. Jubilees distinguishes the two highest ranks of angel, the ‘angels of the presence’ and ‘angels of holiness’, from ‘the angels of the spirits of fire’ and other perceptible phenomena on the other. Although God ‘set [the Sabbath] as a sign for all his works’ (Jub 2:1), it is a ‘great sign’ only for the two higher orders of angels. The angel of the presence explains to Moses that God ‘told us – all the angels of the presence and all the angels of holiness (these two great kinds) – to keep sabbath with him in heaven and on earth’ (Jub 2:17–18). The association of the two highest ranks of angels with the Sabbath serves once again to emphasise the primacy of the Sabbath in a 364-day ‘septenary’ calendar for which the week is the fundamental unit of liturgical time. Thus by keeping the Sabbath the Israelites enjoy a relationship with God that is shared only by the angels closest to God. This extraordinary elevation of the status of the Sabbath and of Israel is entirely consonant with the fifty-two-week year of the 364-day calendar tradition. Jubilees 15:27 adds to the significance of these two highest angelic orders for Israel by pointing out that they were created circumcised.30 The ‘angels of the presence’ and ‘angels of holiness’ apparently have no direct involvement in the governance of the visible world. If they were involved, they would not be able to rest from their labours on the Sabbath. They do, however, seem to exercise a general oversight over creation and occasionally interact directly with mankind. The higher angels, for example, bring the animals to Adam so that he can name them (Jub 3:1) and it is an angel of the presence who dictates to Mo-

29 In Jubilees the ‘angel of the presence’ often says ‘we’ did this or that without specifying to whom this ‘we’ refers and thus it is not clear whether he means the other angels of the presence or both orders. Yet an ‘angel of holiness’ never speaks and when both orders are mentioned, the angels of the presence always come first. 30 This may imply that there was no chance that they would fall – or at least that they were unlikely to fall.

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ses the Book of Jubilees (Jub 1:27).31 In the Book of the Watchers and the Astronomical Book it is archangel Uriel – whom God ‘set over all the heavenly luminaries, in the sky and in the world’ (1 En 75:3) – who shows to Enoch the workings of the heavens. If, as seems likely, Uriel is an ‘angel of the presence’, then – like any proper executive – he does not always have to be in the office. The remaining angelic powers, however, must stay at their posts even on the Sabbath since they need to supervise the spirits who produce movement and change throughout the visible world, including the heavenly bodies and such things as fire, the winds, the rain, and the clouds. In the context of the present study it is important to bear in mind that the alternative creation narrative in Jubilees makes explicit a cosmology that is implicit in the Book of the Watchers and the Astronomical Book. This can be seen by the way that in both these works the heavenly bodies are guided by angels (1 En 36:3; 72:5; 82:9–10; cf. 18:4) and moved by invisible powers called ‘winds’ (1 En 18:4; 72:5). These ‘winds’ perform the task assigned to the subsidiary ‘spirits’ in Jubilees: they bring about movement and change. It is no coincidence that the Aramaic rûḥa – like the Hebrew rûaḥ – can mean both ‘spirit’ and ‘wind’.

An angel-based cosmology When the angel of the presence describes for Moses the process of creation he is clearly taking into account what is said in Genesis. At the same time, however, he introduces into it a conceptual scheme that modifies it significantly. Creation now has a rational aspect that previously was missing. The first day gains additional significance through the creation of an ‘upper’ heaven filled with a host of invisible angels who will then take charge of the visible creation. As a result almost everything we perceive can be correlated with a pre-existing invisible reality that came into being on the first day. With its hierarchy of invisible powers the angel- and spirit-based cosmology of Jubilees 2:2 leaves behind the world of pure mythology. It is a serious attempt to understand the workings of the universe in a more rational way than that offered by a superficial reading of the creation myth presented in Genesis 1:1–2:4 – and is more cosmologically ori An extensive list of the times that the higher angels interact with mankind can be found in VanderKam (2001), 126–27. 31

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ented than that in Genesis 2:4–24(J). In this respect it suits the abstract and rational character of a 364-day year that repeats itself indefinitely. The link between the Jubilees creation myth and astronomy – and therefore the calendar – was pointed out by Berger: ‘The literary ( formgeschichtliche) origin of 2:2 therefore does not lie in accounts of creation, but in circles (Reihen) that understand astronomy and meteorology in terms of the accurate description of the angels that are “placed” “over” these phenomena.’32 Although Jubilees as a whole is focused essentially on theology and history, we shall see at a later stage that when Jubilees does take an interest in cosmology it is important to bear the alternative creation myth in mind.

The angels and creation in the Hebrew Bible Although the angels may not appear in the Priestly account of the first day, their presence at creation is nevertheless noticed in the Hebrew Bible. When the Lord speaks to Job out of the whirlwind he says: ‘Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. Who determined its measurements–surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God (Heb bene-’elohîm NRSV ‘heavenly beings’) shouted for joy?’ (Job 38:4-7)

This passage describes the presence of the angels in creation of the earth on the first day in much the same way as does Jubilees, where at the end of his account the angel of the presence says to Moses: ‘Then we saw his works and blessed him. We offered praise before him regarding all his works because he had made seven great works on the first day’ (Jub 2:3). As far as Job was concerned the angels were already in existence when God ‘laid the foundation of the earth’. Clearly the notion that the an-

Berger (1981), 324.

32

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gels were present from the very beginning of the world is considerably older than Jubilees. This notion survived to be taken up by the Church. In the early second century Hermas refers to six great angels, ‘the holy angels of God, who were the first created, to whom the Lord delivered all his creation to make it increase, and to build it up, and to rule the whole creation’ (Visions 3.4.1).33 Here too the invisible angels are created first and are given the task of governing the visible creation. Here too they are associated with change and development. When the question of when the angels were created was raised in the later rabbinic tradition, however, creation on the first day was rejected. In the Mishnah R. Joḥanan argues that the angels were created on the second day and R. Ḥanina, on the fifth day, but the discussion is summed up by a statement that ‘all agree that none were created on the first day’.34

The Jubilees creation narrative at Qumran In 1975 P. W. Skehan pointed out the connection between the ‘Hymn to the Creator’, a non-canonical psalm found at Qumran and the alternative creation myth of Jubilees 2:2–3.35 The hymn says: ‘Separating light from deep darkness, by the knowledge of his mind [God] established the dawn./ Then all his angels saw him and sang/ for he showed them what they had not known’ (11QPsa XXVI 11–12).36 Skehan thought that the passage in Jubilees was dependent upon the Qumran psalm.37 Berger, however, concluded that the dependency was more likely to be in the other direction since the appropriate literary context of origin (‘Sitz’) for the expression ‘in the knowledge of his heart’ is a creation narrative of the Jubilees type in which the creation of the invisible angels precedes the creation of the creatures whom they control.38 In 1998, after the publication of the Qumran fragments of Jubilees, George Brooke returned to Skehan’s view, arguing that the Hebrew text 33 Hermas (1913), 37. Cf. Epiphanius, Adv. Haer. 65.4, who refers to Job 38:7 as demonstrating that this was the case. 34 Genesis Rabbah 3.8. For the rabbinic discussion see Kugel (1998), 48–52. 35 Skehan (1975), 344. 36 DJD IV (1965), 89–91. Now re-edited in DJD XI (1994), 90. 37 Skehan (1975), 346. 38 Berger (1981), 324.

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of the fragments ‘strongly suggests that this section of Jubilees is dependent upon the Hymn.’39 This is consistent with the way the alternative creation narrative in Jubilees 2:2–18 gives the impression of being imported material. In fact, however, both the hymn and Jubilees narrative are probably best treated as products of reflection on the cosmology of the 364-day calendar tradition taking place in the priestly milieu that must have existed to provide the sociological and intellectual Sitz im Leben Berger was looking for. This kind of reflection seems to have continued at Qumran, since a passage in the Hodayoth also seems related to the creation account in Jubilees.40

Conclusions In this chapter we have seen that the creation of the angels on the first day according to the alternative creation narrative in Jubilees 2:2–3 provides the cosmological background needed to understand why it was possible for an angel of the presence to say to Moses: ‘This entire festival [i.e., the Festival of Weeks] had been celebrated in heaven from the time of creation until the time of Noah’ (Jub 6:18). VanderKam has pointed out that Jubilees provides our most accessible introduction to the thinking that lies behind the pre-sectarian 364-day calendar tradition.41 Yet little attention has been paid to the creation narrative in Jubilees 2:1–18. Albani does suggest that the relationship between the Babylonian gods and the stars ‘could have led to the idea that certain angels were assigned to be leaders of certain stars or classes of stars. The frequently expressed thesis that the angels are essentially the gods of the pagan world deprived of their power shows itself to be especially plausible in the case of the Astronomical Book.’42 Kvanvig expresses this in a more categorical manner: ‘Thus the stars in the Astronomical Book are both part of the cosmic order and governed by heavenly beings.’43 Much more, however, is going on here, since even the conversion of Babylonian gods to Israelite angels is the product of critical, rational and 41 42 43 39

40

Brooke (1998), 54. 1QH IX (I) 7–13. Now re-edited in DJD XL (2009), 118–31. VanderKam (2000), 92. Albani (1995), 219 (cited in VanderKam [2012], 379). Kvanvig (1988), 73.

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theologically motivated thought. In Jubilees 2:2 this idea is systematized and developed further. The control that the Babylonian gods had over the stars and various other natural phenomena becomes in Jubilees the control the angels have over the whole of creation under God’s direction. In a Noachic fragment inserted into the Third Parable, for example, Noah says that before the Flood Enoch showed him in advance … the angels of punishment, who are ready to go forth and let loose all the power of the water that is beneath the earth, that it might be for the judgment and destruction of all who reside and dwell on the earth. And the Lord of Spirits commanded the angels who were going forth, that they not raise their hands, but that they keep watch; for these angels were in charge of the power of the waters. (1 En 66:1–2)

The angels referred to here were created on the first day and are presumably the same angels that obeyed the Creator when ‘he said to the waters that they should pass from the surface of the whole earth to one place and that the dry land should appear’ (Jub 2:5). The invisible ‘power’ of the water which these angels control fulfils the same function as the invisible ‘spirits’ that move the visible world (Jub 2:2), the ‘winds of heaven’ in the Book of the Watchers (1 En 18:4), and the ‘wind’ that blows the chariot of the sun in the Astronomical Book (1 En 72:5). Although systematized thinking is rare in later Enochic literature, this pattern is evidence of methodical thought and internal consistency at an early stage in its development. Jubilees 2:2–18 makes no attempt to resolve all the contradictions in the Genesis account of creation. Instead it interprets a text that is firmly based on mythological thinking in such a way as to bring about an alternative understanding which alters the general thrust of the Genesis narrative while at the same time keeping enough of its vocabulary to give the impression of essential continuity. An example of this is the way Jubilees 2:3 closes its account by mentioning ‘the depths, darkness and light, dawn and evening’, thereby deliberately echoing the vocabulary of Genesis 1:1–5. As in all living traditions, interpretation is used in order to facilitate development and change.

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CHAPTER THREE COSMIC OATH AND COSMIC COVENANT

In chapter 1 we linked the liturgical significance of Sunday and to the celebration by angels of the Festival of Weeks ‘from the time of creation’ (Jub 6:18).1 In chapter 2 we showed that the possibility of an angelic liturgy ‘from the time of creation’ was dependent upon the alternative creation narrative in Jubilees. In this chapter we shall pursue this line of investigation by linking the relationship between covenant and oath in Jubilees and the Hebrew Bible – and indeed throughout the ancient Middle East – to the cosmology of Jubilees and the liturgy of the 364day calendar tradition.

Covenants and oaths in the Hebrew Bible In Jubilees not only do Noah and his sons confirm their covenant with God by an oath (Jub 6:10), but when the angel of the presence tells Moses to make a covenant with the Israelites on Sinai he goes out of his way to stress the importance of the oath: ‘For this reason [God] told you, too, to make a covenant – accompanied by an oath – with the Israelites during this month …’ (Jub 6:11). In the world of the Hebrew Bible the link between covenant and oath is also treated as normal. In Genesis the conflict between Abraham and Abimelech is resolved by a covenanted agreement: ‘So Abraham took sheep and oxen and gave them to Abimelech, and the two men made a covenant. […] Therefore the place was called Beer-sheva [‘well of (the) oath’]; because there both of them swore an oath’ (Gen 21:27–33 [E]). A similar story is told about Isaac. Abime An earlier form of this chapter appeared in Osborne (2017b).

1

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lech and his companions say to Isaac: ‘We see plainly that the Lord has been with you; so we say, let there be an oath between you and us, and let us make a covenant with you so that you will do us no harm’ (Gen 26:28–31 [J]). The same close connection can be seen in Hosea 10:4, Isaiah 33:8, and Ezekiel 17:16–18. Oaths and covenants go together. One seems to attract the other. The reason for this is deeply rooted in the political and social culture of the Ancient Middle East. The covenant that binds the Israelites to God takes the same form as the treaties that bound vassals to their king in the Ancient Middle East. As was pointed out by Klaus Baltzer, an oath was an essential part of such treaties: ‘As we may conclude from the texts, the process of concluding a treaty consisted essentially of two corresponding actions. The treaty conditions were recited to the vassal by the great king, and the vassal had to confirm them by oath.’2 The connection between covenant and treaty even found its way into the vocabulary of the Hebrew language: eduth can mean ‘treaty’, ‘covenant’, or ‘testimony’. The root of eduth, ‘-w-d, means ‘repeat, do again’, and its use may reflect the way a king ‘goes through/repeats’ the provisions of a treaty in the presence of his vassals. The covenants between Abimelech and Abraham and Isaac arose through mutual agreement, of course, and were therefore sealed by mutual oaths. The covenants God entered into with Noah, Abraham, and Moses, however, were imposed from above. God is quite open about this and says to Joshua: ‘Israel has sinned; they have transgressed my covenant that I imposed on them’ (Josh 7:11; see Judg 2:20, 1 Kings 11:11). The oath that seals such a covenant need only be sworn by the inferior party, though of course the superior party may decide to swear to it as well. This close connection between covenant and oath suggests that in our search for a covenant event that would justify the angels’ celebration of the Festival of Weeks ‘from the time of creation’ we are looking not just for an antecedent covenant, but also for an antecedent oath.

The cosmic oath in the Book of Parables Three passages in the Book of Parables (1 En 37–71) refer to an oath that bound the angels at the time of creation. These three passages – which Baltzer (1971), 16; see McCarthy (1978), 47, and his comments, 16, on the Vulture Stele from Lagash, which is dated to before 2500 bce). 2

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need not come from the same source – help to fill out the story of creation as originally envisaged in the 364-day calendar tradition. The most important can be divided into two sections, the first of which seems to describe the attempt of one of the leaders of the fallen Watchers, Kasbe’el, to elicit from the archangel Michael the hidden name of God. Kasbe’el apparently intends to use God’s name in an oath that will bind together the rebellious Watchers when they descend to earth.3 (69) (13) This is the number of Kasbe‘el, the head of the oath, which he showed to the holy ones when he was dwelling on high in glory, and its name is Biqa. (14) This one told Michael that he should show him the secret name, so that they might make mention of it in the oath, so that those who showed the sons of men everything that was in secret might quake at the name and the oath. (15) And this is the power of this oath, for it is powerful and strong, and he placed this oath † ’akā’e† in the hand of Michael. (1 En 69:13-15)

Michael Knibb points out that the next section does not follow on properly from the first and that verse 69:16a clearly ‘serves as a heading over the section that deals with creation.’ He suggests that the description of the cosmic oath that follows was introduced from another Enochian source, probably to give added weight to the story of Watchers’ treachery.4 Nickelsburg accepts that it has been introduced from another source and suggests that it ‘originated orally as a piece of liturgy.’5 It certainly has a hymn-like quality. On the basis that the two passages are ‘tied together by their shared focus on an “oath”’,6 he has introduced ‘’ into his translation. The English translation of this passage is given below as set out in poetic form by Nickelsburg.7 Verses 22–24 have been italicized since it is generally accepted that they are an interpolation: an interpolation within an interpolation. The reference in these verses to the ‘Lord of Spirits’ points to their origin in circles responsible for the final form of the Book of Parables since the expression ‘Lord of the Spirits’ is frequently used throughout this

5 6 7 3 4

See the discussion of this difficult passage in Nickelsburg (2012), 304–07. Knibb (1978), vol. 2, 162–63. Nickelsburg (2012), 307. Nickelsburg (2012), 305. Nickelsburg (2012), 304.

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work.8 These verses read like a reminiscence of the creation narrative of Jubilees 2 and are one more indication of the complex history of 1 Enoch: (16) And these are the secrets of this oath, and they are strong through his oath. And the heaven was suspended . . . .................. before the age was created and for ever.9 (17) Through it the earth was founded upon the waters, and from the hidden (recesses) of the mountains come forth the beautiful waters, from the creation of the age and for ever. (18) And through that oath the sea was created, and as its foundation, for the time of wrath, he placed for it the sand, and it does not pass over it from the creation of the age and for ever. (19) And through that oath the deep were made firm, and they have stood and are not shaken from their place from of old and for ever. (20) And through that oath the sun and the moon complete their course, and they do not transgress their commands from of old . (21) And through that oath the stars complete their courses, and he calls their names, and they answer him from of old and for ever. (22) And likewise the spirits of the water, of the winds, and all the breezes and their paths, from all the quarters of the winds. (23) And there are preserved the voices of the thunder and the light of the lightnings.10 And there are preserved the storehouses of the hail and the storehouses of the hoarfrost, and the storehouses of the mist and the storehouses of the rain and the dew. (24) And all of these confess and give thanks before the Lord of Spirits, and they glorify (him) with all their might, and their food is in all thanksgiving, and they give thanks and glorify and exalt in the name of the Lord of Spirits for ever and ever. (25) And over them this oath is mighty, and by it they are preserved, {and their paths are preserved,} and their courses will not perish. (1 En 69:16–25) See the comments of VanderKam (2012), 398. Nickelsburg believes with earlier scholars that verse 69:16 is defective. It is also possible that it may not be defective. Wintermute (1985), 48, accepts the text as it is. 10 In spite of the sequence ‘voices’, ‘thunder’, and ‘lightnings’, Nickelsburg does not refer to their presence in the same order in the creation narrative of Jubilees. See above, pp. 23, 26-27. 8 9

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As reconstructed by Nickelsburg this passage tells us that a cosmic oath was sworn ‘before the age was created’ and that on the basis of this oath ‘the heaven was suspended’ (1 En 69:16). The oath therefore antedates God’s creation of the firmament on the second day, which implies that it took place on the first day, a Sunday.11 In terms of the cosmology of Jubilees 2 the ‘age’ (Heb ‘ ôlam Aram ‘olma Eth ‘ālam,) referred to in verse 16 has a spatial connotation and means ‘the (visible) world’ as distinct from the world of the angels. This whole section emphasizes the ‘firmness, immutability, and eternity of the cosmos’, which, according to Nickelsburg, ‘are guaranteed by the Creator’s powerful oath.’12 A second passage from the Parables, however, refers specifically to an oath sworn by the sun and moon – that is, by the angels with whom they are identified – and not by God: (41) (5) And I saw the storehouses of the sun and the moon, from which they emerge and to which they return, and their glorious return, and how one is more praiseworthy than the other, and their splendid course. And they do not leave the course, and they neither extend nor diminish their course. And they keep faith with one another according to the oath that they have . (1 En 41:5)

In this passage an enduring relationship between sun and moon is guaranteed by an oath that must have been sworn by the angels governing the sun and moon before their perceptible manifestations were created on the fourth day. In this respect it resembles the first passage above, which speaks of an oath that was sworn before the creation of the firmament on the second day. Nickelsburg points out that this verse also appears to be an otherwise unattached element in a section put together from a variety of sources by the book’s author or by a later editor.13 Both passages seem to belong to earlier Enochic material of unknown origin introduced into the Book of Parables at a late stage because it suited the 11 If the text of verse 16 is allowed to stand unchanged, then ‘the heaven’ may be an inept reference to the ‘heaven that is above’ of Jubilees 2:2. 12 Nickelsburg (2012), 307. 13 Nickelsburg (2012), 135.

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intentions of the booklet’s author/editor. The Book of Parables is the latest element in 1 Enoch and probably reached its final form in the last years of the first century bce or at the beginning of the first century ce.14 Before we consider the third passage it is worth noting that the situation described in these first two passages corresponds to a time when the heavenly bodies ‘kept faith with one another’ and with God. They make no reference to the disobedience of the seven ‘stars’ described in the Book of the Watchers (1 En 18:12–16/21:1–6). At that time, therefore, the movements of the heavens will have conformed to the description of them given in the Astronomical Book, where Enoch is shown the movements of the heavens not long after their creation. Ben-Dov understands the oath mentioned in 1 Enoch 41:5 to be ‘a mutual oath’, while in 69:16–25 the oath ‘is imposed upon them by a superior power’.15 In his comments on 1 Enoch 41:5 Nickelsburg speaks of ‘the mutual faithfulness [of the two heavenly bodies] to the oath they have sworn (to their Creator?)’, leaving open the possibility that they have sworn an oath to God.16 If we bear in mind, however, the nature of covenant/treaty relationships in the Ancient Middle East and in the Hebrew Bible, it seems likely that the angels were thought of as the vassals of God and swore their oath to him and not simply to one another. A third passage from the Parables makes the same point concerning the stars as is made in 1 Enoch 41:5 about the sun and the moon: ‘… their revolution is according to the number of the angels, and they keep faith with one another’ (1 En 43:2). Here Nickelsburg sees a reflection of both the stars’ relationship with one another and their relationship with God: ‘Like the sun and the moon, the stars act collegially; “they keep faith with one another”. There is order in their part of the world of the luminaries and thus obedience to the Creator.’17 The statement that ‘their revolution is according to the number of the angels’ reflects the cosmology of Jubilees 2 in that the movement of each star will be governed by an angel created on the first day. Again, there is no hint of disobedience in the heavens and orderliness prevails. The cosmic oath whose existence is implied in this third passage can only be the same oath as that referred to in 1 Enoch 41:5 and 69:16–25. 16 17 14 15

See Nickelsburg (2012), 58–62. Ben-Dov (2007), 148. Nickelsburg (2012), 144. Nickelsburg (2012), 146.

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In all three passages it binds the heavenly bodies both to God and to one another – like the oath that the children of Israel swore at the foot of Mount Sinai. Through it they commit themselves to obey the divine commandments that give shape to an ordered world and agree to act as the guarantors of cosmic stability on God’s behalf. As Nickelsburg says, this oath is ‘the means by which God created and sustains the cosmos’.18 The necessity for such an oath tells us, of course, that the angels were created free. It was their freedom that would eventually open the way for apostasy at a cosmic level. The faithfulness of the sun, the moon, and the stars is strongly emphasized in these three passages and they contain no hint that cosmic disorder of any kind has taken place or will take place. This suggests that they all originated in accounts of what Enoch saw in his dream visions when he was shown the workings of the heavens as first created. During the Second Temple period various different accounts of Enoch’s visions will no doubt have circulated which reflected the insights of individual visionaries. The emphasis throughout 1 Enoch 44:3–44:1 is on order in the heavens. The oath they swore on the first day of creation binds them in the first instance to God and then to one another through their common allegiance to their Creator. The angel who is Enoch’s guide explains to him that the angels/stars he sees are a parable (parabolê) – a ‘similitude’ – given him by God: (43) (4) ‘The Lord of Spirits has shown you a parable concerning them [i.e., the stars]; these are the names of the holy ones who dwell on the earth and believe in the name of the Lord of Spirits for ever and ever.’

The similarity between the righteous and the angels arises from their obedience to God and their mutual following of his commandments. Like the fixed stars the righteous are faithful servants of the Lord. Nickelsburg has expressed this very well: ‘When the righteous look to heaven at night, they see the guarantee of their protection by their patron angels, with whom they will eventually dwell in heaven.’19 The fixed stars represent the future blessedness of the faithful, as in Daniel 2:3, where ‘those who lead many to righteousness [shall shine] like the stars for ever and ever.’ Nickelsburg (2012), 306; cf. 309. Nickelsburg (2012), 146.

18 19

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The cosmic oath and covenant in Jubilees Although Jubilees never mentions a cosmic oath explicitly, it seems to lie behind Isaac’s insistence that Jacob and Esau ‘swear with the great oath’ to continue worshipping and honouring the Lord: ‘Now I will make you swear with the great oath – because there is no oath which is greater than it, by the praiseworthy, illustrious, and great, splendid, marvelous, powerful, and great name which made the heavens and the earth and everything together – that you will continue to fear and worship him’ (Jub 36:7). As in the story of Kasbe’el, interest focuses here on the aweinspiring Name of God, which suggests that the divine Name ‘which made the heavens and earth and everything together’ was incorporated in the angels’ oath.20 It would appear therefore that the author of Jubilees believed that the Tetragrammaton was known to the angels and to Jacob before it was revealed to Moses at the burning bush (Ex 3:1–6), just as the Sabbath, the Festival of Weeks, and other details of the Mosaic law were known to the angels before they were revealed to Moses and the children of Israel. According to the Book of the Watchers (1 En 6:4) the angels say to their leader, Shemihazah: ‘Let us all swear an oath, and let us all bind one another with a curse, that none of us turn back from this counsel [to interfere with the daughters of men] until we fulfil it and do this deed.’ If this is the same oath for which Kasbe’el tried to elicit from archangel Michael the Name of God (1 En 69:14) it would appear that the rebellious Watchers intend to follow the example of the angels in charge of the heavenly bodies and swear ‘to keep faith with one another according to the oath that they have ’ (1 En 41:5). The presence of God’s Name in both oaths would then help to explain the use of ‘oath’ to link 1 Enoch 69:13–16ab to 1 Enoch 69:16cd-25. The three passages from the Book of Parables discussed above all refer to an oath that bound the angels to each other and to God. Since this oath was taken before ‘the heaven was suspended’ (1 En 69:16) on the second day, there is every reason to believe that this cosmic oath followed immediately after the creation of the angels on the first day, a Sunday. The consistent correlation of oath with covenant in the Hebrew Bible – and more particularly in Jubilees – thus invites the conclusion that on the first day of creation a cosmic oath accompanied the angels’ For the Name of God to as the guarantor of cosmic stability see the Prayer of Manasses 1–4 (NRSV). 20

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acceptance of the covenant conditions imposed on them by God. The purpose of this covenant and oath was to guarantee the stability of the universe. For all these reasons, therefore, it is not unreasonable to conclude that when the angels celebrated the Festival of Weeks ‘from the time of creation until the time of Noah’ (Jub 6:17), they were actually celebrating a covenant they themselves had concluded with God, just as the Qumran community would later celebrate the covenant with God into which all the children of Israel had entered at Mount Sinai. On both occasions the covenant was established on a Sunday.

The cosmic covenant in the Book of the Watchers There are two direct references to the cosmic covenant in 1 Enoch. When Enoch is sent by the angels who have remained faithful to the Lord to rebuke the fallen Watchers, the Ethiopic translation refers to the apostates as ‘those who forsook the high heaven,21 the holy eternal place’ (1 En 12:4). The Greek text, however, gives for the final phrase to agiasma tês staseôs tou aiônos.22 If this was the text that the translator into Ethiopic had before him, then he has not understood it. He should probably be forgiven, since this Greek expression is, as Black says, ‘unparalleled’.23 The translator seems to have kept only the root meaning of agiasma, converted it into an adjective, and focused on stasis, which he has apparently understood to mean a place or position where one stands to keep watch. He could easily have been led to do this by the emphasis placed elsewhere in the Book of the Watchers on the Watchers’ abandoning their proper place in heaven (cf. 1 En 6:6; 15:3, 7, and 10). Charles followed all previous editors and simply translated the Ethiopic text – ‘the holy eternal place’ – while rendering the Greek version in a note as ‘the holiness of the eternal place’, thus showing he preferred the Ethiopic version to the Greek and apparently relying on the use of agiasma in Psalm 92(93):5(LXX) to determine the meaning of agiasma in this passage.24 This ignores, however, the consistent use of agiasma in the Sep21 So Charles (1912), 28; Knibb (1978), 92; Isaac (1983), 19; and Uhlig (1984), 572 (‘den hohen Himmel’). Nickelsburg (2001), 24, has ‘the highest heaven’, and Olson (2004), 43, ‘the height of heaven’. 22 Black (1970), 27. 23 Black (1985), 143. 24 Charles (1912), 28.

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tuagint to translate words that refer specifically to the Temple and its sanctuary. In fact, the only exception is Psalm 92(93):5, where agiasma as a translation of qôdeš, ‘holiness’, is clearly anomalous and eccentric. In each of the thirteen passages where agiasma is used in 1 Maccabees – where there are none of the problems associated with translation – it refers to the sanctuary in Jerusalem. The following year F. C. Burkitt suggested that the appearance of the Greek word stasis in the strange phrase to agiasma tês staseôs tou aiônos reflected a misunderstanding of an original Aramaic qeyom.25 He pointed to the use of qeyom ‘olam to translate berit ‘olam in the Targum of Genesis 9:16 and proposed that the translator of the Book of the Watchers erroneously took qeyom to mean – as it frequently does – a place where one stands, a ‘position’ or ‘station’, and translated it into Greek with stasis, which also often has this meaning. According to Burkitt the original meaning of the whole Aramaic phrase will have been ‘the sanctuary of the eternal covenant’, which then provides a suitable parallel for ‘the high heaven’ in 12:4 as the place where God and the angels dwell.26 Burkitt’s suggestion was not immediately taken up by subsequent editors. In 1978, however, Knibb accepted the plausibility of Burkitt’s proposal, though in accordance with his editorial principles he follows the Ethiopic version, ‘the holy eternal place’, in his translation. He concludes his comments on the passage by saying: ‘What the Watchers did was to leave “the sanctuary of the eternal covenant”.’27 He does not, however, offer any suggestions as to what covenant this might be. In 1985 Black approached the problem of to agiasma tês staseôs somewhat differently. He thought the Greek translator had indeed misunderstood the text in front of him, but that the Aramaic he saw contained another derivative of the root q-w-m, maqôm, which normally means only ‘place/standing place’ and never means ‘covenant’. He was led to this suggestion by the way maqôm can mean ‘the Place par excellence where God dwells’. The Greek tês staseôs tou aiônos could, he thought, reflect an Aramaic equivalent of the Hebrew meqôm ha-qodeš, ‘the Biblical term for the Temple or Tabernacle (cf. Lev 10:17 LXX topos tou agiou).’ The translator into Greek has taken the Aramaic equivalent of maqôm, Burkitt (1914), 68. For the close link between ‘sanctuary’ and ‘heaven’ in 1 Enoch see the Aramaic fragment of 1 En 9:1 in 4Q201 V 7, where the Ethiopic ‘from the sanctuary of heaven’ is represented by mn qd[šy šmyh in DSSSE, I, 402–03. 27 Knibb (1978), 92. 25

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‘sanctuary’, the ‘Place’ par excellence, to mean ‘standing-place/station’, which it can also mean, and rendered it as stasis instead of topos. Black then translates the entire phrase as ‘left high heaven and the holy, eternal sanctuary’ (1985, 143).28 As we have seen, however, there was indeed a covenant in place between God and the angels when the Watchers fell. It is therefore hard not to think Burkitt was correct: the enigmatic expression tês staseôs tou aiônos in 1 Enoch 12:4 does cover a reference to an eternal covenant.

Cosmic covenant and cosmology If we accept that stasis is a mistranslation of an original Aramaic qe yom, we are in a position to give a precise meaning to another expression in the Greek text of 1 Enoch 12:4. The rebel angels are said to have abandoned ‘the high heaven (ton ouranon ton upsilon)’.29 This ‘high heaven’ is not the ‘firmament’ that God called ‘Sky (šemayim)’ in Genesis 1:8. It corresponds to the ‘heaven that is above’ – above the firmament, that is – and came into being on the first day. It is the angels’ normal home. What justifies its being called the ‘sanctuary of the eternal covenant’ is that it also the heavenly temple referred to again and again in the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice, the place where the highest ranks of angels are ‘ministers of the Presence in His holy debir.’30 The use of ‘high’ (upsilon) distinguishes the heaven they abandoned from the ‘lower’ heaven that is the firmament and lies at the outer limit of human perception. The Watchers who abandoned this ‘upper heaven’ – to use the language of the Syriac Chronicle – have also abandoned the covenant that maintains order in the universe.

The cosmic covenant appears in the story of Noah’s birth The second direct reference to the cosmic covenant is found in 1 Enoch 106–07, a fragment of Noachic literature from the 364-day calendar Black (1985), 143. But cf. 1 En 9:1, where the Ethiopic ‘from the sanctuary of heaven’ corresponds to a Greek ek tôn agiôn tou ouranou in Syncellus’ Greek and mn qd[šy šm’yh in 4QEnocha (4Q201) IV 7 as reconstructed in DSSSE (2000), 1:402–03. 29 Black (1970), 27. 30 4Q400 frg. 1 i 4 in Newsom (1985), 93. 28

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tradition that was inserted before the concluding chapter of the work. Enoch, who is now living in Paradise, has been asked by his son Methuselah to calm the anxieties of Enoch’s grandson Lamech over the unusual appearance and behaviour of the child Noah, Lamech’s son and Enoch’s great grandson. Before reassuring Methuselah that Noah is indeed Lamech’s son and was not fathered by one of the fallen Watchers, Enoch tells Methuselah what he knows about the coming Flood. Unfortunately, in the relevant passage the Ethiopic translation differs significantly from the Greek. As a result, editors have generally marked one section of the Ethiopic text as doubtful and relied to varying degrees on the Greek translation.31 Some crucial words from the Greek version are inserted in the translation below. A few fragments of the original Aramaic text have also survived. In the obelized passage below Nickelsburg translates the Greek text literally, using a slash that seems to suggest that a choice must be made between ‘the word of the Lord’ and ‘the covenant of heaven’: (106) (13) Then I, Enoch, answered and said, ‘The Lord will renew his commandment (prostagma) upon the earth, just as, child, I have seen and told you. That in the generation of Jared, my father, † they transgressed (parebêsan) the word of the Lord (ton logon kyriou)/the covenant of heaven (apo diathêkês ouranou) †, (14) and behold, they went on sinning and transgressing the custom (ethos). With women they were mingling, and with them they were sinning.’ (1 En 106:13-14)

The Ethiopic text of verse 13a does not reflect the presence of prostagma in the Greek, saying only that the Lord ‘will do new things upon the earth.’ Nevertheless the Ethiopic is followed by Charles and most subsequent editors.32 More recently opinion has changed, however, and Black prefers to insert ‘commandment’ from the Greek version,33 as does

See Nickelsburg (2001), 538 and 545. Charles (1912), 267, ‘a new thing’. Uhlig (1984), 746, follows Charles and asks if the Greek copyist did not read prostagma when he was looking at pragmata. 33 Black (1985), 320–21. 31

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Nickelsburg.34 Olsen returns to the Ethiopic, which he translates as ‘will restore a new order’.35 Black discusses in some detail the passage that has been obelized above. He chooses to follow the majority of Ethiopic manuscripts when they replace ‘they’ in the Greek with, literally, ‘(some) from the heights of heaven’/ ‘(some) from the exalted ones’, i.e., ‘some of the angels’.36 He then suggests that a verb is missing before apo diathêkês ouranou and translates the obelized words as: ‘some of the exalted ones of heaven transgressed the word of the Lord and violated the covenant of heaven’. The Aramaic fragments confirm the presence of this passage in the text of 1 Enoch known at Qumran but do not include the most important words. Milik has restored Aramaic date’ (‘his decree/law’) for prostagma. His reconstruction of the Aramaic suggests that there is no room in the surviving fragments for a subject for ‘transgressed’ or for a second verb before apo diathêkês.37 Since the Aramaic, where it exists, supports the existing Greek text, our understanding of this passage should be based on the Greek even if this means accepting the unusual double complement to parebêsan. The first editor of the Greek text, Campbell Bonner, did not find it a problem.38 The obelized portion then becomes ‘they transgressed the word of the Lord, the covenant of heaven.’ The interpretation of 1 Enoch 106:13–14, like that of 12:4, has been hampered by an inability to conceive of a covenant that antedates the covenant with Noah. Black comments: ‘The omission in this context of all mention of the Covenant with Noah would have been surprising’.39 In a similar vein Nickelsburg says: ‘A reference to Genesis 8–9 seems indicated, or even expected’.40 Yet because the meeting between Enoch and Methuselah takes place before the Flood, this passage cannot possibly refer to a renewal of the covenant with Noah. If ‘the word of the Lord’ and ‘the covenant of heaven’ have been transgressed by the Watchers, it is because they were already normative and operational before the Flood. Nickelsburg (2001), 536. Olson (2004), 255. 36 The longer Ethiopic text could, of course, be a not unreasonable expansion of the internal subject, ‘they’. 37 Milik (1976), 209–10. 38 Bonner (1937), 81–82. 39 Black (1985), 321. 40 Nickelsburg (2001), 545. 34 35

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The reader is clearly expected to understand the ‘word of the Lord’ and the ‘covenant of heaven’ as equivalents. Both refer to the divinely imposed ordinances that came into effect before the fall of the angels. The only candidate for this role that predates the covenant with Noah is the cosmic covenant that assigned the angels their responsibilities in governing the world. In the context of creation the ‘word of the Lord’ becomes an allusion to the role of God’s ‘word’ in creation, a ‘word’ whose effectiveness, like that of the cosmic covenant, was intended to be eternal. Here, however, the ‘word’ – like the cosmic covenant – embraces in effect the whole body of natural law that underpins the functioning of the world. Similarly, the ‘commandment’ of the Lord referred to in 1 Enoch 106:13a must also have been operational before the Flood, since its renewal is spoken of as a future event. The ‘commandment’ of the Lord is in effect the equivalent of both the ‘word’ of the Lord and the ‘covenant of heaven’, since the eternal covenant with Noah can only be a renewal of the eternal covenant with the angels. The three expressions are functional equivalents and all point to the same reality: the deep structure that God imposed upon creation through the angels on that first Sunday.

Two further references to the cosmic covenant in the Book of the Watchers We can now see the true significance of the transgression of seven stars described in 1 Enoch 18:12–16 and 21:1–6. In the course of Enoch’s two journeys through the heavens Uriel shows him seven stars being punished for having ‘transgressed the command of the Lord (prostagma kyriou) in the beginning of their rising, for they did not come out in their appointed times’ (1 En 18:15). In the doublet they are also being punished for having transgressed the ‘command of the Lord (epitagên kyriou)’ (1 En 21:6). This need not imply that the Aramaic lexical items behind prostagma and epitagên differed. On the basis of all we have seen thus far it is clear that the stars – that is, their governing angels – have turned their backs on the cosmic covenant that prescribed the time of their rising. The statement that they ‘did not come out in their appointed times’ shows that the ‘command’ they refused to obey related to the God-given laws of the natural world as understood in the 364-day calendar tradition. Natural law is in essence the content of the cosmic covenant and the seven stars did not simply fail to obey an isolated commandment of God. They turned their

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Cosmic Oath and Cosmic Covenant

backs on the covenant that underpins creation and whose terms they had once willingly accepted. This same relationship between ‘command’ and ‘covenant’ is also found in Jubilees. The angel of the presence tells Moses: ‘Now you command the Israelites to keep the sign of this covenant [i.e., circumcision, the sign of God’s covenant with Abraham] throughout their history as an eternal ordinance so that they may not be uprooted from the earth because the command [to circumcise] has been ordained as a covenant so that they should keep it for ever on all the Israelites’ (Jub 15:28–29). In this passage the ‘command’ is a stipulation of the covenant and ‘an eternal ordinance’. The nature of the covenantal process is such that that God’s commandments become the provisions of the covenant. We have already seen that this is the case with the cosmic covenant which God imposed upon the angels. It is true of the covenant of circumcision as well. In Jubilees 15:28–29 ‘the command’, ‘an eternal ordinance’, and ‘a covenant’ are treated as if they were virtually synonymous. The regular use of prostagmata, ‘commands/commandments’ in the Septuagint to translate ḥuqqim/ḥuqqot, ‘commandments’, when these words refer to the Law confirms the connection. The translator from Aramaic into Greek will no doubt have been aware of Septuagint practice in this respect. The use of ḥuqqot, ‘commandments’, to refer to the laws of nature in Job 38:33 and Jeremiah 33:25, 35 suggests that their authors had a similar understanding of the relationship between God’s commandments at creation and the created world: the commandments of God structure nature. In the 364-day calendar tradition they are the content of the cosmic covenant.

The eternal covenant in the Epistle of Enoch In the Epistle of Enoch there is a reference to the eternal covenant for which the Greek translation is still extant: ‘Woe to you who alter the true words/ and pervert the everlasting covenant (tên aiônian diathêkên)/ and consider themselves to be without sin;/ they will be swallowed up in the earth’ (1 En 99:2). Nickelsburg believes that ‘this passage is clearly concerned about the divine Law’ and that those who ‘alter the true words’ and thereby ‘pervert the everlasting covenant’ distort ‘the eternal covenantal law’.41 One difficulty with this is that the author Nickelsburg (2001), 489.

41

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of the Epistle, who presents himself as Enoch, is singularly uninterested in the Mosaic law. The reference might be to the calendrical provisions of the cosmic covenant were it not the case that the calendar is never mentioned in the Epistle. Or it might refer to the Noachic covenant – also eternal – that binds all mankind. We cannot be sure.

The cosmic covenant in the Hebrew Bible Jeremiah refers explicitly to a covenant between God and the natural world and mentions the ‘ordinances’ that govern it.42 The word used for ‘covenant’ in this passage is berit and for ‘ordinances’, ḥuqqwt: The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah: 20Thus says the Lord: If any of you could break my covenant with the day and my covenant with the night, so that day and night would not come at their appointed time, 21 only then could my covenant with my servant David be broken, so that he would not have a son to reign on his throne, and my covenant with my ministers the Levites. 22Just as the host of heaven cannot be numbered and the sands of the sea cannot be measured, so I will increase the offspring of my servant David, and the Levites who minister to me. 23 The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah: 24Have you not observed how these people say, ‘The two families that the Lord chose have been rejected by him’, and how they hold my people in such contempt that they no longer regard them as a nation? 25Thus says the Lord: Only if I had not established my covenant with day and night and the ordinances of heaven and earth, 26would I reject the offspring of Jacob and of my servant David and not choose any of his descendants as rulers over the offspring of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. For I will restore their fortunes, and will have mercy upon them. (Jer 33:19–26) 19

Jeremiah apparently thinks God has established a covenant with the day and with the night that embraces the divinely imposed laws governing the behaviour of the whole of creation – ‘the ordinances of heaven and earth’. Since only a free individual can enter into a covenant in a meaningful way, it would appear that the author thinks of heaven and earth as being made up of entities that in some sense are free – like the angels who were parties to the cosmic covenant in 1 Enoch – and may well have had in mind a cosmic covenant similar to that which we have uncovered in 1 Enoch. This passage is missing in the Septuagint and may postdate Jeremiah.

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A summary In this chapter we have seen that the link between Sunday, the Festival of Weeks, and the notion of covenant is based on the myth of a cosmic covenant binding the angels to carry out God’s will in administering creation. According to this myth the cosmic covenant came into effect on Sunday, the first day of the first week of the world’s existence. Evidence for the existence of this myth of a cosmic covenant and the day on which it came into effect is found in seven passages scattered through 1 Enoch: 1. three references in the Book of Parables to a cosmic oath which, when understood against the background of the alternative creation narrative found in Jubilees 2, imply the existence of a cosmic covenant linked to the first day of creation (1 En 69:16–25; 41:5; 43:2); 2. two direct references to the cosmic covenant, one in the Book of the Watchers (1 En 12:4) and the second in an interpolated Noachic fragment (1 En 106:13); and 3. two indirect references to the cosmic covenant in the Book of the Watchers (1 En 18:15; 21:6). By comparing all these passages we see that the cosmic covenant can be referred to as ‘the covenant of heaven’, ‘the eternal covenant’, ‘the command’/‘commandment of the Lord’, and even as ‘the word of the Lord’. The cosmic covenant ensured the stability of the world God had created by binding the angels with an oath to maintain the order established ‘in the beginning’. Thus by making sure that the Festival of Weeks – which originally celebrated the wheat harvest at the time of the full moon in the third month of the lunisolar year – always fell on III/15, a Sunday, those who devised the 364-day calendar were able to associate it with the cosmic oath and covenant sworn by the angels on Sunday, the first day of creation. In order to do this it was enough that the date of the Festival of Weeks be determined by counting seven weeks from the Waving of the Sheaf, which according to the interpretation of Lev 23:15–16 followed by the 364-day calendar tradition fell on the first Sunday after the Festival of Unleavened Bread. All subsequent links between the notion of covenant and the fifteenth day of the third month (III/15) are derived from this correlation between covenant, calendar, and the first day of creation.

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Cosmic Oath and Cosmic Covenant

Weeks or Oaths? In a remarkable article published in 1939 Solomon Zeitlin pointed out that if we had in front of us only a Hebrew consonantal text of the account of Noah’s covenant with God and its accompanying oath found in Jubilees 6:10–22, we would probably translate the angel of the presence’s words to Moses in verses 6:21–22 as ‘… one day in the year, during this month, [the Israelites] are to celebrate the festival because it is the festival of oaths and it is the festival of first-fruits. This festival is twofold and of two kinds.’ We would not say, as in VanderKam’s translation, that this festival ‘is the festival of weeks and it is the festival of first-fruits.’ Zeitlin can say this because in an unvocalised Hebrew text the word for ‘weeks’ (šb’t) is exactly the same as the word for ‘oaths’ (šb’t). The reader must decide between the two. Zeitlin based his argument primarily on (a) the fact that the covenant between God and Noah, sealed with an oath, provides the context in which the festival is revealed and (b) the way that the covenant with Abraham coincides with this festival according to Jubilees 15:1–4. He points out that Jubilees, which is particularly sensitive to chronology, does not identify this feast in relation to the passing of seven weeks and concludes: ‘I venture to say that even the name Shabuot in the Book of Jubilees has not the connotation of “weeks”, but means “oaths”, referring to the covenants which God made with Noah and Abraham.’43 For the author of Jubilees, according to Zeitlin, the Festival of Weeks is actually the Festival of Oaths.44 Wintermute takes seriously Zeitlin’s conjecture that the author of Jubilees is thinking in terms of a ‘Festival of Oaths’ and translates the Ethiopic ‘Festival of Weeks’ as ‘the feast of Shevuot’ in order to ‘reflect the ambiguity of an unpointed text’. He believes, however, that the fact that the festival is said to be ‘twofold and of two natures’45 in Jub 6:21 may derive from the fact that it ‘marked ‘the passing of “weeks” in the agricultural year and also celebrated the “oaths” made to Noah and Abraham’ and does not want to ‘favour one meaning over the other.’46 Jonathan Ben-Dov also treats the connection with oaths as secondary but at the same time points out – as did Zeitlin – that ‘[i]t is surpris 45 46 43

44

Zeitlin (1939), 6. He repeated his arguments in Zeitlin (1958), 218–35. So too Milgrom (2001), 2063. VanderKam (1989), has ‘of two kinds’. Wintermute (1985), 67, notes f and g.

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Cosmic Oath and Cosmic Covenant

ing that, despite its extensive treatment of the Festival of Weeks, Jubilees 6 does not mention the count of weeks for the harvest festival’.47 Jubilees does bring up again and again, however, the association of the festival with the harvest. In his article on the Festival of Weeks for the Anchor Bible Dictionary VanderKam accepts that in Jubilees the name does mean ‘Festival of Oaths’ but concludes that it is ‘more likely that the author is resorting to paronomasia [i.e., a play on words] than that he changed the name of a historic festival.’48 VanderKam assumes here without argument, however, that the original name of the historic festival was ‘Festival of Weeks’ and not ‘Festival of the Harvest’ (ḥag ha-qâṣîr), the name that is given it in early list of festivals in Ex 23:16. The author of Jubilees carefully points out the connection between festival and harvest again as he retells the story of Abraham: ‘In the first week in the forty-fourth jubilees, during the second year [2109] – it is the year in which Abraham died – Isaac and Ishmael came from the well of the oath to the their father Abraham to celebrate the festival of weeks (this is the festival of the firstfruits of the harvest’ (Jub 22:1).49 It seems likely, therefore, that Jubilees speaks of the festival as ‘twofold and of two natures’ because, after having been traditionally associated with the wheat harvest and called the ‘Festival of the Harvest’ (Ex 23:16), it acquired a second ‘nature’ when the 364-day calendar caused it to fall on the fifteenth day of the third month, a Sunday, the day of the week on which the cosmic covenant was sealed with an oath in the first week of creation. It will have been in light of this that Jubilees then associated the turning points in the covenant history of Israel with Sunday, III/15, the ‘Festival of Oaths’, as successor covenants to the primordial covenant established between God and the angels.50 The name ‘Festival of Oaths’ should therefore not be thought of something dreamed up when the author of Jubilees noticed the ambiguity of šb’t in an unvocalised Hebrew text. It must be as old as the calendar itself. It would not seem inappropriate therefore to speak of the ‘Festival of Oaths’ when discussing the festivals of the 364-day calendar tradition. Ben-Dov (2008), 55, note 97. VanderKam (1992), 896. 49 But see the very different interpretation of this passage in Kugel (2010), 256. 50 According to Kugel (2010), 248, the association of the Festival of Weeks with oaths was introduced into the original form of Jubilees by an Interpolator, a pre-sectarian predecessor of the Qumran community. 47

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Cosmic Oath and Cosmic Covenant

Conclusions In 1992 Robert Murray published a work entitled The Cosmic Covenant: Biblical Themes of Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation. In the Introduction he explained that he wanted to move away from the prevailing scholarly tendency to analyse the biblical notion of covenant only against the background of ancient treaty arrangements towards a deeper understanding of covenant based on ‘a divinely willed order harmoniously linking heaven and earth’, a notion that he found almost everywhere in the mythologies of the Ancient Middle East, in particular at Ugarit and in Mesopotamia.51 He thought these mythologies were reflected in passages in the Hebrew Bible where there are traces of an original ‘binding of the cosmic elements by a covenantal oath’ that was succeeded by ‘the breach of this covenant by rebellious divine beings.’ In its biblical form this rebellion led to the renewal of the original covenant and its ‘re-establishment’ by God in the ‘eternal covenant’ between God and Noah. Murray discusses what he calls – anticipating Nickelsburg – ‘The Song of the Cosmic Oath’ in 1 Enoch 69:16–25 and refers to the oath mentioned in connection with creation in Jubilees 36:7, but he does not link the cosmic covenant to the creation narrative or to the liturgy. The first three chapters of this study have confirmed and developed his insights from an entirely different perspective and linked the cosmic covenant securely to the first day of the week. The central place of the cosmic covenant in the history of the covenant relationship between God and Israel is made clear when Enoch tells Methuselah that ‘the Lord will renew his commandment (prostagma) upon the earth’ (1 En 106:13). Since ‘his commandment’ here refers to the divine commandments that make up the content of the cosmic covenant, we can see that the whole of God’s relationship with Israel is ultimately rooted in his covenanted relationship with the angels – and through them with creation as a whole. In the Noachic, Abrahamic, and Mosaic covenants the covenantal focus is steadily narrowed down until finally it includes only the descendants of Jacob, ‘the children of Israel’. Yet the cosmic covenant with creation never disappears. This is apparent in the covenant with Noah, where the renewed covenant includes the waters of the cosmos and ‘every living creature’ that survived the Flood. According to Jubilees the angels 51

Murray (1992), xx. He discusses Jeremiah 33:20–26 at (1992), 4–6, 33, and 35.

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Cosmic Oath and Cosmic Covenant

themselves never lose their involvement in God’s covenantal relationship with Israel. The highest orders of angels are said to keep sabbath with Israel (Jub 2:15), while the angels of the presence and angels of holiness are said to have been circumcised ‘from the day of their creation’, thus anticipating the Abrahamic covenant of circumcision (Jub 15:27). According to the earliest form of the 364-day calendar tradition, therefore, the first and only truly eternal covenant – a covenant that actually preceded the beginning of time as we know it – was established between God and the angels on the first day of creation. Like all subsequent covenants it obliged those bound by it to obey the commandments of God. It will have included commandments instructing the angels to control the movements of the heavenly bodies in such a way as to bring about a 364-day year. This is what lies behind Enoch’s statement in the Introduction to the Astronomical Book that Uriel has shown him ‘how every year of the world will be forever’ (1 En 72:1). In spite of the power of this myth, knowledge of the cosmic covenant seems to have gradually disappeared. Jubilees 2:2 preserves the creation myth that is required by the cosmic covenant, yet it never mentions the covenant itself. The Book of Parables contains three references to the cosmic oath, but they are strangely unrelated to the work as a whole, serving only to underline the orderliness of the universe. The references to the cosmic covenant in the Book of the Watchers and in the Noachic fragment at the end of 1 Enoch are very easily overlooked and play no role in the work as a whole. The Second Dream Vision and Epistle of Enoch both present a history of the world ‘from the beginning’, but the cosmic covenant is never mentioned. Nor is the cosmic covenant ever explicitly mentioned in the Astronomical Book, even although this would be an obvious place for it to appear. Nor is it referred to in any of the sectarian texts found at Qumran or in later Enochic material. Thus, although the myth of the cosmic covenant was clearly a significant element in the earlier form of the 364-day calendar tradition, by the middle of the second century bce it had ceased to be relevant, at least for the branch of the 364-day calendar tradition represented by Jubilees and the texts from Qumran. For reasons that are not entirely clear it was no longer thought to provide a convincing background for the relationship between God and Israel. When all understanding of God’s earlier covenant relationship with the whole of creation was lost, the prototypical covenant became the covenant with Noah. Nevertheless, the link between covenant and the first day of creation lived on, hidden in the liturgical calendar of the 364-day calendar

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Cosmic Oath and Cosmic Covenant

tradition. Every year the Festival of Oaths/Weeks was celebrated on the fifteenth day of the third month, a Sunday, the day of the week on which the cosmic covenant was established by an oath and the day on which, according to Jubilees 6:18, the angels had been celebrating the Festival of Oaths ‘from the time of creation’. As a result the members of the Qumran community renewed their allegiance to the Mosaic covenant with an oath every year on that same day, the first day of the week.

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CHAPTER FOUR THE REBELLION OF THE SEVEN STARS

We have seen that in its earlier form the 364-day calendar tradition relied on the myth of a cosmic covenant to explain the relationship between God and the angels – the ‘sons of God’ – who governed the natural world on God’s behalf. According to this myth the angels entered a covenanted relationship with God on the first day of creation and sealed it with a solemn oath to carry out his commands. Since the Astronomical Book (1 En 72:1) makes it clear that it was God’s intention from the beginning that the heavenly bodies should move in such a way as to ensure that each year had exactly 364 days, we can assume that the angels put in charge of the sun, the moon, and the stars were instructed by God to reproduce the patterns revealed to Enoch by archangel Uriel. It is obvious, of course, to anyone who is interested in the heavens that the year is not 364 days long. This can only have come about because the angels broke their covenant oath and disobeyed their Creator. It is a matter of considerable interest, therefore, that the rebellion of seven stars is referred to twice in the Book of the Watchers (1 En 18:12–16/21:1–6). In this chapter we will see that the rebellion of just two of these stars would be enough to bring about the discrepancy between the 364-day calendar and the year that we observe. These four myths – the creation of the angels on the first day, the cosmic covenant, the fall of the Watchers, and the apostasy of the seven stars – are the backbone of the original ‘master narrative’ of the 364-day calendar tradition.1 A ‘master narrative’ is the story that enables a group of people to see themselves as one by facilitating a common understanding of the world and the group’s place in it. This helpful concept is taken up from Nelson (2001), 6–20, 150–88 by Kvanvig (2009), 171–73. 1

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The Rebellion of the Seven Stars

The three primordial rebellions The rebellion of these seven stars took place against the background of two previous rebellions against God’s authority, both of which are recorded in the Hebrew Bible. According to the Yahwist creation narrative found in Genesis 2–4 Adam and Eve disobeyed God soon after their creation and as a result were driven out of the garden of Eden. Surprisingly little is made of their sin in the Enochian tradition.2 Although Jubilees retells the story of Eve’s temptation by the serpent along with Adam’s reaction and its results, it says nothing about the effect of their sin on the subsequent history of mankind. In 1 Enoch the Book of the Watchers refers to the sin of Adam and Eve and the fact that they were driven from the garden (1 En 32:6), but says nothing more. Understandably the Astronomical Book says nothing about the sin of mankind’s first couple. The Animal Apocalypse refers symbolically to Adam and Eve in its review of history but goes on immediately to speak of Cain and the death of Abel (1 En 85:3). The Apocalypse of Weeks, which also reviews the whole of human history, does not refer to Adam and Eve at all. The Parables mention Eve, but only in order to attach her sin to the name of the angel who led her astray (1 En 69:6). Much more attention is paid to the second rebellion to which the Hebrew Bible refers. This rebellion did not take place on earth but in heaven. ‘When people began to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that they were fair; and they took wives for themselves of all that they chose’ (Gen 6:1–3).3 The use of the expression ‘sons of God’ to refer to the angels is an indication of the myth’s antiquity, as it is found only in the earliest strata of the Hebrew Bible. These angels are called ‘Watchers’ in 1 Enoch because this is how angels are regularly referred to in Aramaic, the language that in the eighth and subsequent centuries became the lingua franca of the Ancient Middle East.4 Their disobedience is generally referred to as ‘the fall of the Watchers’, especially when discussing the Enochic tradition. In the Aramaic portions of Daniel the angels are also called ‘Watchers’ (Dan 4:10, 14, 20). While a negative outcome to the descent of the Watchers from heaven and their intercourse with the daughters of men is certainly implied Nor is it referred to in P. Kvanvig (2011), 312, argues that Gen 6:1–4 belongs neither to J nor to P and is ‘the youngest text in the primeval history’. In this case it must refer to a myth that existed independently alongside both sources. 4 The meaning and origin of the term ‘Watcher’ is discussed by Murray (1984). 2 3

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The Rebellion of the Seven Stars

in Gen 6:1–7, 1 Enoch 6–16 describes not only the circumstances of their fall but its terrible consequences as well.5 In the Enochian tradition mankind’s troubles are attributed almost entirely to the apostasy of the Watchers.

The rebellion of seven stars Nowhere in the Enochian tradition is it made clear whether the third rebellion, that of the stars, took place before, after, or at the same time as the fall of the Watchers. In any case, however, it took place in what God had wanted to be a stable and orderly universe. In the primeval world that Enoch was shown ‘[the sun and the moon and the stars] bring about the year precisely, all according to their eternal positions. They come neither early nor late by one day by which they would change the year: each is exactly 364 days’ (1 En 74:12). As we have seen already, this second episode of rebellion in heaven is referred to in 1 Enoch in two passages describing the punishment of seven stars. A Greek translation of both passages has survived, but unfortunately we have no fragments of the Aramaic original. Certain significant lexical items from the Greek version have been inserted into the translation of Ethiopic version that follows:6 (18) (12) Beyond this chasm7 I saw a place where there was neither firmament of heaven (stereôma ouranou) above, nor firmly founded earth beneath it. Neither was there water upon it, nor bird; but the place

The relation between Genesis 6:1–4 and 1 Enoch has often been discussed. The position of scholars such as Hanson (1977), 232, Bedenbender (2007), 72, and Kvanvig (2011), 293, 310, 517–29, is accepted here: the Genesis passage alludes to earlier traditions that were not taken over into the Hebrew Bible. For Bedenbender ‘… it seems impossible to understand the material relating to Enoch in the Book of the Watchers as expansions of the short Genesis account.’ Nevertheless, Nickelsburg (2001), 29 (cf. [1977], 383–407) considers the myth of the fall of the Watchers in I En 6–11 to be a retelling of Gen 6:1–4 ‘in an elaborated form’. 6 The verses are given in the order in which they appear in the manuscripts. Dillmann thought verses 19:1–2 were out of place and he inserted them between 18:11 and 18:12, as does Nickelsburg (2001), 276. The fragments of 4Q204 VIII 27-30 published by Milik (1976), 200, show, however, that the displacement – if it is one – already existed in the second century bce. The order is left unchanged by Knibb (1978), Newsom (1980), Uhlig (1984), Black (1985), Bautsch (2003), and Olson (2004). 7 This chasm is the place where the fallen Watchers will eventually be punished. 5

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The Rebellion of the Seven Stars

was desolate (erêmos) and fearful. (13) There I saw seven stars like great burning mountains. (14) To me, when I inquired about them, the angel said, ‘This place is the end of heaven and earth; this has become a prison for the stars and the hosts of heaven. (15) The stars that are rolling over in the fire, these are they that transgressed (parabantes) the command (prostagma) of the Lord in the beginning of their rising (en arkhê tês anatolês autôn), for they did not come out in their appointed times (en tois kairois autôn). (16) And he was angry with them and bound them until the consummation of their sins – ten thousand years.’ (1 En 18:12-16)

The second account of the rebellion of the seven stars is very much like the first. Wacker, argues that ultimately we probably have here only a single source: 1 En 21:1–5 and 18:12–16 are close enough in content and wording that either one is directly dependent upon the other or both derive from a common ancestor.8 (21) (1) I travelled to where it was chaotic (eôs tês akataskeuastou). (2) And there I saw a terrible thing: I saw neither heaven above (oute ouranon epanô), nor firmly founded earth, but a chaotic and terrible place (topon akataskeuaston kai phoberon). (3) And there I saw seven of the stars of heaven (epta tôn asterôn tou ouranou), bound and thrown in it together, like great mountains, and burning in fire. (4) Then I said, ‘For what reason have they been bound, and for what reason have they been thrown here?’ (5) Then Uriel said to me, one of the holy angels who was with me, and he was their leader, he said to me, ‘Enoch, why do you inquire, and why are you eager for the truth? (6) These are the stars of heaven that transgressed the command of the Lord (outoi eisin tôn asterôn tou ouranou oi parabantes tên epitagên tou kyriou); they have been bound here until ten thousand years are fulfilled – the time of their sins.’ (1 En 21:1-6)

The reference to the ‘command (prostagma/epitagên) of the Lord’ in 18:5 and 21:6 tells us that the stars have violated the terms of their covenant with God (parabantes tên epitagên tou kyriou). In this respect they are in the same position as the Watchers who, according to a Noachic fragment inserted in 1 Enoch after the Epistle of Enoch, ‘transgressed (parebêsan) the word of the Lord, the covenant of heaven’ when they left their appointed stations and descended to earth (1 En 106:13b).9 Wacker (1982), 119–20. See above, pp. 50-52.

8 9

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The Rebellion of the Seven Stars

Several elements in the Greek vocabulary of these two passages from the Book of the Watchers link Enoch’s vision with the Genesis story of creation. The use of erêmos here recalls its use in the Septuagint of Isa 34:11 to translate the rare tohu found in Gen 1:2, while stereôma in 1 En 18:2 recalls its use in the Septuagint version of Gen 1:6 to translate the Hebrew word for ‘firmament’. More important is Enoch’s statement that ‘I saw a place where there was neither firmament of heaven (stereôma ouranou) above, nor firmly founded earth beneath it’ (1 En 18:12). If the firmament covers the whole earth like a tent, then Enoch has been shown something that is taking place beyond the point where the firmament bends down to meet the earth. This is also the implication of his earlier statement that he had seen great mountains and that ‘beyond these mountains is a place, the edge of the great earth; there the heavens come to an end (ekei suntelesthêsontai oi ouranoi)’ (1 En 18:10). In his journeying Enoch had arrived at the point where the heavens meet the earth and beyond this had seen the punishment of seven stars. In 1 En 21:1, where Nickelsburg translates ‘I travelled to where it was chaotic’, the Greek actually reads eôs tês akataskeuastou, i.e., ‘as far as the unformed/unmade’, where the noun that should be attached to tês may well be ousia.10 In 1 En 21:2 the Greek translation goes on to describe what Enoch sees as a topon akataskeuaston, ‘a place that is unformed/ unmade’. It has a spatial dimension even though what is in it has not yet been ‘made’. The unusual word akataskeuastos appears only once in the Septuagint – to translate bohu in Gen 1:2. Whatever stood in the Aramaic original, it would appear that the translator of these passages into Greek linked what Enoch saw with the state of the universe as it existed on the first day of creation, before the creation of the firmament on the second day.11 These verses thus provide us with an insight into 364-day calendar tradition’s understanding of the universe: outside and beyond the bor10 See Lampe, PGL, s.v. akataskeuastos, which refers to the use of akataskeuastos ousia in the context of creation by Hippolytus of Rome, Philosophumena 6.30, Basil of Caesaria, Hexaemeron 2.2, and Apostolic Constitutions 7.34.1. This seems to have been Origen’s interpretation of this passage, since in De principiis 4.4.8 (Rufinus’ translation) he interprets eôs tês akataskeuastou in 21:1 as usquequo ad principium perveniret illud, in quo inperfectam materiam absque qualitatibus pervideret. See Nickelsburg (2001), 90–91. What the Aramaic original might have had here is not obvious. 11 Bauckham (1983), 13–14 believes that the Greek translation of 1 Enoch was already known and used by the author of the Epistle of Jude around the middle of the first century ce.

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The Rebellion of the Seven Stars

der of the visible universe formed by the firmament there is a realm that resembles the state of the world as it existed on the first day of creation. At that time, according to the cosmology of Jub 2:2–18, only the ‘upper heaven’ – the realm of the angels – covered the earth and the waters above it. In 1 Enoch it has a location and can be called a ‘place’, yet there is nothing that is ‘made’ in it, even if it is filled with the angels that have been given the task of controlling movement and change in all that will be made on the five subsequent days.12 It is in this angelic realm that the punishment of the seven stars is taking place.

Who are the seven stars? There is no consensus among scholars as to the identity of the seven stars. Like Hoffmann, Dillmann thought that seven might simply be the ‘round number’ that appears many times in 1 Enoch, though he was inclined to believe they were more likely to be the ‘wandering stars’ referred to in Jude 13 and ‘very likely’ to be comets rather than some other stars that cannot be identified from the text itself.13 Since then opinions have varied. Beer suggested that the seven stars of the Book of the Watchers might correspond to the Persian heptad of divine spirits.14 Bousset thought they corresponded to the seven ‘planets’ known to the ancient world: the Sun, Moon, Jupiter, Saturn, Venus, Mars, and Mercury.15 Martin says only that Jude 13 ‘seems to allude to’ 1 En 18:12–16 but without explaining what this might imply. Charles says only, ‘The asteres planêtai of Jude 13 recall this verse.’16 For Braun the asteres planêtai of Jude 13 are ‘planets (not comets)’.17 Milik thought they were the planets.18 Uhlig offers three possibilities in what appears to be a descending order of likelihood beginning with the ‘fallen angels’,

12 Cf. the gloss on 1 En 18:12 mistakenly inserted in the Greek version at 18:15: hoti topos exo tou ouranou kenos estin, ‘for the place outside heaven is empty’. 13 Hoffmann (1838), 244; Dillmann (1853), 119. Commenting on the Astronomical Book (1 En 80:6), however, Dillmann (1853), 244, allows for the possibility that the erring ‘heads of the stars’ might be the seven planets. 14 Beer (1900), 251. 15 Bousset (1901), 46. 16 Charles (1912), 42. 17 Braun (1968), 250. 18 Milik (1976). 338.

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The Rebellion of the Seven Stars

followed by the seven planets, and (perhaps) seven ‘Antipoden’ (i.e., ‘direct opposites’) of the seven archangels.19 Black thought that the ‘seven’ were ‘almost certainly’ the seven planets, the ‘wandering stars’ of Jude 13.20 Caquot says the seven ‘must be the planets’.21 Albani, on the other hand, has argued at length that the ‘seven’ are more likely to be the Pleiades.22 Like Dillmann, Nickelsburg is inclined to believe that they are comets, ‘the regularity of which would not be known to primitive astronomy.’23 Bautch mentions Black’s view that the seven are planets, the ‘wandering stars’ of Jude 13, but is inclined to accept Albani’s view that they are the Pleiades.24 Olson believes that the seven are probably the ‘wandering stars’ of Jude 13 and that the author ‘is probably condemning the widespread worship of the seven planets.’ He concedes, however, that the author might have the Pleiades in mind.25 There would therefore seem to be at present three conflicting interpretations of the seven stars in 1 En 18:12–16/21:1–6: the seven Pleiades, the comets, and the seven planets.

Pleiades, comets, or planets? Albani was the first to put forward an argument for taking the seven stars to be the Pleiades. He begins by noting that some have taken them to be the seven planets. Against this view, however, he points out the similarities between 1 En 18:1–6/21:1–6 and 80:6 in the Astronomical Book, noting that the focus of chapter 80 is on the seasons. He suggests therefore that all three passages refer to the same stars and that they are the Pleiades, the ‘Seven Sisters’, a constellation almost universally associated with calculation of the seasons in the ancient world.26 When Albani returns to the subject later in his book he argues that the great significance of Pleiades in Babylonian astronomy – they are referred to

21 22 23 24 25 26 19

20

Uhlig (1984), 550. Black (1985), 160. Caquot (1987), 493. Albani (1994), 255. Nickelsburg (2001), 289. Bautch (2003), 147–49. Olson (2004), 52. Albani (1994), 115, 255.

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The Rebellion of the Seven Stars

as MUL.MUL, ‘star (i.e., constellation) of stars’ – makes them a likely focus for the author’s obvious hostility towards astral divination.27 According to Albani the Pleiades are being punished because they no longer appear at the time prescribed for them in MUL.APIN, the standard Babylonian compendium of astronomical knowledge that was drawn up around 1100 bce. MUL.APIN continued to be copied well into the Hellenistic period and there is no reason, he believes, why the authors of the both the Book of the Watchers and the Astronomical Book should not have known of its contents. In MUL.APIN II A 8.9 it is said that when the Pleiades rise on 1 Nissanu it is time to intercalate an extra lunar month into the Babylonian lunisolar calendar in order to bring it back into line with the sidereal year. But by the time the Astronomical Book was written this was no longer the case, since the precession of the equinoxes meant that the Pleiades actually rose significantly later in the year. This is already recognized in MUL.APIN I ii 38, where it is said that – at the time of writing – they rise one month later, on 1 Ayyaru. It is this, according to Albani, that has led to the statement in 1 En 18:15 that the seven stars ‘transgressed the command of the Lord in the beginning of their rising.’ Uriel would then be finding fault with them because they have not appeared at the time assigned to them by a text in MUL.APIN that was already acknowledged to be obsolete. This seems inherently unlikely. Another major objection to the seven stars being the Pleiades, however, is the fact that disobedience of the kind suggested by Albani would have no effect on the measurement of time. Unless the Pleiades changed their position in relation to the other fixed stars, a change in their relationship to the seasons would mean that all the other fixed stars changed position at the same time. They would continue to move with the same perfect regularity as before, the year would have the same number of days, and the seasons would not change, nor would the moon behave in some other way. Nothing essential for establishing the calendar would have changed. The same is true of Nickelsburg’s suggestion that they are comets. Not only were many more than seven comets known to the ancient world, but the comets, too, have no effect on the measurement of time. Yet concern for the calendar and time lies at the heart of the 364-day calendar tradition.

27

Albani (1994), 248–60.

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The Rebellion of the Seven Stars

In addition, as Neugebauer pointed out years ago, the author of the Astronomical Book systematically avoids any reference to the constellations, something that is quite understandable since they played an essential role in Babylonian astral divination.28 In fact, in 1 En 8:3 we are told that it was the fallen Watchers who led mankind astray in this respect by telling them how to interpret the ‘signs’ of the sun, the moon, the earth, the stars, shooting stars, and lightning flashes. In other words, the fallen Watchers taught mankind the ‘divinatory practices’ that were so widespread throughout the Ancient Middle East and quite contrary to the faith of Israel.29 Albani himself has argued that a major function of the 364-day calendar was to distance Israel from Babylonian astral divination.30 It is the movement of the ‘wandering stars’, the planets, against a stable background of fixed stars that makes Babylonian divination possible. The movement back and forth of the five lesser planets is specifically pointed out in MUL.APIN II 1 2–7. Indeed, the positions of all seven ‘wanderers’ are regularly recorded in Babylonian horoscopes.31 Since the movements of the seven planets are of fundamental importance in astral divination, it would be completely understandable if the author of the Astronomical Book were pleased to see them punished. It seems inescapable, therefore, that the seven rebel stars are the seven planets. In this case, of course, their apostasy explains the discrepancy between the 364-day year engineered by God at the time of creation and the actual movements of the heavens. There is a problem with this, however, in that Enoch sees them being punished in the present and their rebellion must therefore already have been brought to an end and cannot justify the discrepancy between calendar and observation. Thus there is a clear contradiction between the founding myth as presented thus far and the text of 1 En 18:12–16/21:1–6.

30 31 28 29

Neugebauer (1985), 387. Nickelsburg (2001), 196. Albani (1994), 243. Rochberg (1998), 45.

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CHAPTER FIVE THE EPISTLE OF JUDE AND THE APOSTASY OF THE SEVEN STARS

Scholars have often found in the Epistle of Jude an early reference to the apostasy of the seven stars described in 1 En 18:12–16/21:1–6. For Jude – as for the Paul in 1 Thessalonians and Philippians – the end of the present age is at hand and he looks forward to a swift end of present woes. According to Bauckham the character of the Epistle of Jude ‘is such that it might plausibly be dated to the 50s, and nothing requires a later date.’1 Thus Jude may well be one of the earliest books in the New Testament. Jude treats Enoch as a prophet and uses the Book of the Watchers three times to attack a group of libertarian opponents. The most striking of these attacks is the last: It was also about these [i.e., Jude’s libertarian opponents] that Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied, saying, ‘See, the Lord is coming with tens of thousands of his holy ones, to execute judgement on all, and to convict everyone of all the deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way, and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.’ These are the grumblers and malcontents; they indulge their own lusts; they are bombastic in speech, flattering people to their own advantage. (Jude 14–16)

In this passage Jude applies to Christ a passage from the beginning of the Book of the Watchers that originally referred to the God of Israel: Look, he comes with the myriads of his holy ones, to Behold judgment on all, Bauckham (1983), 13. Recently van de Sandt (2014), 81, has accepted and even sharpened Bauckham’s assessment. 1

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The Epistle of Jude and the Apostasy of the Seven Stars

and to destroy all the wicked, and to convict all humanity for all the wicked deeds that they have done, and the proud and hard words that wicked sinners spoke against him. (1 En 1:9)

Comparing Jude with 1 Enoch Bauckham came to the conclusion that ‘[t]he simplest explanation [of their relationship] is that Jude knew the Greek version, but made his own translation from the Aramaic.’2 Davids accepts Bauckham’s assessment and comments that ‘there are places where his translation appears to show a better understanding of the Aramaic than the Greek version does.’3 This is understandable if, as Bauckham has shown, Jude did not use the Greek Septuagint translation when he cited the Hebrew Bible but translated directly from the Hebrew text.4 Anyone who could read Hebrew in those days would have been able to read Aramaic as well. We should accept that 1 Enoch was a familiar text for the author of Jude – probably in both Aramaic and Greek – and that it was considered to have the authority of scripture. Having seen the use Jude 14–15 makes of 1 En 1:9 it should come as no surprise that Jude also knows the story of the Watchers. Jude 6 clearly implies that his opponents will suffer the same fate as the fallen angels whose licentious desires led them to abandon the place in heaven assigned to them by God: And the angels who did not keep their own position, but left their proper dwelling, [the Lord] has kept (tetêrêken) in eternal chains in deepest darkness (upo zophon) for the judgment of the great day. (Jude 6)

In 1 En 12:4 angels who have remained faithful to God tell Enoch to rebuke the Watchers ‘who forsook the highest heaven, the sanctuary of the eternal covenant.’5 God himself tells Enoch to say to the Watchers: ‘Why have you forsaken the high heaven, the eternal sanctuary …?’ (1 En 15:3) and afterwards declares: ‘The spirits of heaven, in heaven is their dwelling’ (1 En 2 Bauckham (1983), 96. A few fragments of the Aramaic text are preserved by 4QEnochc (4Q204). See Milik (1976). 184. 3 Davids (2011), 78. 4 Bauckham (1983), 7. 5 For this translation see above, pp. 47-49.

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The Epistle of Jude and the Apostasy of the Seven Stars

15:7). According to 1 Enoch the punishment of the Watchers has two stages: archangel Michael is told by God to ‘… bind them for seventy generations in the valleys of the earth, until the day of their judgement and consummation, until the everlasting judgement is consummated’ (1 En 10:12; cf. 14:5). Thus they are to be imprisoned until their true punishment begins at the end of the present age.6 These details are known to us only from 1 Enoch.7 Relying on these passages from the Book of the Watchers Jude tells his opponents that they will suffer the same fate: they will be imprisoned under the earth when they die and kept there until the end of the present age, when they will be definitively judged and punished. This point is also made in the Book of the Watchers, where God tells archangel Michael that ‘… everyone who is condemned and destroyed henceforth [for their sins] will be bound together with [the Watchers] until the consummation of their generation’ (1 En 10:14).

The ‘wandering’ stars For our purposes, however, it is the way Jude uses the disobedient stars of 1 En 18:12–16/21:1–6 as a weapon against his opponents that is significant. In a marvellous onslaught of metaphors Jude says of those who are disturbing the life of the community: They are waterless clouds carried along by the winds, autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, uprooted; wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame; wandering stars (asteres planêtai) , for whom the deepest darkness (o zophos tou skotous) has been reserved (tetêrêtai) for ever (eis aiôna). (Jude 12–13)

The expression asteres planêtai, ‘wandering stars’ is the standard way in Greek to refer to the seven heavenly bodies that move across the heavens but are not fixed stars – the sun, the moon, Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, Venus, and Mercury.8 Although the entry under planês in Liddell and Scott may 6 The same myth is found in Jubilees 5:6–11, where the fallen angels are ‘tied up in the depths of the earth until the great day of judgment when there will be condemnation on all who have corrupted their ways and their actions before the Lord.’ Jubilees, however, has reinterpreted the myth to its own end. See below, p. 96. 7 They appear in Jubilees 10:1–11, where they also derive from 1 Enoch. Charles (1902), lxxxv, found no evidence that Jude was aware of Jubilees. 8 The fixed stars are defined in opposition to the planets as asteres aplaneis in Plato’s Timaeus 40b, while some five centuries later Ptolemy wrote a treatise entitled

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The Epistle of Jude and the Apostasy of the Seven Stars

not make this clear, comparison with Danker’s Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature and Lampe’s Patristic Greek Dictionary is conclusive. Nowhere are any bodies other than the seven planets referred to as asteres planêtai. There would therefore have to be very strong reasons indeed for suggesting that in this passage asteres planêtai refers to anything else.9 Thus Jude gives us our earliest indication of the identity of the seven ‘stars’. For him, at least, they are the seven ‘planets’ or ‘wanderers’ of the ancient world. Jude distinguishes their punishment from that of the Watchers, however, since while the fallen angels are imprisoned upo zophon (‘in darkness’) under the earth, a more extreme form of darkness, o zophos tou skotous, is reserved for the wandering stars. This distinction corresponds to the distinction between the punishment given Asael and that given the seven stars in 1 En 18:12–16/21:1–6. Asael is to be ‘cast into the darkness … in the wilderness that is in Doudael’, where Raphael is to ‘cover him with darkness, and let him dwell there for an exceedingly long time. Cover up his face, and let him not see light’ (1 En 10:4–5). The punishment of the seven stars, however, takes place where there is no sun. Enoch comes upon ‘a place where there was neither firmament of heaven above, nor firmly founded earth beneath’ (1 En 18:12). Here, in the absence of the sun, there is no light whatsoever. The darkness here is different. It is o zophos tou skotous, where to skotos seems to correspond to to skotos to exôterikon, the ‘outer darkness’, of Mt 8:1, 22:13, and 25:30 and should probably even be translated as such. This important distinction between the two forms of darkness is obscured in the NRSV, where upo zophon and o zophos tou skotous are assimilated and translated as ‘in deepest darkness’ and ‘the deepest darkness’.10 On its own zophos refers to the gloom and darkness of this world. The radical form of darkness designated by o zophos tou skotous corresponds to the realm beyond the heavens where there is neither sun nor moon, a region where there is ‘neither heaven above nor firmly founded earth, but a chaotic and terrible place (topon akataskeuaston kai phoberon)’ (1 En

Phases of the Fixed Stars (Phaseis aplanôn asterôn) which locates their times of rising against the calendar in use at the time. The image of the planets as ‘wanderers’ has a long history: the Sumerians called the planets ‘wandering sheep’ (lu-bat). 9 This is also conclusion of Davids (2011), 22. 10 The same distinction drawn in 2 Peter between the sirais/seirais zophou (‘pits/ chains of darkness’) already in use for the punishment of the fallen Watchers (2 Pet 2:4) and o zophos tou skotous that is reserved for false teachers in the future (2 Pet 2:17).

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The Epistle of Jude and the Apostasy of the Seven Stars

21:2). This is a true ‘outer darkness’ indeed, and the place where, according to Jude 13, the apostate planets will eventually be punished.

A fundamental disagreement As has been pointed out, Jude disagrees in one significant detail with what is said in the Book of the Watchers about the fate of the seven wandering stars. In the Book of the Watchers Enoch sees their punishment already taking place. In Jude 13, however, the punishment of the Wanderers ‘has been reserved/kept in reserve’ (tetêrêtai), in other words, ‘kept aside for use later’.11 Jude’s use of the perfect tense implies that what was reserved in the past is still being reserved. The punishment of the wandering stars has not yet begun. The use of the perfect tense of têrein with this meaning is confirmed in 2 Pet 3:7, where again it appears in an eschatological context: ‘By the same word [i.e., God’s ‘word’ that created the world] the present heavens and earth have been reserved (tethêsaurismenoi eisin) for fire, being kept (têroumenoi) until the day of judgement and destruction of the godless.’ Here thêsaurizein and têrein virtual synonyms. The sense of having been reserved in the past is conveyed by tethêsaurismenoi eisin and the sense that this process is continuing in the present is picked up and strengthened by têroumenoi. Together they convey the same meaning as tetêrêtai.

A significant mistranslation If tetêrêtai in Jude 13 means ‘has been kept/is being kept in reserve’, then the translation of eis aiôna offered by the NRSV – ‘for ever’ – is seriously misleading, since it might seem to imply that the punishment of the stars will never take place.12 The expression eis aiôna is a direct word-for-word translation into Greek of the Hebrew le‘ ôlam, which means ‘to the close of the age’.13 This Hebrew phrase and its equivalents are regularly translated in the Septuagint as eis ton aiôna, where ton is inserted to conform to Greek Cf.  BADG (2000), s.v.; LPGL (1961), s.v. 9. ‘For ever’ is used in the AV and all subsequent translations into English of which I am aware. No doubt it derives from the in aeternum of the Vulgate. 13 See BDB, s.v. l, 6.c. 11

12

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The Epistle of Jude and the Apostasy of the Seven Stars

idiomatic use. On those few occasions when an unidiomatic eis aiôna appears in the Septuagint, it either translates le‘ ôlam, as in 1 Chr 16:15, 2 Chr 9:8, Ps 5:12, and Eccl 9:6, or represents an adjectival use of ‘ ôlam as in Jer 49:13. In each of these passages le‘ ôlam refers to worldly, human affairs and can only mean ‘while this world/age exists’ and not ‘for all eternity’. The expression eis aiôna in Jude 13 is a hapax in the New Testament. In all other instances where eis is used with aiôn in the singular the expression takes the form eis ton aiôna. And in all those passages eis ton aiôna does indeed mean ‘for ever’.14 Its meaning had apparently been assimilated in ordinary speech to that of eis tous aiônas, ‘to (all) the ages’, which does always mean ‘for ever’, since no limit is placed on their number. Eis tous aiônas is common in the Septuagint only in Tobit, where its meaning is the same as eis pantas tous aiônas. This last expression is simply a more emphatic form of eis tous aiônas and again can only mean ‘for ever’. By the time the New Testament was being written the meaning of eis ton aiôna – although ultimately derived from the Hebrew le‘ ôlam – had apparently been assimilated to that of eis tous aiônas and therefore no longer had its original meaning of ‘to the end of the (present) age’. A similar process can be seen to have taken place in Latin. In the Vulgate eis ton aiôna and eis tous aiônas can both be translated in the same way. Eis ton aiôna – literally in saeculum – is normally translated as in aeternum and very occasionally as in saeculum. Eis tous aiônas, while normally translated literally as in saecula, can also be translated – quite rightly – as in aeternum in Luke 1:33. It would appear, therefore, that Jude has deliberately avoided the normal eis ton aiôna and chosen to use the much less common eis aiôna precisely in order to avoid suggesting that the punishment of the wandering stars would be reserved ‘for ever’. He has done this by reverting to the Hebrew idiom and producing a Greek calque that he hopes will convey what he means. That the Hebrew idiom should occur to him is not surprising. Bauckham has shown that in spite of his obvious mastery of literary Greek, he actually makes use of the Hebrew Bible and translates from it directly without reference to the Septuagint.15 More to the point in the present context, Bauckham has also shown that the author 14 Davids (2011), 22, points out that in the New Testament eis ton aiôna has the same meaning as aïdios, which does describe something that is ‘eternal’, that is, whose existence extends beyond the end of this or any subsequent age. 15 Bauckham (1983), 7.

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The Epistle of Jude and the Apostasy of the Seven Stars

of Jude was also familiar with the Aramaic original of 1 Enoch, since the semitisms of Jude 14–15 show that even if he knew the Greek version, he ‘made his translation directly from the Aramaic’.16 Jude’s use of eis aiôna with a perfect tense, tetêrêtai, ‘has been reserved’, strongly suggests that he intended eis aiôna to convey the meaning of its Hebrew original, ‘to the end of the (present) age’. The distinctive character of eis aiôna and the precision of its use is fully confirmed by the language he uses at the end of his letter. Jude closes with ‘to the only God our Saviour, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power, and authority, before all time and now and for ever (NRSV)’ (Jude 25). In Greek the final words of this sentence are pro pantos tou aiônos kai nun kai eis pantas tous aiônas, i.e., ‘(from) before the whole of this (present) age and now and until all the ages.’ When Jude wishes to speak of what will never end he uses the unambiguous eis pantas tous aiônas, the equivalent of eis tous aiônas. When he wishes to say ‘to the end of the (present) age’, as in Jude 13, he uses eis aiôna.17 This understanding of the meaning of Jude 13 will eventually enable us to make sense of the literary history of 1 Enoch, since it reveals the existence of two identifiable strands within the Enochian tradition that differed radically as to the fate of the seven fallen stars. One of these, represented by 1 En 18:2–16 and 21:1–6 in the Book of the Watchers, believed that God had brought the rebellion of the seven planets to an end. The other, attested in Jude 13, believed that their punishment had not yet taken place. For Jude the planets are still in rebellion and the heavens we see do not move according to the primordial will of God.

Why has Jude 13 not been understood? No doubt several factors have contributed to this misunderstanding of Jude 13. The most important, however, has probably been that it was hard to imagine that any educated person of that time could believe that in this present age the seven planets are disobeying the will of God. Davids’s comment on Jude 13 shows this clearly: ‘… by Jude’s time it was a Bauckham (1983), 6. David Bentley Hart (2017), 494, has recently published a translation of the New Testament in which he translates the eis aiôna of Jude 13 as ‘until the Age’, using the capitalised ‘Age’ to refer specifically to ‘the Age to come’ . In a Postscript (537–43), he justifies his translation and summarises the extensive – and very interesting – discussion of the meaning of aiôn and aiônios in Eastern Church Fathers. 16

17

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The Epistle of Jude and the Apostasy of the Seven Stars

case of a name sticking even after the astronomers realized that the planets were regular in their movement.’ He points to Cicero’s comments in De natura deorum 2.51 to illustrate his point: ‘Most remarkable, too, are the movements of the five planets mistakenly labelled “those who stray”; mistakenly, because nothing can be said to “go astray” which through all eternity maintains in a steady, predetermined pattern its various movements forward, backward, and in other directions.’18 In the first century ce not everyone, however, was as sensible as Cicero. As a result of its implausibility Jude’s use of the perfect tetêrêtai and its significance went unnoticed. An understandable inclination to assimilate the meaning of eis aiôna to that of the frequently used expression eis ton aiôna led to its distinctiveness and the force of the perfect passive being overlooked. We have already come across a similar problem in connection with the cosmic covenant. Scholars have found it difficult to imagine that 1 En 106:13–14 could refer to a covenant other than the covenant of Noah. Yet it does. In the mythology of the 364-day calendar tradition an earlier covenant did exist. It bound the angels to God and underpinned the entire universe.

Conclusions and a contradiction The author of Jude, who treats the Book of the Watchers as scripture, believed that the wandering stars had rebelled against their maker. From his point of view the seven rebel stars mentioned in 1 En 18:12–16/21:1– 6 are the asteres, the planets, seven stars who do not occupy a fixed position on the vault of heaven. In the Enochian world of Jude and the 364-day calendar the myth of the fall of the planets is just as important as the myth of the fall of the Watchers, both of which acquire their true significance only against the background of the myth of a cosmic covenant against whose terms the angels were free to revolt. Jude’s belief in the continuing apostasy of the seven planets meant that as far as he was concerned the observed movements of the sun and the moon could not be used for the keeping of liturgical time – God’s time. In view of his immersion in the Enochian world it seems almost inevitable that he accepted what Enoch says in the Astronomical Book about the world as first created: in the beginning there were only 364 Davids (2011), 73, n. 38.

18

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The Epistle of Jude and the Apostasy of the Seven Stars

days in a year and the months had either thirty or thirty-one days. In this case it is hard not to conclude that he followed the 364-day calendar. It also follows that he is not relying on our present text of the Book of the Watchers for his understanding of the fate of the seven wandering stars, since for him the punishment has yet to come. Jude’s faith in the future punishment of the seven stars did not survive the the changes that took place in the Early Church. If fact, it was rejected. This can be seen in the way that 2 Pet 2:17–18 makes use of and expands the contents of Jude 12–13 in relation to his opponents but does not mention the errant stars: These are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm; for them the deepest darkness has been reserved (ois o zophos tou skotous tetêrêtai). 18 For they speak bombastic nonsense, and with licentious desires of the flesh they entice people who have just escaped from those who live in error (tous en planê anastrephomenous). (2 Pet 2:17–18) 17

The author of 2 Peter has picked up and reworked ‘waterless clouds carried along by the winds (nephelai anudroi upo anemôn parapheromenai)’ from Jude 12 and ‘for whom the deepest darkness has been reserved (ois o zophos tou skotous … tetêrêtai)’ from Jude 13, but has left out the crucial reference to the ‘wandering stars (asteres planêtai)’ at the beginning of the final clause and the even more important ‘until the (end of the present) age (eis aiôna)’ at the end of it. The apostasy of the planets and their future punishment has been quietly dropped. Nevertheless a recognizable echo of the Enochian myth of recalcitrant stars did survive in the early Church. In the third quarter of the second century ce Theophilus of Antioch, in his Ad Autolycum, contrasted the fixed stars, the ‘type’ of the faithful righteous, with those that are called ‘planets’ (planêtes), who are a ‘type of the men who depart from God, abandoning his law and ordinances.’19 The analogy later became a patristic commonplace. The fact that Jude believes that God has permitted the apostasy of the Wanderers to continue will inevitably affect his ideas about the presence of God’s justice in this world. This can be seen in the way he recommends the community he is addressing should deal with the false teachers that are troubling its members. He accepts that they will continue to participate, apparently even attending the community’s sacred meals, since God will soon condemn and punish them at the end of the present Age. Ad Autolycum, 2.15.

19

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CHAPTER SIX COSMOLOGY AND THEOLOGY IN THE EPISTLE OF JUDE

Jude’s understanding of the fate of the seven planets is completely integrated into his theology. It could hardly be otherwise, since if the apostate stars have not yet been punished and will continue to persist in their rebellion until the end of the age, then at present the righteous judgment of God is not reflected in the heavens. His justice will become visible only at the end of the age. Jude’s acceptance of delayed judgment and punishment for the planets is an important aspect of his overall view of the relationship between this world and the age to come. His understanding of the fate of the seven stars seems to serve as a paradigm for his treatment of the antinomian teachers he condemns.

Eschatological punishment in 1 Enoch and in Jude An important aspect of Bauckham’s analysis of Jude is his demonstration that the letter was written at a time when the early Christian communities still expected an imminent end to the present age. Bauckham expresses his conclusion very succinctly: ‘Jude’s eschatological outlook is governed by the imminent expectation of the primitive church.’1 If Jude looked forward to the imminent arrival of the eschaton, he also expected that the rebellion of the recalcitrant stars would soon be brought to an end. The significance of his acceptance of delayed punishment for the stars is shown by the way it replicates the acceptance of delayed punishment for the fallen angels and the spirits of the Giants – the ‘demons’ – in the Book of the Watchers. Bauckham (1983), 115; so too McKnight (2003), 1529.

1

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Cosmology and Theology in the Epistle of Jude

The Book of the Watchers makes it clear that although the Lord is all-powerful, the Creator of all that exists, he has given a certain measure of freedom to the angels, as is shown by the rebellion of the Watchers and the angels in charge of the wandering stars. Thus, when humankind saw they were perishing because of the sinfulness of Watchers and their sons, the Giants, they raised their voices and cried out to heaven, assuming that God could bring their sorrows to an end (1 En 8:4). The four archangels were quick to respond to this plea and approached God on mankind’s behalf. They began by saying to him: ‘You are the God of gods and Lord of lords … For you have made all things and have authority over all’ (1 En 9:4). They too assume that God has allowed these disasters to overwhelm mankind and can also bring them to an end. As a result of the archangels’ appeal God sends Raphael and Michael to earth and tells them to bind the fallen angels and their leaders ‘in the valleys of the earth, until the day of their judgment and consummation, until the everlasting judgment is consummated’ (1 En 10:4–6, 11–12). This the archangels then do. The possibility of opposition on the part of the Watchers does not arise. Yet God has not destroyed the Watchers but only imprisoned them under the earth until the day of the great judgement. Their definitive punishment has been deferred until the end of the age – just as in Jude 6. God then sends down Gabriel to destroy the Giants by inducing them to attack each other (1 En 10:9–10). This he does, and as physical beings the Giants disappear from the face of the earth.

God defers the final punishment of the Watchers and the spirits of the Giants God does not destroy the Watchers or Giants completely and at once. He imprisons the fallen angels for the time being, deferring their final judgment and punishment until the end of the present age. And then, although he ensures that the Giants slay each other, he does not destroy their spirits. As a result, because the Giants are both heavenly and earthly beings, their spirits do not sink under the earth when they die but remain above ground and survive the Flood in which creatures with bodies perish. In 1 En 15:8–16:1 God addresses Enoch and tells him just what this will mean: (15) (8) But now the giants who were begotten by the spirits and flesh – they will call them evil spirits on the earth, for their dwelling will be on the earth.

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Cosmology and Theology in the Epistle of Jude

(9) The spirits that have gone forth from the body of their flesh are evil spirits, for from humans they came into being, and from the holy watchers was the origin of their creation. Evil spirits they will be on earth, and evil spirits they will be called. (10) The spirits of heaven, in heaven is their dwelling; but the spirits begotten on the earth, on the earth is their dwelling. (11) And the spirits of the giants , do violence, make desolate, and attack and wrestle and hurl upon the earth and . They eat nothing, but abstain from food and are thirsty and smite. (12) These spirits (will) rise up against the sons of men and against the women, for they have come forth from them. (16) (1) From the day of the slaughter and destruction and death of the giants, from the soul of whose flesh the spirits are proceeding, they are making desolate without (incurring) judgment. Thus they will make desolate until the day of the consummation of the great judgment, when the great age will consummated. It will be consummated all at once.

Thus the bodies of the Giants may disintegrate in the earth, but their spirits continue to exist as evil spirits and will torment mankind until the day of the great judgment. The punishment of the evil spirits has been deferred – ‘reserved’, to use the language of Jude 13 – until the end of the age. In the meantime they are free to behave in a manner contrary to God’s original intentions. As a result, God’s justice is not visible on earth in the present age. This is the same picture we find in the Gospels. The demons whom Christ exorcises are out of control. Their time is limited, however, and the fact that Christ can break their power is a sign that the end of the age is at near at hand. Even the demons are aware that at some point their power will be brought to an end, as can be seen from Matthew’s version of the healing of the Gadarene demoniacs. When the demons that possess the demoniacs see Christ they cry out: ‘Have you come here to torment us before the time?’ (Mt 8:28–9:1; cf. Mk 5:1–20; Lk 8:26–39). This awareness that the power of the evil spirits is about to be definitively broken is found in other exorcism narratives as well. Jude shares the demons’ understanding of the situation: for the time being the evil spirits are free to torment mankind, but at the close of the age God will bring their dominion to an end. Jude 13 shows that its author believes God has dealt in the same way with the apostasy of the Wanderers. The seven planets have rebelled and are still misusing their freedom to violate the commandments of God, but God has not brought it to an end. Instead, their punishment has

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Cosmology and Theology in the Epistle of Jude

been deferred eis aiôna – ‘kept back until the close of the (present) age’ (Jude 13). For Jude, therefore, God’s attitude toward the fallen Wanderers is fully congruent with his attitude toward the spirits of the Giants. He puts up with their sinful behaviour until such time as he himself decides to bring it to an end – ‘until the day of the consummation of the great judgment, when the great age will be consummated. It will be consummated all at once’ (1En 16:1). The forbearance of God as regards the spirits of the Giants is one of the most striking features of the myth of the Watchers as presented in 1 Enoch. It is certainly the most striking feature of Jude’s description of God’s treatment of the apostasy of the seven Wanderers. God allows both the demons – the spirits of the Giants – and the apostate planets to continue to rebel until the very end. And as a result divine justice is manifest neither on earth nor in heaven in this present age.

Jude advises the community to imitate the forbearance of God Jude opens his letter to the community he is caring for by saying that although he had been intending to write about the salvation he shares with them, their situation obliges him to limit himself to encouraging them ‘to contend for the faith’ they have received from the saints. Much of the letter is then taken up by criticism of a group of false teachers who have insinuated themselves among the faithful. While their basic fault seems to be an antinomian libertinism that has led to sexual immorality, Jude adds to this their love of money, greed, general ungodliness, flattery, overblown language, and discontent. An unpleasant lot! What is striking, however, is how Jude encourages the community to react. He never advises them to eject these false teachers or to punish them in any way. Apparently he even accepts that they will continue to attend the community’s sacred meals, since he can call them ‘blemishes on your love feasts’ (Jude 12). The attitude he recommends is one of tolerance accompanied by an attempt to bring them back from their errors: But you, beloved, build yourselves up on your most holy faith; pray in the Holy Spirit; keep yourselves in the love of God; look forward to the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. And have mercy on some who are wavering; save others by snatching them out of the fire; and have mercy on still others with fear, hating even the tunic defiled by their bodies. (Jude 20–23)

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Cosmology and Theology in the Epistle of Jude

Jude advises the community to adopt the same stance vis-à-vis these false teachers that archangel Michael once took towards Satan: ‘But when Michael the archangel, in debate with the devil, disputed about the body of Moses, he did not presume to condemn him for slander, but said, “The Lord rebuke you (epitimêsai soi kurios)!”’ (Jude 9).2 According to Jude Michael did not react with force or violence to the effrontery of the prince of evil spirits. He did not even go as far as to condemn him for slandering Moses. Instead, imitating the forbearance that God has shown towards the spirits of the Giants, he did no more than call on God to ‘rebuke’ him. This is the interpretation favoured by Bauckham: ‘The point is rather that Michael, who was the advocate and not the judge, did not take it upon himself to reject the devil’s accusation as malicious slander; instead he appealed to the Lord’s judgment.’3 Although ‘rebuke’ is the normal translation for epitimêsai here, it is not adequate in the context. It is important to bear in mind that the false teachers – like the planets – can be allowed to go unpunished in the present because in the near future God will not only judge them but will punish them, condemning them to eternal darkness like the fallen stars. Kee argues out that the Hebrew verb gâ‘ar, which is used in Zech 3:2, lies behind epitimêsai in the exorcism stories in the Gospels and means much more than ‘rebuke’, especially when used with reference to God. It is, as he shows, ‘a technical term for the commanding word, uttered by God or his spokesman, by which evil powers are brought into submission’.4 The meaning of gâ‘ar is therefore very close to the root meaning of epitimaô, ‘to lay a penalty on’, i.e., ‘to judge and punish’, ‘to impose an epitimia’ in a legal or quasi-legal context. As Kee understands this passage, the background for epitimêsai in Jude 9 and in the Gospel exorcisms is ‘nothing less than the cosmic plan of God by which he was

2 This is the translation offered and defended by Bauckham (1983), 62. It is generally assumed that Jude is quoting a Jewish apocryphal text, The Assumption of Moses, which itself is using the language of Zechariah 3:2, where the Lord says to Satan, ‘The Lord rebuke you, O Satan!’ What is interesting is that both The Assumption of Moses and Jude seem to have in mind the Hebrew text that lies behind the Syriac Peshitta, where it is the angel of the Lord and not the Lord (which makes no sense at all) who says to Satan, ‘The Lord rebuke you!’ This is pointed out by Rogerson (2003), 722–23. Bauckham (1983), 65–76, discusses in detail the complex background of Jude’s reference to archangel Michael. 3 Bauckham (1983), 60. So too Davids (2011), 61. The point seems to be missed in 2 Peter 2:10–11. 4 Kee (1968), 234.

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Cosmology and Theology in the Epistle of Jude

regaining control over an estranged and hostile creation, which was under subjection to the powers of Satan.’5 This meaning suits very well the anticipation of imminent divine judgement that colours the world in which the author of the Epistle of Jude lives. Jude understands Michael to be saying: ‘May the Lord judge and punish you!’ and therefore he does not suggest that the community ‘rebuke’ the false teachers. He understood epitimaô to mean ‘judge and punish’, and this was not something he wanted them to do. Instead he ‘appeals to the coming judgment of the Lord.’6 The community is to imitate Michael and leave both judgment and punishment to the Lord and the ‘day of the great judgment’, when God will finally punish both the spirits of the Giants (1 En 16:1) and the planets (Jude 13). The stance Jude asks the community to adopt is rooted in God’s attitude towards the spirits of the Giants (1 En 16:1) and the rebellious planets (Jude 13): the apostasy of the false teachers is recognized for what it is – rebellion against God – but they are not driven away or expelled. God has allowed this situation to develop and he will judge and punish them in the end, just as he has deferred the definitive epitimia of the fallen Watchers until ‘the judgment of the great day’ (1 En 10:6, 12–13; Jude 6). Thus God’s tolerance of the continued mayhem bought about by the spirits of the Giants on earth and the disobedience of fallen Wanderers in the heavens is reproduced in Michael’s treatment of Satan and then used by Jude as the basis for his advice to the community. By recommending that the community imitate Michael, Jude is actually inviting them to imitate God. They are not to punish the offenders, but to concentrate on building up the community and encouraging the faithful. Judgment and punishment of the false teachers can be left to the Lord. This situation was anticipated in vision of Zechariah (Zech 3:2) and these ungodly false teachers, ‘who long ago were designated for this condemnation as ungodly’ (Jude 4), were anticipated by the apostles (Jude 17). The prophet Zechariah had shown the way when he told how in a vision the Lord (better, ‘the angel of the Lord’) said to Satan no more than ‘The Lord rebuke you (better, ‘May the Lord judge and pun5 Kee (1968), 243. Davids (2011), 63, n. 23, does not accept Kee’s argument, objecting that ‘… in this passage Jude refers neither to the eschatological judgment of the devil nor to the use of a word of power.’ For someone who, like the author of Jude, lives in a world given meaning by the founding myths of the 364-day calendar tradition, however, God’s imminent judgment and punishment of all that is evil in the world can never be left out of consideration. It is always near the foreground of consciousness. 6 Bauckham (1983), 62.

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Cosmology and Theology in the Epistle of Jude

ish you’).’ (Jude 9). It is part of God’s plan for the community’s salvation that such things should happen and the remedy is also in the hands of God.7 Jude’s use of ‘may the Lord rebuke you’ – epitimêsai soi kurios – in his description of archangel Michael’s treatment of Satan reflects his understanding of the way God has treated the fallen angels, the spirits of the Giants, and the apostate Wanderers and brings clarity to our understanding of his advice to the community. It also enables us to better locate his work within the Enochian tradition.

Jude and the Enochian tradition Jude seems to have been completely immersed and at home in the Enochian world of fallen angels, rebellious stars, and the delayed punishment of those who offend against God. Although he says nothing about the 364-day calendar, it is hardly conceivable that he was unaware of its existence. His relationship to the Enochian tradition is fully consistent with Bauckham’s finding that ‘[i]n spite of his competence in Greek, [Jude’s] real intellectual background is in the literature of Palestinian Judaism.’8 With Jude we are so close to the first Christian communities that in Bauckham’s opinion ‘[t]here is no convincing case of allusion to a written Christian source.’9 It is hard not to be impressed by the way Jude seems to be impervious to the influence of the wider Greek culture in spite of his linguistic skills. The Epistle of Jude shows that a theological understanding of all three founding myths of the 364-day calendar tradition still survived in the middle of the first century ce. The author’s use of the apostate Watchers and fallen stars as examples of apostasy finds its deeper meaning against the background of a cosmic covenant that bound the angels to God. His toleration of the continuing apostasy of the spirits of the Giants is reflected in his appeal to archangel Michael’s restraint in dealing with Satan when advising the community on how to treat the erring teachers. This advice is completely consonant with a belief that God has allowed the seven planets to continue their rebellion until the end of the The problems caused by wandering teachers in the early Church were traditionally mitigated by sending them on their way after two days, or at most three (see Didache 12:2). Perhaps Jude’s community had not shown this wisdom. 8 Bauckham (1983), 5. 9 Bauckham (1983), 7. 7

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Cosmology and Theology in the Epistle of Jude

present age. Jude’s acceptance of radical rebellion against God’s sovereignty in this world is made psychologically and spiritually possible by his firm belief in the approaching triumph of the Lord and the restoration of righteousness throughout the universe in the eschaton.

The cosmological implications of Jude 13 The cosmological implications of Jude 13 are extremely important. If the seven planets are in rebellion, then neither the sun nor the moon can be relied upon to measure God’s time. This is of course precisely what the 364-day ideal calendar and its founding myth of the apostasy of the planets imply. A rebellious sun can be seen to be crossing the heavens 365¼ times in the course one sidereal year, but when God created the heavens, the sun crossed the heavens 364 times during this same period. A rebel moon now passes through its four phases twelve times in almost exactly 354 days, making each lunar month approximately twenty-nineand-a-half days long. According to the Qumran/Jubilees creation calendar, however, God originally intended the month to have exactly either thirty or thirty-one days. This view of the world is very hard for a contemporary person to accept. It seems paranoid. We tend to feel at home in the world and are satisfied that the natural processes of the cosmos execute God’s requirements. The world of Jude resembles much more the world of Paul, for whom creation was not a very congenial place to be in the run-up to the End: ‘For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places’ (Eph 6:12). For Paul – as for Jude – this world and the heavens in particular are not the home of peace and order, but the realm of hostile powers. This conflict between the 364-day creation calendar and observation will surface again when we come to discuss the complicated history of the Astronomical Book. Jude is clearly at odds with those portions of this work that integrate the phases of the moon into the 364-day year and therefore with all calendrical texts from Qumran that do the same. Its author believes that the phases of the moon we now observe can only lead one astray, while the Qumran texts assume that they must be taken into account. Jude is also at odds with the Book of the Watchers in its present form, which clearly says that Enoch has already seen the punishment of

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Cosmology and Theology in the Epistle of Jude

the seven stars (1 En 18:12–16/21:1–6), since this means that the rebellion of the planets has already have been brought to an end. One implication of this contradiction is that Jude must have known a form of the Book of the Watchers that did not mention Enoch’s vision of the seven burning stars.

Summary The Epistle of Jude belongs to the earliest stages in the Church’s history. The Enochian world is still very real. There are no written Gospels and no organized episcopate. Communities spring up as a result of the work of itinerant preachers and apostles and as a result discipline is hard to maintain. Signs of the Church’s chaotic origin out of the spiritual turmoil of the Greco-Roman Middle East are evident everywhere, as is Jude’s desire to spread the message that Jesus – now both Christ and Lord – will soon return to vindicate the sufferings and the forbearance of his disciples. Some instances of evil may be punished in this world, but in these last days the community must not lose sight of the imminent advent of the eschaton. In the face of trials its members should concentrate on building themselves up in faith as they await ‘the judgment of the great day’ (Jude 6). If God can leave the punishment of the apostate stars until the end, the community should imitate his forbearance and leave to God the judgment and punishment of the false teachers who are troubling its life. The inner coherence of this picture serves to bring out the importance of translating eis aiôna in Jude 13 as ‘to the end of the (present) age’. Only when interpreted in this way does the pattern of forbearance in anticipation of future judgment become visible in relation both to the apostate stars, the fallen angels, and the apostate members of the community.

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CHAPTER SEVEN JUBILEES REWRITES ENOCHIAN THEOLOGY

Our investigation of the role of the cosmic covenant and the apostasy of the seven planets in the 364-day calendar tradition has revealed a serious disagreement between the Book of the Watchers 18:12–16/21:1–6 and Jude 13 as to the fate of the rebel stars. In the Book of the Watchers Enoch sees the seven stars being punished for their sins, while in Jude they remain apostate until the end of the present age. The Book of Jubilees, a Hebrew work written in the middle of the second century bce, at time when the conflict between Greek culture and indigenous Jewish traditions was at its height, provides the key to understanding how this disagreement within the 364-day calendar tradition arose. It was during this politically and culturally fraught period that the unknown author of Jubilees produced an alternative version of the mythology underlying the 364-day calendar and did it in such a way as to make it reflect more closely the cultural and scientific standards of the time. He was apparently seeking to reconcile Enochic Judaism the ‘Zadokite’ tradition that would later develop into rabbinic Judaism and in this way achieve acceptance of his liturgical calendar and his own understanding of the Mosaic law.1

Jubilees rewrites the theology of the Book of the Watchers VanderKam describes Jubilees succinctly as ‘a second-century bce retelling of the material found in Genesis and the first half of Exodus.’2 On this point see Boccaccini (1998), 86–98. VanderKam (2001), 11.

1 2

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The usual reason for re-telling a story is to bring it closer to the immediate experience of the target audience, which in this case presumably includes members of both the Zadokite and Enochian traditions. This is particularly significant in relation to Jubilees’ incorporation of Enochian material into the biblical narrative. As the author of Jubilees retells the biblical narrative he reshapes it to suit his purposes, building into it an extended appreciation of Enoch and his revelations together with his own version of the fall of the angels and the ravages of the Giants as known to us from the Book of the Watchers. His understanding of the history of Israel is heavily influenced by his understanding of what happened at the time of the Flood. As we have seen, chapters 6–8 and 12–16 of the Book of the Watchers make it clear that God’s justice will be fully realized only at the end of the present age. Although God has imprisoned the Watchers under the earth, thereby preventing them from continuing to harm mankind, they will not be definitively punished until the great day of judgment at end of the age. And although he has ensured that the Giants slay one another, the spirits that go forth from the bodies of the slain Giants become ‘evil spirits’ that survive the Flood and continue to torment mankind until the End. God does nothing about these evil spirits. On the contrary, he allows them to continue ‘making desolate without (incurring) judgment … until the day of the consummation of the great judgment’ (1 En 16:1). In the Book of the Watchers this part of the story is emphasized at the end of the Enoch’s first journey when Uriel tells him that the evil spirits will ‘bring destruction on men and lead them astray to sacrifice to demons3 as to gods until the day of the great judgment’ (1 En 19:1). Unrighteousness, injustice, and suffering are the inevitable result. In Jubilees, however, the story found in the Book of the Watchers is significantly changed. Reflecting on the differences between the two works VanderKam concluded that, when compared with the Book of the Watchers, the Jubilees version of the Watcher story ‘makes a more nuanced point about the evil in the world at the time of the deluge’ and does this ‘in order to make it theologically more acceptable.’4 In other words, Jubilees has rewritten the story to align it more closely with what the author thinks his target audience will accept. Segal concluded that the author of Jubilees should be thought of as a ‘redactor’, who ‘in effect For the spirits of the Giants as demons see Jubilees 7:27. VanderKam (1978), 244–45.

3 4

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asks the reader to rely upon the biblical source, but to understand it according to the rewriting.’5 He also found this process at work in Jubilees’ treatment of the Book of the Watchers and concluded that in Jubilees the Watchers story ‘has undergone a transformation from a myth that explains the wretched state of this world to a story that suggests a juridical view of how this world is managed – YHWH functions as righteous judge who acts according to predetermined rules.’6 Addressing the same issue Bergsma has concluded that in Jubilees ‘[m]ankind bears more responsibility for evil; they are not merely passive victims of the Watchers, giants, and demons.’7 More recently Hanneken has again looked at the relationship between Jubilees and the Book of the Watchers and has moved the discussion forward. VanderKam had already pointed out that ‘Jubilees downplays the eschatological implications of the [Watchers] story as they appear in 1 Enoch 6–16. The story becomes an example for moral exhortation and a basis for legal inferences in Jubilees, while in 1 Enoch 6–16 it serves to model the final judgment and the conditions before it.’8 Hanneken, however, points out that ‘Jubilees can be thought of as a dialogue with prior apocalypses on certain issues.’9 As regards the Book of the Watchers this involves primarily attending closely to what is said in the Book of the Watchers and then responding to it in such a way as to intentionally subvert its meaning. The effect of this ‘dialogical’ treatment of the earlier text is to bring the theology of the Book of the Watchers closer to Zadokite norms by retelling the story of the fallen angels in a way that subtly changes its significance. Enough of the original narrative is kept to give the impression that the author accepts the earlier version as authoritative, but by changing the details he changes everything – much as he has done with the text of the Hebrew Bible. The author of Jubilees ‘transforms the story of the Watchers from an explanation of suffering in the present to a story resolved in the past with no lingering relevance except as an exhortation to avoid sin.’10

7 8 9

Segal (2007), 5. Segal (2007), 143. Bergsma (2009), 48. VanderKam (1999), 170. Hanneken (2012), 263. 10 Hanneken (2014), 38. 5 6

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JUBILEES REWRITES ENOCHIAN THEOLOGY

God sends the Watchers to earth The changes start at the very beginning of the Watchers’ journey. Just as in Genesis, the Book of the Watchers makes it clear that the angels departed heaven of their own free will: ‘When the sons of men had multiplied, in those days, beautiful and comely daughters were born to them. And the Watchers, the sons of heaven, saw them and desired them. And they said to one another, “Come, let us choose for ourselves from the daughters of men, and let us beget children for ourselves”’ (1 En 6:1–2; cf. Gen 6:1–2). Jubilees, however, begins its account by telling how in the lifetime of Jared ‘the angels of the Lord who were called Watchers11 descended to earth to teach mankind and to do what is just and upright upon the earth’ (Jub 4:15). In Jubilees 7:21 it is explicitly said that when the Watchers began to sin with women it was ‘apart from the mandate of their authority’. This again clearly implies that they descended to earth with God’s blessing and had been instructed to help mankind. Yet in the Book of the Watchers Asael is said to have ‘taught men to make swords of iron and weapons and shields and breastplates and every instrument of war’ and how to make ‘bracelets and ornaments for women’ (1 En 8:1) and that other Watchers taught the art of ‘spells and the cutting of roots’ and the knowledge of ‘signs’ required for astral divination (1 En 8:3). Shortly after this Jubilees goes back again to Genesis 6:1–2 and intentionally reuses its language: ‘When mankind began to multiply on the surface of the entire earth and daughters were born to them, the angels of the Lord … saw that they were beautiful to look at. So they married of them whomever they chose’ (Jub 5:1). Yet whereas the reader’s assumption on reading the Genesis account is that the angels of the Lord are looking down from heaven, here the vocabulary of Genesis is applied to them when they have already descended to earth. It is only while on earth that they notice how attractive women are. These changes are then reinforced a few verses later when the author expressly states that God sent the Watchers down to earth and punished them appropriately when they sinned: ‘Against his angels whom he had sent to the earth [God] was angry enough to uproot them from all their (positions of) authority’ (Jub 5:6). He manages to combine his changed perspective on their descent with the exclusion from heaven referred to The insertion of ‘who were called Watchers’ at this point suggests that Jubilees’ target audience were not necessarily familiar with the Enochian tradition, which was transmitted in Aramaic where ‘watcher’ is a normal word for ‘angel’. Anyone already familiar with this tradition would know they were called ‘Watchers’. 11

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JUBILEES REWRITES ENOCHIAN THEOLOGY

in the Book of the Watchers (1 En 14:5) in a way that suggests they fit together perfectly. At first glance this all seems quite reasonable, but the story has nevertheless been radically changed. The new version tells us that the Watchers’ primary sin was not that they had ‘forsaken the sanctuary of the eternal covenant’ (1 En 12:4), the sin which is given great prominence in the Book of the Watchers (cf. 1 En 15:3–10) and is stressed again in Jude 6. It is no longer a question of the Watchers violating the cosmic covenant by abandoning the tasks they had been assigned. All connection with their abandonment of ‘the sanctuary of the eternal covenant’ (1 En 12:4) is lost and angelic apostasy now begins on earth and not in heaven.12 The problem is that they have not done – on earth – what God wanted them to do. Imperceptibly the story of the fall of the Watchers has become a cautionary tale related to this world and is no longer an explanation of unjustified human suffering played out on a cosmic scale. Their sin has been downgraded to become no more than an example for those on earth of what can happen when lust is allowed to govern action.

The punishment of the Watchers In the Book of the Watchers it is only after ‘the cry went up to heaven’ from mankind as they perished because of the Giants’ violent behaviour that the archangels drew God’s attention to mankind’s suffering and asked him to do something about it (1 En 7:1–9:2). The archangels end their request by saying to God: ‘You know all things before they happen,/ and you see these things and you permit them,/ and you do not tell us what we ought to do to them with regard to these things’ (1 En 9:11). The archangels feel compelled to complain about the remoteness of the Creator and only in response to their complaint does God finally act and tell them what they should do. According to Jubilees, however, the archangels do not need to complain on mankind’s behalf. When the Watchers and the Giants began to misbehave, God at once moved decisively to punish them: ‘Against his angels whom he had sent to the earth he was angry enough to uproot them from all their (positions of) authority. He told us [i.e., the archangels] to tie them up in the depths of the earth; now they are tied within them and are alone’ (Jub 5:6). 12

See Hanneken (2014), 49, for this important point.

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JUBILEES REWRITES ENOCHIAN THEOLOGY

The impression given here, as Hanneken points out, is that God is the first to act and that as far as the Watchers are concerned the matter has been settled definitively. Nevertheless, a few verses later, in Jubilees 5:10, their punishment is still being linked with the ‘great day of judgment’, as it was in the Book of the Watchers. Continuity with the Book of the Watchers – at least at a verbal level – has been restored. Yet in Jubilees the timing of the ‘great day of judgment’ is also subtly changed. While in the Book of the Watchers their punishment is clearly attached to the eschaton, Jubilees links it to an unspecified time ‘when there will be condemnation on all who have corrupted their ways and their actions before the Lord. He obliterated all from their places; there remained no one of them whom he did not judge for all their wickedness’ (Jub 5:10– 11). This combination of future and past tenses could easily be taken to refer to the time of the Flood. At the same time this judgment has also been subtly generalized by referring to ‘all who have corrupted their ways’ in a way that leaves open the possibility of creatures other than the Watchers being punished at the same time. While in the Book of the Watchers the ‘great day of judgment’ is in the distant future and will concern all who sin in the future, here all the verbs that describe the sins of those who will be punished are in the past tense. The process is linked to the reader’s past and the ‘great day of judgment’ is quietly detached from the eschaton. In the Book of the Watchers it is clear that while the fallen angels are under the earth they are, as it were, ‘on remand’. Their definitive judgment, condemnation, and eternal punishment will take place later (1 En 10:12–13; cf. 1 En 10:5–6). In Jubilees, however, the connection between the punishment of the Watchers and the end of the age is obscured by the way the reader is immediately led to consider the results of the Flood and the judgment it implies (Jub 5:12). Thus although the author of Jubilees apparently accepts the Book of the Watchers as authoritative, he nevertheless rewrites it constantly and expects the reader to understand it in terms of the modifications he has introduced.13 As this happens a subtle process of subversion is taking place: ‘Jubilees 5:11 appears to accept the two-stage punishment of the Watchers, but compresses it and transforms their detention prior to judgment into judgment itself.’14 Definitive judgment at the time of the Flood is given precedence over definitive judgment in the eschaton. And when Jubilees does describe the end of the present age in chapter 23 the punishment of the fallen Watchers is never mentioned. Hanneken (2012), 293. Hanneken (2014), 55. Cf. Hanneken (2012), 290.

13

14

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The fate of the Giants Jubilees also manages to introduce small but significant changes into the punishment of the Giants. In the Book of the Watchers God orders archangel Gabriel to destroy the Giants by ‘send[ing] them against one another in a war of destruction’ (1 En 10:9–10). God is not directly involved in their destruction and the archangel, acting on his behalf, encourages the Giants to kill each other. In Jubilees 5:7–9, however, this account is changed – with intent: (5)(7) Regarding (the Watchers’) children [i.e., the Giants] there went out from (God’s) presence an order to strike them with the sword and to remove them from beneath the sky. (8) He said: ‘My spirit will not remain on people for ever for they are flesh. Their lifespan is to be 120 years.’ (9) He sent his sword among them so that they would kill one another. They began to kill each other until all of them fell by the sword and were obliterated from the earth.

The participation of God in the punishment of the Giants has been significantly increased. The primary emphasis has shifted from their being encouraged to kill each other to their being killed at God’s command. The order given is now is to ‘strike them with the sword and remove them from beneath the sky.’ Gabriel is not told to encourage mutual slaughter and the sword being used becomes God’s sword: ‘He sent his sword among them so that they would kill one another.’ Thus in the Jubilees account a just God is seen at work in this world. His personal agency is highlighted at the beginning (Jub 5:7 and 5:9), and then again in the concluding statement when the author returns to the Watchers again and says: ‘(God) obliterated all from their places; there remained no one of them whom he did not judge for all their wickedness’ (Jub 5:11). Here judgment is specifically linked to the time of the Flood, whose increased significance is also heightened by an omission: at no point is it said that the spirits of the Giants will survive the Flood.

The treatment of the spirits of the Giants The Book of the Watchers informs us that ‘the spirits of the giants , do violence, make desolate, and attack and wrestle and hurl upon the earth and . […] From the day of the slaughter

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and destruction and death of the giants, from the soul of whose flesh the spirits are proceeding, they are making desolate without (incurring) judgment. Thus they will make desolate until the day of the consummation of the great judgment’ (1 En 15:11–16:1). As Hanneken points out, in the Book of the Watchers the demons are ‘not even detained’.15 They are free to do as they wish without punishment. The effect of this is that as far as humans are concerned ‘God’s justice is essentially absent in the visible world at the present time.’16 As we have seen, in Jude 9 archangel Michael declines to condemn Satan for slander. He leaves accusation, condemnation, and punishment in the hands of God. A similar stance is then taken by Jude himself when he does not suggest that the community expel or actively combat the false teachers. They should concentrate on building themselves up while at the same time encouraging the troublesome element to repent (Jude 20–23). His advice is based on a firm belief that God himself will judge and punish the libertine renegades at the end of the age. Jude does not expect to see God’s justice in this world. In Jubilees, however, a different story is told and the theological position it reflects is correspondingly different. For a start, at no point does Jubilees refer specifically to the survival of the spirits of the Giants. In fact, as Hanneken points out, Jubilees quietly separates the Watchers from the story of the survival of the spirits of the Giants. The author is aware that they survived, of course, and so they must reappear after the Flood, but whereas their survival is linked directly to their heavenly origin and given great prominence in 1 Enoch 15:8–16:1, this is glossed over in Jubilees. And when their spirits then do appear after the Flood it is in a very lowkey manner and with serious reduction in the range of their activities. Some years after the Flood Noah notices that something is wrong with the way his sons are behaving. He says to them: ‘But now I am the first to see your actions – that you have not been conducting yourselves properly because you have begun to conduct yourselves in the way of destruction … For I myself see that the demons have begun to lead you and your children astray …’ (Jub 7:26–27). It transpires that he is worried about their eating meat with the blood in it and about the shedding of innocent blood, to which he adds certain concerns concerning the proper times for harvesting the first-fruits of newly planted trees (Jub 7:26–37). Hanneken (2014), 55. Hanneken (2014), 51.

15

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In the next chapter we learn that Kainan, who was born in AM 1375, some sixty years after the Flood, came across ‘an inscription which the ancients had incised in a rock. He read what was in it, copied it, and sinned on the basis of what was in it, since in it was the Watchers’ teaching by which they used to observe the omens of the sun, moon, and stars and every heavenly sign’ (Jub 8:3). In the Book of the Watchers this teaching is carried out personally by the fallen angels (1 En 8:3; cf. 80:7). In Jubilees, however, the proximate source for the introduction of astral divination has become an individual human being, living on earth, not rebel angels who have descended from heaven or the surviving spirits of the Giants. As told in Jubilees the story implies that although God intended that the Flood should bring an end to the practice of astral divination, his plans were thwarted by the chance survival of a stone inscription and by human sin. What lesson should the righteous take from this in the present? Little more than ‘Do not read the books of the Chaldeans and do not follow their ways.’17

Mastema/Satan is put in charge of the demons Perhaps the most revealing aspect of Jubilees’ treatment of the spirits of the Giants, however, is its description of what happened when ‘impure demons began to mislead Noah’s grandchildren, to make them act foolishly, and to destroy them’ (Jub 10:1).18 Noah knows that these ‘wicked spirits’ (Jub 10:3; cf. 1 En 15:8) were fathered by the Watchers whom God sent to the earth and asks God to ‘imprison them and hold them captive in the place of judgment’ – presumably under the earth. In this way they will not ‘cause destruction among your servant’s sons … for they are savage and were created for the purpose of destroying’ (Jub 10:5).19 God responds immediately by taking responsibility and telling In Jubilees 9:4 Noah assigns Kainan’s father Arpachshad ‘all the land of the Chaldean region to the east of the Euphrates which is close to the Erythrean Sea; all the waters of the desert as far the vicinity of the branch of the sea which faces Egypt; the entire land of Lebanon, Sanir, and Amana as far as the vicinity of the Euphrates.’ In other words, those areas where knowledge of the stars was shown the greatest respect. 18 According to Jubilees 10:13 ‘the evil spirits were precluded from pursuing Noah’s children.’ Apparently it was important that Shem at least should not be subjected to Satan. God is in control. 19 In the Book of the Watchers, of course, they are the surviving spirits of Giants who are themselves the offspring of angels that voluntarily left their place in heaven. They were not ‘created for the purpose of destroying’. 17

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the archangels to move against the demons and ‘tie up each one’ (Jub 10:7). By changing the story in this way Jubilees suggests that the evil caused by the demons is somehow part of God’s plan and not the result of rebellion in heaven. At the same time it detaches God’s judgment of the demons from the eschatological ‘day of the great judgment’ that is so strongly emphasized in the Book of the Watchers. Now it is linked to the period immediately after the Flood – they are to be held in an alreadyexisting ‘place of judgment’ that is presumably under the earth. This tying-up of the spirits of the Giants encourages the reader to link their fate with the ‘binding’ of the fallen angels in the Book of the Watchers since they are being punished in the same way. In the Book of the Watchers, however, there is no question of the spirits of the Giants being tied up or held captive. They remain free to torment mankind at will. At this point Mastema, ‘the leader of the spirits’, appears in Jubilees for the first time. He asks God to ‘leave some of [the wicked spirits] before me; let them come to me and do everything that I tell them, because if none of them is left for me I shall not be able to exercise the authority of my will among mankind. For they are meant for (the purposes of) destroying and misleading before my punishment because the evil of mankind is great’ (Jub 10:8). Mastema apparently accepts that he will eventually be punished, but suggests that in the meantime he can be useful to God because, since ‘the evil of mankind is great’, any spirits left under his control can be used to punish evil when it appears. There is no inherent problem with this, of course, since Noah has already told us that ‘they were created for the purpose of destroying’ (Jub 10:5). Thus it turns out that the evil spirits are ‘actually good because they only serve the purpose of punishing the wicked.’20 The existence of evil spirits now serves the implementation of God’s justice – in this world. According to Jubilees God accepts Mastema’s suggestion and countermands his previous decision, ordering that ‘a tenth of [the evil spirits] should be left before him, while he would make nine parts descend to the place of judgment’ (Jub 10:9). Again judgment is brought forward from the eschaton and located under the earth. The angel of the presence then explains to Moses what happened next: ‘All the evil ones who were savage we tied up in the place of judgment, while we left a tenth

20

Hanneken (2014), 47.

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of them to exercise power on the earth before the satan’ (Jub 10:11).21 Judgment and punishment now take place in the present age. All the evil spirits who were ‘savage’ – that is, outside of God’s control – have now been removed and imprisoned under the earth. The rest are handed over to Mastema, who – like Job’s Satan – is clearly on familiar terms with God.22 Mastema/Satan and the spirits under him have now been integrated into a world order that is safely subservient to the Creator. The figure of Mastema now ‘illustrates the rejection of cosmic evil arrayed against God.’23 These changes in the story told by the Book of the Watchers mean that for the author of Jubilees there is in effect no true injustice on earth. All that mankind might call evil is under the control of a righteous God. The fallen angels are imprisoned under the earth and the ‘savage’ spirits of the Giants are bound there as well, while the ten percent still active are all under the control of Mastema, who is himself working for God.

Two visions of the world There is, then, a fundamental theological difference between Jubilees and the Book of the Watchers as regards their understanding of God’s presence in the world. As Hanneken says, the issue is ‘whether God’s justice is deferred until a future day or realized in the present.’24 In the Book of the Watchers ‘rebellion against God originates in the cosmos and is imposed on earthly victims’, but in Jubilees ‘[d]emons are no longer an explanation of unjust suffering, but part of a cosmic system of perfect justice.’25 In this way the author of Jubilees ‘transforms the story of the Watchers from an explanation of suffering in the present to a story resolved in the past with no lingering relevance except as an exhortation to avoid sin.’26 21 Berger (1981), 380, and VanderKam (1989b), 60, render the phrase as ‘before the satan’, probably correctly. Charles (1902), Rabin (1984), and Wintermute (1985) have ‘before Satan’. For Mastema/Satan in Jubilees, see VanderKam (2001), 128–29. 22 Job 1:6–12; 2:1–7. Cf. the role of Satan in Zech 3:1–2. 23 Hanneken (2014), 42. 24 Hanneken (2014), 53. 25 Hanneken (2014), 49. 26 Hanneken (2014), 38.

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After the Flood, according to Jubilees, the gentile nations are handed over to Mastema: ‘… by means of the spirits, he was sending to those who were placed under his control (the ability) to commit every (kind of) error and sin and every kind of transgression; to corrupt, to destroy, and to shed blood on the earth’ (Jub 11:5). In the immediate context it is the Chaldeans who have been placed under Mastema’s control, but the implication is that the leader of the demons has been given authority over all nations that do not worship the God of Israel. Whatever they do that is contrary to the will of God can be attributed ultimately to the prince of demons, who is himself God’s agent.

Jubilees and Sirach Boccaccini has argued that Jubilees seeks to move the Enochian tradition in a Zadokite, pre-Pharisaic direction. Hanneken’s comparison of Jubilees with Ben Sira helps us to understand what kind of audience the author of Jubilees had in mind, since Ben Sira also believed that God’s justice was visible in the present world.27 The general tone of Sirach is established at the very beginning: ‘Those who fear the Lord will have a happy end;/ on the day of their death they will be blessed’ (Sir 1:13). Later in the work he adds to this a similar but even stronger declaration: ‘No evil will befall someone who fears the Lord,/ but in trials such a one will be rescued again and again’ (Sir 33:1). God’s protection of the just can be seen even in the details of daily life: ‘Do no evil, and evil will never overtake you./ Stay away from wrong, and it will turn away from you’ (Sir 7:1). For Ben Sira evil has two origins. At one level it comes from God and is part of what it means to be created, though even here the sinner is not treated like the just: ‘To all creatures, human and animal,/ but to sinners seven times more,/ come death and bloodshed and strife and sword,/ calamities and famine and ruin and plague./ All these were created for the wicked,/ and on their account the flood came’ (Sir 40:8–10). At another level evil is of human origin. Sirach looks back to the beginning of human history, to the story of Adam and Eve: ‘From a woman sin had its beginning,/ and because of her we all die’ (Sir 25:24). From then on, apparently, a source of evil can be found within all human beings: ‘When an ungodly person curses Satan,/ he curses himself ’ (Sir 27

For Sirach as a Zadokite work, see Rivkin (1978), 191–207.

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21:27). From this it follows that there is something of Satan in every human being. While the story of Adam and Eve is dealt with at length in Jubilees 3:1–35, it is avoided in Enochian tradition – a notable exception being the brief reference to their expulsion from Eden near the end of Enoch’s second journey through the heavens in the Book of the Watchers (1 En 32:6). Even here, however, the word ‘sin’ never appears. In fact, Sirach does have a cosmic vision of evil and its presence in the world: the created world can act as God’s agent in punishing the wicked since in all its aspects it is completely under his control. There are winds created for vengeance, and in their anger they can dislodge mountains; on the day of reckoning they will pour out their strength and calm the anger of their Maker. Fire and hail and famine and pestilence, all these have been created for vengeance: the fangs of wild animals and scorpions and vipers, and the sword that punishes the ungodly with destruction. They take delight in doing his bidding, always ready for his service on earth; and when their time comes they never disobey his command. So from the beginning I have been convinced of all this and have thought it out and left it in writing: All the works of the Lord are good, and he will supply every need in its time. No one can say, ‘This is not as good as that’, for everything proves good in its appointed time. (Sir 39:28–34)

In Sirach human beings are completely integrated into a creation that is completely under God’s control. Even those external events that might seem harmful and destructive at first sight are nevertheless faithfully carrying out God’s will. For Ben Sira evil – which originates either on earth and in mankind – is punished as and when it appears. It certainly does not originate in the heavens and therefore does not require a cosmic solution. In Sirach – as Hanneken points out – there is no mention of a ‘new’ creation.28 It is not needed. Ben Sira gives the impression of being a man comfortable in his own skin and at home in the world as he finds it. His world, however, is not the world described in chapters 6–8 and 15–16 of the Book of the Watchers, where cosmic evil and earthly injustice are the norm, where Hanneken (2010), 85.

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unmerited suffering can be expected, and where God’s justice will become manifest only at the end of the present age. The author of Jubilees has taken on what might be considered the impossible task of integrating the Enochian world with that of Zadokite Judaism. The fact that his work was taken up and given normative status at Qumran is the measure of his success.29

Summary Hanneken’s analysis of the changes Jubilees introduces into the story of the fall of the Watchers enables us to see the distance that separates Jubilees both from the Book of the Watchers and from Jude. An acceptance of the reality of present injustice and an expectation that all will be put right only at the end of the age has been replaced with a theology that refuses to accept that a just God is not in control of the whole of creation.

For the status of Jubilees at Qumran, see VanderKam (1998), 399–402.

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CHAPTER EIGHT JUBILEES REWRITES THE COSMOLOGY OF THE 364-DAY CALENDAR TRADITION

The second important corrective introduced by Jubilees into the Enochian narrative is the cosmological corrolate of the first. It too concerns what happened at the time of the Flood and the condition of the postdiluvian world. We have seen that the first eternal covenant was the cosmic covenant between God and the angels. In the covenant with Noah this was refined and became an eternal covenant that now included Noah and his descendants – the whole human race – as conscious participants for the first time.1 A specific requirement was laid upon mankind that was designed to prevent the worst of the evils that had led to the Flood: under pain of death human beings were not to shed human blood. Noah committed himself to fulfilling this requirement (Genesis 9:8–17) and for his part, according to Genesis, God ‘said in his heart: “I will never again curse the ground because of human kind … nor will I ever again destroy every living creature as I have done. As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease”’ (Gen 8:21–22). In Jubilees this last sentence becomes ‘… cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night would not change their prescribed pattern and would never cease’ (Jub 6:4). The ecognize words have been added to the Genesis account, strengthening the statement and implicitly relating it to the measurement of time and the 364-day calendar, whose only astronomical correlates are the days and the seasons. It should perhaps be said in passing that the apostasy of the seven planets did not interrupt the normal sequence of seasons or the regu See the discussion above, pp. 58-60.

1

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lar alternation of day and night. The sequence of seasons is determined by the solstices and equinoxes – in Copernican terms, by the rotation of the earth around the sun. These occur at the same time and in the same sequence in the course of a sidereal year no matter how many times the sun crosses the heavens during that period – in Copernican terms, no matter how many times the earth rotates on its axis. Similarly, the regular alternation of day and night is determined by the rising and setting of the sun – in modern terms, by the rotation of the earth – and is not affected by the number of times the sun rises and sets each year. The moon and the other five planets have nothing at all to do with determining either days or seasons. Thus God could keep his promise to Noah without bringing the apostasy of the Wanderers to an end and there is, in fact, no necessary conflict between the continuing apostasy of the Wanderers and the terms God offers in the Noachic covenant.

A ‘new creation’ after the Flood in Jubilees Nevertheless, in Jubilees, the possibility of the Wanderers continuing to rebel is excluded. The Flood is followed not just by the covenant with Noah with its provisions for cosmic continuity, but by a complete refashioning of the whole world to bring it firmly back under the control of God. The relevant passage begins by describing the punishment of the Watchers and then moves on to speak of this ‘new creation’: (5) (10) Now their fathers [i.e., the Watchers who fathered the Giants] were watching. But afterwards they were tied up in the depths of the earth until the great day of judgment in order for judgment to be executed2 on all who have corrupted their ways and their actions before the Lord. (11) He obliterated all from their places; there remained no one of them whom he did not judge for all their wickedness. (12) And he made a new and righteous nature for all his works3 so that they might 2 Following Wintermute (1985), 65. See the comments of Hanneken (2012), 159. Berger (1981), 351, ‘und es wird Gericht sein’, and VanderKam (1989b), 33, ‘when there will be condemnation’, translate the infinitive as a future indicative. This limits the meaning by making the whole of this passage refer to the distant future and the eschaton. 3 This is the literal translation as noted by Rabin (1984), 26, n. 13. Wintermute and VanderKam have ‘creatures’, but this might encourage the reader to think it refers only to ‘living creatures’. Berger (1981), 351, has ‘für all sein Werk’.

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not sin in all their nature for ever, and so that they might all be righteous, each in his kind, always (my italics).4

The statement that God ‘made a new and righteous nature’ in verse Jub 5:12 has puzzled scholars for many years. It is tempting to do what Charles has done and see here a reference to the eschatological future that has been obscured because the Greek translator failed to understand the sequence of tenses in the Hebrew original and translated a ‘converted’ perfect as a past. He therefore proposed translating all the verbs in verses Jub 5:11–12 in the future.5 Rabin accepted his assessment and translated the relevant verbs in verses 11 and 12 as ‘will obliterate’, ‘will remain’, ‘will not judge’, and ‘will make’.6 This seriously distorts the meaning. Davenport had already seen that this passage was not strictly speaking eschatological and therefore included it among what he called ‘noneschatological passages that contain significant eschatological elements’.7 It was Berger, however, who finally found the key to understanding this strange text.8 He pointed out that in his Life of Moses, Philo says that when the earth emerged from the waters of the Flood ‘it showed itself renewed with the likeness which we may suppose it to have worn when originally it was created with the universe’9 and then adds the observation that Noah and his family ‘became leaders of the regeneration (palingenesias egenonto hêgemones), inaugurators of a second cycle (deuteras arkhêgetai periodou).’10 For Philo the history of the world is divided into two distinct ‘periods’ or ‘ages’. More important, periodos in the sense of The translation of Jub 5:12 is taken from Wintermute (1985), 64, who follows Berger (1981), 351: ‘damit sie nicht sündigten … und damit sie gerecht seien’. Wintermute’s ‘might’ captures the use of the subjunctive in both verbs. VanderKam (1989b), 33, in his note on Jub 5:12, prefers the well-attested indicative for the second verb and translates this as ‘will be righteous’. This has the effect of tempting the reader to locate the ‘new creation’ in Moses’ future. The Ethiopic scribes who changed the subjunctive to the indicative at this point were no doubt moved to do so by the same preconceptions as those of most modern scholars. For both the ‘new creation’ is something that belongs to the future and they therefore understood this passage to refer to the eschaton. 5 Charles (1912), 44–45. 6 Rabin (1984), 26. 7 Davenport (1971), 47–49. 8 Berger (1981), 351, note b. His interpretation is accepted by Wintermute (1985), 65, and VanderKam (1989b), 33. Charles (1912), 44, refers to Philo and Josephus but dismisses them. 9 Philo, Life of Moses, 2.64. 10 Philo, Life of Moses, 2.65. 4

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‘cycle’ implies a return to the original position from which one started. Thus for Philo what followed the Flood was in effect a new beginning, a second creation. This is why he can say that the earth regained a likeness to the state it had at the time of the first creation. Berger also points out that for Josephus as well the Flood marked a return to the conditions of the first creation. Josephus says that after the Flood God resolved to ‘make another race [of men], pure of sinfulness (genos heteron ponêrias katharon)’.11 Thus for Josephus the state of mankind after the Flood also represented ‘new creation’ that offered the human race a chance to start again. In much the same vein the first book of the Sibylline Oracles speaks of the post-Flood period as a kind of ‘golden age’ that resembles the world as first created. Mankind ‘will be concerned with labour, and fair deeds’ and ‘[f]ree from hard raging diseases’ while ‘[t]he earth will rejoice, sprouting with many fruits, overladen with offspring’ (1.283–306).12 The author of 2 Peter also assumes that after the Flood the earth was re-created, since he says quite clearly that in the Flood it ‘perished’.13 The relevant passage is: They [i.e., his opponents] deliberately ignore this fact, that by the word of God heavens existed long ago and an earth was formed out of water and by means of water, through which [word of God] the world of that time (o tote kosmos) was deluged with water and perished (apôleto). But by the same word the present heavens and earth have been reserved for fire, being kept until the day of judgement and destruction of the godless. (2 Pet 3:5–7)

A careful reading of 2 Peter 3:5–7 shows that the whole of the cosmos was destroyed and perished in the Flood and that ‘the present heavens and earth’ are in effect a ‘new creation’, ‘reserved’ for destruction by fire at the end of the age. It follows from this that its author believed that the apostasy of the ‘wanderers’ did not survive the Flood and that if no further apostasy has occurred, the heavens today carry out God’s will. This is consonant with what we saw in chapter 5, where it was shown that 2 Pet 2:17–18 has quietly eliminated the reference in Jude 13 to the continuing apostasy of the rebel stars.14 In the light of the changes to Jude’s text intro Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, 1.75. Sibylline Oracles, 1.283–306. 13 So Berger (1981), 351. 14 See above, p. 79. 11

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duced in 2 Pet 2:17–18 and 3:5–7 it seems likely that its author was trying to distance himself – and those to whom he was writing – from the less acceptable aspects of the early Enochic tradition as reflected in Jude. Taken together these texts shed light on a passage from Enoch’s First Dream Vision (1 En 83:1–84:6). In it Enoch tells his son Methuselah of a dream he had while still a child: (83)(2) I saw a terrible vision, and concerning it I made supplication to the Lord. (3) I was lying down in the house of Mahalalel, my grandfather, (when) I saw a vision. Heaven was thrown down and taken away, and it fell down upon the earth. (4) And when it fell upon the earth, I saw how the earth was swallowed up in the great abyss. Mountains were suspended upon mountains, and hills sank down upon hills; Tall trees were cut from their roots, and were thrown away and sank into the abyss. (5) And then speech fell into my mouth, and I lifted up (my voice) to cry out and said: ‘The earth has been destroyed.’

This is not a description of gradually rising flood waters but of a total cosmic collapse. And when Mahalalel comments on this dream, he says: (83)(7) A terrible thing you have seen, my son, and mighty is the vision of our dream (in) the secrets of all the sin of the earth. It must sink into the abyss, and it will be utterly destroyed. […] (9) My son, from heaven all this will take place on the earth, and on the earth there will be great destruction. (1 En 83:1-84:6)

The destruction described by Enoch in this passage is much more violent than what God predicts in Genesis when he says to Noah: ‘For in seven days I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights; and every living thing that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground’ (Gen 7:4). At the end of a lengthy prayer for mercy Enoch asks that God ‘not obliterate all human flesh, and devastate the earth, that there be eternal destruction’ and requests that he should do no more than ‘remove from the earth the flesh that aroused your wrath, but the

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righteous and true flesh raise up as a seed-bearing plant for ever’ (1 En 84:5–6). This last passage seems much closer to what is described in Genesis and has the effect of bring the whole passage back into line with what is said in the Hebrew Bible. It would appear that in Second Temple period there were a number of different understandings of what happened at the time of the Flood. Philo’s palingenesia seems refer to the earth as a whole, Josephus is concerned only with mankind, the Sibylline Oracle concerns both mankind and the earth, while 2 Pet 3:5–7 seems to focus on the physical universe in such a way as to suggest that the whole of it was destroyed and remade. In Jub 5:12 God renews ‘all his creatures’ by giving them ‘a new and righteous nature’. If this includes the heavens – as is explicitly said in Jub 1:29 – then any rebellion on the part of the planets has been brought to an end. Our only evidence for a continuing apostasy of the Wanderers is Jude 13. Thus 2 Peter resembles Jubilees and Philo more than it does the earlier Enochic tradition. It is clear therefore that for the author of Jubilees the whole of creation was brought under God’s control at the time of the Flood. All rebellion was brought to an end and even the demons have been subjected divine control through the Lord’s subordinate, Mastema. This point is made with particular reference to the heavenly bodies in one of Jubilees’ more engaging expansions of the Hebrew Bible. On the first day of the seventh month in the fifth year of the sixth week of years in the fortieth jubilees [AM 1951] ‘Abram sat at night … to observe the stars from evening to dawn in order to see what would be the character of the year with respect to the rains. He was sitting and observing by himself. A voice15 came to his mind and he said: “All the signs of the stars and signs of the moon and the sun – all are under the Lord’s control. Why should I be investigating (them)? If he wishes he will make it rain in the morning and evening; and if he wishes, he will not make it fall. Everything is under his control’ (Jub 12:16–18). We have here a good example of the way Jubilees insinuates its understanding of the post-Flood world: Abraham is made to state explicitly that the heavens are completely under the control of God. In the background is the awareness that they were not always under the control of God. For someone as committed as the author of Jubilees to the notion This is presumably the voice of an angel speaking the words of God. See above, p. … . VanderKam (1989b), 71, suggests that the Ethiopic ‘voice’ represents an original Hebrew dabar, ‘word’. It could easily go back to qôl, however, as in the alternative creation narrative (Jub 2:2). 15

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of the presence of God’s justice in world, however, the rebellion of the ‘wanderers’ could not be allowed to continue after the Flood. For VanderKam what happened at the time of the Flood was ‘a kind of new creation.’16 Van Ruiten actually replaces VanderKam’s ‘nature’ with ‘creation’ in Jub 5:12 and translates it as: ‘And He made a new and righteous creation for all His work, so that they would not sin in all their creation, all days. Everyone will be righteous, each according to his kind, for all time.’17 Segal and Hanneken do the same.18 It would appear that there is now a scholarly consensus that as far as Jubilees is concerned, after the Flood God gave the whole universe a chance to begin again. As a result Jubilees distances itself fundamentally from the first chapter of the Astronomical Book, where the ‘new creation’ is eschatological. Enoch is shown ‘how every year of the world will be forever, until a new creation lasting for ever is made’ (1 En 72:1). In Jubilees this ‘new creation’ has been relocated to the time of the Flood.

The ‘new creation’ is mentioned already in the first chapter of Jubilees Insufficient attention has been paid to the fact that the ‘new creation’ associated with the Flood is also mentioned at the very beginning of Jubilees. Although scholars have found Jub 1:29 difficult to understand and been tempted to emend the Ethiopic text, in the light of Berger’s interpretation of Jub 5:12 there is no need to correct it. After predicting the arrival of a future age in which Israel will finally return to God ‘in a fully upright manner and with all (their) minds and all (their) souls’ (Jub 1:23), the Lord says to Moses: (1) (26) ‘Now you write all these words which I will tell you on this mountain: what is first and what is last and what is to come during all the divisions of time which are in the law and which are in the testimony and in the weeks of their jubilees until eternity – until the time when I descend and live with them throughout all the ages of eternity.’ VanderKam (1989b), 33, note on Jub 5:11. Cf. VanderKam (2001), 35: ‘The passage may mean that after the flood creatures would be reconstituted so that they would no longer able to “sin with their whole nature”; that is, limits would be imposed on the evil they could do.’ Jubilees actually seems to be saying more than this: they ‘sinned with their whole nature’ before the Flood. 17 Ruiten (1997), 65. 18 Hanneken (2014), 59; Segal (2007), 132–35. 16

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(27) Then he said to an angel of the presence: ‘Dictate (sic)19 to Moses (starting) from the beginning of the creation until the time when my temple is built among them throughout the ages of eternity. (28) The Lord will appear in the sight of all, and all will know that I am the God of Israel, the father of Jacob’s children, and the king on Mount Zion for the ages of eternity. Then Zion and Jerusalem will become holy.’

Here the Mosaic law and the ‘testimony’20 contained in Jubilees are treated as equals, just as they are in the Prologue: These are the words regarding the divisions of the times of the law and of the testimony, of the events of the years, of the weeks of their jubilees throughout all the years of eternity .21 Both the law and the testimony were communicated to Moses by God on Mount Sinai. Jubilees can even call the Mosaic law ‘the book of the first torah’ (Jub 6:22). There is a difference, of course, in that in the Pentateuch the history of Israel is not described in terms of jubilees. This happens only in the ‘testimony’. If you want the detail, you must turn to Jubilees. Jub 1:26 shows that God expects the angel of the presence to tell Moses about the history of the world since it was first created and to add all that will happen until the eschaton, when apparently the course of human history will be transformed. According to Jub 1:29 the angel of the presence reads from ‘tablets’ the information he is passing on to Moses. VanderKam’s translation, modified as indicated, continues as below: (1)  (29) The angel of the presence, who was going along ahead in front of the Israelite camp, took the tablets (which told of) the divisions of the years from the time the law and the testimony were created – for the weeks of their jubilees, year by year in their full number, and22 their jubilees from the time of the new creation when the heavens, the earth, and all their creatures will be renewed in accordance with the heavenly powers, to each an earthly creature,23 until the time when the temple of The manuscripts all say, ‘Write for Moses’. VanderKam (1981b), 209–17, however, argues cogently that ‘dictate’ is required here in spite of the awkwardness of Jub 1:28. He introduces this emendation into his translation at VanderKam (1989b), 6. 20 On the nature of this ‘testimony’, see VanderKam (2001), 91–93. 21 VanderKam (1989b), 1. 22 I have added italics here to point out the importance of this word. 23 Translated in this way by Hanneken (2012), 172, who has seen that at this point the angel is referring awkwardly to the relationship established in Jub 2:2 between the angels and all creatures that exhibit movement or change in the visible universe. God will restore harmony between the angelic realm and the visible creation in accordance with his will. VanderKam has ‘like the powers of the sky and like all the creatures of the earth’, which gives no clear meaning. The ‘powers’ here are the angels. 19

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the Lord will be created in Jerusalem on Mount Zion. All the luminaries will be renewed for (the purposes of) healing, health, and blessing24 for all the elect ones of Israel and so that it may remain this way from that time throughout all the days of the earth.

Charles believed that the ‘new creation’ referred in this passage to could only occur in the eschaton and that therefore that part of the text translated above as ‘from the time of the new creation when’ was corrupt. He dropped ‘new’, replaced ‘when’ with ‘until’, and translated the text as ‘from the day of the creation until the heavens …’.25 The effect of this is to push the renewal of ‘the heavens, the earth, and all their creatures’ into the far distant future where he thought they should belong. More recently Stone, who agreed with Charles that the renewal of the heavens belonged in the distant future, suggested that ‘the time of the creation until’ had dropped out when a scribe’s eye slipped from the first instance of ‘time’ to the second. He supplied the missing words and translated the text as ‘from [the time of the creation until] the time of the new creation when the heavens …’26 This emendation, which is less disruptive than that of Charles, has been accepted by VanderKam.27 The suggestions of Charles and Stone were both made, however, before Berger demonstrated that Jub 5:12 refers to a re-creation of the world – in effect, a ‘new creation’ – in connexion with the Flood. In the light of Berger’s interpretation of Jub 5:12 it seems clear that the author of Jubilees – like Philo – has divided the history of the world into two distinct periods. The first of these begins ‘from the time the law and the testimony were created’ and a second begins ‘from the time of the new creation’. In other words, the second period begins with the new creation and will end ‘when the temple of the Lord will be created in Jerusalem on Mount Zion.’ This will presumably happen when Israel finally returns to the Lord as described in Jub 23:11–31. These two periods combined are the time span covered in Jubilees. The description of the beginning of the second period in Jub 1:29 focuses on the renewal of the luminaries. They are mentioned twice, while no other category of created being is mentioned at all. This is clear 24 Cf. what is said about the beneficent effect of the sun in the alternative creation narrative in Jub 2:10 and Jub 2:12. 25 Charles (1902), 9, and (1913b), 13. 26 Stone (1971), 125–26. 27 VanderKam (1989b), 6. See VanderKam (2001), 133, for his interpretation of the passage.

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indication of the importance of this topic to the author. It may be that by referring to the ‘new creation’ and the ‘luminaries’ in the first chapter of his book the author of Jubilees intended to remind his readers of the first words of the Astronomical Book: ‘The book about the motion of the heavenly luminaries, all as they are in their kinds, their jurisdiction, their time, their name, their origins, and their months … how every year of the world will be for ever, until a new creation is made’ (1 En 72:1). This ‘new creation’ is not the same as that referred to in Jub 1:29, of course, since it will take place at the end of the present age. It is as if Jubilees intended to subvert the Astronomical Book as well as the Book of the Watchers: the earlier vocabulary is used, but the meaning is changed.

The new creation is justified Hanneken also points out that the author of Jubilees has vastly increased the extent of wickedness prior to the Flood.28 This can be seen in Jubilees’ treatment of Genesis 6:5–12. Whereas Genesis says only that ‘[t]he Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually’ (Gen 6:5), in Jub 5:2 this becomes: Wickedness increased on the earth. All animate beings corrupted their way – (every one of them) from people to cattle, animals, birds, and everything that moves about on the ground. All of them corrupted their way and their prescribed course. They began to devour one another, and wickedness increased on the earth. Every thought of all mankind’s knowledge was evil like this all the time.29

Animate beings and humans are now alike in their degradation. While in Genesis one could be forgiven for thinking that only mankind was involved, here corruption has spread throughout the animate world, all members of which have begun to devour one another. The reason for this may well have been a feeling that if God has punished all animate creatures through the Flood, this must be because all animate creatures have sinned. After Jubilees has described the punishment of animate creatures and of the fallen Watchers and Giants their fate is summed up succinctly: ‘The judgment of them all has been or Hanneken (2014), 51. All this is described in greater detail in Jub 7:21–25.

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dained and written on the heavenly tablets; there is no injustice’ (Jub 5:13). The existence of cosmic and angelic sin and judgment is then referred to explicitly: ‘There is nothing which is in heaven or on the earth, in the light, the darkness, Sheol, the deep, or in the dark place – all their judgments have been ordained, written, and inscribed’ (Jub 5:14). And shortly thereafter the author summarises the situation in a few words: ‘To all who corrupted their ways and their plan(s) before the Flood no favour was shown except to Noah alone … because his mind was righteous in all his ways … He did not transgress from anything that had been ordained for him’ (Jub 5:19). The process of subversion that we saw in Jubilees’ treatment of the punishment of the Giants is evident here as well. The verbal link to the Genesis account is maintained, but the extent of human and non-human sin is increased. Enough earlier material is preserved to give the impression of continuity but at the same time changes are introduced that increase dramatically the extent of sin and radically change the story’s significance. As presented in Jubilees the sinfulness that preceded the Flood was so great that it easily justified God’s giving the world a chance to begin again through destruction and what amounted to a ‘new creation’. The prominence given to the renewal of the heavens in Jub 1:29 certainly suggests that a similar process has taken place with regard to the luminaries. The author’s desire to bring to an end to the apostasy of the ‘wanderers’ has led him to renew the heavens completely. Cosmic recreation requires cosmic destruction, and for someone as strongly committed to the presence of God’s justice in the world as is the author of Jubilees, a generalized re-creation requires generalized sin both in the heavens and on earth.

The ‘great day of judgment’ has already take place Berger’s analysis of Jubilees 5:10–12 also enabled Hanneken to see that in Jubilees the ‘great day of judgment’ has been moved back in time and has already taken place. It has ceased to be an eschatological event. Segal had already concluded, after looking in detail at the changes Jubilees has introduced into the earlier account of the Watchers and the Flood, that Jubilees had turned their story into ‘a paradigm of reward and punishment, and the presentation of God as a just, righteous judge.’30 Han Segal (2007), 133, 140.

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neken goes further. For Hanneken ‘[t]he binding of the watchers was not a way of deferring their judgment to a later, final time: it was their punishment as part of the judgment of the Flood.’31 In Jubilees there is no mention of a definitive judgment and punishment of the fallen Watchers at the end of the present age, even though this is referred to twice in the Book of the Watchers. As far as the author was concerned, it had already taken place. Immediately after introducing the notion of a ‘re-creation’ of the world after the Flood, the angel of the presence says: ‘The judgment of them all [i.e., all his creatures] has been ordained and written on the heavenly tablets: there is no injustice. (As for) all who transgress from their way in which it was ordained for them to go – if they do not go in it, judgment has been written down for each creature and for each kind’ (Jub 5:13). The whole of creation is deliberately included: human beings, animals, fallen angels, the spirits of the Giants – and the stars. Although these words could in theory apply to all judgments, past and future, in this context they point to the judgment implicit in the Flood. The author wishes to focus the reader’s attention on antediluvian wickedness, so a few verses later he refers specifically to ‘all who corrupted their ways … before the Flood’ (Jub 5:19). There is no question here of God’s justice being suspended and deferred until some later date. Jubilees’ understanding of the Flood as a time of universal judgment is confirmed by what is said about Enoch. ‘While [Enoch] slept he saw in a vision what has happened and what will occur – how things will happen for mankind during their history until the day of judgment. He saw everything and understood’ (Jub 4:19). Davenport classified this as one of those ‘non-eschatological passages that contain significant eschatological elements’ and thought that the ‘day of judgment’ referred to would not take place in some distant future. We can see now that it was the judgment embodied in the Flood and would therefore take place within history.32 If Enoch foresaw an eschatological ‘day of judgment’ it is not mentioned in Jubilees. This attitude contrasts starkly with that of the Book of the Watchers, ‘which portrays the Flood as the prototype and forerunner of a single final great day of judgment’.33 In Jubilees eschatological judgment and punishment has been replaced by a gradual diminution in the length of Hanneken (2012), 158. Davenport (1971), 81–85. 33 Hanneken (2012), 157. 31

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time humans live. The angel of the presence tells Moses: ‘All the generation that will come into being from now until the great day of judgment will grow old quickly – before they complete two jubilees’ (Jub 23:11). It is true that when this happens – as it already has for the author in the present – it is accompanied by ‘every (sort of) blow and difficulty’ (Jub 23:13). In Jub 9:15 the punishment of the nations that do not keep to their proper boundaries is associated with a ‘day of judgment’ that will come ‘with the sword and fire’. In other words, it will take place within human history and not as part of a cosmic catastrophe followed by renewal. Jubilees does envisage a period of devastation that resembles what happened at the time of the Flood: ‘The earth will indeed be destroyed because of all that they do. There will be no produce from the vine and no oil because what they do (constitutes) complete disobedience. All will be destroyed together – animals, cattle, birds, and all fish of the sea – because of mankind’ (Jub 23:18). Nevertheless, it is clear from Jubilees 23:26–31 that the author expects the daily life of the community to continue in the midst of these catastrophes and to merge gradually with the age of blessedness that will follow. This age of blessedness will be definitively ushered in when the children of Israel finally begin ‘to study the laws, to seek out the commands, and to return to the right way. The days will begin to become numerous and increase, and mankind as well – generation by generation and day by day until their lifetimes approach 1000 years’ (Jub 23:26–27). In the eschatology of Jubilees Israel will be judged and punished over time within the context of its earthly history, but there will be no true ‘great day of judgment’ by God that ushers in a new and better age, a time of ‘blessing and healing’ (Jub 23:29). True cosmic upheaval that might resemble a ‘new creation’ is missing from this account. It has already taken place. In the Book of the Watchers, however, Asael is bound hand and foot and cast into darkness, where he will dwell ‘for an exceedingly long time’. Then ‘on the day of the great judgment, he will be led away to the burning conflagration’ (1 En 10:4–6). For their part, the evil spirits of the Giants that survive the Flood ‘will make desolate until the day of the consummation of the great judgment, when the great age will be consummated’ (1 En 16:1). Their definitive punishment is deferred – ‘reserved’ in the language of Jude 13 – until the eschaton. What happened in the Flood is no more than a foretaste of what will come.

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The punishment of Cain Jubilees’ principle that ‘there is no injustice’ in this world is well illustrated by its treatment of the punishment of Cain. ‘At the conclusion of [the nineteenth] jubilee Cain was killed one year after [Adam died]. His house fell on him, and he died inside his house. He was killed by its stones for with a stone he had killed Abel and, by a just punishment, he was killed with a stone’ (Jub 4:31). Nothing is said in the Hebrew Bible about how Abel was killed or how Cain died. These details were added by the author of Jubilees in order to illustrate his fundamental theological position: God’s justice is operative everywhere and at all times. God does not defer his justice until the end of the age. The effect of this is to create many ‘days of judgment’ throughout history and remove the necessity for what Hanneken rather light-heartedly calls a ‘deferred batch judgment’ at the end of the present age.34 Such passages manifest a very different attitude to the presence of God’s justice in the world from what we find in the Book of the Watchers, where God pays no attention to the predations of the Giants until the archangels appeal to the Lord on behalf of mankind (1 En 8:4–9:11). The specific details of Cain’s death are actually very interesting, since they show that God was enforcing the Mosaic law even before it was given to Moses. According to Leviticus, ‘Anyone who maims another shall suffer the same injury in return: fracture for fracture, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; the injury inflicted is the injury to be suffered’ (Lev 24:19; cf. Ex 21:24). Leviticus justifies the manner of Cain’s death, since there is no other obvious explanation for Cain’s death by falling stones after he killed Abel with a stone. The death of Cain thus confirms what we have already seen with regard to the Festival of Weeks. God insisted that Noah celebrate the Festival of Weeks on the fifteenth day of the third month – as calculated, of course, according to the 364-day calendar – because this was already in his day a requirement of the Mosaic law that had yet to be delivered. This is also the reason why the angels been celebrating it on that day ‘from the time of creation’ (Jub 6:18). The liturgical provisions of the Mosaic code were known to the angels before they were communicated to Moses on Mount Sinai.35

Hanneken (2014), 38. On the antedating of Mosaic laws in general, see VanderKam (2001), 100–09.

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The heavenly tablets, the law, and the testimony According to Jub 1:29 the first of the two periods of human history to be covered in Jubilees begins ‘from the time the law and the testimony were created’. This raises the question of the relationship of both the law and the testimony to the ‘tablets (which told of) the divisions of the years from the time the law and the testimony were created’ (Jub 1:29), since it was from these tablets that the angel of the presence dictated to Moses the contents of Jubilees 2–50.36 According to Jubilees 1:29 the tablets used by the angel – generally called ‘heavenly tablets’ in 1 Enoch and Jubilees – contain a history of the world set out within a framework of years, weeks of years, and weeks of weeks of years called ‘jubilees’. The tablets also contain a description of the 364-day calendar (Jub 6:31) and rules for celebrating the liturgy that accompanies it: Passover (Jub 49:8), Unleavened Bread (Jub 18:19), Oaths/Weeks (Jub 6:17 and 21), Day of Atonement (Jub 34:1–19), Booths and Day of Addition (Jub 16:28–29; 32:28–29), and Memorial Days as well (Jub 6:28–29).37 On the tablets there are also laws governing behaviour. As VanderKam says, not only are the heavenly tablets ‘a repository of an enormous amount of information about human history’, but ‘the laws of God, whether for people or the creation, are also inscribed on them.’38 Moses was not the first to have access to these tablets. They were also known to the patriarchs. Through an angel Enoch learned from them ‘the seasons of the years according to the fixed patterns of each of their months’ (Jub 4:17).39 The Genesis Apocryphon goes further when it says that while Enoch is living in Paradise the angels ‘show him everything’ (1Q20 II 21).40 Noah was also aware of the ordinances and commandments the tablets contained (Jub 7:20), while Jacob – like Enoch – saw everything that was written on them: ‘In a night vision he saw an angel coming down from heaven with seven tablets in his hands. He gave (them) to Jacob, and he read them. He read everything On the contents of these tablets see VanderKam (2001), 89–90. Jubilees does not include among the Memorial Days the day the ark came to rest on the mountain of Ararat according to Gen 8:4 (VII/17) since this is a Friday and not the first day of a season. 38 VanderKam (2001), 26, 89–93. 39 Cf. 1 En 81:1–2; 104:1–4. 40 DSSSE, I, 31; cf. 4QPseudo-Jubilees (4Q227) = DSSSE, I, 483 [DJD, XIII, 173–74]. 36 37

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that was written in them – what would happen to him and his sons throughout all ages. […] When [the angel] had gone from him, he awakened and remembered everything that he had read and seen. He wrote down all the things that he had read and seen’ (Jub 32:21–26). It would seem to follow that the law of Moses was also contained on the heavenly tablets. After all, the requirements of the Mosaic law were met by God when Cain was killed by falling stones (Jub 4:31) and the angels had been celebrating the Festival of Oaths/Weeks according to its provisions ‘from the time of creation’ (Jub 6:17–21). Since Jubilees tells us that many other provisions of the Mosaic code were also introduced in the days of the patriarchs, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the Mosaic law as a whole had existed on the heavenly tablets ‘from the beginning’.41 At the end of Jubilees’ description of the transition from this age to the age of blessedness to come the angel of the presence says to Moses: ‘Now you, Moses, write down these words because this is how it is written and entered in the testimony of the heavenly tablets for the history of eternity’ (Jub 23:32). The tablets thus seem to contain what will happen throughout all time, beginning ‘from the time of creation’ and containing a record of all that would happen from then on. What is contained in Jubilees – and in the Mosaic law as well – is no more than a selection from the information found there. It would appear, as Boccaccini says, that ‘[t]he heavenly tablets are the only and all-inclusive repository of God’s revelation.’42 For Ben-Dov Jubilees’ whole concept of nature ‘is identified with the content of the heavenly tablets.’43 They are the expression of all God’s thoughts on the creation and its development over time. After discussing the heavenly tablets VanderKam concludes: ‘The notion of tablets in heaven on which information about all peoples and the entire course of history is engraved is an expression of the author’s understanding of God’s control over his creation. The concept not only presupposes that the deity knows everything in advance, but it also embodies the claim that all of history has been foreordained or determined

So García Martínez (1997), 243–46. Boccaccini (1998), 90. 43 Ben-Dov (2017), 26. 41

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by the all-powerful creator of the universe.’44 In this case, of course, the heavenly tablets are as old as creation itself.45 This understanding of the relationship between God and the world differs radically from that found in the Book of the Watchers (1 En 15:8–16:1), where the spirits of the Giants are allowed free rein to torment mankind and God exerts only limited control over the world in the present age.

A possible allusion to the heavenly tablets in Jude In Jude 4 the false teachers who have insinuated themselves into the community are said to be oi palai progegrammenoi eis touto to krima, asebeis. This was translated literally in the Vulgate as ‘qui olim præscripti sunt in hoc judicium, impii’. Tyndale also understood progegrammenoi literally as ‘written previously’ and translated the phrase as ‘ther are certayne craftily crept in, of which it was written afore tyme vnto soche judgement’. This temporal interpretation is still found in the Jerusalem Bible, which has ‘they are the ones you had a warning about, in writing, long ago’.46 In the Authorised Version, however, the temporal element in prois ignored. Prographô is understood to be the equivalent of the Latin proscribo in a quasi-legal sense and translated as ‘who were before of old ordained to this condemnation, ungodly men’, an understanding that is carried over into the NRSV, which has ‘who long ago were designated for this condemnation as ungodly’. This is supported in LSJ, s.v. prographô, II.3, which accepts that prographô is indeed the equivalent of the Latin proscribo, but at the same time suggests that it is being used here in a metaphorical sense and offers ‘those whose names have been registered for condemnation’. It seems quite possible, however, that when the author of Jude referred to oi palai progegrammenoi in Jude 4 he already expected to use 1 VanderKam (2001), 90. Cf. 1QHodayotha (1QHymnsa) IX (I) 25–26 [DJD, XL, 130; cf. DSSSE, I, 159]: ‘Everything is engraved before you [i.e., God] in an inscription of record for all the everlasting seasons and the numbered cycles of the eternal years with all their appointed times.’ 45 The heavenly tablets of Jubilees and 1 Enoch bring to mind the ‘Tablet of Destiny’ that Marduk wrested from Kingu, chief general of Tiāmat, according to Enūma Elish IV 119–21 and thereby gained control over the other gods. See Dalley (2000), 329. 46 Cf.  Jerusalem Bible (1966), ad loc., note (d): ‘Lit. “For certain men crept in who long ago have been written beforehand for this judgment”.’ 44

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Enoch 1:9 as the coup de grace at the end of his letter. In this case oi palai progegrammenoi may well be those against whom Enoch’s prophecy is used in Jude 14-15 – the wicked of the last days.47 But Enoch was able to predict the future punishment of the false teachers ‘for all the wicked deeds that they have done’ only because he had learned this from the heavenly tablets: ‘I looked at all the heavenly tablets, read everything that was written, and understood everything. I read the book of all the actions of people and of all humans who will be on the earth for the generations of the world’ (1 En 81:2; cf. 103:2). The heavenly tablets lie behind all that Enoch knows about the destiny of the world and mankind. In the final section of 1 Enoch the prophet tells his son Methuselah that he has seen the fires that will one day punish the wicked and informs him that ‘there are books and records about them in heaven above,/ so the that the angels may read them/ and know what will happen to sinners’ (1 En 108:7) and in the work’s final verse he declares that sinners ‘for their part, will depart to where the days and times are written for them’ (1 En 108:15). Enoch knows what he knows only because of the heavenly tablets. It seems likely that Jude was aware of this and that when he says that his opponents are palai progegrammenoi eis touto to krima he is alluding to their punishment being already written on the heavenly tablets. As we have seen, Jubilees stresses repeatedly that God’s judgment of sinners has been ‘ordained, written, and inscribed’ (Jub 5:14).

The periodization of history in Jubilees and in Enochian literature We have seen that without emendation the Ethiopic text of Jubilees 1:29 distinguishes clearly between two great periods of history. Before he began dictating the text of Jubilees 2–50 to Moses the angel of the presence … took the tablets (which told) of the divisions of the years from the time the law and the testimony were created [i.e., before the first creation] – for the weeks of their jubilees, year by year in their full number, and their jubilees from the time of the new creation when the heavens, the earth, and all their creatures will be renewed in accordance with the heavenly powers, to each an earthly creature, until the time when the temple of the Lord will be created in Jerusalem on Mount Zion. All the 47

So VanderKam (1996), 36.

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luminaries will be renewed for (the purposes of) healing, health, and blessing for all the elect ones of Israel and so that it may remain this way from that time throughout all the days of the earth. (Jub 1:29)

These two periods are clearly distinguished by the ‘and’ that has been italicized above. The second period will last until the creation of a ‘temple of the Lord’ in Jerusalem, which will usher in an era of blessedness for Israel, when God will ‘descend and live with them throughout all the ages of eternity’ (Jub 1:26). The centrality of the re-creation of the heavens for the author of Jubilees can be seen in the way at this point he returns to this theme in the final sentence of this passage. Thus in Jubilees the trajectory of Israel’s history is not one of increasing sin followed by final woes followed by eschatological judgment and restoration as is usual in the apocalyptic genre. It is the pattern found in Deuteronomy, where sin is followed by punishment (Jub 23:21–22), followed by repentance (Jub 23:26), followed by restoration (Jub 23:27– 29). This Deuteronomistic ‘master narrative’ structures the retelling of Israel’s history in Nehemiah 8–1048 and the Lord’s presentation of Israel’s history at the very beginning of Jubilees (Jub 1:22–25). It contrasts sharply with the Enochic ‘master narrative’ of two rebellions in heaven whose harmful influence is then mitigated somewhat by revealed wisdom but not definitively overcome until God intervenes decisively in the eschaton.49 In Jubilees the golden age of universal well-being will come about in continuity with the history of this world. There is no universal judgment and no intervention by angelic powers of any kind. The most that is said is that is that in that age of righteousness and blessing there will be ‘neither satan nor evil one who will destroy’ (23:29). Evil spirits will not be necessary, since their sole purpose is to punish sinners. We can see, therefore, that the cosmology of Jubilees is well aligned with its theology. The ‘new creation’ that was anticipated in the earlier form of the 364-day calendar tradition has been relocated in the past and now takes the form a re-creation of the world at the time of the Flood. As a result the apostasy of the planets is brought to an end. The ‘great day of judgment’ at the end of the age to which the Book of the Watchers looked has also been relocated in the past. By doing this the author has intentionally brought the 364-day calendar tradition closer Kvanvig (2009), 165. Kvanvig (2009), 173.

48 49

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to what Boccaccini has called ‘Zadokite’ Judaism, bringing it into alignment with what he could see was the prevailing theological orientation of Judaism in late antiquity. In VanderKam’s words, ‘the writer of Jubilees was familiar with the Book of the Watchers, borrowed heavily from it, but transformed the material to meet the goals for which he was writing his book.’50

Jubilees and Sirach again The theological cosmology of Ben Sira can again serve as an example of the kind of Judaism into which the author of Jubilees wishes to introduce elements of the Enochian tradition. Whereas in the previous chapter we saw that Jubilees is in fundamental agreement with Sirach when it comes to the presence of God’s justice in the world – for both of them ‘there is no injustice’ – Jubilees also agrees with Sirach as to the orderliness of creation in general: I will now call to mind the works of the Lord and will declare what I have seen. By the word of the Lord his works are made; and all his creatures do his will. The sun looks down on everything with its light, and the work of the Lord is full of his glory. […] He has set in order the splendours of his wisdom; he is from all eternity one and the same. Nothing can be added or taken away, and he needs no one to be his counsellor. How desirable are all his works, and how sparkling they are to see! All these things live and remain for ever; each creature is preserved to meet a particular need. (Sir 42:15–23)

The order and stability to be found in nature is a source of wonder and thanksgiving. All creation is subject to the oversight of a beneficent God. Clearly there is no room in the world of Ben Sira for rebellious planets: the heavens move as the Creator wishes them to move. This is the Godgiven orderliness that the ‘new creation’ at the Flood achieves in Jubilees. 50

VanderKam (1999), 170.

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Ben Sira’s positive attitude towards creation means that for him the moon is a God-given indicator of time: It is the moon that marks the changing seasons, governing the times, their everlasting sign. From the moon comes the sign for festal days, a light that wanes when it completes its course. The new moon, as its name suggests, renews itself; how ecognize it is in this change, a beacon to the hosts on high, shining in the vault of the heavens! (Sir 43:6–8)

The result of Jubilees’ acceptance that the heavens we see move in accordance with God’s will is that there is a blatant contradiction between the 364-day calendar and Jubilees’ own cosmology. The 364-day calendar does not describe the heavens that we see. It would appear that the author of Jubilees was willing to accept this contradiction because he accepted that the 364-day calendar was based not on observation but on divine revelation: it was entered on the heavenly tablets and had been revealed to Enoch. For Jubilees – and for the Qumran community that accepted it as normative – the authority of the liturgical calendar would now have to be based solely on the authority of Enoch and, ultimately, on that of the heavenly tablets. This comes out clearly in Jubilees itself. Having introduced the calendar and commanded Moses to require the Israelites to follow it, the angel of the presence goes on to say: (6) (34) All the Israelites will forget and will not find the way of the years. They will forget the first of the month, the season, and the sabbath; they will err with respect to the entire prescribed pattern of the years. (35) For I know and from now on will inform you – not from my own mind because this is the way the book is written in front of me, and the divisions of times are ordained on the heavenly tablets, lest they forget the covenantal festivals and walk in the festivals of the nations, after their error and after their ignorance. (36) There will be people who carefully observe the moon with lunar observations because it is corrupt (with respect to) the seasons and is early from year to year by ten days.51 (37) Therefore years will come about for them when they will disturb (the year) and make a day of testimony something worthless This is the difference between a solar and lunar year according to the Astronomical Book (1 En 78:15) and the calendrical texts from Qumran. 51

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and a profane day a festival. Everyone will join together both holy days with the profane and the profane day with the holy day, for they will err regarding the months, the sabbaths, the festivals, and the jubilee. (Jub 6:34-37)

Observation of the phases of the moon for liturgical purposes is not acceptable because a lunisolar calendar does not agree with the 364-day calendar as to when the months begin and the festivals take place. At this point the author can only appeal to the authority of revelation.

Summary The author of Jubilees has modified the story he found in the Book of the Watchers in a number of important respects. He has changed the place where the Watchers’ rebellion begins from the heavens to the earth. He has brought the spirits of the Giants that survived the Flood completely under God’s control. He has greatly increased the scale of the sinfulness that resulted from the apostasy of the Watchers. He has changed the time when God’s justice will be manifested on a cosmic scale from the eschaton to the Flood. He has dropped all reference to the cosmic covenant and thereby moved the origin of God’s covenanted relationship with Israel from the time of creation to Noah and the period after the Flood. He has introduced a ‘new creation’ at the time of the Flood that includes the heavens as well as the earth and thus has brought the rebellion of the planets to an end.52 He has introduced a level of determinism and divine control that were not present in the earlier myths. And he has changed beyond recognition the Book of the Watchers’ understanding of the presence of God’s justice in this world, since whereas in the Book of the Watchers unjust suffering is to be expected, in the world of Jubilees ‘there is no injustice’. All of these changes are part of his attempt to align the Enochian tradition with the Zadokite tradition and promote a fusion of the two as the way forward for Israel. According to Kvanvig, the author ‘mediates between two basic different attitudes toward the divine revelation, the Mosaic known from the Pentateuch, and the Enochic, known from the Enochic books. The Pentateuch is used extensively both in regard to its The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs also seem to accept that the apostasy of the ‘wanderers’ has been brought to an end. It is noticeably absent in TestNapht 3:2–5 in a context where it would have appropriate to mention it if the author thought it had occurred. See Kee (1983), 812. 52

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laws and to its narrative, that forms the backbone of the story in Jubilees, but its perspective is Enochian.’53 This is true as far as it goes, but does not reflect sufficiently the extent to which in Jubilees the Enochian perspective has been abandoned. The precise way in which Jubilees has carried out its revision of the Enochian tradition is particularly important: in every case a sufficient amount of the original story is kept to give the impression of continuity with earlier Enochian texts. As Hanneken points out, ‘The author never signals open polemic. The authority of Enoch as a recipient of revelation is not rejected but claimed and appropriated.’54 Although Jubilees introduces changes that might seem at first glance to seem to be no more than minor adjustments to the original, they nevertheless have far-reaching implications. Its author does not expect his changes to startle his target audience, but he does expect to guide its thinking in a particular direction. The overall effect of this – as Hanneken says – is to ‘subvert’ the original form of the 364-day calendar tradition while using its Enochian sources. There is no reason to believe that the author of Jubilees thought of himself as deceiving anyone. He was no doubt convinced that what he was saying was true. But he also knew that in order to convince his audience of its truth he would have to start from what was already authoritative and work as far as possible within his target audience’s ‘horizon of expectations’.55 One measure of the extent of his success is the fact that on a fundamental point – the presence of God’s justice in this present world – the revised meaning is the opposite of what was said before. Another is that his revised interpretation was taken up and developed at Qumran.

Kvanvig (2006), 260. Hanneken (2014), 67–68. 55 A helpful notion that Hanneken (2012), 266–67, finds in Hans Robert Jauss (1982). 53

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The contradiction between Jude’s belief that the apostasy of the Wanderers still continues and the belief expressed in the Book of the Watchers and Jubilees that it has been brought to an end raises the possibility that the text of the Book of the Watchers has been revised for the same reasons that its theology and cosmology were revised in Jubilees. In this chapter we shall therefore be looking for evidence that contradictions have been introduced into the text that serve to undermine – to ‘subvert’, to use Hanneken’s term – the original mythology and bring it closer to a cosmology and theology of the type we found in Jubilees.1

The Overall Structure of the Book of the Watchers The overall structure of the Book of the Watchers is fairly clear.2 An introductory section in which Enoch speaks as a prophet (1 En 1–5) is followed by a section that describes the rebellion of the Watchers (1 En 6–9) and another (1 En 10–11) that tells how God sent four archangels to deal with the situation. In these two sections Enoch is not mentioned at all. Enoch then reappears, this time as an intermediary between God and the fallen angels (1 En 12–13). This section is followed by a description of Enoch’s ascent to the throne of God, in the course of which God commissions him to rebuke the fallen angels (1 En 14–16). Finally 1 In a review of Nickelsburg (2001) Michael Knibb (2002), 438, warns against treating the Enochic corpus as if it were ‘a unity’. In his opinion ‘seams are apparent throughout the Book of the Watchers, and it seems fairly clearly to be a text that has grown by the addition of material’ (449). 2 For the basic structure see Nickelsburg (2001), 7.

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Enoch himself describes how he was led by angels on a journey through the heavens to the edge of the world (1 En 17–19). This is then followed by a second journey through the heavens during which he learns more about the topography of the earth, the structure of the universe, and the punishment of the just and unjust (1 En 20–36). We shall consider these sections in the order in which they appear in the book.

The Introduction The difference in style and content between 1 Enoch 1–5 and the rest of the Book of the Watchers was noticed by Charles. He also recognized its composite character, coming to the conclusion that its different sections probably had different authors.3 It is generally accepted that this section as whole was added at a fairly late stage in the book’s development.4 Milik dates 4QEnocha (4Q201), which contains fragments from five of six columns containing 1 Enoch 1–11, to the first half of the second century bce.5 The five introductory chapters can easily be categorized from a literary point of view. The central prose section (1 En 2:1–5:3) is distinguished ‘in form, style, and content’ from the poetry that precedes and follows.6 Nickelsburg calls the verse following the prose section (1 En 5:4) a ‘reprise’ of the last verse of the previous section (1 En 1:9) that is used to enclose and thereby include the prose section in the earlier text. This is not unusual in the redaction of ancient writings. By reverting to poetry while at the same time continuing the prose section’s use of the second person plural, 1 En 5:4 neatly connects the prose section to the poetic forms that characterize the Introduction as a whole. Although Nickelsburg addresses the stylistic differences that distinguish 1 En 2:1–5:3 from the rest of the introduction, he does not ask why there is this striking difference in tone. Verses 1:2–9 and 5:4–9 are filled with eschatological anger and condemnation. In this they resemble the many ‘woes’ proclaimed against the wicked in the Epistle of Enoch (1 En 92–105).7 The Epistle is also linked Charles (1912), xlviii, 2. Cf. Nickelsburg (2001), 132, and also 170, where he says it is ‘more likely that chapters 1–5 were composed as an introduction to chapters 6–36.’ 5 Milik (1976), 140. Text and translation in DSSSE, I, 398–405. 6 Nickelsburg (2001), 152; cf. 132, where he speaks of ‘a major rhetorical shift’. 7 In 1 En 94:10–11, 98:3, 98:9–99:2, 99:9, 99:16, and 100:4. 3 4

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to the Introduction by the eschatological ‘peace’ that is denied the wicked in 1 Enoch 5:4–5 and promised the righteous in 1 Enoch 1:8, 5:6, 7, and 9. In the Epistle, the fifth and last of the ‘booklets’ that make up 1 Enoch, Enoch repeatedly castigates the wicked: ‘You will have no peace!’ (1 En 98:11); ‘Woe to you: you will have no peace’ (1 En 99:13); ‘You will have no rest’ (1 En 99:14); ‘And you, sinners, will be cursed for ever; you will have no peace’ (1 En 102:3); ‘Woe to you, you will have no peace’ (1 En 103:8). Eschatological peace is the primary focus of first and last sections of the Introduction and its absence is the primary focus in the woes of the Epistle and of verse 5:4, which links the prose section to the poetry. The general impression given by 1 En 2:4–9 and 5:4–9 is that the world is an unpleasant place in which to live. Its author looks forward to direct intervention by God and a host of angels who will usher in a violent end to the present age accompanied by judgment and punishment for the wicked and salvation for the righteous. This is not the picture that Jubilees offers of the end of the age. There the angels have no role to play and the primary agents are humans.

The ‘Nature Homily’ In the central prose portion of the introduction, however, the atmosphere is very different. Here the emphasis is entirely on the stability and order of the universe as evidence of the benign and controlling presence of God. The contrast is easily seen when the prose section is given with the verses that surround it on either side. (1) (9) Behold, he comes with the myriads of his holy ones, to execute judgment on all, and to destroy all the wicked, and to convict all flesh for all the wicked deeds that they have done, and the proud and hard words that wicked sinners spoke against him. (2) (1) Contemplate all (his) works, and observe the works of heaven, how they do not alter their paths; and the luminaries heaven, that they all rise and set, each one ordered in its appointed time; and they appear on their feasts and do not transgress their own appointed order. (2) Observe the earth, and contemplate the works that take place on it from the beginning until the consummation, that nothing on earth changes, but all the works of God are manifest to you. (3) Observe winter, that all the earth is filled with water, and clouds and dew and rain rest upon it.

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(3) (1) Contemplate and observe how all the trees appear withered and (how) all their leaves are stripped, except fourteen trees that are not stripped, which remain with the old until the new comes after two of three years. (4) (1) Observe the signs of summer, whereby the sun burns and scorches, and you seek shelter and shade from its presence, and the earth burns with scorching heat, and you are unable to tread on the dust or the rock because of the burning. (5) (1) Contemplate all the trees; their leaves blossom green on them, and they cover the trees. And all their fruit is for glorious honour. Contemplate all these works, and understand that he who lives for all the ages made all these works. (2) And his works take place from year to year, and they all carry out their works for him, and their works do not alter, but they all carry out his word. [[(3) Observe how, in like manner, the sea and the rivers carry out and do not alter their works from his words.]]8 (4) But you have not stood firm nor acted according to his commandments; but you have turned aside, you have spoken proud and hard words with your unclean mouth against his majesty. Hard of heart! There will be no peace for you! (5) Then you will curse your days, and the years of your life will perish; and the years of your destruction will increase in an eternal curse. And there will be no mercy or peace for you!

Here 1 En 1:9, the passage quoted as scripture in Jude 14–15,9 ends a dramatic six-verse prophecy that God himself will intervene in the last days ‘with his mighty host from the heaven of heavens.’ The abrupt switch to prose that follows 1 En 2:1 brings with it a complete change of emphasis. The focus is now on nature’s obedience to the laws established for it by the Creator and there seems no reason why God should have to intervene.

Links with the Astronomical Book The Greek translation of most of the text of 1 En 2:1–5:3 is extant and although it differs from the Ethiopic version, it is nevertheless clear that the Ethiopic is an attempt to translate this text or something very close 8 From a literary point of view this verse seems out of place after the previous summary and may be an afterthought. It is missing in 4QEnocha (4Q201) and has therefore been placed in double square brackets above. See Nickelsburg (2001), 157. 9 See above, p. 71.

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to it.10 In addition, some Aramaic fragments corresponding to these verses were discovered at Qumran,11 and although they do not correspond exactly to the Greek translation, nevertheless it is clear that the Greek is an attempt to translate a very similar Aramaic text. For our purposes, however, the fragments of an Aramaic manuscript related to the end of the Astronomical Book are much more interesting.12 This describes the season of winter using language very similar to that found in 1 En 2:3–3:1. Milik, the first editor, noticed the similarity and at once linked these fragments to the ‘Nature Homily’ in the Book of the Watchers.13 In his edition of 1 Enoch Black agreed with Milik that 4Q211 frg. 1 I 2–6 contains a description of autumn and winter using expressions that recall 1 En 2:3–3:1 and points in particular to the fact that both refer to ‘the fourteen trees’ that do not lose their leaves in winter.14 In his introduction, however, Black went further and suggested that the Qumran finds provide ‘evidence that a poem on the seasons taken from the “astronomical” and calendrical scrolls has been utilised by the author of this nature homily.’15 VanderKam objects to Black’s conclusion on the grounds that while 4Q211 frg. 1 I 2–6 does contain a description of the signs for winter, there are nevertheless insufficient verbal links between what is preserved in the Qumran fragments and the ‘Nature Homily’ to demonstrate that one is derived from the other.16 The links between the ‘Nature Homily’ and the Astronomical Book are important, however, because the latter describes the world in its pristine state as it existed before the rebellion of the Watchers and the Wanderers. The ‘Nature Homily’ is completely at home in such a context because it glorifies the stability of creation. Its world is the world shown to Enoch in the Astronomical Book, a world that is completely under God’s control and where God’s works all ‘take place from year to year’, constantly repeating themselves. In this way they replicate the most striking feature of the 364-day calendar: the fact that it too repeats Greek text in Charles (1912), 275–76. 4QEnocha (4Q201) II 1–17; Milik (1976), 145–49. 12 4QAstronomic Enochd (4Q211) frg. 1 i 2–6; Milik (1976), 296–97. 13 Milik (1976), 148. 14 Black (1985), 419. Nickelsburg (2001), 156, does not discuss the relationship between the two texts. 15 Black (1985), 13. 16 VanderKam (2012), 566–67. 10 11

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itself without change year after year. The Astronomical Book provides a much more appropriate context for the ‘Nature Homily’ than does the eschatological intensity of the Introduction to the Book of the Watchers. A relationship between the two is established if this passage did no more than inspire the ‘Nature Homily’ and this resulted in certain verbal similarities. This is the position adopted by Drawnel.17 An additional link between the ‘Nature Homily’ and the Astronomical Book can also be seen in the way 1 En 2:2 urges the reader to ‘[o]bserve the earth, and contemplate the works that take place on it from the beginning until the consummation, that nothing on earth changes …’ This verse looks back to the opening verse of the Astronomical Book, where Enoch says that Uriel ‘showed me … how every year of the world will be forever, until a new creation lasting forever is made’ (1 En 72:1). 1 En 2:1–2 specifically correlates the God-given regularity of the luminaries, which ‘all rise and set, each one ordered in its appointed time; and they appear on their feasts and do not transgress their own appointed order’ (1 En 2:1), with the regularity of phenomena on earth, which also ‘take place on it from the beginning … nothing on earth changes’ (1 En 2:2). The heavens are the standard by which earthly phenomena are judged. The stability of the natural order is then emphasized again in the last verse of the prose section: ‘And his works take place from year to year, and they all carry out their works for him, and their works do not alter, but they all carry out his word’ (1 En 5:2).18 Like the myth of the cosmic covenant the ‘Nature Homily’ says that the regularity of nature takes place in accordance with ordinances established by God at the time of creation and that it was God’s intention that it should continue in this way without interruption until the end of the age. Yet according to the Book of the Watchers the creation’s orderly subservience to God was quickly brought to an end, first by the apostasy of the Watchers in 1 En 6:1–7:6 and then in an even more dramatic fashion by the apostasy of the seven stars referred to in 1 En 18:12–16/21:1–6. Clearly not all of God’s works have carried out his ‘word’. Thus the ‘Nature Homily’ provides a very different overview of cosmic history from that described in the chapters that follow. These pre Drawnel (2011), 412. The use of ‘his word’ here (Aramaic memreh in the fragments; cf. Targum Neophyti) in the context of creation recalls a similar use of ‘word’ in 1 En 106:13 to refer to the content of the cosmic covenant. See above, p. 52. The intrusive verse 1En 5:3 picks up ‘word’ but changes it to ‘words’. This suggests that its author (or the translator) may not have been familiar with the myth of the cosmic covenant and its vocabulary. 17 18

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sent us with the rebellion of the Watchers, the punishment of seven rebel stars, and the ongoing rebellion of the spirits of the Giants. Whoever inserted the Nature Homily seems to have wanted to lessen the impact of the following chapters by inserting into the Introduction a passage that conveyed a very different impression of the state of creation from that found later in the same work. To do this he seems to have found inspiration in a work closely related to the Astronomical Book which described the world as first created and before the cosmic rebellions began. Jubilees used the same technique to undermine the theology and cosmology of the Book of the Watchers. It introduces material that contradicts and undermines the significance of the earlier form of the myth of the Watchers and seeks to convey a more acceptable understanding of the cosmos. A similar process seems to have taken place inside the Book of the Watchers. Here, however, the technique involved inserting material into a pre-existing authoritative text, which then allowed the modified version to be disseminated and influence the wider tradition. For Jubilees the pre-existing text was the Pentateuch, which the author modified by retelling it in his own words, introducing the myth of the Watchers while at the same time modifying it to suit his ends. Whoever used this material in the Introduction to the Book of the Watchers wanted to suggest that the world we live in now reproduces the world as first created: it is completely under God’s control. This corresponds to the world as ‘re-created’ after the Flood according to Jubilees, when God ‘made a new and righteous nature for all his works so that they might not sin in all their nature for ever, and so that they might all be righteous, each in his kind, always’ (Jub 5:12). In the Book of the Watchers – as in Jubilees – the fundamental mythology of the 364-day calendar tradition is being intentionally subverted. An easily missed detail in the ‘Nature Homily’ may offer another indication that its author wished to bring the work closer to world of his contemporaries. Only two seasons – winter and summer – are mentioned in the ‘Homily’. This reflects the climactic conditions in Judea and the usage of the Hebrew Bible19 but ignores the fact that the Babylonian scheme of four seasons is fundamental to the structure of the 364-day calendar and is used in the Astronomical Book.20 This may be 19 When establishing the Noachic covenant, for example, God says: ‘As long as the earth endures,/ seedtime and harvest, cold and heat,/ summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease’ (Gen 8:22; cf. Is 18:6; Zech 14:8). 20 Cf. 1En 75:1–3; 82:9–20.

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an ‘accidental reversion’, as Beckwith suggests,21 but it shows that the direction of travel in the ‘Nature Homily’ is towards what would be expected by the author’s contemporaries. The reference in the Introduction (1 En 1:9) to ‘wicked deeds’ and to the ‘proud and hard words’ that sinners have spoken against God offered the redactor/reviser of the Book of the Watchers an opportunity to introduce a telling example of obedience to God. He found it in Enochic material that was originally intended to affirm the orderliness of God’s creation. The introduction of the ‘Nature Homily’ tones down the eschatological urgency of the rest of the Introduction and prepares the way for further changes. It does not prepare the reader for what actually comes next.

The Apostasy of the Watchers (Chapters 6–8) The introductory section of the Book of the Watchers (Chapters 1–5) with its inserted ‘Nature Homily’ is followed in chapters 6–8 by a description of the rebellion of the Watchers and its results. There is no attempt to construct a transition from the Introduction. These three chapters are probably the original core of the work and have given the work its name. They may even reflect a stage when Enoch was not yet connected with the myth of the Watchers since in chapters 6–8 Enoch is never mentioned. The fact that chapters 6–8 are entirely consistent with what is said elsewhere about Enoch and the fallen angels confirms their fundamental character and again suggests that Enoch’s connection with the Watchers may have been a secondary development. The earliest form of the Enoch story may well have portrayed him primarily as a purveyor of revealed wisdom on the model of the legendary Babylonian king, Enmeduranki.22 Nickelsburg notes the presence of ‘literary seams and inconsistencies’ in chapters 6–10 that point to the fusion of two different stories.23 The various signs of literary development that he seeks to identify with Beckwith (1981), 394. The Babylonian background of the Enoch myth has been investigated by Grelot (1958) and more recently by Kvanvig (1988). Their work is summarised by VanderKam (1995, 10), who concludes: ‘In the light of those unmistakable similarities and intriguing sets of traits shared by Enoch and Enmeduranki, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that it was precisely on traditions about the seventh king that the priestly editor [of Genesis 5] drew.’ It might be better to say that Genesis 5 has drawn on the same tradition as that drawn on by the Book of the Watchers and the Astronomical Book. 23 Nickelsburg (2001), 165–72. 21

22

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in this section do not affect our argument, but they do highlight the complicated literary history of the text.

Four Archangels Purify and Heal the Earth (Chapters 9–11) The next section, chapters 9–11, is introduced by 1 En 8:4, which picks up from 1 En 7:6 and according to Nickelsburg ‘must have been inserted when this chapter was added in order to continue the flow of the narrative’ that had been interrupted when the ‘digression’ in 1 En 8:1–3 listing the angels responsible for teaching illicit knowledge to mankind was inserted.24 Chapters 9–11 describe the role played by four archangels in the resolving the problems posed by the revolt of the Watchers. In them Enoch is never mentioned. Chapters 9–11 are significant because of the way they describe the relationship between God and the world and because of the cosmological implications of the tasks God asks them to perform. They reflect the general trend of theological thought in the Second Temple period in that what God might himself have done in the earlier strata of the Hebrew Bible is now carried out by angels on his behalf. For example, whereas God speaks directly to Noah in Gen 9:13, in 1 En 10:1 the task is delegated to Sariel. The message is the same, but the messenger has changed. This change reflects the alternative creation narrative of Jubilees 2:2–18, which speaks of ‘the angels of the voices’ (Jub 2:2). These ‘voices’ are those heard by the patriarchs and convey the words of God. At first the work of the archangels as described in chapters 10 and 11 corresponds fairly closely to what God says about the Watchers and Giants in 1 En 15:1–16:4. Nothing is said about the survival of the spirits of the Giants, but the Watchers are bound and imprisoned under the earth (1 En 10:4–8, 12–14) and the Giants are encouraged to kill each other (1 En 10:9–10). In the middle of God’s instructions to Michael, however, a change occurs. The Lord now says to Michael: Destroy all the spirits of the half-breeds and the sons of the Watchers, because they have wronged men. Destroy all perversity from the face of the earth, and let every wicked deed be gone; Nickelsburg (2001), 201.

24

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and let the plant of righteousness and truth appear, and it will become a blessing, (and) the deeds of righteousness and truth will be planted for ever with joy’ (1 En 10:15–16).

Here even the spirits of the Giants are to be destroyed and therefore they will not survive the Flood. And mankind’s life after the Flood could hardly be more different from that which God describes in 1 En 15:8– 16:1, where the survival of the spirits of the Giants and their continued predations are stressed. Even in Jubilees one tenth of the spirits of the Giants continue to be active in the world (Jub 10:8-13). According to 1 En 10:17–18 what follows the Flood will be another Eden, a paradise of righteousness truth, the start of a golden age:25 And now all the righteous will escape, and they will live until they beget thousands, and all the days of their youth and old age will be completed in peace. Then all the earth will be tilled in righteousness, and all of it will be planted with trees and filled with blessing; and all the trees of joy will be planted on it. (1 En 10:17–18)

Thus Jubilees disagrees with both accounts of the fate of the spirits of the Giants found in the Book of the Watchers. It disagrees with 1 En 16:1, which allows all the evil spirits to survive, and it disagrees with 1 En 10:15 because, according to Jubilees, some of the ‘spirits of the halfbreeds’ will survive and continue to be active after the Flood – albeit under God’s control. In Jubilees the treatment of the spirits of the Giants in the Book of the Watchers has been moved in the direction of Ben Sira in that its author accepts that evil does exist in the world but serves the purposes of God. In 1 En 10:15–11:2, however, ‘all the spirits of the half-breeds and the sons of the Watchers’ are to be destroyed (1 En 10:15) so that ‘all the sons of men will become righteous’ (1 En 10:21). God will ‘not again send upon them any wrath or scourge’ (1 En 10:22) and ‘truth and peace will be united together for all the days of eternity’ (1 En 11:2). This is certainly not the postdiluvian world that will soon be described in 1 En 15:2–16:1.

25 In the Second Dream Vision (1 En 87:1–88:3) much of the description of the archangels’ destruction of the Watchers and Giants is derived from this passage (see Tiller [1993], 83–96, 244–55).

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The significance of the healing of the earth According to Nickelsburg, ‘the renewal of the human race and the postdiluvian world [in 1 En 10:15–11:2] are a paradigm for the renewal or recreation of the world after the coming [eschatological] judgment’.26 This underestimates the significance of what is being said in this passage. His earlier appraisal is much more accurate: ‘The new start described in Genesis 8–9 becomes here a reversion to creation.’27 The exaggerated description of post-Flood prosperity found in 1 En 10:15–11:2 does not look forward to the eschaton. It describes the post-Flood world as a new creation: the whole world will be restored to its primeval innocence and beauty. What is interesting is the ambiguity. It is not obvious whether the author of this passage has in mind the post-Flood world or the eschaton. The reader is left not knowing exactly what the author has in mind. Collins comments on this passage: ‘The healing of the earth [in chapters 10–11] is not necessarily eschatological, although it could be understood this way if 1 Enoch 6–11 were considered alone.’28 A recurrent feature of Jubilees’ treatment of the story of the Watchers is also the creation of ambiguity. The trajectory described in the Sibylline Oracles is essentially that of Jubilees: after the Flood God creates all that is necessary for an Edenic golden age, but mankind nevertheless gradually slips backward into sin. In Jubilees Noah is able to bring up his children with an understanding of the wisdom revealed to Enoch, yet his grandchildren and their descendants fall away from the revealed tradition and succumb to the teaching of the few surviving demons. Like the ‘Nature Homily’, the intervention of the four archangels in chapters 9–11 encourages the reader to think of the post-diluvian world as being completely under God’s control. Its only faults are those occasioned by the failings of mankind. There is no place in it for ‘savage’ demons – nor, of course, for recalcitrant stars. Thus the second half of God’s instruction to Michael (1 En 10:15– 11:2) proves to be an attempt to bring the cosmology and theology of the Book of the Watchers closer to that of Jubilees.29 Otherwise chapters 9–11 do not affect the original cosmology, but with them they do. In Nickelsburg (2001), 224. Nickelsburg (2001), 167. 28 Collins (1978), 318–19. Collins compares the Sibylline Oracles 1:283–308, where the period after the Flood ‘corresponds to Hesiod’s golden age … yet it is eventually followed by another, inferior generation’. 29 Kugel (2010), 236, n. 9, has also pointed out the connection between 1 En 10:16–21 and Jub 5:12. 26 27

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both Jubilees and 1 En 10:15–11:2 a highly pessimistic view of the state of the post-diluvian world after the Flood has been subtly subverted to bring it closer to what was the normative theological opinion of the time – that the world as a whole is subject to God’s governance and a favourable place in which to pursue righteousness. This is not the world of chapters 15–16 of the Book of the Watchers.

Enoch and the Watchers (Chapters 12–16) According to Nickelsburg chapters 12–16 ‘reiterate and confirm the message of chapters 6–11.’30 This is true in that nothing in them contradicts the original cosmology of the 364-day calendar tradition. There is even an allusion to the cosmic covenant, since the Watchers are said to have forsaken ‘the highest heaven, the sanctuary of the eternal covenant’ when they descended to the earth (1 En 12:4).31 Since the cosmic covenant is not mentioned in Jubilees or at Qumran this detail certainly suggests that this material belongs to the earlier stages of the tradition. Nothing is said in chapters 12–16 to suggest that the post-diluvian universe was brought back under God’s control. The final judgment is still far in the future and it is accepted that God has allowed the spirits of the Giants to continue to torment the human race. Nickelsburg is right to say that ‘chapters 12–16 are crucial for the entire Enochic collection as we have it. They establish Enoch’s prophetic credentials, which are referred to already in 1 En 1:2 and are presumed throughout. In addition, Enoch’s ascent to the heavenly throne room begins a series of cosmic journeys that comprise chapters 17–36 and are the presupposition for chapters 91–105’.32 Enoch’s journey to the throne of God in 1 En 14:8–16:4, during which he speaks directly with the Lord and is commissioned by him to reprimand the fallen Watchers, has almost archetypal status in the later tradition.

Enoch’s First Journey to the Ends of the Earth (Chapters 17–19) The next three chapters describe Enoch’s first journey to the ends of the earth. Nickelsburg follows Newsom in accepting that chapters 17–19 Nickelsburg (2001), 229. See above, pp. 47-49. 32 Nickelsburg (2001), 229. 30 31

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were not originally written to follow on from chapters 14–16.33 It is also hard to believe that chapters 17–19 were planned as a coherent whole. They fall easily into three sections that seem to have been pasted together to create the journey in its present form. These sections may originally have been separate revelations that were then brought together to constitute a single journey. a. The first section, 1 Enoch 17:1–8, is a fairly coherent account of a journey to the edge of the earth. Some introductory material seems to have been lost, since the ‘they’ who take Enoch away and serve as his guides are never identified. Enoch and his guides first visit a place where ‘those who were there were like a flaming fire; and whenever they wished, they appeared as human beings’ (1 En 17:1). It is not said who these figures are or why they are there. As Nickelsburg comments, the whole section ‘is notable for the mysterious and mythic character of its geography’.34 Almost everything Enoch sees is located at the outer edge of the earth, which is thought of as a flat round disc. b. The second section, 1 Enoch 18:1–5, is a digression that interrupts the journey to describe various aspects of what Enoch saw at the edge of the world. It is essentially a development of verse 17:3, which speaks of Enoch’s having seen ‘the places of the luminaries and the treasuries of the stars’. The style is quite different from that of the earlier section, however, being much more straightforward and matter of fact. Enoch sees the invisible powers by which God has ‘ordered all created things’ (1 En 18:1). They are called ‘winds (anemoi)’ in the Greek version and in all subsequent translations. These ‘winds’ also support the earth and the firmament of heaven and control the movements of the sun, the stars, and the clouds. This and the first section differ from the Astronomical Book in that they both refer to ‘treasuries’ rather than to the ‘gates’ as the places from which the heavenly bodies emerge. This suggests that they originated in Palestinian circles that had lost their links with Babylonian astral science. c. The third section, 1 Enoch 18:6–19:3, completes Enoch’s first journey and takes him again to the outer edge of the world, the point he had already reached in 17:1–8. The third section does not follow on easily from verses 18:1–5 or from verses 17:1–8. It Nickelsburg (2001), 278; Newsom (1980), 322. Nickelsburg (2001), 280.

33

34

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is essentially an expanded version of the first section, since verses 18:6–9 provide a more detailed description of God’s throne – the ‘mountain whose summit reached to heaven’ (1 En 17:2) – and verses 18:10–11 plus 19:1–2 seem to interpret verse 17:1 – ‘a certain place in which those who were there were like a flaming fire’. The only completely new material is the description of the punishment of the seven stars in verses 18:12–16. The final sentence provides a suitable ending for the whole sequence: ‘I, Enoch, alone saw the visions, the extremities of all things. And no one among humans has seen as I saw’ (1 En 19:3). The expression ‘the extremities of all things’ is interpreted by Matthew Goff to mean ‘the full extent of the created order’ and this certainly suits the context.35 Kelley Coblentz Bautch links the first journey with the Astronomical Book by pointing out that the geographical view of the world in chapters 17–19 is similar to that of chapter 77 of the Astronomical Book, and then adds that the author seems to be concerned primarily with ‘sites located on the periphery and associated with theophany or theodicy.’36 It should also be pointed out that nothing Enoch sees in the course of his first journey conflicts with the original form of the 364-day calendar tradition except, of course, the description of the punishment of the seven stars in 1 En 18:12–16.

An awkward interpolation: the punishment of the seven stars Verses 18:12–16 have always been a problem. The awkward relationship between the description of the fate of the Watchers (1 En 19:1–2) and that of the seven stars (1 En 18:12–16) led Dillmann, Charles, and Nickelsburg to rearrange the text.37 They removed verses 18:12–16 from their position in the manuscripts and placed them immediately before 19:3, the verse that brings Enoch’s first journey to an end. Why they thought this was necessary can be seen most readily if the text of this section is shown in the form it has in the Aramaic fragments, the Greek manuscripts, and the Ethiopic version. For the sake of clarity verses 18:12–16 are italicized, as is verse 19:3. Although verse 19:3 makes sense at the end of the whole section, it would also follow on very easily from verse 17:8 Goff (2003), 178. Bautch (2003), 201–05; see VanderKam (2012), 390–91. 37 See Nickelsburg (2001), 287–89. 35

36

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and may well have once been the last verse of the first section before it was expanded by the insertion of verses 18:1–19:2.38 (18) (6) I came and saw a place that was burning night and day, where (there were) seven mountains of precious stones – three lying to the east and three to the south. (7) And of those to the east, (one was) of coloured stone, and one was of pearl, and one was of . And those to the south were of flame-coloured stone. (8) And the middle one of them reached heaven like the throne of God – of antinomy; and the top of the throne was of lapis lazuli. (9) And I saw a burning fire. (10) And beyond these mountains is a place, the edge of the great earth; there the heavens come to an end. (11) And I saw a great chasm among pillars of heavenly fire. And I saw in it pillars of fire descending; and they were immeasurable toward the depth and toward the height. (12) Beyond this chasm I saw a place where there was neither firmament of heaven above nor firmly founded earth beneath it. Neither was there water on it, nor bird; but the place was desolate and fearful. (13) There I saw seven stars like great burning mountains. (14) To me, when I inquired about them, the angel said, ‘This place is the end of heaven and earth; this has become a prison for the stars and the hosts of heaven. (15) The stars that are rolling over in the fire, these are they that transgressed the command of the Lord in the beginning of their rising, for they did not come out in their appointed times. (16) And he was angry with them and bound them until the time of the consummation of their sins – ten thousand years.’ (19) (1) And Uriel said to me, ‘There will stand39 the angels who mingled with women. And their spirits – having assumed many forms – bring destruction on men and lead them astray to sacrifice to demons as to gods until the day of the great judgment, in which they will be judged with finality (2) And the wives of the transgressing angels will become sirens. (3) I, Enoch, alone saw the visions, the extremities of all things. And no one among humans has seen as I saw.

Dillmann saw that Uriel’s interpretation of Enoch’s vision of the future punishment of the fallen angels in verses 19:1–2 did not follow the vi Cf. Milik (1976), 35, and the comment of Nickelsburg (2001), 289. Following the Greek, which has stêsontai, with Charles (1912), 42, Wintermute (1983), 23, Uhlig (1984), 551, and Rabin (1984), 208. Nickelsburg (2001), 276, 286, follows the Ethiopic and translates as ‘stand’, which has the disadvantage of making this verse conflict with 1 En 10:4–6 and 12–13, where the fallen Watchers are first confined under the earth and then led off to a fiery punishment at the ‘day of the great judgment’. Jubilees also says that their definitive punishment was postponed, as does Jude 6. 38 39

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sion itself. He therefore concluded that verses 19:1–2 were out of place and rearranged the passage in order to link vision and explanation by placing verses 19:1–2 immediately after 18:10–11.40 The fragments of 4QEnochc (4Q204) VIII 27–30 show, however, that the order in the Ethiopic version is the same as that in the Aramaic fragments from the second century bce. As a result more recent editors have left the verses where they are in the manuscripts.41 Nickelsburg has nevertheless accepted Dillmann’s argument and rearranged the verses accordingly. He also argues that verses 1 En 18:12–16 are not only out of place, but are ‘a secondary interpolation’ between 1 En 18:11 and 19:1–2.42 He suggests – somewhat improbably in my view – that 1 En 18:12–16 was inserted in order ‘to provide a counterpart of the two types of transgression in chapters 14–16’, i.e., the sins of the Watchers and the sins of the Giants. If we accept with Nickelsburg, that 1 En 18:12–16 is a ‘secondary interpolation’, as it certainly seems to be, then before its insertion the first journey ended with Enoch’s vision of the future prison of the Watchers and nothing at all was said about the punishment of the seven stars. If we now apply to 18:12–16 the insights we have already acquired into the development of the Book of the Watchers, the reason for the insertion of the punishment of the stars becomes clear. Without these verses the whole of Enoch’s first journey is consistent with the mythology that originally underpinned the 364-day calendar. Once they have been added, however, it is consistent with the post-Flood cosmology of Jubilees, which requires that the rebellion of the seven stars be brought to an end so that the heavens can once again move in accordance with the will of God. Yet the timing here is not exactly the same as that offered by the author of Jubilees. For the latter all disorder in the heavens was brought to an end in the general re-creation at the time of the Flood.43 Insertion into the Book of the Watchers at this point has the effect of putting it at a much earlier stage, even before Uriel showed Enoch around the heavens. This would mean, however, that the fallen angels would not been able to lead mankind astray by teaching them Dillmann (1853), 118. The order is left unchanged by Knibb (1978), Newsom (1980), and Uhlig (1984), Black (1985), Bautsch (2003), and Olson (2004). 42 Nickelsburg (2001), 278, 288. 43 Cf. Jub 1:29: ‘… from the time of the new creation when the heavens, the earth, and all their creatures will be renewed’. 40 41

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how to interpret the irregular movements of the seven planets, something that is clearly stated in 1 En 8:3 and Jub 8:2-4. If 1 En 18:12–16 is indeed a ‘secondary interpolation’ designed to align the cosmology of the Book of the Watchers with that of Jubilees, then the first journey ended with Enoch at the very edge of the earth gazing at the fiery chasm in which the fallen Watchers would eventually be punished. He did not see the punishment of the seven stars that is the starting point of the second journey. In this case the final verses of the first journey also serve to explain the significance of the vision Enoch had at the very beginning, when he saw enigmatic figures who ‘were like a flaming fire; and whenever they wished, they appeared as human beings’ (1 En 17:1). 1 En 19:1 takes up and interprets the content of this verse when it says that the spirits of the fallen Watchers ‘having assumed many forms’ will ‘bring destruction on men and lead them astray’. It seems likely, therefore, that 1 En 18:12–16 are indeed a ‘secondary interpolation’ and that the first journey originally ended with Enoch’s vision of the place where the fallen Watchers will one day be punished. Thus it provides a fitting ending to the story of Enoch’s encounter with the rebel angels.

The gradual expansion of Enoch’s first journey We can now begin to see how chapters 17–19 took on their present form. The brief original vision is preserved in 1 En 17:1–8. This section may well have ended with 1 En 19:3, with its powerful statement of Enoch’s unique place among the patriarchs and its affirmation of his role as a source of revealed wisdom. The original account may well have been combined at this stage with the story of Enoch’s interaction with the Watchers in chapters 12–16. In any case it was subsequently extended by inserting the additional cosmic revelations found in 1 En 18:1–5 and 18:6–9. These verses seem to assume the existence of the more detailed descriptions found in chapter 77 of the Astronomical Book. The whole of the journey was then brought to a close with the dramatic scene in verses 18:10–11 and 19:1, which show that Enoch had not only acted as an intermediary between God and the fallen Watchers, but had also been granted the privilege of seeing the place where they would eventually be punished. 1 En 18:10–11 and 19:1 provide an excellent climax to Enoch’s first journey in the form it had before the insertion of 1 En 18:12–16. They heighten Enoch’s significance by linking him to the future fate of the

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fallen angels even though no such link is found in the Hebrew Bible or in earlier Mesopotamian traditions. At this stage – and before the ‘Nature Homily’ and 1 En 10:15-11:2 moved the text in the direction of the cosmology of Jubilees – the first journey simply took Enoch to the edge of the world, where he saw the place where the fallen Watchers would eventually be punished. There was no indication in it that the rebellion of the seven stars had been brought to an end and no reference to a realm that lies beyond the limits of the perceptible world. 1 En 19:3 says only that Enoch reached the extremities of the earth. There is nothing in it that would suggest that his first vision journey had taken him beyond the limits of the perceptible world to see the punishment of the seven stars. The insertion of 1 En 18:12–16, however, turns chapters 17–19 into a suitable sequel to chapters 1–16 after they have been supplemented by the insertion of the ‘Nature Homily’ (1 En 2:1– 5:3) and the ‘healing of the earth’ described in 1 En 10:15–11:2. All three passages should be understood as ‘secondary interpolations’ designed to make the Book of the Watchers support the cosmology of Jubilees. No one has been able to explain why 1 En 18:12–16 was inserted in its present position. We do know, however, that these verses were inserted before 4QEnochc (4Q204) was written in the last third of the first century bce. Without these verses the first journey in its final form focuses on the future punishment of the fallen Watchers and is completely consonant with the earlier form of the tradition. Whoever added them sought to turn Enoch’s first journey into a defence of the revised cosmology of Jubilees.

Enoch’s Second Journey through the Heavens (Chapters 21–36) It seems likely therefore that when Enoch originally began his second journey with a vision of the punishment of the seven stars there was no corresponding vision at the end of the first journey. The second journey begins with a vision of what lay beyond the edges of the visible creation and then returns along the same route he had travelled in the first journey while supplementing the earlier account with new details.44 Since it begins with Enoch’s vision of the punishment of the seven stars the whole of the second journey is part of the process of revision that sought Nickelsburg (2001), 290–92.

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to bring the Book of the Watchers into alignment with the cosmology of Jubilees. As Wacker has shown, the vision of burning fiery stars that begins Enoch’s second journey stands at the head of a series of ‘catchwords’ (Stichwörter) that binds together chapters 21–22 and links them to chapters 23–24.45 The punishment of the seven stars is therefore the most important single element in the second journey. Not only does it start the second journey by introducing new material, but its literary influence extends right through the first four chapters. The story of Enoch’s second journey is preceded by chapter 20, a list of seven archangels that begins: ‘These are the names of the holy angels who watch.’ It then closes abruptly with: ‘The names of the seven archangels.’ Since the list is attributed neither to Enoch nor to his guide Nickelsburg suggests, quite reasonably, that it is probably an editorial insertion designed to offer guidance to the reader as he follows Enoch’s travels eastward through the heavens. The archangels and their functions do seem to correspond – for the most part – to the various stages of his journey.46 Although the various stages of Enoch’s second journey are regularly introduced by expressions such as ‘And from there I travelled/went/ proceeded …’, the second journey begins without any indication of the place from which he started. Enoch says simply: ‘I travelled to where it was chaotic …’ (1 En 21:1). Thus it presents itself as a continuation without interruption of the first journey, which began with ‘And they took me (and) led (me) away …’ (1 En 17:1). Travel without any indication of ‘place from which’ is characteristic of the first journey (1 En 17:1, 2, 4, 5 [3 times]; 18:6) and thus the absence of this detail in 21:1 presents the second journey as a continuation of the first – a ‘round trip’, as it were. Nickelsburg, following Wacker, believes the second journey to be a ‘rewritten and reversed’ version of the first. This assumes that it is based on the first journey as reconstructed by Dillmann to end with the vision of seven burning stars. If the vision of burning stars was not originally part of the first journey, however, this is not the case. The vision of burning stars that begins the second journey is something new. Thus this journey is not simply a return to base after the end of the first journey. It starts with Enoch’s penetration even deeper into the mysteries of creation. What Enoch sees is taking place beyond the boundaries of the visible universe, since at the end of the first journey he had already come to ‘the Wacker (1982), 120–22, and accepted by Nickelsburg (2001), 292. VanderKam (1995), 53.

45

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edge of the great earth; there the heavens come to an end’ (1 En 18:10). It therefore belongs to the realm of the ‘the heavens that are above’ (Jub 2:2), a world without ‘things’ that is beyond the firmament against which the stars move. This means, of course, that he is seeing not stars but angels being punished, since this ‘upper heaven’ is inhabited only by angels in the cosmology that underpins the 364-day liturgical calendar. Enoch’s vision in 1 En 21:1-6 ‘corrects’ the original cosmology of the 364-day calendar tradition according to which the apostasy of the seven planets – that is, of their angels – continued after the Flood. Indeed, the need to introduce this change was probably the primary reason why the first journey was expanded. A reviser wished to reinterpret the earlier tradition and bring it into line with what we now find in Jubilees without contradicting the original narrative.

The cosmology of Jubilees reveals itself One significant difference between 1 En 21:1–6 and 1 En 18:12–16 provides a good indication of the intentions of whoever inserted 1 En 18:12–16 at the end of the first journey. In 1 En 21:3 Enoch sees only seven stars and this number is in effect repeated in 1 En 21:6, since ‘the stars of heaven that transgressed the command of the Lord’ must also be these seven stars. In 1 En 18:13, however, Enoch begins by saying that he has seen ‘seven stars like great burning mountains’, but by 1 En 18:14 this has become ‘the stars and the hosts of heaven’. The insertion of ‘and the hosts’ moves the passage even further in the direction of the cosmology of Jubilees, where the all-embracing sinfulness of the pre-Flood world is stressed in order to justify its ‘re-creation’.47 The addition of ‘and the hosts of heaven’ in 1 En 18:14 reveals the same shift from the sin of the few to the sin of the many that Hanneken found in Jubilees. What is striking is that this change – which brings with it far-reaching cosmological repercussions – is taking place within our text and not between texts. In Jubilees – which is the work of a single individual – the change of cosmology has already taken place and a consistent overall picture is presented: all creation has sinned and therefore at the time of the Flood God ‘made a new and righteous nature for all his works so that they would not sin with their whole nature for ever’ (1 En 5:12). Here, however, we see the original form of the tradition being subtly modified in the course of its transmission. 47

See above, pp. 114-15.

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The author of the second journey has deliberately extended the first journey primarily in order to add to it the punishment of the seven planets. In 1 En 18:12–16 the punishment of the stars has been added to the first journey in an inept attempt to link the two journeys more closely together. Why are the stars being punished outside the visible universe when the fallen Watcher will be punished within it? Presumably because it is not the perceptible planets themselves that are being punished but their angels. The angels of the seven stars never descended to the earth, but remained in the ‘higher heaven’, controlling the ‘winds’ that move the planets across the firmament (cf. 1 En 18:4, 72:5, and 73:2). It is only appropriate that their punishment take place in this higher, invisible realm. The apostate Watchers, who descended to the earth, are punished on the earth.

A river of fire in the west When Enoch then travels ‘to the west of the ends of the earth’ he sees ‘a fire that ran and did not rest or quit its course day and night, but continued’ (1 En 23:1–2). This seems to be based on what he saw on his first journey: ‘And they led me away to the living waters and to the fire of the west, which provides all the sunsets’ (1 En 17:4).48 This ‘fire of the west’ is a commonplace of archaic cosmology designed to explain why the sky glows red as the sun sets below the horizon. Yet when Enoch asks Reuel about this river of fire he is told: ‘This course of fire is the fire of the west, which pursues (to ekdiôkon) all the luminaries of heaven (pantas tous phôstêras tou ouranou). And he showed me mountains of fire that burned day and night’ (1 En 23:4–24:1). The author of this passage has combined the ‘fire of the west’ (1 En 17:4) and the ‘river of fire, in which fire flows down like water’ (1 En 17:5) to get a single ‘fire of the west’ that flows like a river. He has then given it the task of pursuing ‘all the luminaries of heaven’ (1 En 23:4). His combining the two fires is understandable. In what sense, however, does this fire ‘pursue’ all the luminaries of heaven? This verse is interpreted in the list of angels that now serves as an introduction to the second journey (1 En 20:1–8). There Reuel is identified as the angel who ‘takes vengeance on (o ekdikôn) the world of the So Charles (1912), 51, and Nickelsburg (2001), 310. Nickelsburg (2001), 282–83, seems to distinguish this ‘fire of the west’ from the ‘river of fire, in which fire flows down like water and discharges into the great sea of the west’ that is mentioned in 1 Enoch 17:5. 48

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luminaries (ton kosmon tôn phôstêrôn)’ (1 En 20:4). For the author of the introduction 1 En 23:4 is a reference to the punishment of all the stars.49 Again we see here the tendency to move in the direction of Jubilees, where cosmic regeneration and re-creation after the Flood requires the existence of generalized sinfulness before the Flood. The same kind of inflation has taken place here as in the reference to ‘the stars and the hosts of heaven’ that was inserted in the derived account of the punishment of the seven stars at the end of the first journey (1 En 18:14). A good indication of the ability of those who assembled the Book of the Watchers to accept internal contradiction is the way Enoch’s vision of ‘the fire of the west, which provides all the sunsets’ (1 En 17:4) during the first journey becomes ‘the fire of the west, which pursues all the luminaries of heaven’ (1 En 23:4) in the second. The author of the verse seems not to have noticed that the effect of this is to bring the punishment of the stars inside the visible universe, whereas in 1 En 21:1–6 it takes place outside.

A greater interest in justice There are only two expressions of interest in divine justice in the original form of the first journey. The first is implied in the obscure reference at the beginning to beings who ‘were like a flaming fire; and whenever they wished, they appeared as human beings’ (1 En 17:1). The second is the explication of this verse as the punishment of the fallen Watchers in 1 En 18:10–11 and 19:1–2. Here the origin of human sinfulness is traced only to the fall of the Watchers and its consequences. In the second journey, however, the question of divine retribution – in both its positive and negative aspect – is the subject of not only chapter 21, where the punishment of the stars and Watchers is described, but of large sections of chapters 22–27 as well. In these chapters the focus is on God’s justice with regard to individual humans and the decisions they make. The way the author categorises sinners and righteous reflects an increased interest in the fate of individuals and recalls Jubilees’ focus on human agency, even if the eschatological thrust of the chapters diverges markedly from Jubilees’ rather more worldly understanding of the ultimate destiny of mankind. According to Nickelsburg: ‘The author of this section asserts God’s justice in spite of its evident absence among

For a survey of the various attempts to interpret these verses see Nickelsburg (2001), 310–11. 49

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those who suffer or prosper wrongly …’50 These chapters therefore differ markedly from Jubilees, where ‘there is no injustice’ (Jub 5:13). Throughout the second journey the expectation is that for human beings definitive judgment and punishment or reward will take place only in the eschaton, as is the case with the fallen angels in 1 En 21:7– 10. Again this differs from Jubilees’ view that God’s justice is constantly manifesting itself in this world. Thus in the second journey the basic attitude of the earlier tradition towards the justice of God remains in place even after the post-diluvian cosmology of Jubilees has been introduced. This lack of consistency within and between texts is a recurrent feature of the Enochian tradition. During the second journey Enoch sees a beautiful and pleasing tree and Uriel explains to him that this is ‘the tree of wisdom from which your father of old and our mother of old, who were before you, ate and learned wisdom. And their eyes were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they were driven from the garden’ (1 En 32:6). The story of Adam and Eve is rarely mentioned in the Enochic tradition, and nothing is made of it here. There is no suggestion that their sin is the cause of sin in the present age as in Sirach (Sir 25:24). The story of Adam and Eve is dealt with at length, however, in Jubilees 3:1–35, which suggests that its introduction in the second journey may be another gesture in the direction of a Judaism that was more focused on the text of the Hebrew Bible than was the Enochian tradition.

The second journey and the cosmology of Jubilees VanderKam compares in detail the cosmology of chapters 33–36 and the cosmology of the Astronomical Book. He concludes that there are ‘marked similarities’ in the material they present and that ‘[a] stronger case can be made that 1 Enoch 33–36 draws on chapters 72–82 than that chapters 17–19 do. The connections are especially strong with the contents of chapter 76. These he has blended with his own contributions, giving it the form of a travelogue punctuated with praise. It is not impossible that at some point in the evolution of 1 Enoch the Book of the Watchers in its present form was followed directly by a shortened form of the Astronomical Book. In this case 1 Enoch 33–36 would have served as preparation for the more detailed contents of 1 Enoch 72–82.’51 Nickelsburg (2001), 292. VanderKam (2012), 393.

50 51

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The final conflagration in 2 Peter We have already examined 2 Pet 3:5–7 as regards what is said there about the state of the world after the Flood and concluded that its author seems to have deliberately omitted any reference to the ‘wandering stars’.52 2 Pet 3:8–13 then goes on to describe the eschaton in greater detail and helps confirm this analysis. The earlier mythology was gradually being dismantled by the end of the first century ce. The text of 2 Pet 3:8–13 as translated in the NRSV is given below with some of the more important Greek words inserted: (8) But do not ignore this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like one day. (9) The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some think of slowness, but is patient with you, not wanting any to perish, but all to come to repentance. (10) But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away (oi ouranoi pareleusontai) with a loud noise, and the elements (stoicheia) will be dissolved with fire (kausoumena luthêsetai), and the earth and everything that is done on it (ta en autê erga) will be disclosed (eurethêsetai).53 (11) Since all these things are to be dissolved in this way (toutôn oun outôs pantôn luomenôn), what sort of people ought you to be in leading lives of holiness and godliness, (12) waiting for and hastening the coming (tên parousian) of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set ablaze and dissolved (puroumenoi luthêsontai), and the elements (stoicheia) will melt with fire (kausoumena têketai)? (13) But, in accordance with his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness is at home. (2 Pet 3:8–13)

The NRSV translation of stoicheia as ‘the elements’ in 2 Pet 3:10 and 3:12 assumes that the author is thinking in Stoic terms of an ekpurôsis, or ‘conflagration’, that resolves all four ‘elements’ of the world into fire and brings each cycle of the world’s existence to an end. As Bauckham points out, however, a mention of the ‘elements’ between a reference first to ‘the heavens’ and then to ‘the earth’ seems out of place, while in his view the fact that in 2 Pet 3:12 stoicheia corresponds to pasai ai dunameis in the

See above, p. 79; cf. pp. 108-9. Literally ‘will be found’, which the NRSV takes to be a ‘divine passive’ meaning ‘will be found by God’. In the eschaton mankind’s deeds ‘will be made/become manifest’. See Bauckham (1983), 319. 52 53

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Rewritten Tradition in the Book of the Watchers

Codex Vaticanus and Lucianic recension of Isa 34:4 (LXX) – ‘All the powers of heaven shall melt (takêsontai)’ – ‘is decisive against this view.’54 The alternative favoured by Bauckham and most commentators is that stoicheia refers here to ‘heavenly bodies (sun, moon and stars)’.55 The fact that stoicheia refers ‘especially’ to the planets56 raises the possibility that it means that here. If it does, however, this would suggest that the author of 2 Peter is still thinking in terms of a future punishment of the ‘wandering stars’ of Jude 13. We have shown, however, that this is unlikely because of the way he has carefully avoided mentioning the ‘wanderers’ in 2 Pet 2:17 If there is internal consistency here it would seem to indicate, therefore, that the author of 2 Peter does not accept the need for a special punishment of the planets at the end of the present age. All the heavenly luminaries will be dissolved in fire at the end of the age, with no distinction being made between the obedient and the disobedient. 2 Peter will then have ‘corrected’ Jude on this important point and offered a cosmology that is more acceptable to his contemporaries. The conflagration described in 2 Pet 3:10 and 3:12 would then provide a suitable source for the fire that is consuming the seven stars in 1 En 18:12–16/21:1–6. This vision has always been a problem, since it is taking place so soon after the stars were created. A general conflagration of the heavens is always associated with the end of the age – as in 2 Pet 3:7 – and punishment by fire is normally associated with the eschaton, as in 1 En 19:1/21:7–10. Thus the punishment of the seven stars by fire in 1 En 18:12–16/21:1–6 is but one more example of relocation in the past of what one might expect to take place in the future – something that was done to such effect in Jubilees. Only Jude preserves the earlier tradition and puts the punishment of the stars at the end of the age, but without telling us how they will be punished. In 2 Peter all the stars will be consumed by fire, but as part of a general conflagration and not because a certain number of them have individually sinned.

Summary When compared with the first journey the most significant element of the second journey is Enoch’s vision of the punishment of the seven Bauckham (1983), 316. Bauckham (1983), 316. 56 See LSJ, s.v. stoicheion, II.4. 54 55

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Rewritten Tradition in the Book of the Watchers

planets, which has the effect of pushing back into the past the end of their apostasy. The fact that this innovation begins the second journey and heads a chain of Stichwörter suggests that this innovation was uppermost in the author’s mind. In the earlier form of the tradition that survives in Jude 13 their rebellion continued even after the Flood and both they and the demons remained apostate powers that would not be brought under God’s control until the end of the age. As a result, before the great day of judgment God’s righteousness and justice are visible neither on earth nor in the heavens. Those who revised the Book of the Watchers did not seek to remove all trace of the earlier cosmology. Anticipation of dramatic worldchanging events at the end of the age does not disappear. The present age unfolds against a cosmic background in which the basic features of the natural world reflect God’s concern for mankind. Nature as whole is subservient to God, even if the spirits of the Giants are not. The reader of the Book of the Watchers is encouraged to think that the cosmic renewal carried out by God at the time of the Flood was generally successful and that any further cosmic upheaval will take place only at the end of the age.

Looking forward to the Astronomical Book The brief account of Enoch’s first journey in 1 En 17:1–8 was supplemented in 1 En 18:1–5 with a short summary of the kind of knowledge that Uriel reveals to Enoch in the Astronomical Book. Nickelsburg believes that this material ‘presum[es] the extensive journeys through the cosmos detailed in chapters 72–77’ of the Astronomical Book.57 Even if the earliest description of Enoch’s journey through the heavens in 1 En 17:1–8 does not show such close links to the Astronomical Book, it nevertheless shares the same worldview and assumes that Enoch has travelled through the heavens and seen things that humans normally cannot see. Enoch’s first journey ends when Uriel explains to him the significance of the pillars of fire he sees at the very edge of the earth (1 En 19:1). This is the first time that Uriel has been mentioned. The presence of Uriel at the end of the earlier form of the Book of the Watchers suggests that even before the addition of a second journey the two works were thought of as forming a pair. This impression is strengthened by the way Enoch’s second journey is brought to a close in verses 33:1–36:4 by an even more extensive sum Nickelsburg (2001), 278.

57

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mary of chapters 72–77. Here, as in the Astronomical Book, the Babylonian term, ‘gates’, is used for the first time to refer to the portals through which the heavenly bodies appear and disappear. The introduction of this term is significant because in the first journey ‘gates’ are not mentioned. Only ‘treasuries’ appear. The use of ‘gates’ in this technical sense suggests that the author of the second journey had the content of the Astronomical Book in mind when supplementing the first. Nickelsburg points out that 1 En 34:1–36:3 ‘looks like a summary of what is now chapter 76, which describes the twelve gates of the wind.’58 Through its construction – beginning with Uriel and ending with cosmological information – the second journey seems to point the reader in the direction of the much more detailed information that the Astronomical Book provides.

58

Nickelsburg (2001), 331.

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CHAPTER TEN THE GRADUAL GROWTH OF THE BOOK OF THE WATCHERS

Having considered the Book of the Watchers in terms of its gradual approximation to the cosmology found in Jubilees we are now in a position to attempt a sketch of its development. The different sections will be summarized briefly and their place in the work’s evolution assessed, and then this schema will be compared with the manuscript evidence provided by the Qumran fragments. What we have found thus far suggests that the different sections of the Book of the Watchers can be divided into three groups on the basis of their relation to the original cosmology and place in the probable development of the work. These groups are set out in Table 2. Table 2: The Growth of the Book of the Watchers Group 1

Group 2

Group 3

Enoch and the Watchers: the core tradition

Additional passages that do not affect cosmology

Revisions that affect cosmology

1:1–9 2:1–5:4 5:5–9 6:1–6, 7:1–6 6:7–8 8:1–8:4 9:1–10:14

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The Gradual Growth of the Book of the Watchers

Group 1

Group 2

Group 3

Enoch and the Watchers: the core tradition

Additional passages that do not affect cosmology

Revisions that affect cosmology

10:15–11:2 12:1–16:4 17:1–18:11 18:12–16 19:1–3 20:1–36:4

Group One: The Early Work 1 En 6:1–7:6: The Conspiracy of the Angels and the Birth of the Giants This section does not mention Enoch and reflects a mythological understanding of primeval history that is just touched upon briefly in Gen 6:1–4,1 where Enoch is also not mentioned at all. These chapters are not, as Nickelsburg suggests, ‘in some sense, an interpretation of Genesis’, even if the author is aware of the Genesis account. The list of the leaders’ names in verses 6:7–8 are probably a later addition, since the earliest traditions seem to have avoided such details.2 Nickelsburg is probably correct when he argues that the list of things the fallen Watchers taught mankind in 1 En 8:1–3 is ‘secondary to the narrative in chapters 6–11.’3

1 En 9:1–10:14: The Intervention of the Four Archangels In this section Enoch is not mentioned either. 1 En 9:1 picks up from 1 En 8:4, which is itself a reprise of 1 En 7:6. In this section the fate of the fallen Watchers is set out: they will be buried under the earth and punished at the end of the age – ‘on the day of the great judgment.’ It agrees with 1 En 15:1–16:1 about the initial sin of the Watchers but says Kvanvig (2011), 293. But cf. Nickelsburg (2001), 178. 3 Nickelsburg (2001), 190. 1 2

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The Gradual Growth of the Book of the Watchers

nothing about the fate of the spirits of the Giants, which is covered in 1 En 15:8–16:1.

1 En 12:1–16:4: Enoch and the Watchers The initial verses of this section (1 En 12:1–2) mention Enoch for the first time. This suggests that the story of the fall of the Watchers is the basis of the whole account, into which Enoch must now be introduced. ‘Before these things, Enoch was taken’ looks sideways at Gen 5:24: ‘Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him’, but the figure of Enoch we find is not simply an extrapolation of the brief Genesis account of his life. He brings with him a legendary background that has its roots in the story of the Babylonian seer Enmeduranki.4 1 En 13:1–3 are probably another interpolation, since 1 En 13:4 follows on smoothly from 1 En 12:6. They and verses 1 En 16:2–4 introduce the concern with eschatological peace that we found in the Introduction to the work and in the Epistle of Enoch.5 The comments that accompany Enoch’s introduction also serve to establish his credentials as a seer of divine visions and serve to justify his presence at this stage in the narrative: ‘His works were with the watchers,/ and with the holy ones were his days’ (1 En 12:2). The author is probably again looking sideways at the Hebrew Bible, where he takes the words in Gen 5:22 and 24 that are usually translated as ‘Enoch walked with God’ (yithallek ’et ha-’elohim) to mean that he ‘walked with the gods’, that is, ‘with the angels’. This is enough to explain his possession of extraordinary knowledge. The whole of this section no doubt has a complicated history and probably developed in stages. Taken as a whole it serves to link Enoch closely with the story of the fallen Watchers and thus justifies his ending his first journey with a vision of the place where they will eventually be punished (1 En 18:10–11; 19:1–2).

1 En 17:1–18:11 and 19:1–3: Enoch’s First Journey to the Ends of the Earth In her study of the cosmology of the Book of the Watchers Newsom concluded that ‘the redactor who included this material [17–19] clearly intended to attach it to chapters 12–16.’6 When the intrusive reference See VanderKam (1995), 7–10. See above, pp. 130-31. 6 Newsom (1980), 323. 4 5

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The Gradual Growth of the Book of the Watchers

to the punishment of the stars in 1 En 18:12–16 has been removed, this section ends with a vision of the place where the Watchers will eventually be punished, thus linking Enoch’s involvement with the Watchers with his role as a source of astronomical knowledge. At the close of this section Enoch justifies his authority in cosmological matters by declaring that ‘I, Enoch, alone saw the visions, the extremities of all things. And no one among humans has seen as I saw’ (1 En 19:3). Already at this point the Book of the Watchers was referencing the knowledge Enoch reveals in the Astronomical Book.

Group Two: Additions Which Do Not Affect the Work’s Cosmology 1 En 1:1–9 and 5:5–9: The Introduction These verses form a unit that is closer in vocabulary and spirit to the Epistle of Enoch (1 En 92–105) than to the rest of the Book of the Watchers except for the insertions in 1 En 13:1–3 and 16:2–4. It was already in place before the ‘Nature Homily’(1 En 2:1–5:4) was inserted in order to help align the work’s cosmology with that of Jubilees.

1 En 6:7–8: The Names of the Fallen Watchers The list of twenty ‘chiefs’ of the Watchers, ‘framed by a superscription and subscription’, like the list of names inserted in chapter 20, seems to be an insertion. Nickelsburg, however, thinks that ‘nothing in the present text indicates that the list is a secondary addition to the story.’7 Though a majority of the angels’ names relate to astronomical, meteorological, and geographical phenomena there is nothing in the list that relates it to the changes introduced in Stage Three. Drawnel points out that the statement that ‘These are their chiefs of ten’ in 1 En 6:8 links the list to the list of angel names at the end of the Astronomical Book (1 En 82:9–20) and comments that ‘the chiefs of tens seem to stand in a subordinate position to the heads of thousands [in 1 En 82:11–12].’8 1 En 82:11–12 is now generally considered to be an addition to the Astronomical Book.9 Nickelsburg (2001), 178. Drawnel (2011), 407. 9 See below, pp. 258-61. 7 8

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The Gradual Growth of the Book of the Watchers

1 En 8:1–4: The Teaching of the Watchers Nickelsburg considers 1 En 8:1–3 a ‘digression’ and that 1 En 8:4, which repeats the content of 1 En 7:6, ‘must have been inserted when this chapter was added in order to continue the flow of the narrative’.10 1 En 8:1–2 refers to the technical skills taught by the Watchers and seems to imply a connection between them and human sinfulness. 1 En 8:3 speaks of the Watchers’ instruction in astral divination and what one might be tempted call, as Nickelsburg admits, ‘the black arts’. It is noticeable that no element of the angels’ teaching is explicitly condemned. The reference to their teaching the ‘signs’ of the sun and the moon implies that these bodies are thought to move as they move today, something that is consonant with both the original cosmology after the rebellion of the planets and the post-Flood cosmology of Jubilees.

Group Three: Additions Designed to Modify the Work’s Cosmology 1 En 2:1–5:4: The ‘Nature Homily’ In this interpolated passage the reader is invited to think of the natural world in its present state as entirely under the control of God, as in the post-Flood cosmology of Jubilees.

1 En 10:15–11:2: An Addition to the Commissioning of Archangel Michael By telling Michael to ‘[d]estroy all the spirits of the half-breeds’ in 1 En 10:15 God is, in effect, ordering him carry out an even more radical cleansing of the earth than God agreed to in Jub 10:7. The description of the renewed earth and life of blessedness to be enjoyed by mankind after the imprisonment of the fallen Watchers and the destruction of the spirits of the Giants suits very well the cosmology of Jub 1:29 and 5:12. Without 1 En 10:15–11:2, however, the whole of 1 En 9:1–11:2 conforms to the original cosmology.

10

Nickelsburg (2001), 201.

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The Gradual Growth of the Book of the Watchers

Chapter 18:12–16: The Punishment of the Seven Stars This ‘doublet’ of the same scene in the Second Journey (21:1–6) is out of place and interrupts the journey’s trajectory, which no longer runs smoothly to its climax in Enoch’s vision of the place where the fallen Watchers will eventually be punished. It seems designed to link the first journey to the second and give even greater prominence to God’s having brought to an end the rebellion of the planets.

1 En 20:1–36:4: Enoch’s Second Journey through the Heavens Enoch’s second journey begins with his vision of the punishment of the fallen stars. It was designed to follow on smoothly from the first journey as the story of his return and at the same time make Enoch’s vision of the punishment of the seven planets in a realm outside the visible universe the furthest point the prophet reaches. The punishment of the rebellious planets in or before the Flood is required by the cosmology of Jubilees since it ensures that the heavens we see today move in accordance with God’s will. The fact that according to the cosmology of Jubilees this was achieved by a ‘new creation’ at the time of the Flood and not shortly after the first creation does not concern the author, who does not seem to have been influenced by Jubilees’ ‘new creation’ in this respect.

The Three Groups and the Aramaic Fragments Fragments of four manuscripts containing parts of the Book of the Watchers were found at Qumran. Their contents are summarized below as presented by Nickelsburg in the Introduction to his edition of the Book of the Watchers, the Dream Visions, and the Epistle of Enoch.11 Scholars quickly noticed that the Book of Parables is not represented in any of the Qumran texts, a fairly good indication that the collection as we have today it did not originate at Qumran but was assembled by members of another strand of the 364-day calendar tradition. The manuscripts are helpful in that they enable us to determine the terminus ad quem for individual ‘booklets’. 4QEnocha ar (4Q201): Fragments of five of six columns containing 1 Enoch 1–10 and perhaps 11. It was dated by Milik to the first half of the second century bce. Nickelsburg (2001), 9–11.

11

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The Gradual Growth of the Book of the Watchers

This manuscript, which contains material from all three stages of the work’s development, provides an ad quem date for the completion of the process of revision except for the addition of the second journey (1 En 20:1–36:4).

4QEnochb ar (4Q202): Fragments from four of six columns containing 1 Enoch 5–10 and 14. Dated by Milik to the middle of the second century bce. This manuscript seems to represent a later version of the material in 4Q201.

4QEnochc ar (4Q204): Fragments from eleven of an indeterminate number of columns representing parts of chapters 1–6, 10, 13–15, 18, 31–32, 35–36, plus chapters 89 from the Second Dream Vision and 104–07 of the Epistle of Enoch together with its related Noachic material, and the Book of the Giants. There are no fragments from the Astronomical Book, which was probably still being copied as a separate text. Ascribed by Milik to a ‘professional and skilled scribe’ and dated to the last third of the first century bce. In this manuscript the whole of the work appears alongside other Enochian texts for the first time in a form related to the 1 Enoch known to us from the Ethiopic version.

4QEnochd ar (4Q205): Fragments from five columns containing material from chapters 22, 25–27, and 89. Milik considered it to be a more or less contemporary copy of 4Q204. If 4Q205 is a copy of 4Q204 then it seems likely that by the time these manuscripts were written this combination of texts had achieved some sort of normative character.

4QEnoche ar (4Q206): Fragments from eight columns containing part of chapters 20–22, 28–29, 31–34, 88–89 from the Second Dream Vision, and a fragment of the Book of the Giants. Dated by Milik to the first half of the first century bce. This manuscript again offers a combination of texts as do 4Q204 and 4Q205.

4QEnochf (4Q207): A single fragment with parts of chapter 86:1–3 from the Second Dream Vision. Dated by Milik to 150–25 bce.

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The Gradual Growth of the Book of the Watchers

4QEnochg ar (4Q212): Fragments from five columns corresponding to chapters 91:10–94:2 in the Epistle of Enoch. Dated by Cross to the last half of the first century bce, though Milik prefers the middle of the century. These two manuscripts do not add to our understanding of the history of the text.

When did the Book of the Watchers reach its present form? While almost all the evidence for the Aramaic text of the Book of the Watchers postdates the composition of Jubilees shortly after 164 bce, the presence of all three stages of redaction in 4QEnocha (4Q201), which according to Milik was written in the first half of the second century bce but with orthographic features leading him to conclude that it might have been copied from a manuscript ‘dating from the third century at the very least’, suggests that the revision of its original cosmology took place some time before Jubilees was written. This is probably what one would expect. In Jubilees the revised cosmology appears as a paradigm toward which the cosmology of the earlier tradition is being moved. Its author is not an astronomer and it is extremely unlikely that he was involved in devising the revised cosmological scheme, which will probably have been adopted in the strand of the tradition to which he belonged at some earlier stage. The changes in the original understanding of the presence of God’s justice in the world that Hanneken found in Jubilees probably took place alongside the changes in cosmology. The turn towards Ben Sira and Zadokite Judaism that we see in Jubilees will be a later reflection of this development that shows resistance to Hellenisation on the one hand but acceptance of the need to accommodate the 364-day calendar tradition to the prevailing cosmology of the time. Most inhabitants of Palestine under the Seleucids would probably have found the earlier cosmology difficult to accept. This cultural change is also reflected in the abandonment of the myth of a cosmic covenant and the myth of an apostasy of the ‘wanderers’. Jubilees attitude to the presence of God’s justice in the world reflects these changes as well, since it requires that the apostasy of the seven planets be brought to an end.

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The Gradual Growth of the Book of the Watchers

Summary The analysis carried out thus far of the Book of the Watchers against the background of the gradually changing shape of the 364-day calendar tradition has shown that its present form reveals that at a certain point one strand of the tradition felt it necessary to modify a hitherto authoritative text in order to bring it into line with the kind of cosmology represented by Jubilees. In the ‘Nature Homily’ of 1 En 2:1–5:4, in God’s instructions to Michael in 1 En 10:15–11:2, and in Enoch’s vision of the punishment of the seven Wanderers in 1 En 18:12-16/21:1-6 we are being told that after the Flood God reasserted his control over creation. The pessimistic assessment of the position of man in the world conveyed by the earlier tradition is rejected and the notion that the spirits of the Giants survive as free and marauding demons is abandoned. The earlier form of the 364-day calendar tradition was founded on a creation myth according to which God created the angels before creating the visible world and entered into a covenantal relationship with them. A myth of cosmic disobedience on the part of both the Watchers and the angels responsible for the wandering stars served to explain the rise of sinfulness before the Flood and the loss of a true understanding of the original movements of the heavens and its attendant calendar. For some – perhaps the majority – of the tradents of the tradition, however, the cosmic covenant lost its relevance and its place was taken by God’s covenant with Noah. In Jubilees 2:2 the creation of the angels on the first day is described but never mentioned again and the cosmic covenant is never mentioned at all. Nor does Jubilees mention the apostasy of the seven planets. If someone had not taken the trouble to rework the Book of the Watchers and show their rebellion being brought to an end we might never have known that it took place. Jubilees is determined to show through its doctrine of a ‘new creation’ that no rebellion other that of human beings survived the Flood. In Jubilees the rebellion of the Watchers is described in detail, as is the devastation brought about by the Giants. After the Flood, however, the Watchers and the Giants have either been imprisoned or destroyed, while the spirits of the Giants that are still active are turned into instruments of divine justice. Nevertheless, in Jubilees the 364-day calendar continues to be defended as divine revelation even though it does not reflect the reality of the re-created world. The reason for this is no doubt to be found in the universal experience of mankind: liturgical traditions and their calen-

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The Gradual Growth of the Book of the Watchers

dars continue to be followed faithfully even when the beliefs and understanding that originally underpinned them have withered away. Without the help of Jude’s reference to the punishment of the planets at the end of the present age and the coincidence of Sunday with the Festival of Oaths/Weeks in the Jubilees/Qumran liturgical calendar it would be difficult if not impossible to see how the tradition developed over time. Hanneken’s analysis of the changes Jubilees introduced into the mythology of the Book of the Watchers has been crucial. The way that the revised Book of the Watchers replicates what he found in Jubilees confirms his insights into the way Jubilees has subtly undermined the earlier tradition while at the same time suggesting continuity. In this respect both Jubilees and the Book of the Watchers enable us to access the theological and cultural ferment that characterized late Second Temple Judaism. The fact that the author of Jude 13 still believed that the punishment of the fallen planets had not yet taken place shows that nevertheless in certain circles the earlier tradition lived on. The acceptance of internal development within the 364-day calendar tradition has enabled us to understand how the contradictions present in the Book of the Watchers arose. Since the Book of the Watchers expects its readers to have the Astronomical Book to hand we will now turn to the Astronomical Book to see if the notion of internal development within the 364-day tradition can help us to understand the tensions and contradictions within that work as well.

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CHAPTER ELEVEN URIEL PREDICTS THE APOSTASY OF THE PLANETS

Although we began with an investigation of the liturgical week, the problems uncovered have led us to consider other issues as well. The first was the alternative creation narrative in Jubilees. This led in turn to the recognition that one of the foundations of the 364-day calendar tradition was the mythical notion of a cosmic covenant binding the angels to carry out God’s will by governing the natural world on his behalf. This led us to consider two texts in the Book of the Watchers (1 En 18:12– 16/21:1–6) that refer the rebellion of seven stars – apparently the seven planets of the pre-Copernican world. Turning to Jude we then saw that when he refers to their apostasy he places their punishment at the end of the present age, even though in the Book of the Watchers Enoch sees them being punished not long after the creation of the world. In our search for an explanation of this disagreement we first looked more carefully at the cosmology and theology of Jude and then contrasted these with those of Jubilees, which Hanneken and others had shown to differ markedly from that of the Book of the Watchers. In the course of this investigation we saw that the myth of a ‘new creation’ at the time of the Flood was enough to explain the major differences between the theology and cosmology of Jubilees and the Book of the Watchers, according to which – as in Jude – the world is not brought back under God’s complete control after the Flood. Bearing in mind the techniques that Hanneken found had been used by Jubilees to subvert and revise the earlier traditions found in the Book of the Watchers, we then looked carefully at the contradictions and inconsistencies within the work itself and concluded that an attempt had been made within the text to bring it into line with the form of the tradition found in Jubilees. And finally, because of the close links between

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Uriel Predicts the Apostasy of the Planets

the Book of the Watchers and the Astronomical Book we raised the possibility that something similar had taken place there as well. Hanneken was able to see the changes that Jubilees introduced into the story of the Watchers because he was able to compare what was said in the Book of the Watchers with what is said in Jubilees. The ‘before’ and the ‘after’ were available. The situation is different in the case of the Astronomical Book, however, since although we can assume that after their apostasy the ‘wanderers’ began to move as we see them move today, it is not at all clear how they moved when first created. This information can nevertheless be extracted from chapter 80 of the Astronomical Book, a chapter that most scholars agree was not part of the work to begin with. We shall examine 1 En 80:2–8 and show that it describes – from the point of view of someone following the 364-day calendar – what would happen if the seven planets abandoned the cosmic covenant and began to move as we see them move today. In doing so it also tells us how God intended them to move ‘from the beginning’ and when it was that they fell.

1 En 80:1–8: An Incongruous Text Chapter 80 begins with a declaration by archangel Uriel that he has now told Enoch all there is to know about the movements of the heavens: At that time Uriel the angel responded to me: ‘Enoch, I have now shown you everything, and I have revealed everything to you so that you may see this sun and this moon and those who lead the stars of the sky and all those who turn them – their work, their times, and their emergences.’ (1 En 80:1)

This verse looks very much as if it was intended to summarise the content of the whole work. For Drawnel 1 En 80:1 ‘constitutes yet another concluding remark.’1 Yet not only does it follow a similar summary in 1 En 79:1–2, but it is then followed by two more summaries in 1 En 81:1–2 and 82:1–3. There is a literary problem here that will need to be addressed at a later stage. What is most significant about 1 En 80:2–8, however, is that it contradicts what is said at the beginning of the Astronomical Book, where Enoch spells out what the subject matter of his work will be: ‘The book Drawnel (2011), 45.

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about the motion of the heavenly luminaries, all as they are in their kinds, their jurisdiction, their times, their name, their origins, and their months … how every year of the world will be for ever, until a new creation lasting for ever is made’ (1 En 72:1). These words do not encourage us to expect that catastrophic changes in the heavens will be described as well. As VanderKam says, although the introduction ‘… mentions a new creation, [it] says nothing about destruction before it or about judgment on humanity prior to the arrival of a changed order.’2 Nevertheless, the chapter 80:2–8 speaks of nothing other than cosmic apostasy, change, and destruction. When Uriel then goes on to say ominously that ‘In the days of the sinners the years will grow shorter …’ (1 En 80:2), he again openly contradicts what Enoch said in his introduction, since Enoch does not expect the years to grow shorter or change in any way. Finally the archangel makes it clear at the end of chapter 80 that the disturbances in the heavens will be so great that mankind will to cease to understand ‘the entire law of the stars’ (1 En 80:7). In this chapter there is a real sense of chaos and cosmic collapse that is completely absent elsewhere in the Astronomical Book. For VanderKam the whole of chapter 80 ‘differs in content and vocabulary from the previous chapters’3 and he concludes that because it ‘stands in tension with the rest of the book which presupposes unchanging patterns for the luminaries and speaks of sinners only in connection with those who fail to reckon the four extra days in a solar year’ this section ‘stands out from the others and could be an addition’.4 In his first edition Charles had already concluded that because the attitude to change in chapter 80 differs so greatly from that found elsewhere it should be treated as extraneous to the original work.5 When no fragments from chapters 80 and 81 were found at Qumran, even though it was possible to identify fragments from both chapters 79 and 82, his assessment seemed to be confirmed.6 Dillmann, on the other hand, thought that 1 En 80:2–8 was an attempt to account for why the observed heavens do not follow the pattern laid out in chapters 72–79. He also believed that the disturbances VanderKam (2012), 529. VanderKam (2012), 522. 4 Nickelsburg and VanderKam (2004), 7. 5 Charles (1893–95), 187–88; Charles (1912), xlix, 147–48. 6 See the discussion in VanderKam (2012), 359–67, where he concludes that ‘Chapters 80–81 belong to an editorial layer or layers in which a redactor or redactors joined the astronomical sections with other parts of the Enochic corpus.’ 2 3

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Uriel Predicts the Apostasy of the Planets

described in 1 En 80:2–6 were the result of God’s reaction to human sins referred to in the phrase ‘in the times of the sinners’ and specifically excluded the possibility that the changes described were the result of sin on the part of the angels.7 He found in this passage a theological stance similar to that found in the Hebrew Bible, where cosmic disturbances are sometimes ascribed to human sin.8 Dillmann’s approach underestimates the extent to which the 364day calendar tradition locates the origin of sinful behaviour outside mankind. In the Book of the Watchers attention is centred on the fall of the angels and its effects and no attention is paid to the sin of Adam and Eve, while in Jubilees the accumulation of sin before the Flood and the subsequent activity of evil spirits is ascribed directly to the fall of the Watchers. Although the disobedience of Adam and Eve is carefully described in Jub 3:15–31, it is never linked to future sin. Dillmann’s approach also has the effect – against all normal expectation – of turning the grave calendrical errors mentioned in 1 En 80:7 into the result of changes in the natural order brought about by God. VanderKam has nevertheless followed Dillmann’s lead. In his opinion chapter 80 ‘merely presents a picture of cosmic disintegration or confusion at the time of the end, “in the days of the sinners”.’9 He concludes that chapter 80 ‘speaks of human depravity but in a novel way: human depravity will lead to nature’s disobedience to the creators’ laws.’10 Yet not only is this contrary to the whole spirit of the Book of the Watchers, where depravity begins in heaven, but it does not take into account the fact that nowhere in 1 En 80:2–8 is it actually said say that these disturbances will be caused by human sin. All that is said is that they will take place ‘in the days of the sinners’. It does not tell us who these sinners were or when they lived. Unfortunately Neugebauer thought chapter 80 was eschatological fantasy and did not offer an astronomical interpretation.11 Ben-Dov also considers it to be ‘non-astronomical material’.12 He believes the narra Dillmann (1853), 243–44. Cf. Am 8:7–9; Jer 3:2–3; 5:24–25; 14:14–22. 9 VanderKam (1981), 57, n. 20. 10 VanderKam (2006), 354; (2012), 523; so too Black (1985), 252, and Albani (1994), 112–29. 11 Neugebauer (1985), 411: ‘an intrusion of non-astronomical material: apocalyptic.’ 12 Ben-Dov (2008), 102. 7 8

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tive to be ‘apocalyptic’ and does not discuss it.13 Saulnier does give it cosmological content, however, arguing that 1 En 80:2–8 describes what will happen if the wrong point in the lunar cycle is used to calculate the beginning of the year.14 Drawnel believes that ‘the disorder in nature caused by sin is manifestly an addition’ and does not discuss its astronomical and calendrical implications.15 In what follows no attempt will be made to consider the great number of suggestions that have been made about individual verses in this passage. Instead, an interpretation will be offered that correlates it with the four founding myths of the 364-day calendar tradition: the myth of the creation of the angels on the first day, the myth of the cosmic covenant and oath, the myth of the fall of the angel Watchers, and the myth of the apostasy of seven ‘wanderers’. Alternative explanations will occasionally be referred to in the course of the discussion.

A lived reality Saulnier rightly says of 1 En 80:2–8 that ‘[t]here emanates from this passage … a sense of experienced reality. What the author/editor is describing is a discrepancy between the calendar, and its expected seasonal periods on the one hand, and an experienced reality on the other.’16 Beckwith had already come to this conclusion, as had Kvanvig.17 Beckwith points out – with Dillmann – that ‘it is a striking feature of this prophecy that practically all the phenomena it describes could be explained by the continued observance of a calendar which made the year 1¼ days too short.’ Olson notes that ‘all the calamities mentioned here involve timing. No real meltdown of the natural order is described.’18 As far as he is concerned, even if all the changes described took place, nature as a whole would function as it had functioned before.19 For all these scholars this passage gives the impression of a vaticinium ex eventu. Ben-Dov (2008), 71. Saulnier (2012), 227–29. 15 Drawnel (2011), 10. 16 Saulnier (2012), 111. 17 Beckwith (1970), 392–93; Kvanvig (1988), 74–75. 18 Olson (2004), 176. 19 VanderKam (2012), 363, takes issue with Olson on this point, arguing that ‘nature itself changes.’ But in fact the seasons of the agricultural year would change only because they would no longer come at their proper times according to the 364-day calendar. They would be just as long and occur in their proper order as before. 13

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The prophesied events have already occurred and the heavens we observe do not move in conformity with the will of God. If we now read this chapter in the light of the founding myths of the 364-day calendar tradition while bearing in mind that it describes the world we experience when seen from the point of view of someone who believes that the 364-day calendar is part of God’s revelation to Israel, we will find that 1 En 80:2–8 offers us a clear picture of what the apostasy of the seven planets would mean for a society in which most of the population worked on the land. Unfortunately no Greek version of this passage has survived and no Aramaic fragments have come to light at Qumran. Thus any interpretation must rely on an Ethiopic version that presents a number of difficulties. VanderKam’s translation is given below with any changes noted. Having said in 1 En 80:1 that Enoch has been shown everything about the workings of the heavenly luminaries, Uriel then goes on without a break to announce their future collapse: (80) (2) In the days of the sinners the years20 will grow shorter, their seed will become late on their land and in their fields. Everything on the earth will change and will not appear at their (appointed)21 times, the rain will be withheld, and the sky will retain it.22 (3) At those times the fruit of the earth will be late and will not grow at its (appointed) time, 20 ‘Years’ is the translation preferred by Dillmann (1853), 50, and has generally been used ever since. It also appears in Nickelsburg and VanderKam (2004), 110. In VanderKam (2012), 523–24, however, this has become ‘rainy seasons’ – a possible meaning – on the grounds that the remainder of this unit focuses on lack of rainfall and other agricultural woes and that the word for ‘year’ used elsewhere in the Astronomical Book is ‘āmat and not keramāt as here. ‘Years’ is to be kept, however, since it relates this passage directly to the calendar and its ‘appointed times’, the primary focus of the Astronomical Book. 21 I have inserted ‘(appointed)’ here and in verses 3 and 4 to counteract the impression that we know what was ‘normal’ for the stars when first created that is given by VanderKam’s insertion of ‘(normal)’ in verses 3 (twice), 4, and in his expansion of verse 5. The ‘times’ referred to are those fixed by God in the beginning (cf. ‘prescribed’ in 1 En 80:6) and enshrined as laws of nature in the cosmic covenant. 22 Cf. Jer 3:3. So Charles (2013), ‘withhold it’; Rabin (1984), ‘retain it’. ‘Will stand still’ is well attested, however, and is followed by Olson (2004), 177, and by VanderKam (2012), 524. It is not clear, however, what this expression might mean in an astronomical sense. VanderKam thinks it ‘seems to be saying in different words what was said in the previous clause: the heavens would allow no rain to pass through them.’

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Uriel Predicts the Apostasy of the Planets

and the fruit of the trees will be withheld at its (appointed) time. (4) The moon will alter its law [Eth šer‘āt] and will not appear at its (appointed) time. (5) At that time it will appear in the sky and will arrive at the edge of the great chariot in the west and will shine more than the law [Eth šer‘āt] of light.23 (6) Many heads of the stars will stray from the command [Eth te’zaz] and will change their ways and actions and will not appear at the times prescribed for them. (7) The entire law [Eth šer‘āt] of the stars will be closed to the sinners and the thoughts of those on the earth will err regarding them. They will turn back from all their ways, will err, and will take them to be gods. (8) Evil will multiply against them and punishment will come upon them to destroy all. (1 En 80:2-8)

As is always the case when studying literature of this period it is essential to bear in mind the nature of the world in which the writer lives. In the Ancient Middle East this is a geocentric world in which the heavenly bodies are thought of as moving across a two-dimensional surface resembling the inside of a vast sphere. The three-dimensional Ptolemaic heliocentric paradigm of Greek astronomy was apparently not used except in areas that had come under Greek influence.

The apostasy of the sun On the basis of what Enoch says at the beginning of the Astronomical Book we know that it was God’s intention from the beginning that the sun should cross the heavens 364 times in the course of a sidereal year. This was made clear in chapter 72. It is, however, obvious to anyone who studies the heavens that this is not now the case and the myth of the apostasy of the planets explains how this situation arose. It is not difficult to see that for anyone using the 364-day calendar the effect of the sun’s crossing the heavens 365¼ times in the course of a sidereal year would be that each day became slightly shorter than it had been before and that as a result the 364-day calendar year would become shorter as well, even if the actual length of the sidereal year remained the same (1 En 80:2a). As a result nothing in the natural order would take place at the time the On this verse see the discussion below.

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364-day calendar said it should. For example, sowing, which was traditionally begun when certain constellations appeared, would have to take place later in the year in relation to the 364-day calendar (1 En 80:2b) Because it lost one-and-a quarter days each year the 364-day calendar would soon be noticeably out of phase with the agricultural year. Nevertheless, the seasons would continue to maintain their normal alignment with the fixed stars no matter how frequently the sun crossed the sky because the sidereal position of the equinoxes would not change.24 The rains would seem to have been ‘withheld’ (1 En 80:2c), since their arrival would fall later in the year according to the 364-day calendar. The harvest would also be ‘withheld’ and – for those following the 364-day calendar – would begin later than it should (1 En 80:3). When the Astronomical Book says that the moon ‘falls behind the sun and in relation to the law of the stars five days exactly in one period [here this is 177 days, one half of a lunar year]’ (1 En 79:5), it assumes that an ideal solar year is exactly 364 days long and that this span of time is same as that determined by the ‘law of the stars’.25 In an ideal creation year the ‘law of the stars’ – the body of natural law that governs their movement – ensures a year that is 364 ideal days long.26 Thus even if the seven Wanderers – among them the sun – should happen to rebel and cease to ‘appear at their appointed times’ (1 En 18:15), the fixed stars would nevertheless continue to move as before and the length of the sidereal year would not change. Even after the sun began to cross the heavens 365¼ times in the course of each sidereal year the sidereal year would still have the same absolute length of 364 ideal days that it had when the stars were first created. After the apostasy of the sun the liturgical feasts, like the seasons of the agricultural year, would depart further and further from their original position in the 364-day calendar and the only way to restore their relationship to the sidereal year and the seasons would be to use some (unspecified) form of intercalation. It would soon be obvious that although the three great festivals of congregation linked to the barley, 24 Today we know that the seasons are caused by the inclination of the earth’s axis combined with the annual movement of the earth around the sun. This was not known to the Babylonians. 25 So VanderKam (2012), 519: ‘1 Enoch 79:5 expresses the writer’s view that the sun and the stars define the same year. […] The idea that the year of 364 days is sidereal also come to expression in 75:1–2 and more fully in 82:4–20.’ For Drawnel (2011), 385, however, it is ‘not at all clear that the Ethiopic text identifies the solar and sidereal year.’ The ideal solar year will have coincided with the sidereal year only before the apostasy of the sun. 26 The expression ‘law of the stars’ also appears at 1 En 79:1–2, 5, ad 82:9.

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Uriel Predicts the Apostasy of the Planets

wheat, and autumn harvests no longer occurred at their proper times according to the 364-day calendar, they nevertheless would maintain their relationship to the seasons if coordinated with the fixed stars. The fact that the fixed stars maintained their relationship to seasons would be a clear indication that they had remained faithful to the Creator, which would lead to their being accepted as the ultimate arbiters of time. Were those who drew up the 364-day calendar capable of thinking in these terms? Did they understand that the only true foundation for the measurement of astronomical time is the sidereal year, the yearly return of the fixed stars to the same position vis-à-vis earth that they had exactly one year earlier? The Babylonians were certainly aware of the fundamental importance of the fixed stars since they calculated the movements of the planets against the template they provide. MUL.APIN II Gap A 8–9 even provides a formula for using the rising of the Pleiades to determine when an additional 30-day month should be added to the lunar year.27 The apostasy of the sun, brought about because its governing angel caused it to rise a few minutes too early each day, meant that each sidereal year was now approximately 365¼ days long instead of exactly 364 days long. Apparently this was sufficiently well understood in the circles for which this text was written that it was enough to describe the results of the change in terms of the seasons for the cause to be understood. It did not need to be expressed.

The apostasy of the moon 1 En 80:4–5, which concerns the apostasy of the moon, is much more difficult to interpret. Uriel describes what will happen when the moon also rebels. These verses take the form of a distich and a tristich, 1 En 80:4ab and 80:5abc. These are given below in the translation offered by VanderKam except as indicated and the Ethiopic text on which it is based is supplied at two points. The first verse concerns timing: (80) (4) The moon will alter28 its law (Eth šer‘āt) and will not appear at its (appointed) time. 27 Albani (1994), 191, who also notes that in practice this formula is seldom applicable. 28 This is translation given by Charles (1912), 171, Isaac (1983), 58, and Olson (2004), 177. It is probably preferable to ‘change’ (as in Knibb [1978], 185, and VanderKam [2012], 521) because of its slightly more pejorative and voluntarist connotation in English.

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Uriel Predicts the Apostasy of the Planets

(5) At that time it will appear in the sky and will arrive at29 the edge of the great chariot in the west and will shine much more than the law of light (Eth weyebareh fadfada emšer‘āta berhan).30

The Ethiopic term šer‘āt is frequently used in the Astronomical Book to denote what is ‘fixed, stipulated, ordained’ in the heavens.31 Although VanderKam translated it as ‘order’ in 1 En 80:4a, in 78:10, 79:1 and 2, 80:7, and 82:9 he translates šer‘āt as ‘law’ here and this is the appropriate translation in this context.32 When Enoch says to Methuselah: ‘Now my son I have shown you everything, and the law [Eth šer‘āt] of all the stars is completed’ (1 En 79:1) we see that šer‘āt corresponds to what we would now call a ‘law of nature’, an aspect of the deep structure of the universe that is invisible and nevertheless determines the behaviour of the phenomena we see. Enoch can say, for example, that ‘Uriel showed me another law [šer‘āt]: (regarding) when the light is placed in the moon and from where it is placed (in the moon) from the sun’ (1 En 78:10). In 80:4a šer‘āt refers to the natural laws governing the movement of the moon that were part of the cosmic covenant at the time of creation. It is with this meaning that šer‘āt is used in Jubilees 6:4 to refer to the divine commandments that govern the change of seasons and alteration of day and night that are an important part of God’s covenant with Noah.33 Thus when Uriel foresees that the moon will one day ‘alter its law’ (80:4a), he is saying that it will cease to obey the natural laws which the cosmic covenant imposed upon its guiding angel and will follow its own self-made ‘law’. In 80:4b Dillmann has simply ‘zu seinen Zeit’, as do Flemming and Uhlig.34 Charles originally had ‘at her (appointed) time’, but then re29 Charles (1912), 171, has ‘on’, while Knibb (1984), 269, translates the preposition as ‘on top of ’. 30 I would like to express my thanks to Professor Michael Knibb for providing the Ethiopic text of this phrase. 31 VanderKam (2012), 525. 32 In his commentary on 1 En 80:4a VanderKam (2012), 525, speaks of the moon’s changing ‘the law or order that God had imposed on it at creation.’ 33 Pointed out by VanderKam (2012), 525, n. 16. He translates the relevant clause as ‘throughout all the days of the earth seedtime and harvest would not cease; (that) cold and head, summer and winter, day and night would not change their prescribed pattern’ in VanderKam (1989b), 37. Jubilees deliberately brings the language of the creation world into the period after the Flood. 34 Dillmann (1853), 50, Flemming (1901), 102, Uhlig (1984), 664.

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turned to Dillmann’s ‘at her time’.35 Knibb offers ‘proper?/customary?’, Isaac inserts ‘(normal)’, as does VanderKam, and Olsen has ‘at its proper times’. Knibb’s ‘customary’ loses completely the sense of divinely imposed obligation, which is missing in all except Charles’s ‘appointed’.36 When Uriel says to Enoch that the moon ‘will not appear at its time’ his words immediately recall those he used in the Book of the Watchers when explaining to Enoch why the seven stars were being punished: they ‘did not come out in their appointed times’ (1 En 18:15). If an expansion is needed, then Charles’s ‘appointed’ should be used, since it makes no assumption as to what law the moon obeyed when first created.

An acknowledged corruption and a simple emendation It is generally accepted that the Ethiopic text of 1 En 80:5b is corrupt.37 It reads ‘and famine will arrive at the edge of the great chariot in the west’. This is meaningless. Charles at first considered the verse an interpolation and omitted it completely.38 Earlier Hallévi had suggested emending the text so that it referred to the sun. His suggestion was adopted by Beer, and then by Charles, who introduced further changes into the text. More recently it has also been accepted by Kvanvig.39 As VanderKam points out, however, this produces the unusual sequence of moon, sun, and stars.40 The translation given above accepts Knibb’s suggestion that ‘famine’ is an explanatory gloss on 1 En 80:2–3 and has been carelessly inserted into the text of 1 En 80:5b.41 This simple and straightforward improvement provides a simple and straightforward text: ‘… and will arrive at the edge of the great chariot in the west.’ Black agreed with Knibb that ‘famine’ is out of place but then moved the whole of 1 En 80:5b without change to end of 1 En 80:2.42 The most recent editor, VanderKam, also follows Knibb and omits ‘famine’ in his translation of this verse. He also thinks that something has dropped out, however, and renders the Charles (1893), 213; (1912), 171. Knibb (1978), 269; Isaac (1983), 59; Olsen (2004), 177; VanderKam (2012), 521. 37 So Charles (1912), 171. 38 Charles (1893), 213. 39 Hallévi (1867), 384; Beer (1900), 285; Charles (1912), 171; Kvanvig (1988), 74. 40 See the full discussion in VanderKam (2012), 525–28. The interpretation proposed here preserves the normal sequence of sun, moon, and stars. 41 Knibb (1978), 185–86. 42 Black (1985), 252. 35

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line as ‘and will arrive at … at the edge of the great chariot in the west.’43 Nevertheless, even when emended 1 En 80:5b is still not immediately transparent. VanderKam, although he accepts Knibb’s proposal, also remarks that even with it the line ‘seems to make little sense’.44 One problem is the meaning of ‘the great chariot in the west.’ Chariots are mentioned several times in the Astronomical Book, always as vehicles that carry the heavenly bodies across the sky. In 1 En 72:5 we learn that the sun travels in a chariot and In 1 En 73:2 we are told that the moon does so as well. In 1 En 75:3 Enoch refers to the ‘serving entities [i.e., the stars] that go around in all the heavenly chariots’ and in 1 En 75:8–9 he sees ‘chariots in the sky travelling in the world above those gates in which the stars that do not set revolve’ and observes that ‘one is larger than all of them and it is the one that encircles the whole world.’ Hoffmann identified this as the chariot of the sun.45 Neugebauer, however, believed that ‘one of them’ referred to the arctic circle that defines the largest circuit around the polar star that is always visible above the horizon.46 Even if not all these references to chariots can be easily explained, it is clear that chariots are an established feature of early Enochic astral lore. VanderKam does not try to decide the meaning of ‘the great chariot in the west’, but since Enoch himself speaks of the sun as ‘the great luminary which is called the sun for ever’ (1 En 72:35), we should probably accept that the expression ‘the great chariot’ refers to the chariot that carries the sun. When compared with the course of the moon and the stars it is not unreasonable to speak of the chariot of the sun as ‘the one that encircles the whole world.’ It does this once each day, much more frequently than any other heavenly body. The sun’s chariot is actually large enough to have twelve gates in it ‘from which the rays of the sun come out and from which its heat comes out upon the earth’ (1 En 75:4). In fact, it is hard to believe that the ‘great chariot’ of 1 En 80:5b is anything other than the chariot of the sun. And if the sun’s chariot is in the west, then the sun is there as well. Since the sun is in the west only as it sets, to say that the moon ‘appears in the sky and arrives at the edge of the great chariot in the west’ is the equivalent of saying that after the moon rises in the east it will move across the sky until it draws near and touches the setting sun. The 45 46 43

44

VanderKam (2012), 521. VanderKam (2012), 527. Hoffmann (1838), 638, cited in VanderKam (2012), 466. Neugebauer (1985), 402.

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significance of this statement cannot be understood without taking into account Babylonian naked-eye astronomy.

The Babylonian lunar month We need to bear in mind what happens during a lunar month when observed with the naked eye within the conceptual framework of ancient Babylonian astronomy. This framework differs from that of Greek/ Ptolemaic astronomy, where the heavenly bodies move in three-dimensional space with the earth at the centre and the seven planets move at different distances from the earth in the space between the earth and the sphere of the fixed stars. While the Babylonian universe is also centred on the earth, all the heavenly bodies are thought of as moving against a background surface that resembles the inside of a giant sphere. All Babylonian astronomy describes the movements of the heavenly bodies as if they moved in only two dimensions. What lies beyond the sphere of heaven may be inhabited by the gods, but it cannot be seen and contains no ordinary objects of any kind. In the following discussion it is important to avoid the temptation to slip back into a Ptolemaic or – even worse – into a Copernican world. The phases of the moon as described here are simply what we see if they are thought of as taking place on the inside of the celestial sphere. For the Babylonians the lunar month begins with the first appearance of the new moon shortly after sunset as a sliver of light just above the western horizon. The previous night the moon did not appear at all. The appearance of the new moon takes place not long after conjunction, when moon and sun coincide at sunset in the west. From this point onward the moon grows in size each day. It is also higher and higher in the sky at sunset and further and further away from the sun. This process is called elongation. After fourteen or fifteen days, when the moon has moved far enough away from the sun as to be directly opposite it and at maximum elongation, it appears at sunset as the full moon rising in the east just after the sun has set in the west. The moon is then said to be in opposition. Since the moon has only half a lunar month of twentynine and a half days to reach its maximum elongation of 180° it must move approximately 12.2° further east each day. This gradual movement eastward is readily visible in the evening sky to anyone who observes the moon at sunset day after day.47 Plato describes the process with typical Greek clarity when he says that a month comes about ‘every time that the moon having completed her own orbit over47

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Uriel Predicts the Apostasy of the Planets

The process of elongation is referred to three times in the Astronomical Book. As Neugebauer ecognize, the ‘Law of the Phases of the Moon’ refers to elongation when it describes the first and second days of the lunar month. On the first day the moon rises ‘with its beginning toward the east [literally: ‘with its head toward the east’]’ (1 En 73:4).48 On the second day the process of elongation continues as it ‘emerges and recedes from the rising of the sun’ (1 En 73:8).49 The second example is in chapter 74. During a description of how the moon moves from gate to gate as it travels back and forth across the ecliptic, it is said that at opposition the moon ‘completes its light, recedes from the sun, and enters for eight days into the sixth gate from which the sun emerges’ (1 En 74:6). The author has in mind the fact that even after conjunction the moon continues to move in a process he thinks of as ‘recession’. And in chapter 78 we are told: ‘The entire time the moon progresses [i.e., moves further and further away from the sun] it adds to its light when facing the sun until in fourteen days its light is complete’ (1 En 78:11). The author of these texts was also clearly familiar with the constantly changing relationship we observe between the sun and the moon and the changing brightness of the moon. This steadily changing relationship between sun and moon does not, however, stop at maximum elongation, since the moon must return to the position it had at the beginning of the month in order to appear again as a slender crescent in the west. This movement – if an obsolete though entirely appropriate word may be recalled to use – can be thought of as propinquation. This process is much less noticeable than elongation since after opposition the moon is below the horizon at sunset and its steady approach to the sun at sunset takes place largely while the moon is out of sight. When after opposition the moon appears at night in the east the reference point against which its movement is being judged – the sun – is below the horizon in the west and is no longer visible. Nevertheless it is possible – in suitable circumstances – to observe the moon’s gradual movement towards the sun by measuring its distance takes (epikatalabê) the sun’ (Timaeus 39C). 48 Neugebauer (1985), 396, translates this verse as a Babylonian astronomer would see it: ‘And thus (the lunar month) begins, when (the moon) itself moves away (from the sun) toward the east’. 49 In fact, of course, on the second day it recedes from the setting sun. Neugebauer (1985), 398, comments: ‘… one should expect a motion “away from the sun towards the east” (as in verse 4) instead of “receding from the rising sun”. Perhaps this is simply a scribal error.’ VanderKam (2012), 435, seeks to justify the Ethiopic text by translating the offending phrase as ‘from the east side of the sun’. Both assume that the author was familiar with the process of elongation.

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Uriel Predicts the Apostasy of the Planets

from the sun at sunrise instead of sunset. In the days following full moon the moon is – theoretically, at least – visible low in the western sky just after dawn. Each subsequent day at dawn it is smaller but also higher in the sky – and closer to the sun as it rises in the east. As the brightness of the sun increases during the day, of course, the moon gradually disappears. It cannot compete with the sun. When conditions are right, however, this process of propinquation can nevertheless be observed. While the moon is moving from conjunction in the west to opposition in the east at full moon it appears further from the sun at sunset each day. While it is moving from opposition in the east towards conjunction in the west, however, it appears – to the extent it can be seen after the sun has risen – to be approaching the sun during the day, drawing closer to it each day until finally it disappears completely in the glare of the rising sun. Having disappeared at dawn in the east, however, it then reappears a few days later at sunset in the west as a sliver of light on the other side of the sun. A new lunar month has begun. The eastward movement away from the sun that is so noticeable at night continues as an eastward movement towards the sun during the day – even if it can be observed only under favourable conditions and while looking away from the sun.

Propinquation in Enūma Elish The process whereby the moon diminishes in size while gradually moving toward the sun after having reached fullness in opposition was known throughout the Ancient Middle East to all who observed the heavens. It even appears as myth in the Babylonian creation epic, Enūma Elish V 12–22. Tablet V of Enūma Elish describes how Marduk, the chief of the gods, brought the visible world into being. Having slain the great goddess Tiāmat, the representative of elemental chaos, Marduk creates the vault of heaven, assigning a place to each of the stars. He then creates the moon. The relevant passage follows:50 11 He placed the heights (of heaven) in her (Tiāmat’s) belly, He created Nannar (the Moon), entrusting to him the night. 13 He appointed him as the jewel of the night to fix the days, And month by month without ceasing he elevated him with a crown, 15 (Saying), ‘Shine over the land at the beginning of the month, Resplendent with horns to fix the calling of days. 17 On the seventh day the crown will be half size, 50

Translation from Lambert (2013), 99.

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Uriel Predicts the Apostasy of the Planets

On the fifteenth day, halfway through each month, stand in opposition. 19 When Šamaš (the Sun) [sees] you on the horizon, Diminish in all the proper stages and shine backwards.51 21 On the 29th day, draw near to the path of Šamaš, […] the 30th day, stand in conjunction and rival Šamaš.’

Marduk instructs the moon the moon to appear as a pair of horns at the beginning of the lunar month, as half a crown on the seventh day, and on the fifteenth day, when the moon is full and in opposition, as a fully circular crown. At this point, when the setting sun ‘sees’ the moon in the east from its position on the western horizon, the moon is to begin to ‘diminish in all the proper stages’. Finally on the twenty-ninth day it will ‘draw near to the path of Šamaš’, and on the thirtieth it is to reach conjunction, rivalling the sun in size and position and potentially eclipsing its light. At this point it also becomes invisible. This text from Enūma Elish describes in mythological terms the processes of elongation and propinquation whereby the moon first draws away from the sun and then approaches it. Clearly these two processes were a common-place of ancient naked-eye astronomy. Nor is there anything surprising in the Babylonian connection. Weidner pointed out the dependence of Enochian astronomy on Mesopotamian conceptions in 1916 and the evidence for this has only increased ever since.52

Propinquation at Qumran The process of propinquation also interested those who were concerned with astronomy and the calendar at Qumran. In 4Q317 frg. 1 + 1a ii, a manuscript describing the phases of the moon, there is a description of how on a particular day the moon ‘rules’ the sky during the day even when it cannot be seen:53 (7) On the eighth (day) in it (= the calendar month, not the lunar month), [its light (= the moon’s light)] ru[les all the day in the midst] (8) of the firmament abov[e fourteen-and-one-half parts. And when the sun sets,] its light [ceases] 51 Lambert (2013), 477, comments: ‘“Shines backwards” refers to the different orientation of the moon in its last quarter as compared with its first.’ For an observer on the earth the moon faces east during elongation and west during propinquation. 52 Weidner (1916), 74–75. 53 Translation from Ben-Dov (2008), 141. Drawnel (2011), 254, points out that ‘rules’ in this text means simply ‘is present in the sky.’ Cf. Gen 1:16–18.

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Uriel Predicts the Apostasy of the Planets

(9) to be obscured, [and thus it (= the moon) begins to be revealed] (10) on the first day of the week (i.e., Sunday) vacat […

This text ecognize that the moon is present in the sky during the day for varying periods of time even if it is normally invisible because of the sun’s overwhelming brightness. On the day in question the process of propinquation has brought the moon so close to the sun that it is present in the sky during the day for more than fourteen-and-one-half fifteenths of the time. It then reaches conjunction, at which point the situation changes and it starts to be revealed in the evening, to begin with as a narrow sliver of light visible only for a short time, and then gradually for a longer time each night until it reaches opposition, when it will be visible throughout the period of darkness. The movement of the moon during the process of propinquation that is described in 4Q317 frg. 1 + 1a ii is the same as that described in Enūma Elish V 19–22, where after reaching opposition the moon ‘draws near to the path of Šamaš’ and brings the lunar month to an end. In its final phase at the end of the lunar month the moon invariably draws near to the path of the sun.

Propinquation in 1 En 80:5 In 1 En 80:5ab the process of propinquation is again made explicit. This time, however, it is brought about by the rebellion of the moon. Having learned that ‘[t]he moon will alter its law/ and will not appear at its (appointed) time’ (1 En 80:4), we are told exactly what this means: (80) (5) At that time it will appear in the sky and will arrive at54 the edge of the great chariot to the west …

When Uriel predicts that the moon ‘will arrive at the edge of the great chariot (of the sun) in the west’ he has in mind the same process as that described in Enūma Elish V 19–22, where Marduk instructs the moon to ‘draw near to the path of Šamaš’ and to ‘stand in conjunction and rival Šamaš.’ Both texts use mythological language to describe what naked-eye astronomy finds in the sky. What distinguishes them is that for Uriel Charles (1912), 171, has ‘on’, while Knibb (1984), 269, translates the preposition as ‘on top of ’. If the moon is ‘on’ or ‘on top of ’ the chariot of the sun the result will be an eclipse, a situation in which the moon can truly be said – as in Enūma Elish V 22 – to ‘stand in conjunction and rival Šamaš.’ 54

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Uriel Predicts the Apostasy of the Planets

the process of propinquation is an act of rebellion. The reader can only conclude that the movement of propinquation we now observe does not reflect God’s will and the terms of the cosmic covenant. They are the result of an act of apostasy on the part of the angel governing the behaviour of the moon. To say this is also to say that Enūma Elish V 19–22 describes a fallen world and that the God of Israel created a world in which the moon did not move as we see it move now. The brief description of the moon’s return to conjunction in 1 En 80:5ab looks very much like an allusion to – and contradiction of – the account in Enūma Elish. The description is fuller in Enūma Elish and astronomically more detailed, but both passages reflect an astronomical tradition in which careful naked-eye observation of the heavens is the norm. Both accounts belong to the same conceptual world, even if one contradicts the other. The fact that in Enūma Elish the moon’s propinquation expresses the will of Marduk while in 1 En 80 it is an act of rebellion against the Lord shows clearly to what extent the 364-day calendar tradition rejects the theology and cosmology of Mesopotamia. In Enūma Elish propinquation begins when the moon is full and in opposition in the east. This is what its readers would expect to see in the middle of each month. All that Uriel says about the beginning of the moon’s approach to the sun is: ‘At that time (the moon) will appear in the sky …’ (1 En 80:5a). The moon appears in the sky when it rises in the east. This is the point from which it rises when ‘the great chariot’ of the sun is ‘in the west’. It is in opposition. And since this verse describes the apostasy of the moon, what it did when it rebelled was to begin the process of propinquation, which would continue until it arrived ‘at the edge of the great chariot in the west’ (1 En 80:5b). And if it began the process of propinquation only when it rebelled, then before that time it had not approached the sun and was always in opposition. It was always full – and had been created full. It is hard to avoid concluding on the basis of 1 En 80:4–5 that before the moon rebelled it did not draw near the sun during the second half of the month as it does today. And if it did not draw near, then neither did it move away during the first half. And there were no phases of the moon.

The creation of the moon in 4Q320 4Q320 is a collection of various calendrical documents describing the phases of the moon, the lengths of the months, the priestly courses serving at different times of the year, a calendar of liturgical feasts, and

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Uriel Predicts the Apostasy of the Planets

various other bits of calendrical data. Even if it is much shorter, in this respect it resembles the standard Mesopotamian collection Enūma Anu Enlil. The first column of the first fragment begins as follows:55 1. […] to its being seen (or: appearance) from the east 4. [and] shine [in] the middle of the heavens at the foundation of 5. [ecogniz]n from evening to morning on the fourth (day) of the week (of service) 6. [of Ga]mul,56 in the first month in the [fir]st 7. year. Blank. (4Q 320 frg. I i 1-5) At the time of creation an unnamed heavenly body is said to rise ‘from the east’ and ‘shine [in] the middle of the heavens … from evening to morning’. This can only be the moon since no other heavenly body behaves in this way.57 According to this text, therefore, the moon was created full on the Wednesday of that first week, the first day of the first month, since only when full does the moon remain in the sky throughout the night. In this case it does not describe the beginning of a Babylonian lunar month, which always begins with a new moon. The first appearance of the moon at the time of creation is also described in 4Q319 IV 10–11:58 ] its light (came forth) on the fourth day of the wee[k … the] creation. In the fourth (day) in Ga[mul

Ben-Dov speaks of both these short passages as ‘prologues’ and accepts that in 4Q319 as in 4Q320 the moon was full when created. This is particularly interesting since in both manuscripts these prologues are followed by calendrical texts that assume that the first month of a six-year cycle begins with the new moon on Wednesday, the day when the heavenly bodies were created. Thus these prologues contradict the calendrical texts that follow 55 Translation taken from DJD XXI, 43–44 (Talmon) with slight changes from García Martínez (1996), 452, and interpreted as in Ben-Dov (2011), 86. 56 Whoever wrote this text seems to have thought he knew exactly when the world was created since otherwise he would not have been able to determine that the priestly course of Gamul would have been serving then had they been there at the time. 57 Talmon (DJD XXI, 46) argues that this passage ‘speaks of the very first sunrise in the east.’ Albani (1994), 74, and Ben-Dov (2011), 86, disagree. Both understand these verses to refer to the full moon. 58 Translation from DJD XXI, 215 (Ben-Dov).

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Uriel Predicts the Apostasy of the Planets

them. From this Ben-Dov concludes: ‘One needs to weigh the possibility that what is at issue here is a general literary introduction to the scroll, which does not necessarily relate to the specific list which follows, but rather lays down the basic setting for the content of the entire collection.’59 But it is not just a question of the introduction not relating to what follows: the introduction contradicts what follows. Ben-Dov says of 4Q320 1 I 1–5: ‘As in Enūma Anu Enlil, the literary passages should not be regarded as constituting narrative continuity with the body of the [following] list’.60 Rochberg points out helpfully that in cuneiform texts there is more flexibility in the handing down of scientific material than in the literary passages.61 In fact, it would appear that the ‘prologue’ in 4Q320 preserves a tradition that was disregarded in the rest of the calendrical data found at Qumran, which describes a lunar month that begins with the new moon.62 The information contained in 4Q320, Enūma Elish V 19–22, and 1 Enoch 80:4–5 is enough to tell us how the earth was illuminated during the years following the creation of the universe according to 364-day calendar tradition. There is, I believe, only one model for the movements of sun and moon that preserves the uniform circular movement of both bodies in such a way that the changes brought about by the apostasy of the moon as described in 1 En 80:4 produce the movements we see today. The moon would need to be full and in opposition when it rose in the east at the time of creation as the sun set in the west, and if the moon were not to then recede from the sun through elongation and approach it through propinquation, it would need to remain directly opposite the sun at all times, crossing the night sky while the sun passed under the earth and sharing the 24-hour nychthemeron with the sun every day. Similarly, the sun would have to rise each day as the moon set in the west and set in the west each day as the moon rose in the east. The sun and the moon would need to ‘box and cox’ each day, sharing the heavens between them and strictly alternating their periods under the earth and in the sky. Only if the moon departed from this pattern, slowed down, and began to rise later each day would propinquation and elongation begin. And only then would it be possible to observe the phases of the moon. 61 62 59

60

Ben-Dov (2011), 87. Ben-Dov (2008), 207. Rochberg (1999), 425. See Ben-Dov (2011a), 88–99.

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Uriel Predicts the Apostasy of the Planets

The moon shines more than it should This model of how the sun and moon moved in the years after its creation is confirmed in verse 1 En 80:5c, where it is said that the moon ‘… will shine much more than the law of light (Eth weyebareh fadfada emšer‘ata berhan).’ VanderKam translates this verse as ‘and will shine very much more (brightly) than its (normal) light.’63 In this he is following the approach taken by earlier scholars. Dillmann translated the Ethiopic as ‘und er wird heller leuchten, als nach der (gewöhnlichen) Ordnung des Lichtes.’64 Charles picks up ‘Ordnung’, discards ‘(gewöhnlichen)’, introduces ‘(her)’, and offers: ‘And shall shine more brightly than accords with (her) order of light.’65 Knibb has ‘and will shine with more than normal brightness.’66 Isaac has ‘And it shall shine (more brightly), exceeding the normal degree of light’ and adds in a footnote: ‘Lit. “the order of light”.’67 Uhlig follows Flemming and translates as ‘und er wird starker scheinen, als (es) die Ordnung des Lichtes bestimmt.’68 Black has ‘And shall shine more brightly than accords with the order of (her) light.’69 Olsen has ‘shining too brightly for the proper order of light.’70 VanderKam gives ‘will shine very much more (brightly) than its normal light.’71 All the translations thus far proposed for 1 En 80:5c make it contradict 1 En 80:2–5ab as interpreted above, since during the process of propinquation the moon actually diminishes in size and its light decreases. A proper understanding of 1 En 80:4–5 has been prevented by belief that the changes described are derogations from the movements of the moon that we see today. This is reflected in the introduction of expressions like ‘normal’ or ‘proper’ into the text, since they suggest that the ‘law’ referred to in 1 En 80:5a and 80:5c relates to what we see now. If our interpretation of 1 En 80:2–3 is correct, however, then this passage describes what happened when the moon ceased to move in accordance 65 light’. 66 67 68 69 70 71 63

64

VanderKam (2012), 521. Dillmann (1853), 50. Charles (1893), 213; in (1912), 171, he gives ‘than accords with the order of Knibb (1978), 186; (1984), 269–70. Isaac (1983), 59. Flemming (1901), 102; Uhlig (1984), 664. Black (1985), 69. Olson (2004), 177. VanderKam (2012), 521.

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with the ideal 364-day calendar and for the first time began to move as we see it move today. There are two problems with the translations proposed thus far. The first concerns the Ethiopic word šer‘at. VanderKam points out that the Ethiopic word šer‘at, which he translated by ‘order’ in 1 En 80:4a, ‘denotes what is fixed, stipulated, ordained’.72 In his comments on 1 En 80:4, however, he acknowledges that he has translated šer‘at as ‘law’ in five places (1 En 78:10; 79:1, 2; 80:7; 82:9). In all these passages ‘law’ refers to the laws of nature that are the expression of God’s will for the heavens at the time of their creation. This is the meaning required in 1 En 80:5c as well. This stich should therefore be translated literally as ‘and will shine more than the law of light’. ‘Law’ here refers to specific content of the cosmic covenant with regard to light. This divinely ordained ‘law of light’ cannot be limited to God’s will for the moon, though of course it includes it. The ‘law of light’ includes all the ways light is produced and distributed throughout creation. In the alternative creation narrative found in Jubilees we are told that on the first Sunday God created the angels of the ‘spirits of darkness and light’ (Jub 2:2). Darkness and light are distinct realities in primitive cosmologies and are treated as such – just as in the alternative creation narrative in Jub 2:2. The light that comes from the sun, the moon, and the stars is of such importance in the Astronomical Book that it requires a high-ranking angel to administer it, the archangel Uriel, who ‘has power in heaven over night and day to make light appear over humanity: the sun, the moon, the stars, and all the heavenly powers which revolve in their circuits’ (1 En 82:8). In terms of the cosmology of Jubilees, Uriel oversees the application of the ‘law of light’ throughout the universe. The ‘law of light’ in 1 En 80:5c should therefore be understood to refer to the set of natural laws that determine the appearance of light in all its forms. In a similar way the ‘law of all the stars’ in 1 En 79:1 is the set of all the laws that express what God has told the sun, the moon, and all the stars to do. It therefore includes the ‘law’ that governs the sun (1 En 72:2, 35) and the ‘laws’ that govern the moon (1 En 73:1; 74:1). The second problem is the exact meaning of weyebareh, ‘and will shine’. The Ge‘ez verb barha, from a three-consonant root whose basic meaning is ‘light’, can mean both ‘be bright, shine’, and ‘emit light, give light, shine’, two closely related but distinguishable meanings.73 VanderKam (2012), 573. Leslau (1987), 103.

72 73

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Thus ‘shine’ can also have has two closely related but distinguishable meanings. Scholars have generally preferred the first of these and thus thought that the verse was talking about the amount of light reflected by the moon, as in VanderKam’s translation: the moon ‘will shine very much more (brightly) than its (normal) light.’ It is the second meaning, however, that suits the context here: the moon ‘will give light’ – that is, ‘function as a source of light/shine’ – ‘more than’ – that is, ‘for longer than’ – the law of light allows. When the moon fulfilled Uriel’s prophecy and began to move towards the sun as described in 1 En 80:5b it did so because it began to rise a few minutes later each day: the moon ‘will not appear at its (appointed) time’ (1 En 80:4b). The propinquation that resulted meant it also began to change its shape and grow smaller each day – just as we see it do now. But whereas previously it was always full and appeared only during the night, now it began to be present during the day as well, something we have seen was taken into account in 4Q317.74 1 En 80:5c tells us that because of its propinquation the moon began to ‘shine much more than the law of light’, which required that it appear only at night. In other words, propinquation caused the moon began to be visible in the heavens for longer than it had while it still obeyed ‘the law of light’ established by God at the time of the creation.75 Because of the process of propinquation the moon was visible in the sky after its rebellion during the day as well as during the night – even if it was not always easily visible because of the brightness of the sun. The Ethiopic text of 1 En 80:5c is therefore understandable as it stands and should be interpreted as meaning ‘and will shine much more (i.e., longer) than the law of light (prescribes for it)’. Thus it gives a brief but accurate description of what happened when the moon rebelled and turned its back on the cosmic covenant.

The sun ‘looks to’ the moon in the Book of Parables We have already seen that the Book of Parables contains two passages that refer to the oath that bound the angels in a cosmic covenant. This tells us that the circles that produced the Parables still had access to texts 74 The presence of the moon in the sky during the day is described in detail in the ‘Tables of Lunar Visibility’ found in 4QEnocha (4Q208) and 4QEnochb (4Q209). See below, pp. 220-22. 75 Cf. Hallévi (1867), 384, who believed 1 En 80:5 referred to the sun, thought that the ‘more’ in 1 En 80:5c could refer to how long the sun shone as well as to its brightness.

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that preserved the mythological cosmology lying behind the 364-day calendar. The first of these references is found in a passage in the First Parable that describes the workings of the heavens as seen by Enoch. In it the Babylonian language of ‘gates’ is replaced by the ‘treasuries’ of the Hebrew Bible76 – just as in the account of Enoch’s first heavenly journey in the Book of the Watchers – and God is referred to as ‘the Lord of Spirits’, the title generally used elsewhere in the Parables but never used in the Astronomical Book or the Book of the Watchers.77 This passage is now cited in full because of the way it refers not only to the cosmic covenant but to the movements of the sun and the moon as they were before the apostasy of the Wanderers. The issue is whether or not it describes the phases of the moon. (41) (5) And I saw the storehouses of the sun and the moon, from which they emerge and to which they return, and their glorious return, and how the one is more praiseworthy than the other, and their splendid course. And they do not leave the course, and neither extend nor diminish their course. And they keep faith with one another according to the oath that they have . (6) And first the sun emerges and completes its path according to the command of the Lord of Spirits – and his name endures forever and ever. (7) And after that I saw the invisible and visible path of the moon, it completes the course of its path in that place by day and by night. And the one is opposite (lit ‘looks to’) the other in the presence of the Lord of Spirits; and they give praise and glory and do not rest, for their praise is rest for them. (8) For the sun (makes) many revolutions for a blessing and a curse, and the course of the path of the moon is light to the righteous and darkness to the sinners, In the name of the Lord who distinguished between light and darkness, and divided the spirits of men, and strengthened the spirits of the righteous in the name of his righteousness. (1 En 41:5-8)

76

Cf. Deut 28:12; Job 38:32; Jer 51:16; Ps 3:7, etc. For a list of all 102 passages, see Nickelsburg (2012), 91, n. 14.

77

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In this passage the movements of the sun and moon are described in terms that suit their movements when first created, not how they moved after the apostasy of the ‘wanderers’. This is most clearly shown in 1 En 41:7: ‘And the one is opposite (lit ‘looks to’78) the other in the presence of the Lord of Spirits’. Although the expression ‘is opposite’ is not an unreasonable interpretation of ‘looks to’, it completely obscures the fact that the author of this verse has personalized the heavenly bodies and thinks of the sun and moon in exactly the same way as Enūma Elish in the passage discussed above.79 In the whole of 1 En 41:5–8 there is nothing to suggest that its author is describing the phases of the moon. If we find in them a moon that changes its size and shape and the length of time it spends in the sky from day to day this is because we expect this to be the case. A detailed examination makes this clear. 1 Enoch 41:5: When Enoch compares the sun and the moon the most he can says is that ‘one is more praiseworthy than the other’. In other words, one is ‘greater’ (brighter) than the other. This suits the earlier cosmology perfectly but is surely an inadequate way to speak of the two of them if the moon exhibits phases. Then Enoch says that he has seen ‘their splendid course’, using the singular as if they shared a single path through the sky. The moon we see today, however, moves back and forth across the ecliptic, as is recognized in the Astronomical Book (1 En 74:4–9). Similarly, the sun and the moon ‘do not leave the course’, which again implies that they share the same path, ‘boxing and coxing’ every twenty-four hours. They ‘neither extend nor diminish their course’, which implies that the moon – like the sun – does nothing more than cross the whole of the sky from east to west once in each nychthemeron, moving from horizon to horizon. Sun and moon never overlap in the sky. An agreement between the sun and the moon to ‘keep faith with one another according to the oath that they have sworn’ suits their sharing 78 So Nickelsburg (2012), 143. Charles (1912), 81, has ‘the one holding a position opposite the other’; Knibb (1984), 225, ‘stands opposite the other’; Uhlig (1984), 583, ‘und eines (ist) gegenüber dem anderen’, n. 7a: ‘(wörtlich: eines das anderen anblickend)’; Black (1985), 46, ‘the one holding a position opposite to the other’ and 202, ‘lit. “one watches the other”’; Caquot (1987), 513, ‘L’un (des astres) fait face à l’autre’; Olson (2004), ‘One faces towards the other’. 79 Compare the two Assyrian astrological reports that are cited by Drawnel (2011), 379: ‘On the 14th day the moon and the sun will be seen with each other’ and ‘On the 14th day one god will be seen with the other’. The notion lived on. In Plato’s Timaeus 38 C the stars are called ‘living creatures, having their bodies bound with living bonds’ (LCL, trans. Bury [1929], 81).

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the nychthemeron between them much better than it does the complex and quite irrational relationship between the two bodies during a lunar month.80 One needs to bear in mind that ancient astronomers were unable to determine the length of the month – twenty-nine or thirty days – until the new moon actually appeared. Finally, since the cosmic oath plays no role in Jubilees or in the cosmological or calendrical texts from Qumran, it seems that that the tradents of this particular revelation belonged to another strand of the 364-day calendar tradition. 1 Enoch 41:6: The author thinks of the day in the ordinary way as beginning with the rising of the sun, which ‘emerges and completes its path according to the command of the Lord of Spirits’. The use of ‘command’ here to refer to the laws imposed by God on the angels looks like a holdover from the earlier way of speaking found in the Book of the Watchers (1 En 18:15/21:6) and the Noah fragment discussed above (1 En 106:13). 1 Enoch 41:7: The fact that Enoch had to be shown ‘the invisible and visible path of the moon’ is significant. While the sun and moon ‘boxed and coxed’ each day the moon was never visible during the day and so he had to be shown its invisible path under the earth. Its visible path everyone could see. After the moon ‘altered its law’, however, its path during the day became visible for the first time. Propinquation could be observed by anyone. Once the moon begins to exhibit phases it can be seen in the sky both during the night and during the day. In order to say ‘the one is opposite the other’ the author uses the kind of mythological language found in Enūma Elish: ‘the one looks to the other’. In Enūma Elish V 19 Marduk tells the moon: ‘When Šamaš (the Sun) [sees] you on the horizon,/ Diminish in all the proper stages and shine backwards.’ Enūma Elish is describing the moment when the sun and the moon reach opposition, which is the starting point for the process of propinquation. Here, however, in this passage from the First Parable, there is no suggestion that the sun and moon ever do anything other than ‘look to’ or ‘face’ each other: ‘And the one is opposite (lit ‘looks to’) the other in the presence of the Lord of Spirits.’ There is no suggestion that at any point the two of them change their relationship and cease to face one another. This is true of the sun and the moon only before their apostasy. In the course of a lunar month the moon is opposite the sun only once, at full moon, and then only for a short time. Be Even today it is extremely difficult to describe mathematically the relationship between the sun, the moon, and the earth. 80

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fore the apostasy of he ‘wanderers’ the sun and the moon were opposite one another all the time. 1 Enoch 41:8: For Nickelsburg the meaning of 1 En 41:8ab is ‘uncertain’. While the first stich seems to mean that the great brightness of the sun can both sustain life and, through an excess of heat, do it harm, ‘[i]t is unclear in what way the predominantly bright and dark phases of the moon are relevant to the righteous and the sinners.’ If what the author has in mind, however, is a moon that is always full every night of the year, then it does make some sense. In many regions of the Middle East the full moon is so bright that in its light you can read the newspaper at night. No wonder the Israelites made use of the full moon to escape Egypt! There is no reason to doubt, therefore, that in certain circumstances ‘the course of the path of the moon is light’ for the righteous when it is full. And yet this same path of the full moon across the sky can be ‘darkness to the sinners’, since even at full moon the relative obscurity of the night offers opportunities for burglary, brigandry, and other crimes. Like the sun, whose brighter light can have both a positive and a negative influence, so the ‘lesser light’ of the moon also works both for good and for ill. This passage from the Parables shows once more that the earlier cosmology of the 364-day calendar tradition, according to which the sun and the moon ‘boxed and coxed’ each day before their apostasy, survived in certain Enochian circles until much later than one might have expected.81 It is generally agreed the Book of Parables is the latest of the Enochian ‘booklets’ that make up 1 Enoch and was probably written around the turn of the millennia. The use of the title ‘Lord of the Spirits’ here and in 1 En 41:6 indicates that this retelling of the earlier cosmology is roughly contemporary with the Book of Parables as a whole. In this case, it was probably also part of the body of Enochian literature available to the author of Jude. Indeed, the Parables may have been written only fifty years or so before the Epistle of Jude, where other important features of the earlier tradition have also survived.

For another view of the relationship between the Parables and Astronomical Book, cf. VanderKam (2012), 394–96. The differences he identifies – which are real – should be ascribed to the fact the 364-day calendar tradition was still alive at the turn of the millennia and was still developing and changing over time. 81

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The moon is not an independent indicator of time What Uriel says about the apostasy of the moon in 1 En 80:4–5 makes it clear that originally the moon did not function as an independent indicator of time. It simply shared the nychthemeron with the sun as the two of them ‘boxed and coxed’ each day. Although the sun was the ‘greater light’ and ruled the day, the ‘lesser light’ followed it slavishly and the two of them measured out the days and nights. The relative length of day and night might vary throughout the year in accordance with the seasons, but these two great stars jointly carried out their appointed task of determining all the calendrical features of the year, one leading the other. This explains why the 364-day calendar month can vary in length between thirty and thirty-one days. Whether a month has thirty or thirtyone days is decided not by the heavens but by God. Only three properly astronomical units of time have any significance for the 364-day calendar: the sidereal year, the season, and the nychthemeron. The sidereal year is fundamental because it is the ‘gold standard’ of time, the seasons because they are marked out by solstices and equinoxes determined by the annual movements of the sun, and the nychthemeron because the sun and the moon together determine the number of days in the sidereal year. The month – like the week – is a divinely imposed and therefore arbitrary unit of time. By divine command it structured the liturgy, but at the time of creation it was not marked out by any corresponding movement in the heavens. The calendrical texts from Qumran show that the observed movements of the moon – its changing phases and obscure relationship to the length of the day – had no impact on the liturgy. This is because the liturgy of the 364-day calendar tradition sought to put the worshipper in touch with the world as it existed ‘in the beginning’ when the world of the angels was still obedient to God and before the apostasy of the planets. This explains why the first day of each season is commemorated, but the first day of each month is not. The first day of each season corresponds to a change in the heavens, since it occurs at either solstice or equinox, but the first day of the month has no visible correlate in the sky. As far as the heavens are concerned, it is a day like every other day. When the author of Jubilees accepted that the phases of the moon reflected the will of God he did not then assign to it a role in the determination of liturgical time. On the contrary, he insists: ‘The Lord appointed the sun as a great sign above the earth for days, sabbaths, months, festivals, years, sabbaths of years, jubilees, and all times of the

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years’ (Jub 2:9). Liturgical time is not based on the observed movements of the heavens. For him, even the lengths of the months in liturgical time are measured out by the sun.

The 364-day calendar breaks the power of the moon In Mesopotamia the lunar month was the primary unit of time for the whole of religious and civil life. Yet the length of the lunar month was not fixed. Even with the mathematical and observational tools we have today it is still very difficult to predict exactly when the new moon will appear because of local atmospheric conditions. The cultures of Mesopotamia refused to accept that this had always been the case and in Enūma Elish Marduk creates a world in which the lunar month has exactly thirty days. The 364-day calendar tradition also insists that the world was perfectly structured when created but makes the primary unit of time the seven-day week, a unit of time that was introduced when God created the world. The seventh day of that first week, the day on which rested from his labours, is the primary focus of liturgical and social life and must be kept without fail as a day of rest and memorial of creation every week. By replacing the ideal Babylonian 360-day year with a calendar based on the seven-day week the creators of the 364-day calendar broke with the religious traditions of all surrounding cultures. The 364-day calendar itself proclaims the unique relationship between God and the people of Israel.

The Apostasy of the Stars Having described either directly, as in the case of the moon, or indirectly, as in the case of the sun, what happened when these two stars decided to abandon the laws embodied in the cosmic covenant, Uriel now turns to the other ‘wanderers’ that do not move in concert with the fixed stars. (80) (6) Many heads of the stars will stray from the command (Eth te’zāz) and will change their ways and actions and will not appear at the times prescribed (Eth ta’azzazu) for them.

1 En 80:6a provides two important links to the apostasy of the seven stars described in 1 En 18:15 and 21:6. VanderKam points out that in the Astronomical Book the Ethiopic term te’zāz, translated here as

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‘command’, is used in headings and summaries in the sense of ‘law’ (1 En 72:2, 35; 73:1; 74:1; 76:14).82 Although it is never used in this way of the stars on their own, in 1 En 72:2 the stars are clearly included. Thus te’zāz (‘command’) has much the same meaning as šer‘āt (‘law’), though it brings with it the notion of hierarchically structured authority while šer‘āt has legal and legislative connotations. The Creator’s ‘command’, embedded as it is in the cosmic covenant, is also a ‘law’ of the natural world.83 The same Ethiopic root is then used in 1 En 80:6c to say that the rising times of the stars have been ‘prescribed’ for them. These are the rising times they have been ‘commanded’ to follow.84 This use of ‘command’ takes us back to the use of ‘command’ to refer to the cosmic covenant in 1 En 18:15 (Gk prostagma), and in 1 En 21:6 (Gk epitagên). It also links to 1 En 106:13, where the Ethiopic is corrupt but the Greek has prostagma, ‘command’.85 When te’zāz is used by Enoch in 1 En 79:2 to summarise the contents of the Astronomical Book VanderKam comments: ‘The word te’zāz is used to designate the legislation governing each luminary.’86 Thus 1 En 80:6a tells us that ‘many heads of the stars’ will abandon the norms contained in the cosmic covenant. The statement in 1 En 80:6c that these stars ‘… will not appear at the times prescribed for them’ also points back to the Book of the Watchers, since when Uriel explains what the stars have done wrong he says that ‘these are they that did not come out in their appointed times’ (1 En 18:15). God’s requirement of utter regularity on the part of the stars reflects what is said about the stars in the ‘Nature Homily’ at the beginning of the Book of the Watchers: ‘Contemplate all (his) works, and observe the works of heaven, how they do not alter their paths; and the luminaries of heaven, that they all rise and set, each one ordered in its appointed time; and they appear on their feasts and do not transgress their own appointed order’ (1 En 2:1). The only movements mentioned are rising and setting. The author seems to think that to begin with the stars – including the sun and the moon – did no more than cross the heavens in a straight line. Their movements were distinguished only by when and where they rose and set. When the author says in 1 En 2:1 that ‘the VanderKam (2012), 528. Its equivalent, šer‘āt, is translated as ‘law’ in 80:7. VanderKam (2006), 352. 84 Drawnel (2011), 266, argues that the Aramaic equivalents of te’zāz and the verb ‘azzaza are a noun and verb from the root p-q-d, ‘to command, order’. 85 See above, pp. 49-52. 86 VanderKam (2012), 517. 82 83

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works of heaven … appear on their feasts’ it is clear he must have the fixed stars in mind, since before their apostasy the sun and the moon appeared every day of the year. Before the apostasy of ‘many heads of the stars’ each of the fixed stars rose on the same day of the month year after year. Otherwise the stars could not be said to ‘appear on their feasts’. On a lunisolar calendar, of course, the stars that rise on any particular feast change from year to year. In 1 En 80:6b the rebel stars are also said to ‘change their ways and actions’. This is not said of the other heavenly bodies. When the sun apostatized it did no more than rise a few minutes earlier each day. Otherwise its path across the sky remained the same. When the moon apostatized it had only to delay its time of rising by something like fifty minutes each day for it to fall behind the sun and bring about the propinquation and elongation that we now observe. Even if it moves back and forth across the ecliptic, this is not particularly noticeable. In this verse, however, Uriel predicts that the stars in question will not only ‘not appear at the times prescribed for them’ (1 En 80:6c), but will also ‘change their ways and actions’ (1 En 80:6b). This careful description suits the five lesser planets very well, since all of them are constantly changing the time when they first rise at dawn in the east, their heliacal rising. Some of them even rise twice in the same year. What is more, not one of them moves steadily in a straight line across the heavens. They all move back and forth across the ecliptic and some even go into reverse. These are the ‘various movements forward, backward, and in other directions’ referred to by Cicero in De deorum natura 2.51.87 Erratic movements of this kind distinguish the five lesser planets from all other stars.

Why ‘many heads of the stars’? 1 En 80:6 describes very well how the five lesser planets moved after they rebelled. But what are we to make of the fact that this verse refers to ‘many heads of the stars’?88 It seems unlikely that someone wishing to refer only to the five lesser planets would use the expression ‘many heads of the stars’. Nevertheless, Dillmann thought this was the case.89 The See above, p. 78. ‘Heads’ of stars are mentioned at 1 En 72:3; 75:1; 82:4, 11, 12, 17, 20. They are stars that lead other stars. 89 Dillmann (1853), 244. VanderKam (2012), 528, does not attempt to identify them. 87

88

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accurate descriptions of the fall of the sun and the moon and its effect found in 1 En 80:2–5 and the way in which the rest of 1 En 80:6 suits the movements of the lesser planets might seem to indicate that these five are referred to here. The expression ‘many heads of the stars’ is nevertheless not an obvious way to refer to only five ‘wanderers’. The answer to this problem may well lie – as so often – in the detail of Babylonian astral science. The Babylonians were well aware of the existence of comets, ‘stars’ that appear it irregular intervals and can hardly be missed as they move slowly across the heavens paying no attention to the movement of the fixed stars or the seven planets.90 Seneca discusses the comets in the seventh book of his Naturales Quaestiones and before giving his own opinion on them he summarises the opinions of others. From him we learn that Apollonius of Myndus, a Greek astronomer who had studied in Mesopotamia,91 said that ‘the Chaldaeans place comets (cometas) in the category of planets (stellarum errantium) and have determined their orbits (cursus eorum).’92 Apollonius apparently agreed with the Babylonians at least in part since he himself believed that ‘many comets are planets (multos cometas erraticos esse).’93 Seneca himself, however, disagreed with Apollonius. He argued that ‘if a comet were a planet … it would move within the limits of the zodiac [i.e., close to the ecliptic]’ and concluded – correctly – that comets move in paths that are ‘extra-zodiacal’.94 From the point of view of Babylonian astral science, therefore, the ‘many heads of the stars’ who ‘will stray from the command and will change their ways and actions and will not appear at the times prescribed for them’ (1 En 80:6) need not be limited to the five planets. They can include the comets whose appearance was observed and recorded by Babylonian astronomers. The ‘wandering stars’ (asteres planêtai) of Jude 13 could therefore, in theory, refer to planets and comets as a single class of ‘wanderers’. If he did have the comets in mind as well, this could be because he was aware of the content of 1 En 80:6. Bauckham concluded 90 According to Yeomans (1991), 364, the earliest recorded Babylonian reference to a comet is in 234 bce. This will not be the first comet that Babylonian astronomers observed. 91 His dates are uncertain. According to Yeomans (1991), 8, he lived in the fourth century bce, while Williams (2012), 277, n. 71, believes he may have been a contemporary of Seneca. This seems more likely. 92 Seneca, Natural Questions, 7.4.1. 93 Seneca, Natural Questions, 7.17.1. 94 Seneca, Natural Questions, 7.18.1.

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that Jude was aware of 1 En 80:2–3 because in these verses ‘parallels for three of Jude’s four images [in Jude 12–13] can be found.’95 For our purposes, however, it is enough that the ‘many’ include the sun, the moon, and the five lesser planets among the much larger class of ‘wanderers’. This picture of ‘wanderers’ willfully leaving their places among the fixed stars contrasts strongly with Enoch’s description of the fixed stars as they existed when first created and now inserted in the Book of Parables. Again we find a high level of personalization: (43) (1) And I saw other lightnings and stars of heaven; and I saw that [the Lord of Spirits] called them by their names, and they listened to him.96 (2) And I saw a righteous balance, how they are weighed according to their light, according to the breadth of their spaces and the day of their appearing. (And I saw how) their motion produces lightning, and their motion is according to the number of their angels, and they keep their faith with one another. (1 En 43:1-2)

The ‘righteous balance’ of 1 En 43:1 is a ‘just’ or ‘accurate’ balance97 and serves to highlight again God’s careful ordering of the heavens. The fixed stars are distinguished according to their magnitude (‘how they are weighed according to their light’), their distance apart (‘according to the breadth of their spaces’), and time of their first rising (‘the day of their appearing’). The description seems like a faint echo of the way Marduk sets out of the stars and assigns them to individual gods in Enūma Elish V 1–2. In conformity with the cosmology of Jub 1:29 and Jub 2:2, however, there is an angel and not a god associated with each of them (‘their motion is according to the number of their angels’).98 Black, following Dillmann, was moved to comment: ‘The stars and heavenly bodies are hypostasised; they are heavenly beings, with consciousness and conscience, to be assessed or “weighed in the balance”, like mankind, and to be so judged according to the measure or mass or proportion of light they possess … but also in accordance with their

97 98 95

96

Bauckham (1983), 91. This had been suggested by Spitta (1885), 360. Cf. the similar mythological language in Ps 147:4 and Isa 40:26. Black (1985), 203, compares Job 31:6. See above, pp. 22-23.

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“places” or “areas, spaces”’.99 VanderKam disagrees: ‘The Book of the Luminaries, although it stresses the obedience of the sun, moon, and stars to the laws assigned to them, does not personify them.’100 Yet in the Book of the Watchers (1 En 18:12–16/21:1–6) the seven stars rebel against the cosmic covenant and are punished, and in 1 En 80:2–8 Uriel foresees that they will rebel. This is hard to understand if the stars do not enjoy a level of freedom similar to that enjoyed by human beings. This is certainly suggested by the statement that ‘[The Lord of Spirits] called them by their names, and they listened to him’ (1 En 43:1). If they can listen to God they can also cease to do so. At this stage, however, the stars are still faithful to the cosmic oath that binds them to each other and to God and is designed to ensure that they move in concert (‘they keep their faith with one another’). This last, of course, recalls what is said about the sun and moon in 1 En 41:5: ‘And they keep faith with one another according to the oath that they have .’ Thus this passage describes the situation before the fall of the ‘wanderers’, when all the stars either rose and set every day – as was the case with the sun and the moon – or rose for the first time on one fixed day each year and then set on a fixed day some months later. Again, it indicates that an understanding of and sympathy with the earlier cosmology survived in certain Enochian circles until the turn of the millennia.

When did the apostasy of the ‘Wanderers’ take place? Dillmann believed that 1 Enoch 80 was intended to explain why the heavens do not obey the 364-day calendar.101 His position was adopted by Kuhn, who argued that when those who introduced the 364-day calendar saw that it was at increasing variance with the heavens they interpreted this as an indication that the present age was coming to an end (‘als Zeichen der Endzeit’).102 Beckwith worked with this notion and thought he could actually give a date to the introduction of the calendar on this basis.103 Albani, however, was able to show that the solutions pro Black (1985), 203–04. VanderKam (2012), 396. 101 Dillmann (1853), 243. 102 Kuhn (1961), 67. Kuhn kept ‘famine’ as the subject of 80:5b. 103 Beckwith (1970), 392–93; (1981), 387, 394; (1996), 109. Beckwith believed that the sun was the subject of 80:5a. Kvanvig (1988), 76. 99

100

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posed by Kuhn and Beckwith could not be aligned with astronomical reality. His arguments have been accepted by VanderKam.104 Yet Albani still thought that the disturbance described in 1 Enoch 80 belonged to the eschaton. He also believed that the ‘heads of the stars’ mentioned in 80:6 might be the seven burning stars of 1 En 18:12–16 and 21:1–6, even though according to the Book of the Watchers Enoch has already seen them being punished.105 VanderKam also assigns these events to the eschaton but does not try to identify the stars involved. Neither he nor Albani try to explain in detail what their rebellion might involve.106 VanderKam’s argument that 1 En 80:2–8 is eschatological is based on the expression ‘In the days of sinners’, which is used in 1 En 80:2 to specify when the rebellion of the stars will take place. He points out that the same expression is used in the Book of the Watchers (1 En 22:12) and the Epistle of Enoch (1 En 102:5), two passages that concern ‘the souls of the dead who had met an unjust end’ in the period leading up to the great judgment of the eschaton.107 Both these passages are clearly focused on the woes that will usher in the end of the present age and a transition to something better. These elements are missing in 1 En 80:2– 8, which simply alludes to a period of sinful behaviour on mankind’s part and says nothing about what it involves and when it will be. In 1 En 80:7–8 Uriel predicts how mankind will react when – ‘in the time of the sinners’ – the planets and other ‘wanderers’ abandon the cosmic covenant and begin to move as we see them move today. At the same time he indirectly tells us when their apostasy took place. (80) (7) The entire law [Eth šer‘āt] of the stars will be closed to the sinners and the thoughts of those on the earth will err regarding them. They will turn back from all their ways, will err, and will take them to be gods. (8) Evil will multiply against them and punishment will come upon them to destroy all.

In the previous chapter Enoch had said to Methuselah, ‘Now my son I have shown you everything and the law (šer‘āt) of all the stars is com Albani (1994), 108–12; VanderKam (2012), 363, n. 111. Albani (1994), 108–12. 106 VanderKam (2012), 523: ‘With v. 2 the eschatological section of the chapter begins.’ Cf. the more detailed discussion of this chapter in VanderKam (2006), 333–55. 107 VanderKam (2012), 523. Neither belonged to the original work. 104 105

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pleted’ (1 En 79:1; cf. 80:1, 82:9). It is clear therefore that ‘the law of all the stars’ concerns the movements of the heavenly bodies at the time of their creation. This ‘law’ came into effect when the angels put in charge of the stars swore an oath to carry out the will of the Creator. It was designed to ensure that the heavens conformed to the 364-day calendar. After the apostasy of the planets, however, ‘the entire law of the stars will be closed to the sinners’. The author’s reasoning is unexpressed but nevertheless transparent: mankind will forget how the stars moved in the past and begin to rely on the movements they can observe in order to measure time. Thus when he says ‘the thoughts of those on earth will err regarding [the stars]’ (1 En 80:7b), he means that they will soon no longer understand the cosmological basis of the 364-day liturgical calendar. Unless, of course, they are familiar with and accept Enoch’s revelations. This fundamental error will then be compounded by another: mankind ‘will err and take [the stars] to be gods’ (1 En 80:7d).108 This is enough by itself to locate the rebellion of the planets in time and enable us to understand the meaning of the expression ‘in the days of the sinners’ (1 En 80:2a). As we said, VanderKam believes the content of chapter 80:2–8 to be eschatological, ‘pointing to the last days’.109 Yet if worship of the heavenly bodies as gods is the result of the apostasy of the ‘wanderers’, then their apostasy cannot take place in some distant eschatological future. Worship of the sun, the moon, and the stars as the visible manifestations of invisible gods was the norm throughout the Ancient Middle East and everyone would have known that the practice was of great antiquity. Thus it is highly unlikely that anyone living in the Ancient Middle East ever thought that worship of the heavenly bodies would one day be introduced as the result of some future cosmic catastrophe. The worship of the heavenly bodies was part of religious life everywhere except in Israel – and at times it could be found even in Israel. Thus the cosmic disturbance foreseen by Uriel must have taken place in the reader’s past. This is confirmed by what is said about astral divination in the Book of the Watchers. According to the Book of the Watchers it was Kokabel, one of the leaders of the fallen Watchers, who taught mankind ‘the signs of the stars’ (1 En 8:3).110 Other rebel angels taught how to read ‘the signs It is not the stars as physical bodies that will be taken to be gods, but the fallen angels that guide their movements. 109 VanderKam (2012), 523. 110 Following the Aramaic text of 4QAstronomical Enocha (4Q208) with Nickelsburg (2001), 188–89. 108

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of the sun’, the ‘signs of the moon’, and other cosmological and meteorological phenomena. As Nickelsburg says, ‘The “signs of the sun” and “signs of the moon” would include pre-eminently eclipses, which were the fare of astrologers from the earliest times.’111 Eclipses occur, however, only because the sun and the moon move as they do today. They require the elongation and propinquation that bring about the phases of the moon. Thus the rebellion of the planets must have already occurred by the time the Watchers began to instruct mankind in the science of astrology. Astral divination is based on the changing appearance of the sun, the moon, and the five lesser planets, and on their changing relationship to each other and to the fixed stars. Before the apostasy of the ‘wanderers’ all the heavenly bodies had followed the same paths every year and it was the regularity of their movement that revealed the intentions of their Creator. After the apostasy of the planets, however, the fallen angels were able to seize upon the irregularity and irrationality of the ‘wanderers’’ movements and encourage mankind to interpret these as indicators of divine intentions. It was then only a small step for them to encourage mankind to think of the fallen stars as independent agents, governed not by fallen angels but by gods. Jubilees goes out of its way to point out the connection between the fallen Watchers, astral divination, and the period leading up to the Flood. Kainan, the grandson of Seth, was born in AM 1375, some sixty years after the Flood. One day he came across ‘an inscription which the ancients had incised in a rock. He read what was in it, copied it, and sinned on the basis of what was in it, since in it was the Watchers’ teaching by which they used to observe the omens of the sun, moon, and stars and ever heavenly sign’ (Jub 8:3). The author of this passage clearly thought that astral divination had been introduced by the Watchers before the Flood and that knowledge of it only survived because texts describing it had been inscribed on stone. To revised cosmology of Jubilees means that the author is unlikely to be suggesting here that Babylonian astral divination only came into being after the apostasy of the seven planets, since he never refers directly to their rebellion. Nevertheless, the way that the 364-day calendar was kept without difficulty until Noah’s death according to Jub 6:18–19 and was only abandoned afterwards by his descendants does suggest that the earlier mythology assigned the apostasy of the ‘wanderers’ to a time before the Flood. Nickelsburg (2001), 200.

111

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The Watchers investigate the phases of the moon The Book of Parables contains a further indication that the ‘wanderers’ fell before the Flood. In a Noachic fragment inserted into the Third Parable Enoch tells his great-grandson Noah about the future punishment of the Watchers. Nickelsburg’s translation of the Ethiopic text of 1 En 65:10 follows with a more literal translation inserted in two places: (65) (10) Because of their iniquity, their judgment has been accomplished (better, ‘has been finalized, finally decided’)112 and will not be withheld (lit. ‘will not be counted’) in my presence; because of the sorceries (lit. ‘months’) that they have searched out and learned, the earth will be destroyed, and those who dwell in it.113

Nickelsburg accepts Charles’s judgment that ‘This verse is very corrupt’ and that ‘will not be counted’ does not make sense.114 Charles suggested that the problem arose because an original Aramaic ‘will not be withheld’ was mistaken for a very similar ‘will not be counted’ and he emended the text accordingly. His suggestion has been generally accepted ever since.115 Isaac was alone in seeing that when Enoch says that the punishment of the Watchers ‘will not be counted’ he means that it ‘will not be counted (because its length cannot be counted)’. He therefore translates the verb as ‘will be limitless’.116 This gives a satisfactory meaning to the first half of the verse: ‘Because of their iniquity, their judgment has (already) been finally decided117 and will be limitless (i.e., cannot be counted).’ Nowhere in the Book of the Watchers is there any suggestion that the final punishment of the fallen angels will come to an end. When God tells Raphael that ‘on the day of the great judgment’ the leader of the Watchers, Asael, ‘will be led away to the burning conflagration’ (1 En 10:6) it seems unlikely 112 Charles (1893), 171, gives ‘has been finally decided’, which Rabin (1984), 247, changes to ‘has been completed’, following Knibb (1978), 155; Black (1985), 62, has ‘shall be fully carried out’; Olson (2004), 121, offers ‘has been finalized’. 113 Nickelsburg (2012), 273. 114 Charles (1906), 168; (1912), 130–31. 115 Uhlig (1984), 619; Black (1985), 62; Olson (2004), 121; VanderKam (2012), 273. Knibb (1978), 155, keeps ‘counted’, as does Uhlig (1984), 619: ‘soll nicht … gerechnet werden’. 116 Isaac (1983), 45. 117 It has been decided in advance because it is already inscribed on the heavenly tablets.

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that he thinks this punishment will one day cease. In fact, a few verses later God tells Michael explicitly that at the great judgment the Watchers ‘will be led away … to the prison where they will be confined for ever’ (1 En 10:13). In the third clause Charles originally kept ‘months’ because he thought that the Watchers were being judged ‘because of the months which they have searched out, and through which they knew that the earth and those who dwell upon it will be destroyed.’118 In his second edition, however, he accepted a suggestion made many years earlier by Hallévi that ‘months’ did not make sense in the context and that an original Hebrew or Aramaic ‘sorceries’ had been misread as a very similar looking ‘months’.119 Hallévi’s emendation was accepted by Charles in his second edition and has been generally accepted ever since.120 Caquot was the exception. He did not emend the Ethiopic text and translated the last three clauses as : ‘Ils ne seront plus comptés devant Moi, à cause des mois qu’ils ont cherché à connaître. Le terre périra avec ses habitants.’ In a note he comments : ‘L’auteur prête aux pécheurs antidéluviens ce qui est pour lui une des fautes capitales de ses adversaires : ils se sont trompés dans le comput des mois.’121 Caquot has seen the importance of keeping ‘months’ because of its relationship to the calendar but has failed to understand just why this is being said. As we have seen, the apostasy of the planets took place before the Flood. This means that the moon no longer slavishly followed the same rather uninteresting path as the sun but steadily fell behind and constantly moved back and forth across the ecliptic, thus generating the previously non-existent lunar months we observe today – and the eclipses that quickly attracted the attention of the Watchers. Enoch knows that after the apostasy of the moon mankind will forget the arbitrary thirty- and thirty-one-day months of the creation calendar and that the Watchers will concentrate on the lunar months that are now a feature of the heavens. It is these lunar months that the fallen Watchers have ‘searched out and learned’. The only reason Sahriel can be said to have ‘taught the signs of the moon’ before the Flood (1 En 8:3) is because he and his fellow apostates had studied the constantly Charles (1893), 171. Hallévi (1867), 374–75. 120 Charles (1912), 131. Cf. Knibb (1978), 155; Rabin (1984), 248; Olson (2004), 118 119

121.

121

Caquot (1987), 541.

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Uriel Predicts the Apostasy of the Planets

changing location and appearance of the fallen moon and then used this knowledge to encourage the prediction of eclipses and the practice of astral divination. The Ethiopic text of 1 En 65:10 can therefore be allowed to stand as it is and should be translated: ‘Because of their iniquity their punishment has (already) been finally decided122 and will be limitless; because of the [lunar] months that they have carefully investigated and learned, the earth and those who dwell on it will be destroyed.’ Enoch is attacking the use of the phases of the moon for the calculation of (God’s) time, pointing out at the same time that this practice arose before the Flood at the instigation of fallen Watchers who taught this false science to mankind. The practice of astral divination is one of the reasons why God unleashed the Flood.

‘In the days of the sinners’ refers to the years before the Flood In the light of what has been said we can now see that the expression ‘in the days of the sinners’ in 1 En 80:2 refers to the period of increased lawlessness and sinfulness that preceded the Flood. Thus ‘the sinners’ of 1 En 80:7a are the same people referred to 1 En 80:2a. The use of the expression ‘in the days of the sinners’ during Enoch’s second journey in the Book of the Watchers (1 En 22:12) and in the Epistle of Enoch (1 En 102:5) in relation to the ‘antitype’ – the time of troubles before the End – is justified by its use in 1 En 80:2 in relation to the ‘type’ – the period before the Flood. Further justification for Uriel’s use of this expression to characterize the years leading up to the Flood is not hard to find. According to Gen 6:5 ‘the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth’ during the years before the Flood, while according to the Book of the Watchers they were marked by increasing sinfulness and violence on the part of humankind. Asael, one of the leaders of the fallen angels, … taught men to make swords of iron and weapons and shields and breastplates and every instrument of war. He showed them metals of the earth and how they should work gold to fashion it suitably, and concerning silver, to fashion it for bracelets and ornaments for women. And he showed them concerning antimony and eye paint and all manner of precious stones and dyes. … And there was much godlessness on the earth, and they made their ways desolate. (1 En 8:1–2) 122

As in Jub 5:14.

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Uriel Predicts the Apostasy of the Planets

Yet the trouble the teaching of the Watchers caused was nothing when compared to the suffering inflicted through the sinful behaviour of the half-human Giants: They were devouring the labour of all the sons of men, and men were not able to supply them [with all they demanded]. And the Giants began to kill men and to devour them. And they began to sin against the birds and beasts and creeping things and the fish, and to devour one another’s flesh. And they drank the blood. (1 En 7:3–5)

The result was what Uriel predicted. When human sinfulness increased beyond measure because of the teaching of the Watchers, God finally sent Sariel to warn Noah about the coming Flood, saying: ‘Go to Noah and say to him in my name, “Hide yourself.” And reveal to him that the end is coming, that the whole earth will perish; and tell him that a deluge is about to come on the whole earth and destroy everything on the earth’ (1 En 10:2). This sequence of events corresponds precisely to what Uriel predicts will happen to mankind as a result of the fall of the planets and the teaching of the Watchers: ‘Evil will multiply against them/ and punishment will come upon them to destroy all’ (1 En 80:8). Thus in light of what is said in the Book of the Watchers there is no need to look to the eschaton for evils to ‘multiply against’ mankind or for punishment to ‘come upon them to destroy all’. The sinful behaviour of mankind – along with that of the Giants and other creatures – would lead to ever-increasing woes and eventually to total destruction.

Conclusion 1 En 80:2–8 provides us both with a description of what happened during the apostasy of the ‘wanderers’ and with a clear indication of when it took place. The description of their rebellion is astronomically aware and precise. The author of these verses knew that anyone who understood and followed the 364-day calendar could see that the calendar year would become shorter in relation to the sidereal year stars after the apostasy of the sun and that as a result the rains and the harvest would appear to arrive later than they should. He was able to describe the apostasy of the moon in terms of its propinquation to the sun and presence in the sky during the day, both of which are the result of a steadily changing relationship to the sun brought about by the moon’s rising later than the

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Uriel Predicts the Apostasy of the Planets

sun each day. He also seems to have been aware that the seven planets were not the only ‘wanderers’ in the heavens, since this would explain why Uriel says ‘many heads of the stars’ will ‘stray from the command’. Although his reference to these stars’ changing ‘their ways and actions’ could be applied to both planets and comets, nevertheless it suits the erratic movements of the five lesser planets particularly well. Far from being eschatological, Uriel’s prediction in 1 En 80:2–8 says nothing at all about what will happen at the end of the present age. Nor does it give any indication that he expected the rebellion of the seven planets to end before the eschaton. Thus 1 En 80:2–8 is consistent with the cosmology of Jude, who believed that God was had decided to defer – ‘reserve’ – the punishment of the seven planets until the end of the present age. All we learn from 1 En 80:2–8 is that the ‘wanderers’ rebelled before the Flood and after Uriel had shown Enoch the pristine glory of the heavens. The apostasy of the ‘wanderers’ and their abandonment of the cosmic covenant meant that the heavens no longer reflected the will of God. Afterwards the only units of time in God’s aboriginal scheme still represented accurately in the heavens were the day, the seasons and the year.123 Lunar months do not conform to the liturgical calendar. When God tells Moses of the future apostasy of Israel at the very beginning of Jubilees, he says: ‘They will forget all my law, all my commandments, and all my verdicts. They will err regarding the beginning of the month, the Sabbath, the festival, the jubilee, and the decree’ (Jub 1:14; cf. 6:37). God lists the elements of the calendar that he himself has imposed on the seasons and the year: the thirty- and thirty-one-day months, the seven-day week, the timing of the festivals, and the forty-nine-year jubilees. The units of time determined by the luminaries before the planets rebelled – the day, the year, and the seasons – are not mentioned since they continue to be observed by the heavens as before. It is true that the festivals can be correlated with the rising of individual fixed stars, but – as Jubilees constantly points out – the requirement that they be celebrated on a particular day is imposed from above. The most important result of our analysis of Uriel’s prophecy, however, is that it provides a firm basis for our attempt to find out whether the Astronomical Book has been subjected to the same kind of revision that Hanneken discovered in Jubilees and that we have shown to have taken place in the Book of the Watchers. After the apostasy of the sun the days were actually slightly more than 4½ minutes shorter than they had been before, as pointed out in Osborne (2015), 26. 123

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CHAPTER TWELVE REWRITTEN TRADITION IN THE ASTRONOMICAL BOOK

In chapters 9 and 10 we showed that in the Book of the Watchers the myths of the fallen Watchers, the Giants, and the aftermath of the Flood have been subjected to the same kind of subtle revision they underwent in Jubilees. Then in chapter 11 we looked closely at Uriel’s prophecy that ‘in the days of the sinners’ the sun, the moon, and the other ‘wanderers’ would abandon the cosmic covenant and begin to move as we see them move now. This meant, of course, that the sun and the moon ceased to ‘box and cox’ as before and the moon began to exhibit phases for the first time. In this case a description of the heavens as seen by Enoch shortly after their creation should not refer to the phases of the moon. Yet much of the Astronomical Book as we have it today is devoted to describing the movements of the fallen moon. It never tries to tell us how the moon moved when first created. Since the Astronomical Book as presently constituted confirms the post-Flood cosmology of Jubilees, we will now consider the possibility that it has been subjected to a process of revision like that undergone by the Book of the Watchers and by Jubilees. While in our examination of the Book of the Watchers we were looking for evidence of revision, in the case of the Astronomical Book, where the evidence for the revised cosmology is perfectly obvious, we shall be looking for evidence of the earlier cosmology. Our investigation of the Astronomical Book will assume that according to the founding mythology of the 364-day calendar tradition the sun and the moon shared the nychthemeron – the combined length of day and night – as equals before their apostasy, ‘boxing and coxing’ every day throughout the year and thereby permitting the existence of arbitrary thirty- and thirty-one-day months.

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Rewritten Tradition in the Astronomical Book

The general character of the Astronomical Book Since we have no Greek version of the Astronomical Book and the Aramaic fragments cover only a small percentage of the whole work, the Ethiopic version must be the basis for any analysis of its content. Unless otherwise indicated, a reference to the Astronomical Book is a reference to the Ethiopic version. Before beginning our analysis of the Astronomical Book it will be helpful to consider the impression made by the work on Otto Neugebauer, the first scholar to bring a detailed knowledge of Babylonian astronomy to bear on the text. I do not think, however, that one should consider the astronomical chapters as a literary unit composed by one author who followed some stylistic reasoning. It seems obvious to me that the text, as we have it, consists of two main versions, both covering essentially the same material, to which are added still more fragmentary pieces. What we have is not the work of one author (or ‘redactor’) but a conglomerate of closely related versions made by generations of scribes who assembled, to the best of their knowledge, the teaching current in their community about the structure and the laws of the cosmos.

He also considers the possibility that the work developed over time from a single source: It is, of course, possible that there existed originally one treatise written to codify the astronomical doctrines of a religious sect. Such a treatise would then have reached us only in several more or less modified versions, two of which are reflected in the present chapters 72 to 76 and 77 to 79,1 respectively. Fragments from additional versions are preserved in 79,2 to 80,1, while the description in 82 of the angelical hierarchy of the stars evidently belongs to a quite different source.1

Since Neugebauer wrote these words many more cuneiform astronomical texts have been published and considerable progress has been made in our understanding of Babylonian astral science. This has led to a series of scholars in the field of Babylonian astronomy working on the 364-day calendar tradition. Their work has borne fruit and it is now much easier to situate Enochian astronomy within the history of ancient astral sci Neugebauer (1985), 386, 387.

1

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Rewritten Tradition in the Astronomical Book

ence as a whole. Subsequent research has not led, however, to any modification of Neugebauer’s general impression: the work cannot be treated as a unity. In the following chapter it will be shown that, like the Book of the Watchers, the Astronomical Book reached its present form largely because an astronomical treatise describing the cosmology of the earlier tradition has been heavily reworked to accommodate the cosmology of Jubilees. Since before the rebellion of the ‘wanderers’ the moon was always full, the isolation and removal – ‘filleting’ – of passages in the Astronomical Book that mention the phases of the moon should leave behind those passages that might conceivably have belonged to the work before it was revised.

1 En 72:1: The Introduction The first verse of the Astronomical Book describes its contents: The book about the motion of the heavenly luminaries, all as they are in their kinds, their jurisdiction, their time, their name, their origins, and the months which Uriel, the holy angel who was with me (and) who is their leader, showed me. The entire book about them, as it is, he showed me and how every year of the world will be for ever, until a new creation lasting for ever is made. (1 En 72:1)

The only unit of time mentioned in the introduction is the month. We are not told whether this is a lunar or a liturgical month and only our own presuppositions and the fact that the lunar month of observation is discussed repeatedly later in the book could lead one to believe that Enoch has in mind anything other than the thirty- and thirty-one-day months that make up the framework of the 364-day liturgical calendar. The rest of the chapter describes these non-lunar liturgical months one by one. According to the original cosmology the sun and the moon are equally involved in measuring out the months, but after the rebellion of the ‘wanderers’ the month of observation is measured out only by the moon. Chapter 72 makes it clear that it was God’s will from the beginning that the ‘motion of the heavenly luminaries’ would be such as to produce a 364-day year. He concludes his introduction, however, by saying that the reader is about to learn ‘how every year of the world will be for ever, until a new creation lasting for ever is made.’

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Rewritten Tradition in the Astronomical Book

This is the only point in this work that mentions a ‘new creation’. We have seen that chapter 80, which some have thought described the chaos that would precede the ‘day of the great judgment’, actually describes what the author believed had happened before the Flood. The only reference to a ‘new creation’ we have come across thus far was in Jub 1:29 (cf. Jub 5:12), which refers to a re-creation of the world at the time of the Flood – a re-creation that will last for ever since there will not be any dramatic cosmic upheaval in the eschaton.2

1 En 72:2–37: The Law of the Sun The ‘first law of the luminaries’ concerns the sun, which is said to rise through six gates on the eastern horizon and set through six gates in the west. The gates are numbered beginning from the south in the east and in the west. This is the interpretation of ‘gates’ proposed by Neugebauer,3 whereas previous scholars had accepted Lawrence’s view that the ‘gates’ represent signs of the zodiac.4 As with the liturgical calendar the year begins with the spring equinox, immediately after which the sun emerges from the fourth gate in the east for thirty days. It then gradually moves north as the days grow longer, spending thirty days in the fifth gate and thirty-one days in the sixth gate before returning towards the south by first spending thirty more days in the sixth gate, then thirty days in the fifth gate and thirty-one days in the fourth gate. Thus the point from which the sun starts to return towards the south at the end of the third month coincides with the summer solstice, while the point it reaches after six months coincides with the autumn equinox. The second half of the year is a mirror image of the first, starting with the autumn equinox at the beginning of the seventh month. After the winter solstice at the end of the ninth month the sun begins to return towards the north. The thirty-first day of the twelfth month falls just before the spring equinox, after which another year begins. In describing the months of the year no reference is made to the moon and it is noticeable that the word ‘month’ is used only with reference to the first month. Otherwise the only expressions used are ‘for See Jub 23:15–31. Neugebauer (1964), 50. 4 Lawrence (1821), 201. Recently Jacobus (2015), 260–343, has argued for a return to Lawrence’s interpretation in relation to 4Brontologion (4Q318). 2 3

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Rewritten Tradition in the Astronomical Book

thirty mornings’ (1 En 72:9, 11, 17, 21, 23, and 27), ‘for thirty-one mornings’ (1 En 72:19, 25, and 31), ‘for thirty days’ (1 En 72:15, 22, and 29), and ‘for thirty-one days’ (1 En 72:13). The author of this chapter clearly wishes his reader to think in terms of periods of a fixed number of days and not in terms of a recurring unit of time coordinated with the phases of the moon. No attempt is made to relate the length of a month to the length of the year, nor is anything said about why some months have thirty days and some have thirty-one. This is apparently a matter of revelation, not observation. Chapter 72 has rightly been called ‘the very foundation of the Astronomical Book’.5 It provides the framework within which are set out the data found in 4QAstronomical Enocha (4Q208), our earliest Enochic astronomical text, probably copied around 175 bce. In this chapter the four additional days at the end of the third month of each season that distinguish the 364-day ideal calendar from the 360-day ideal calendar of Babylonia are given special prominence by being linked with solstices and equinoxes and by being accompanied by a ‘sign’.6 The emphasis that chapter 72 places on the four additional days and the change of seasons is reflected in the liturgical calendar described in Jubilees, where the first day of each season is a ‘Memorial Day’ commemorating some aspect of Noah’s salvation from the Flood (Jub 6:23–31). Chapter 72’s outline of the movement of the sun through the various gates in the course of a year also provides the framework into which the movements of the moon are inserted in 1 En 78:1–5. The mishmarot texts dealing with the priestly courses and all related calendrical texts at Qumran are based on it as well. Jubilees refers to Enoch as one ‘who wrote down in a book the signs of the sky in accord with the fixed pattern of their months so that mankind would know the seasons of the years according to the fixed pattern of each of their months’ (Jub 4:17).7 Although the reference to ‘signs’ here seems to refer to the ‘signs’ associated with the four turning points of the year in 1 En 72, the author seems to be saying that knowledge of the seasons depends upon knowledge of the months of the liturgical calendar. When Jubilees does refer to the lunar month of observation it is in pejorative terms (Jub 6:36). The length of a lunar month does not need to be revealed, of course, since it is a matter of observation and Ben-Dov (2008), 32. The reference to a ‘sign’ is missing in 1 En 72:31. 7 For ‘signs’ associated with the solstices and equinoxes see 1 En 72:13, 19, and 25. 5 6

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Rewritten Tradition in the Astronomical Book

its phases are seen and known to all. The months of chapter 72 are the thirty- and thirty-one-day months of the 364-day calendar that were arbitrarily fixed by God at the time of creation. They do not take the lunar month into account and this chapter is therefore fully consonant with the original cosmology of the 364-day calendar tradition.8 The division of the year into four seasons in this section is of interest because it does not conform to the experience of someone living in Palestine. In Gen 8:22 the year is divided into ‘seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter’. It does, however, conform to astronomical practice in Mesopotamia, where division of the year into four seasons is the norm. The Babylonian water-clock model for the calculation of days and nights is based on four three-month seasons of thirty days each.9

1 En 73:1–3ab: The Law of the Moon Chapter 73 has usually been treated as if it were a single whole. This is not the case, however, according to Ben-Dov, for whom‘Chapter 73 opens with an introductory statement (vv. 1–3) which seeks to place the subsequent technical data in a comprehensive, non-technical, literary frame (cf. 72:2, 78:1–3).’10 By comparing verses 1 En 73:1–3 with 1 En 72:2–5 Drawnel was able to refine this view.11 He notes that 1 En 73:1–3a reproduces almost word for word what is said about the sun in 1 En 72:2–5, but that after 1 En 73:3a this changes. The text in question is the following: (73) (1) After this law [Eth te’zāz] I saw a second law for the smaller luminary whose name is the moon. (2) Its roundness is like the round8 The statement in 1 En 72:35 that ‘This is the law and course of the sun: its return when it returns sixty times and emerges’ has puzzled scholars. Some of the best manuscripts omit ‘sixty times’ and without these words the sentence makes reasonably good sense as ‘… its return when it returns and emerges’, referring to the previous description of the sun’s progress through the different ‘gates’. See the discussion in VanderKam (2012), 427, where he concludes that the presence here of the number sixty ‘is another instance in which the purely schematic 360-day system can still be glimpsed underlying chapter 72.’ 9 Ben-Dov (2008), 31–52, brings out clearly ‘the centrality of the four cardinal seasons’ not only in the Astronomical Book but in the later Qumran tradition. 10 Ben-Dove (2008), 82. 11 Drawnel (2011), 260–63.

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Rewritten Tradition in the Astronomical Book

ness of the sky, and the wind blows its chariot on which it rides, with light being given to it in measure. (3) Each month its emergence and setting change, and its days are like the days of the sun. When its light is evenly distributed (over its surface), it is one seventh the light of the sun (my italics).

The moon is distinguished from the sun because it is ‘the smaller luminary whose name is the moon’ (1 En 73:1b), while the sun is ‘the great luminary whose name is the sun’ (1 En 72:4). The moon is like the sun in that ‘its roundness is like the roundness of the sky’ (1 En 73:2a) and ‘the roundness [of the sun] is like the roundness of the sky’ (1 En 72:4). And if the moon moves because ‘the wind blows its chariot on which it rides’ (1 En 73:2b), so too ‘[t]he wind blows the chariot [of the sun] where it rises’ (1 En 72:5).12 If light is ‘given to [the moon] in measure’ (1 En 73:2c) by the sun, this is because the sun ‘is entirely filled with fire, which gives light and heat’ (1 En 72:4). And if ‘[e]ach month [the moon’s] emergence and setting change’ (1 En 73:3a), this is what happens with the sun as well, since the sun’s place and time of rising and setting change each month in a process that is described in detail in 1 En 72:6–32. Thus everything said about the moon in verses 1 En 73:1–3a relates the moon only to the sun and is dependent upon what has already been said in chapter 72. For Drawnel, however, a change takes place after 1 En 73:3a: ‘Here the exact parallels end but the relationship to the sun remains noticeable in 73:3b and 3c. The only exception is verse 2c, in which the author explains the light is given to the moon in measure.’13 Nevertheless, verse 1 En 73:2c is still dependent upon what has already been said at the end of the previous chapter about the sun: ‘[The sun’s] light is seven times brighter than that of the moon …’ (1 En 72:37). If the moon’s light is one seventh of that of the sun and it receives its light from the sun, it follows inevitably that ‘light is given to the moon in measure’ (1 En 73:2c). It receives only part of the light of the sun. Drawnel assumes that verses 1 En 73:1–3a are designed to introduce a description of the changing pattern of the moon’s illumination in 1 En 73:4–8,14 and therefore he also assumes that ‘in measure’ refers to the changing measure of light that the moon receives in the course of a lunar 12 The same cosmological point is made in the description of Enoch’s first journey (1 En 18:4). 13 Drawnel (2011), 262. 14 Drawnel (2011), 261.

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Rewritten Tradition in the Astronomical Book

month. There is no justification for such an assumption. Strictly speaking, to say that light is given to the moon ‘in measure’ means no more than that the intensity of the moon’s light is less than that of the sun. It does not imply that it changes. Drawnel himself recognizes this when he says that verse 1 En 73:2c ‘states that light is given to [the moon] according to the measure that is, however, not specified any further.’15 Thus verse 1 En 73:2c does not formulate ‘the proportional principle of light growth’,16 as Drawnel suggests, although it does express ‘the proportional principle’ in general, i.e., a ratio of one to seven in the brightness of the two luminaries – something that has been said already in 1 En 72:37. The interpretation of verse 1 En 73:3b has proven a problem for scholars. Neugebauer thought that the words ‘its days are like the days of the sun’ meant that ‘[t]he rising and setting points of the moon change rapidly, but the number of “days” in a lunar calendar is the same as the corresponding number of solar days (73,3); for example, day 14 has the same distance from day 1 in a lunar calendar as a solar day 14 from solar day 1, in spite of the variability of the moments of moon-rise and moonset in relation the sun-set.’17 Albani agreed with Neugebauer but went further. He thought it possible that the verse 1 En 73:3a implied that the writer was thinking in terms of schematic thirty-day months along the lines of the traditional thirty-day months and 360-day years of Babylonian astronomy. In the Babylonian ideal calendar the lunar year has just as many days as the solar year.18 This was accepted by Ben-Dov, who says that it ‘reaffirms the theory noted above that the lunar model [in 1 En 74:17] was initially intended to function in the framework of an ideal 360-day year, rather than in a 364-day year or the more natural lunar framework of months [of] 29/30 days.’19 Drawnel adopts a much more straightforward approach to 1 En 73:3b. He believes that the interpretations of Neugebauer and Albani/ Ben-Dov ‘seem not to do justice to the plain meaning of the text that does not discuss the number of days in a month, but simply compares the days of the moon with the days of the sun.’ The comparison being made is between the length of the day ‘measured out by the rising and 17 18 19 15

16

Drawnel (2011), 286. Drawnel (2011), 263. Neugebauer (1985), 397. Albani (1994), 82, n. 125. Ben-Dov (2008), 83.

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Rewritten Tradition in the Astronomical Book

setting of the sun (ch. 72), and the length of the day measured out by the rising and setting of the moon (ch. 73 and Aramaic texts). In both cases the length of the day remains the same, although the calculation process uses different points of reference (sun versus moon).’20 In other words, the nychthemeron of the sun and moon is of equal length when measured from the time they rise – the beginning of their ‘day’ – to the time they rise again. In a sense, this is simply a more straightforward way of saying what Neugebauer said: the nychthemeron of the moon is the same as that of the sun. Interpreted in this way verse 1 En 73:3b describes exactly the relationship between the sun’s and the moon’s ‘days’ before the apostasy of the Wanderers: their ‘days’ are the same length, even if they begin at different and constantly changing times. Immediately after this comes the first hint that the moon exhibits phases: ‘When its light is evenly distributed21 it is one-seventh the light of the sun’ (1 En 73:3c). Drawnel has seen that there is a break between 1 En 73:1–3b and 1 En 73:3cd, but does not draw from this the appropriate conclusion. Although he ecognize that verses 1 En 73:1–3b ‘do not find any parallels in the Aramaic Astronomical Book’ and are ‘without any reference to the numerical data concerning the moon as found in the Aramaic texts’,22 he nevertheless believes that verses 1 En 73:1–3 as a whole present ‘a proper introduction to the whole section dedicated to the moon.’23 In fact, however, the break he has seen corresponds to the division between a section describing the heavens before the apostasy of the planets, when the moon simply imitated the sun, and a section describing the post-Flood movement of the moon according to the cosmology of Jubilees. Verses 1 En 73:1–3ab belong to the earlier form of the Astronomical Book, while 1 En 73:3c–8 is a later addition. Thus there is no reason to expect verses 1 En 73:1–3b to contain the kind of references to the phases of the moon that are now found elsewhere in the text. Drawnel points out that in verses 1 En 73:1–3b there is not a single mention of the ‘gates’ through which the moon passes, even though in 1 En 72:2–5 – to which these verses correspond in so many respects – the Drawnel (2011), 262. A literal translation would be ‘when it is even/equal/level’. See VanderKam (2012), 431. 22 Drawnel (2011), 267, 286. 23 Drawnel (2011), 285; so too at 267. 20 21

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Rewritten Tradition in the Astronomical Book

‘gates’ are referred to seven times. He thinks this is surprising. Yet it understandable if the author thinks the movements of the moon through the various gates are the same as the movements of the sun described in chapter 1 En 72:6–34. They do not need to be described at this point because the author has said enough when he says that the moon’s days ‘are like the days of the sun’ in 1 En 73:3b. It rises and sets and rises again once each day, taking exactly the same total time as the sun. For the earlier tradition there was no activity of the moon that was not directly related to the activity of the sun. Before the rebellion of the planets the moon shared the path of the sun as in 1 En 41:5–7, and went through the same gates that were used by the greater light. It was only after its rebellion that the moon began to go through different gates from the sun, as in 1 En 74:4–9. In Jubilees’ alternative creation narrative it is the sun that marks out the ‘days, sabbaths, [i.e., weeks], months, festivals, years, sabbaths of years, jubilees, and all times of the years’ (Jub 2:9). No distinctive role in the measurement of time is given to the moon.

1 En 73:3cd-8: The Law of the Phases of the Moon It must be accepted from the start that the Ethiopic version of 1 En 73:5–8 presents ‘a text with many difficulties’.24 VanderKam’s translation of his reconstruction is given below together with the last part of the previous section. The transitional passage has been put in italics. (3) Each month its emergence and setting change, and its days are like the days of the sun. When its light is evenly distributed (over its surface), it is one seventh the light of the sun (my italics). (4) In this way it rises with its beginning toward the east; it emerges on the thirtieth day, and on that day it is visible. It becomes for you the beginning of the month on the thirtieth day with the sun in the gate where the sun emerges. (5) Its half is distant one-seventh part (from the sun?), and all its disc is empty, with no light except its seventh part, one-fourteenth part of its light. (6) During the day it takes on a seventh part of half its light (i.e., one-fourteenth) and its illuminated section is a half seventh part. (7) It sets with the sun, and when the sun rises it rises with it and receives a half part of light. During that night, at the beginning of is day, at the beginning of the moon’s day, the moon sets with the sun and is dark that night six seventh parts and a half. (8) It rises during that day (with) Nickelsburg and VanderKam (2004), 100.

24

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a seventh part exactly. It emerges and recedes from the rising of the sun and is bright in the rest of its day six seventh parts.

The phases of the moon are referred to for the first time – albeit by implication – in 1 En 73:3cd: ‘When its light is evenly distributed (over its surface), it is one-seventh the light of the sun.’ To speak in this way implies that when the moon’s light is not evenly distributed – which happens when it exhibits phases – it is not one-seventh the light of the sun. Specific information about the moon’s movement and appearance then begins in 1 En 73:4, where we are told that it rises in the east and that ‘it emerges of the thirtieth day, and on that day it is visible. It becomes for you the beginning of the month on the thirtieth day with the sun in the gate where the sun emerges.’ Until this point the moon has not been associated with the beginning of the month, just as the lunar month is not associated with the beginning of the month in the liturgical calendar. Dillmann thought this verse was referring to the thirtieth day of a solar month and that the author was trying to indicate in an awkward way that the previous month had twenty-nine days.25 This would align this verse with the description of the lunar year in 1 En 78:15–16, where a lunar year is said to be made up of alternate thirty- and twenty-nineday months. It was not until much later that Neugebauer pointed out that in Babylonian cuneiform texts a month following a month with twenty-nine days is designated by its name followed by the number thirty, indicating that the previous month was ‘hollow’, that is, deficient when compared with the ideal thirty-day month of an ideal 360-day year, and that the month in question began on the previous month’s thirtieth day.26 A thirty-day month it is referred to by the name of the month followed by the numeral 1. A knowledgeable reader of verse 1 En 73:4 would therefore know that the month in question began on the thirtieth day of the previous lunar month, which had only twenty-nine days. This form of notation reflects the fact that to begin with the Babylonians found it very difficult to tell exactly how long a month would be until they saw when the next month began. There are no ‘hollow’ months in the Enochian 364-day creation calendar, of course, since it breaks completely with the Babylonian notion of ‘full’ and ‘hollow’ months and recognizes only months of arbitrary length that are either thirty or thirty-one days long. Dillmann (1853), 229. Neugebauer (1985), 397 (reprinted with some changes from Neugebauer [1981],

25

26

15).

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Dillmann believed that in 1 En 73:5–8 the author was thinking in terms of the amount of illumination on the surface of the moon.27 This interpretation was accepted by Charles and successive editors, including Milik, Neugebauer, and VanderKam,28 all of whom found different ways to account for the confusing fractions present in the Ethiopic text and their relationship with the fragments of this passage found at Qumran. Recently this interpretation of 73:4–8 has been challenged by Drawnel. In 2007 he published an article in which he argues – contrary to Milik’s claim that the Qumran fragments compute the illumination of the moon’s surface – that ‘the calculation deals mainly with periods of moon visibility on the sky during night and day. These calculations find their main inspiration in the Babylonian astrological series Enūma Anu Enlil.’29 Drawnel’s argument was based on a detailed philological analysis of the meaning of six crucial terms used in the fragments.30 He shows that it is based on the same schematic form of data presentation as is found in tables A and B of tablet 14 of the Enūma Anu Enlil series, which give the duration of lunar visibility in an ideal equinoctial month of thirty days in the tradition of Nippur and, using a water-clock, in the tradition of Babylon.31 From the data in the Aramaic fragments he then reconstructs two patterns of lunar visibility distinguished by whether full moon occurs on the fourteenth or on the fifteenth day of the lunar month. The data dealing with the amount of light the moon receives from the sun are based on a realization that ‘[a]s the illumination of the surface grows during the day so grows the length of the moon’s presence in the sky during the night.’32 But whereas in the Babylonian texts the basic fraction used is 1/15, in the Astronomical Book it is 1/14.33 As Drawnel observes, once again the septenary principle has been introduced.34 The following year Ben-Dov made use of Drawnel’s analysis to argue that the data found in 4Q208/4Q209 – which he preferred to call an Dillmann (1853), 228. For a survey of previous scholarship see VanderKam (2007), 433–37. This article from 2007 forms the basis for his treatment of the passage in VanderKam (2012), 431–39. 29 Drawnel (2007), 3. See his transcription and translation of Tables A and B from Enūma Anu Enlil Tablet XIV in (2011), Appendix III, 425–28. 30 Drawnel (2007), 13–21. 31 Drawnel (2007), 22–31. 32 Drawnel (2007), 8. 33 See Drawnel (2011), 303–04, Table 3.12. 34 Drawnel (2007), 11. 27

28

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‘Expanded Model of Lunar Visibility’ because ‘it includes not only the series of fractions measuring lunar visibility but also data on solar and lunar positions’35 – had been divided up on the basis of whether they focused on the increase/decrease of light or on the path of the moon through the heavenly gates and then divided between chapters 73 and 74. On this basis he posited the existence of two astronomical treatises that were then combined in the Astronomical Book, the first being found in chapters 73–74 and the second in chapters 78–79.36 In this respect he is refining what had been said earlier by Neugebauer.37 In Drawnel’s major publication of all four Qumran manuscripts of the Astronomical Book in 2011, however, he argues that the lunar data in 4Q208/4Q209 cannot derive from an expanded Synchronistic Calendar as Ben-Dov suggested because ‘the two sets of data are composed for different purposes. While [Paris MS Eth. 64] describes the rising of the moon in the six eastern gates only, the Aramaic calculation cites the rising and setting of the moon in the six eastern and western gates.’38 Although gates are mentioned in the Aramaic fragments, the information provided does not enable one to calculate how long the moon remains in any particular gate. According to Drawnel the occasional references to gates ‘do not communicate the number of days the moon spends in a gate; rather, they contain additional information concerning the moon in a complex calculation process where the moon illumination and the length of visibility play the most important role.’ He points out that the formulaic expressions used in the two sets of data are consistently applied yet completely different.39 On the basis of his analysis Drawnel reconstructs the data in the Aramaic fragments to produce the two Tables of Lunar Visibility required by a 354-day lunar year with alternating twenty-nine- and thirtyday months. Pattern I applies to months in which the full moon falls on day fourteen in months with twenty-nine days, and Pattern II to those in which it falls on day fifteen and the month has thirty days.40 In the absence of any fragments from the beginning of the month Drawnel Ben-Dov (2008), 72. Ben-Dov (2008), 80–82. 37 See above, p. 210. 38 Drawnel (2011), 294. In this work he expands and refines his treatment of the same subject in Drawnel (2007). 39 Drawnel (2011), 294. 40 Drawnel (2011), 235. See Appendices I and II in Drawnel (2011), 421–24, and his reconstruction and translation in (2011), 438–53. 35

36

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is obliged to draw on the Ethiopic text of 1 En 73:4–8 for his reconstruction. Only day 30 and day 1 of Pattern I are preserved in chapter 73, where ‘verses 4–7c contain the description of day 30, whilst 7d–8 compute day 1.’41 He admits that ‘[t]he description of days 30 and 1 of the month in 1 Enoch 73:4–8 is partially corrupt’ but believes that ‘the meaning of the calculation is easy to grasp when compared with the [reconstructed] Aramaic text.’42 1 En 73:4–7 ‘do not follow the style of the formulaic phrases found in the description of single days in the Aramaic text’, but verses 7d–8 do nevertheless ‘contain the description of day 1 of the month, and partially overlap with the Aramaic formulaic sentences.’43 The Ethiopic version supports as well as can probably be expected his argument, which is that the data found in the Aramaic fragments does not derive from a synchronistic calendar but from a primary source of another kind describing the length of time the moon spends in the sky and not the amount of the moon’s surface illumined by the sun.44 In the context of our present study the description of the phases of the moon in 1 En 73:3cd-8 – which clearly assumes that these phases are part of God’s plan for the world – belong to a revision of the Astronomical Book designed to align it with the post-Flood cosmology of Jubilees. What is new, of course, is their relationship to the world of observation. The solar data in chapter 72 and the lunar data in 1 En 73:1–3ab are not based on observation. Nor are the lengths assigned to nights and days in chapter 72, where the 1:2/2:1 ratios between night and day at the solstices bear no relation to what actually happens anywhere in the Middle East.45 Neugebauer points out that the ratios 1:2 and 2:1 reproduce data found in MUL.APIN, a classical compendium of Babylonian astronomical knowledge – probably compiled around 1100 bce – that continued to be copied well into the Persian period and beyond. In later texts the equally arbitrary but more realistic ratios of 2:3 and 3:2 are used.46

Drawnel (2011), 286. Drawnel (2011), 260. 43 Drawnel (2011), 268. 44 Ben-Dov (2008), 77–116, accepts these differences but argues that the data in the synchronistic calendar found in 4Q208/4Q209 have been broken up and divided between chapters 73 and 74 depending upon whether they focus on the increase/decrease of light (in chapter 73) or the path of the moon through the heavenly gates (in chapter 74). 45 See the comments of Neugebauer (1985), 394. 46 Neugebauer (1985), 394. 41

42

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A twelve-month lunar year of alternating thirty- and twenty-nineday months, however, has a total of 354 days. Thus it differs by slightly more than one tenth of one percent (1/1000) from the lunar year of observation, which is approximately 354.37 days long.

1 En 74:1–9, 17: The Movements of the Moon The first half of chapter 74 is introduced by the words, ‘Another course and law I saw for it; by that law it carries out the monthly course’ (1 En 74:1). The next two verses return to the question of the moon’s light, the subject of verses 1 En 73:3cd-8, and are clearly based on the data in Drawnel’s Tables of Lunar Visibility found in 4Q208 and 4Q209, but 1 En 74:4–9 along with 1 En 74:17, which follows the interpolation contained in 1 En 74:10–16, describe in a schematic and partial fashion the movements of the moon back and forth through the six eastern and western gates during two months of the year. Grébaut believed that these verses were related to a short treatise found on folios 40v–43r of Ethiopic MS 64 in the Bibliothèque Nationale that he published in 1919.47 The treatise lists the number of days the moon spends in each of the gates on the eastern horizon during a 354-day lunar year of alternating thirty- and twenty-nine-day months.48 In the superscription to this text this information is said to have been shown to Enoch by Uriel. When Neugebauer turned his attention to Ethiopian and Enochic astronomy he was able to draw up a table based on this and other similar Ethiopic manuscripts that gave a pattern for the moon’s movements through the eastern gates throughout the lunar year.49 Neugebauer’s table describes a year with alternating twenty-nine day and thirty-day months. The pattern in each month leads smoothly and without a break into the pattern for the next, with the twelfth month of the year leading without interruption into the first month of the following lunar year.50 Thus it repeats itself indefinitely – like the 364-day calendar. Only a small portion of the information in Neugebauer’s table is present in 1 En 74:4–8. Grébaut (1918–19a), 422–28. A lunar year with alternating twenty-nine- and thirty-day months is also known to have been used in Egypt and Hellenistic Greece. See Jacobus (2015), 333–34. 49 Reproduced in VanderKam (2012), 443. 50 Neugebauer (1964), 49–71. Olson (2004), 152, has provided an excellent diagram showing how this works. 47

48

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Milik, the first editor of the Qumran fragments of the Astronomical Book, also believed that the data in 4QAstronomical Enocha (4Q208) and 4QAstronomical Enochb (4Q209) relating to the changing gates used by the moon were directly related to the short treatise found in Grébaut’s Ethiopic MS 64 in the Bibliothèque Nationale.51 Milik called the calculations found in the Paris manuscript a ‘synchronistic calendar’ and used this term to describe what survives in the Ethiopic Astronomical Book as an abridged version of what must originally have been a much longer set of Aramaic data. This understanding was generally accepted and in the official publication Tigchelaar and García Martínez distributed the scattered fragments of 4Q208 and 4Q209 over the course of a lunar year on the basis of the schedule of the moon’s movements that had been constructed by Neugebauer using the Paris manuscript and other Ethiopic computus texts.52 If, however, one accepts Drawnel’s analysis of 4Q208 and 4Q209 this is not the case. The Aramaic data available in these manuscripts ‘contains the synchronisation [of the moon] with the sun only at the beginning and end of the month, and the lunar gates in the course of the month, that is, the position of the moon in relation to the horizon, are rarely mentioned.’53 According to Drawnel this suggests that ‘there existed a separate Aramaic section dedicated to the gates of the moon synchronized with those of the sun.’54 This may easily have been a separate treatise, since ‘[o]ne does not have to assume that Enoch and the Aramaic manuscripts from Qumran contain all available texts concerning the related calendaric calculation.’55 The reason for this seems clear: the information concerning the precise correlation of lunar and solar movements in the course of a lunar year can be presented much more efficiently in a separate table. This must have resembled closely the scheme that survives in Ethiopic MS 64 and would be the only text that can properly be called a ‘Synchronistic Calendar’. I shall now use this term only to refer to this separate calculation. Thus it would appear that the reviser of the Astronomical Book could draw on two separate texts dealing with the movements of the moon: (a) the Tables of Lunar Visibility and (b) a separate Synchronis 53 54 55 51

52

Milik (1976), 275–78. DJD XXXVI, 95–103. Drawnel (2011), 39–40. Drawnel (2011), 293. Drawnel (2011), 294.

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tic Calendar. The data relating to the gates of the sun and moon in the Tables of Lunar Visibility as found in 4Q208 and 4Q209 will have been culled from the Synchronistic Calendar and entered in the Tables when this was thought appropriate.56 1 En 74:1–9 and 17 clearly presuppose the post-Flood cosmology of Jubilees and are therefore another example of the work of revision that produced the second half of chapter 73.

1 En 74:10–16: The Lunar and Solar Years Verses 74:10–16 form a separate pericope that also presupposes the cosmology of Jubilees. The passage is concerned entirely with the problem of the relationship between the length of the lunar and the ‘solar’ year – in spite of the fact that one is based on observation while the other is a schematic ideal year. The obvious contradiction that surfaces in 1 En 74:10 between a year that is only six days longer than the lunar year – 360 days – and the 364day year defended in the same verse has been used by Albani and BenDov to argue that the Astronomical Book originally defended a 360-day year.57 Yet this section seems hopelessly confused. Neugebauer declined even to give a full translation on the grounds that it was an addition containing little more than ‘some correct but irrelevant numerical identities’ adding that ‘I surmise this whole group of verses is a late addition, written under the influence of some computus treatise, where the mixup of Alexandrian and Enoch years is quite common.’58 Albani pointed out that if one removes verses 10–16 from chapter 74 the rest of it makes sense and suggested that these verses might have been inserted by a translator in Alexandria.59 Ben-Dov speaks of 1 En 74:10–16 as a ‘failed attempt to produce an octaeteris’ that was ‘interpolated in the text around the beginning of the Common Era.’60 For VanderKam it is ‘as though the compiler [of 74:13–16] knew about the 4QPhases of the Moon (4Q317) may be a witness to the separate Tables of Lunar Visibility, since it seems to refer only to the time the moon spends in the sky and to the amount of its light in relation to the solar calendar. It has thus far been published only in Milik (1976), 68–69. Unfortunately Drawnel (2011) does not discuss this text. 57 Albani (1994), 50, 178; Ben-Dov (2008), 34–37. 58 Neugebauer (1985), 401. 59 Albani (1994), 74–75. 60 Ben-Dov (2014), 4. 56

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octaeteris (an eight-year intercalation cycle used in Greece) but applied it to calendars for which it is irrelevant.’61 The role of the moon is given unusual importance in this section: ‘The moon brings about the years precisely, all according to their eternal positions. They come neither early nor late by one day by which they would change the year: each is exactly 364 days’ (1 En 74:12). This the same role that is given to the sun in 1 En 72:32, where after specifying the number of days in each liturgical month the author adds: ‘… and the year is exactly 364 days.’ While a 354-day year can be correlated exactly with a 364-day year over a period of three years, this requires the intercalation of a thirty-day month. Like 1 En 74:17, which Albani links to 1 En 74:1–9, 1 En 74:12 refers to ‘eternal positions’ and it may well be that it should also be linked to the material in 1 En 74:1–9. In this case the last three verses of the first section of chapter 74 taken in the order they appear in the Ethiopic version would have been: (74) (9) In this way I saw their positions, as the moon rises and the sun sets during those days. (12) The moon brings about the years precisely, all according to their eternal positions. They come neither early nor late by one day by which they would change the year: each is 364 days. (17) Then the year is correctly completed in accord with their eternal positions and the positions of the sun: they rise from the gate from which it rises and sets for thirty days.’

In this case the confused data in 1 En 74:10–11 that compare the lunar and solar years have been inserted before 1 En 74:12 and the attempt to link the 364-day year with the Greek octaeteris in 1 En 74:13–16 has been inserted after it. The words ‘they rise from the gate from which it rises and sets for thirty days’ then begin to look like a marginal gloss on 1 En 74:5–9 that has been slipped in at the end of the chapter. We shall probably never know exactly how the Ethiopic text of chapter 74 reached its present state even if it proves possible to distinguish the various elements out of which it is was assembled. In any case, the whole chapter contains material that implies acceptance of the cosmology of Jubilees.

61

VanderKam (2012), 449.

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1 En 75:1–3: The Four Leaders of the Stars and Correct Calendrical Practice This section is devoted to the four stars associated with the four additional days and to their place in the hierarchy of heavenly luminaries. The presence of these four days converts the Babylonian 360-day ideal year based on a thirty-day month to a 364-day ideal year based on the seven-day week: (75)(1) The leaders of the heads of thousands who are over all the creation and over all the stars (have to do) with those four (days) that are added; they are not separated from their position according to the calculation of the year, and they serve on the four days that are not reckoned in the calculation of the year. (2) People err regarding them because those lights truly serve (in) the positions of the world: one in the first gate, one in the third gate, one in the fourth gate, and one in the sixth gate, and the year is completed precisely62 in the 364 positions of the world. (3) For Uriel the angel whom the Lord of eternal glory set over all the heavenly luminaries, in the sky and in the world, showed me the sign, the seasons, the year and the days so that they may rule the firmament, appear above the earth, and be leaders of days and nights – the sun, the moon, the stars, and all the serving entities that go around in all the heavenly chariots.

1 En 75:1 has been interpreted in different ways, although on the basis of chapter 1 En 82:11 it seems clear that ‘leaders’ are the stars that ‘divide the four parts of the year’, while the ‘heads of thousands’ are the 360 stars that ‘separate the days’ and presumably head the many other stars that rise for the first time each day of the year. After declaring that the four stars associated with the four additional days ‘are not separated from their position according to the calculation of the year’ the author then adds enigmatically that these stars ‘serve on the four days that are not reckoned in the calculation of the year’ before going on to add at once that ‘[p]eople err regarding them because those lights truly serve (in) the positions of the world, one in the first gate, one in the third heavenly gate, on in the fourth gate, and one in the sixth gate, and the accuracy of the world is completed in the 364 positions of the world’ (1 En 75:2). 62 So Uhlig, Olson, and Ben-Dov, following Tana 9. The majority of the other manuscripts have ‘the accuracy of the world is completed’, which is followed by VanderKam, Knibb, and Black.

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Neugebauer, a mathematician and specialist in Babylonian astronomy, believed the statement in 1 En 75:1 that ‘they are not reckoned in the calculation of the year’ was a gloss mistakenly introduced into the text and referencing the fact that no provision was made for the four additional days when the length of days and nights through the year was being calculated in chapter 72. Strictly speaking, a month with thirty-one days should disturb the rigid zig-zag or ‘stepped’ pattern of change associated with the months. For example, the change that takes place during the thirty-one-day month that precedes the autumn equinox might be expected to be greater than the change that takes place in the thirty-day month that follows it.63 In 1 En 72:19–22 this is not the case, which shows that chapter 72 is following without change a pattern for the length of night and day that suits only a year with twelve equal months. In view of the way that the early Babylonian astronomers were willing to work with approximations, however, this hardly seems unusual in a text as primitive as this. Sacchi64 and Boccaccini,65 on the other hand, believe that at this point Enoch is saying that while the year has 364 days, the four extra days are not included in the count of the year, which is actually made up of twelve thirty-day months. In other words, Enoch – or the author of these lines – does not think of the four additional days as belonging to the year as such but treats them separately in order to highlight the great authority of the angels/stars associated with them. In the author’s mind the year is made up of twelve thirty-day months – as in the Babylonian ideal year – plus four extra days associated with four very important stars. For Sacchi and Boccaccini, therefore, the difference in these two positions is theoretical: how should one think about the 364-day year? This is a discussion that can take place within the 364-day calendar tradition. Albani, however, believes that 1 En 75:2 expresses the view of its author and therefore indicates that the Astronomical Book originally supported a 360-day calendar and was only later edited – imperfectly – to accommodate a 364-day calendar year.66 His interpretation has been accepted by Ben-Dov, ‘in light of the Mesopotamian background of

65 66 63

64

Neugebauer (1985), 402. Sacchi (1990), 128–31. Boccaccini (2002), 2:313–18. Albani (1994), 50, 57.

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the issue, which Sacchi fails to address.’67 None of these scholars doubts that the 364-day calendar was based on the 360-day ideal Babylonian year. The issue is whether the 360-day year was ever defended as revealed knowledge or used elsewhere in a Jewish context. If so, it is unattested. The problem has arisen because no agent is attached to the passive ‘are not reckoned’. Not reckoned by whom? VanderKam compares a similar passage found in 1 En 82:4–6: (82) (4) Blessed are all the righteous who will walk in the way of righteousness and have no sin like the sinners in numbering all the days the sun travels in the sky through the gates, entering and emerging for thirty day with the heads of thousands of the order of the stars, with the four additional ones that divide between the four parts of the year that lead them and enter with the four days. (5) People err regarding them and do not calculate them in the numbering of the entire world because they err regarding them and people do not understand them precisely. (6) For they belong in the reckoning of the year and are indeed recorded forever: one in the first gate, one in the third gate, one in the fourth, and one in the sixth. (Thus) a year of 364 days is completed.

In this passage it seems clear that the ‘sinners’ of 1 En 82:4 are those who accept the traditional Babylonian ideal 360-day year with its twelve thirty-day months. They err in not ‘numbering all the days the sun travels in the sky through the gates’. Each day the sun enters for thirty days with one or another of the heads of thousands and ‘with the four additional ones that divide between the four parts of the year’. These are the four stars associated with the last day of the third month of each season. As VanderKam says, this is a ‘crucial supplement’ that is added to the 360 days of the Mesopotamian calendar. He points out that in 1 En 75:1–3 ‘Enoch calls attention to the exceptionally important character of the four days by associating them with the highest-ranking leaders in the celestial hierarchy disclosed to him by Uriel.’68 The 360-day ideal calendar was used in two ways in Babylon. At an archetypal level it described the heavens as created by Marduk according to Enūma Elish V, a scheme that was used initially for assessing the significance of astral phenomena through astral divination and subsequently, from about the fourth century bce, for constructing horoscopes. And at a practical level it became the Babylonian 360-day administrative calen Ben-Dov (2008), 36, n. 43. VanderKam (2012), 457–58.

67 68

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dar that was used to simplify calculations needed in everyday economic activities. In all other aspects of civic life and religious practice a lunisolar calendar was used, which required the intercalation of an additional thirty-day ideal month every two or three years. Since it is unlikely that the author thought of Babylonian bureaucrats as his opponents it would appear that he is attacking here the founding mythology of an entire culture which treated Enūma Elish as a sacred text.69 If we read 1 En 75:1–3 in the light of 1 En 82:4–6 it seems clear that those by whom the four additional days ‘are not reckoned in the calculation of the year’ in the first passage can only be those with whose understanding of the universe the book takes issue in the second.70 These adversaries are all who accept the Babylonian 360-day ideal year and the lunar and planet-based astral divination and civic religion that goes with it. This interpretation avoids an unnecessary ‘multiplication of entities’ within the text while at the same time clarifying and simplifying our understanding of the background and development of the 364-day calendar tradition. It also addresses very neatly the ‘Mesopotamian background of the issue’ that Ben-Dov felt Sacchi failed to consider. In 1 En 75:1 the stars associated with the four additional days are said to be ‘over all the creation and over all the stars’ while in 1 En 75:3 it is Uriel whom God set ‘over all the heavenly luminaries, in the sky and in the world’. These statements are not contradictory. Uriel is simply a higher-ranking angel than any of those in charge of individual stars and clearly acts as their commander-in-chief. The four additional stars taken together are indeed ‘over all creation and over all the stars’ but at a lower level than Uriel, with each of them in control of only a single season. Throughout this section it seems obvious that behind each star there is an angel, as in the alternative creation narrative in Jubilees 2:2. 1 En 75:1–3 give us no reason to believe that the moon changes its appearance in the course of a month. When the contents of Uriel’s revelation are listed as ‘the sign, the seasons, the years, and the days’ (1 En 75:3), the ‘sign’ referred to is presumably the sign associated with each of the solstices and equinoxes in chapter 72. They mark the seasons, which along with the year are lengths of time that have nothing to do with the 69 The traditional 360-day year was still used for divinatory purposes even after the introduction of accurate mathematical prediction of the movements of the planets in the Late Babylonian period. It survives today in contemporary astrology, since the zodiac divides the sidereal year into twelve equal periods – the old ‘ideal’ months established by Marduk. 70 See the fuller discussion in VanderKam (2012), 550–53.

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moon since they take place in accordance with the ‘364 positions of the world’ that are determined by the gradually changing position of the heavenly sphere in relation to the earth. The absence of the month is understandable since before the moon’s apostasy it did nothing more than follow the movements of the sun. Thus these verses are entirely consistent with chapter 72 and the first part chapter 73. They reflect the earlier cosmology in which the month was a liturgical reality of varying length but had no corresponding cycle in the heavens. Its beginning could be correlated only with the rising or setting of a fixed star. Only at the end of the chapter in 1 En 75:3 are the sun and the moon finally mentioned, and then only by being included in a list of heavenly bodies that are ultimately under the control of Uriel: ‘… the leaders of days and nights – the sun, the moon, the stars, and all the serving entities that go around in all the heavenly chariots.’ The moon is associated only with ‘days and nights’, not with the month. This is striking, to say the least. Rau has pointed out that 1 En 75:1–3 forms a fitting conclusion to the whole of 1 En 72:3–74:17, which deals sequentially with the sun, the moon, and the stars.71 This is accepted by VanderKam.72 The effect of this is that the conflict between those who advocate a 360-day ideal year and those who accept the Enochic 364-day ideal year is given special prominence by being placed in the final section.

1 En 75:4–9: The Twelve Gates in the Sun and the Windows of Heaven The Ethiopic version of this section is disturbed and VanderKam has removed 1 En 75:5 in order to restore sense and continuity. When this is done the passage begins with the disc of the sun and its twelve ‘gates’ from which ‘the rays of the sun come out and from which its heat comes upon the earth when they are opened at the times stipulated for them’ (1 En 75:4). It then goes on to speak of the ‘twelve gates in the sky’ that are open ‘on the boundaries of the earth, from which the sun, the moon, the stars, and all the works of the sky emerge, on the east and on the west’ (1 En 75:6). There are ‘many windows opened on the left and right’ of these gates and ‘[e]ach window at its time emits heat like those gates His arguments are presented in VanderKam (2012), 467. VanderKam (2012), 467.

71

72

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from which the stars emerge as [God] ordered them and in which they set according to their number’ (1 En 75:7). It is difficult to make sense of the relationship between these ‘gates’ and the ‘windows’ on either side of them from which heat emerges, Enoch then adds: ‘I saw chariots in the sky traveling in the world above those gates in which the stars that do not set revolve. One is larger than all of them and it is the one that encircles the whole world’ (1 En 75:8–9). The first sentence could be an awkward way of describing the fact that because of the inclination of the earth’s axis some at least of the circumpolar stars do seem to move across and above the gates of the eastern horizon through which the sun and moon emerge. The second sentence is also difficult. Neugebauer thought that 1 En 75:9 referred to the circumpolar star whose circuit is greater than the others, that is, ‘the greatest always visible circle’, the arctic circle of astronomical science.73 The whole of this section is mythological in character and, as VanderKam admits, ‘the picture is somewhat confusing’.74 Its only point of contact with Enochian astronomy is the terminological link to the twelve gates of 1 Enoch 72.75 Although there is nothing in this section that would prevent the moon exhibiting phases, its spirit is quite unlike that of the later calendrical tradition as found in the Table of Lunar Visibility and Synchronistic Calendar. This section is probably best grouped with those that reflect the earlier mythology and cosmology.

1 En 76:1–14: The Twelve Winds and Their Twelve Gates Fragments of two copies of this chapter found at Qumran have been dated to around 50 bce and to the turn of the millennia, thus confirming its presence in the Aramaic Astronomical Book at that time.76 Although there are ‘some rather close parallels between the Aramaic texts from Qumran cave 4 and the Ethiopic version’,77 it is hard to see the Ethiopic text as an attempt to translate a Greek version of the Aramaic 75 76 77 73 74

Neugebauer (1985), 403, n. 23. VanderKam (2012), 465. Drawnel (2011), 42. 4QAstronomical Enochb (4Q209) and 4QAstronomical Enochc (4Q210). VanderKam (2012), 470.

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text we have. Many passages seem to require another Vorlage,78 which would seem to indicate that the Ethiopic version derives from another Aramaic text tradition. Nevertheless, the Aramaic text and Ethiopic version do not differ in character. Once again the mythical and schematic nature of the ‘rose of the winds’ with its three gates in each of the four quarters of the horizon suggests it was part of the earlier tradition.79 Drawnel points out that the Hebrew Bible ‘does not link the winds with propitious or harmful phenomena in the way found in the Enochian tradition’. He shows that the ‘rose of the wind’ had its origin in a Babylonian cultural milieu and is related to Babylonian celestial divination.80 This does not necessarily mean, however, that the 364-day calendar tradition used it for this purpose. In these verses the blessing or harm that a wind brings seems to express the will of God. Although this meteorological section may not, to our minds, correspond to the astronomical concerns of the bulk of the Astronomical Book, Ben-Dov has rightly pointed out that information of the kind found in this and the next chapter ‘form an integral part of the worldview’ of both the Enochic and the Babylonian traditions.81 We would not expect to find a reference to the phases of the moon in this chapter, but it is obvious that we are far from the world of observation and mathematical precision of the Tables of Lunar Visibility and the Synchronistic Calendar. Chapter 76 should therefore also be grouped with those that reflect the mythological and simple schematic character of the earlier cosmology.

1 En 77:1–8: The Four Quarters of the Earth Black calls chapter 77 ‘Mystical Geography’.82 This is certainly a suitable description for a section that adds to the four quarters of the terrestrial disc seven mountains ‘higher than all the mountains on the earth’, seven rivers ‘larger than all the rivers’, and ‘seven large islands in the sea See the comments on the relationship between the Ethiopic and Aramaic texts in Drawnel (2011), 196, 322, 325, 334, 338. 79 The schematic character is stressed by Neugebauer (1985), 405. 80 Drawnel (2011), 330–31. 81 Ben-Dov (2008), 188. So too VanderKam (2012), 471. 82 Black (1985), 407. 78

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and on the land – two on the land and five in the Great Sea.’ In this respect chapter 77 is very much like chapter 76. Although VanderKam reminds us that ‘geography is a frequent element in texts embodying the traditional form of Mesopotamian astronomy’,83 there is nevertheless a significant difference between the use of geography in the texts he cites and what we see in chapters 76 and 77. The Mesopotamian examples link the four quarters of the earth to the hostile nations inhabiting them and correlate them with divinatory omens that are of importance to the king. This would be out of place in the Astronomical Book even if this ancient practice does surface in 4QBrontologion (4Q318).84 Parts of this chapter are preserved in 4Q209 frg. 23 3–10 and 4Q210 frg. 1 ii. There are marked differences between the Ethiopic version and the Aramaic fragments, an indication that much of the detail was changed in the course of transmission even if the basic character of the passage did not change.85 Since there is nothing in chapter 77 that conflicts with the original mythology of the 364-day tradition it too should be assigned to the earlier form of the Astronomical Book before it was combined with material derived from the Table of Lunar Visibility and the Synchronistic Calendar.

1 En 78:1–5: The Names of the Sun and the Moon Although this section is traditionally grouped with 1 En 78:6–17 in a single chapter it has no relationship with the following section, which assumes the existence of some form of Synchronistic Calendar. In 1 En 78:1–2 two names are given for the sun and four names given for the moon. This desire to give names to the luminaries surfaces again in 1 En 82:13–20, where it is carried to even greater lengths. Hallévi suggested that the four names of the moon were intended to designate its four phases.86 VanderKam points out, however, that ‘the terms used for three of them are no longer recognizable so that there is no certainty about which word would denote which phase.’87 Interest VanderKam (2012), 483. See now Jacobus (2015), 177–84 and her extensive commentary. 85 Drawnel (2011), 354–56, again says that ‘One has to assume a different Vorlage for the Ethiopic version.’ 86 Hallévi (1867), 387. 87 VanderKam (2012), 505. 83

84

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in naming the heavenly bodies does not seem to have been strong in the earlier tradition. It is absent in 1 En 72:2–36, 73:1–3b, and 75:1–3. VanderKam also points out that the information about the sun and the moon contained in 1 En 78:3–5 repeats in a garbled manner what has already been said in 1 En 72:2–5, 37, and 73:1–2.88 This probably indicates that they did not belong to the original form of the work and were perhaps introduced from a source that retold what was contained in the earlier chapters in response to the scattered nature of the data they contained. The presence of four names for the moon shows that for the author the moon was not always full as in the earlier tradition. This short twopart section should therefore be treated as evidence of the revised Astronomical Book’s gradual expansion in the course of its reception.

1 En 78:6–16, 79:3–5, 78:17, 79:6: The Waxing and Waning of the Moon Ben-Dov introduces his treatment of the end of the Astronomical Book by commenting: Chapters 78–82 constitute a conglomerate of various themes, represented in small fragments as short as one verse. Although it would be difficult – and perhaps futile – to attempt to explain the precise way in which the present textual disarray came into existence, a balanced examination of the subject matter will demonstrate that the assumption that such confusion occurred is unavoidable.89

It is difficult to disagree with this assessment. Nickelsburg says that ‘chapters 79–82 give the impression of being a patchwork.’90 The Ethiopic version presents this section in garbled form. Fortunately, the Aramaic fragments enable us to bring some order to the text. 4Q209 frg. 26 contains material corresponding to parts of 1 En 78:17– 79:5 but distributes the verses differently. In it 1 En 79:3–5 appears before 1 En 78:17, which is then followed by 1 En 79:1.91 On this basis Koch concluded that 1 En 79:3–5 was originally part of chapter 78 and his 90 91 88

89

VanderKam (2012), 505–06. Ben-Dov (2008), 102. Nickelsburg (2001), 335. Drawnel (2011), 26, n. 99.

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view has been accepted by more recent editors.92 This certainly produces a more coherent though nevertheless still somewhat garbled text.93 If 1 En 78:10–16 preceded 1 En 79:3–5 and was followed by 1 En 79:1–2, 6, the sequence of these verses takes on the following form: 78:6–14 The changing amounts of light in the moon 78:15–16 The two halves of the lunar year 79:3–5 The changing amounts of light in the moon in relation to the lunar year 78:17 The moon’s appearance by night and by day 79:1–2 Enoch tells Methuselah that he has shown him the ‘law of all the stars’ 79:6 Enoch tells Methuselah that he has been shown by Uriel ‘the appearance and likeness of each luminary’. According to Drawnel, ‘The Ethiopic text in 78:6–8 differs from 4Q210 frg. 1 in many places and an extensive redactional effort is clearly palpable. […] The Aramaic text shows that the author … intended to describe the illumination of the moon’s surface, similar to column F in the regular calculation of the moon phases.’94 This implies that when 1 En 75:6–14 was written the Tables of Lunar Visibility were still available, but that the data has been simplified before entering it into the text. It seems likely that the Tables of Lunar Visibility and the Synchronistic Calendar were excerpted and simplified several times and by different people. The data in 1 En 73:4–8 and 78:6–8 and in 4Q317 clearly have the same source, but it is presented differently in all three passages. Both the full version and its abbreviated forms would have been available at the same time, presumably designed for different readers. 1 En 78:9 is discussed separately by VanderKam. He concludes that the text originally read ‘During certain months the moon has 29 days and sometimes 28.’ In this case the author has in mind the fact that according to the Tables of Lunar Visibility the moon is completely invis Koch (1996), 10–12; Olson (2004), 275; Ben-Dov (2008), 104–06; Drawnel (2011), 383; VanderKam (2012). 93 Ben-Dove (2008), 107, concludes on the basis of the way 1 En 79:3–5 treats the synchronistic data that the ‘garbled’ character of the Ethiopic text ‘did not originate with the Ethiopic scribes and translators but that the order of this stretch of text was already confused in the Aramaic transmission.’ 94 Drawnel (2011), 43. 92

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ible one day each month.95 This point is made a few verses later in 1 En 78:14. 1 En 78:10–14 are introduced by ‘Uriel showed me another law …’, but the subject matter is again the changing amount of light in the moon during the month. VanderKam suggests that ‘it would not be unlikely that the teaching about the moon here derived from a source other than the one(s) underlying chapters 73–74.’96 If the data derives from the Tables of Lunar Visibility it has been reworked and radically condensed. 1 En 78:15–16 deals with the lunar half year of 177 days. It has not been possible to find a satisfactory explanation for this change of perspective. In any case, these verses reflect the revised cosmology. 1 En 79:3–5 returns to the lunar half year and adds further data of the kind found in 1 En 78:15–16. It ends by stating the obvious: half a lunar year is five days shorter than half a 364-day solar year. The meaning of ‘waning’/‘diminution’/‘decrement’ in 1 En 79:3 is interpreted by VanderKam in relation to the ‘lead’ of the sun and the smaller number of days in six lunar months.97 This section makes use of information contained in the Tables of Lunar Visibility, but data present in the Aramaic fragments is missing in the Ethiopic text.98 1 En 78:17 contains general comments on the appearance of the moon. The Ethiopic text seems to translate a shorter version of what has survived in 4Q209 frg. 26.99 It would appear, therefore, that all the information about the moon in chapter 78 belongs to the revised form of the Astronomical Book.

1 En 79:1–2: A Summary In their Ethiopic version verses 79:1–2 take the following form: (79)(1) Now my son I have shown you everything, and the law (Eth šer‘āt) of all the stars of the sky is completed. (2) He showed me all their

95 VanderKam (2012), 501, 509. For Pattern I see Drawnel (2011), 421–22, for Pattern II, see (2011), 423–24, and for the last days of the month in the translation of his reconstruction of the Tables, see (2011), 446(I) and 452(II). 96 VanderKam (2012), 510. 97 VanderKam (2012), 517–20. See too Drawnel (2011), 387. 98 Drawnel (2011), 389–90. 99 Drawnel (2011), 197, 386.

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law (Eth šer‘ātomu) for each day, each time in a jurisdiction, every year, its emergence, the command, every month, and every week.100

VanderKam begins his commentary on this passage by saying: ‘The wording of [1 En 79:1] leaves the strong impression that it is the conclusion to a more comprehensive work about the heavenly lights.’ In the next paragraph, however, he adds: ‘Nevertheless, there is no textual evidence that 79:1–2 formed the end of an Enochic astronomical work.’101 Both statements are true, but only because of the reference to ‘another calculation’ in 4Q209 frg. 26 line 7 and the fact that the Ethiopic version contains additional material. The second statement need not mean that 1 En 79:1–2 did not conclude a comprehensive work, however, since there is always the possibility that it ended the original form of the Astronomical Book and that what follows in 4Q209 and the Ethiopic version is supplementary material. We are fortunate in that Aramaic fragments from 1 En 78:17–79:1 have been preserved. Manuscript 4Q209 frg. 26 line 6 contains only the end of 1 En 78:17, however, and the beginning of 1 En 79:1. Verses 79:1b–2 are missing. Line 7 contains a single word and some badly preserved letters.102 The Aramaic ends abruptly after ‘my son’ in 79:1 and is followed by a blank space of indeterminate length. The Aramaic text was first published by Milik, who transcribed verse 79:1a and what follows it in line 7 in the following form: … and there is nothing else in her save] her light only. And now I show to you, my son [. . .] another calculation […]103

Milik was clearly not sure about his reading of ‘another’ and comments: ‘what “other calculation” ḥ̊šbwn ’ḥ̊r̊n̊ (if vera lectio of the second word), could have begun from line 7 of our fragment, since 79:2 is already recapitulatory: “He has shown me all their laws …”? […] In the strict sense of the word, however, the term ḥšbwn could head only the final section

100 The language of this passage recalls that of the earlier summary: ‘For Uriel the angel whom the Lord of eternal glory set over all the heavenly luminaries … showed me the sign, the seasons, the year and the days …’ (1 En 75:3). 101 VanderKam (2012), 516. 102 See Plate XXVII in Milik (1976) and Plate VII in DJD XXXVI (2000). 103 In DSSSE (2000), 439, García Martínez and Tigchelaar translate the end of these lines as: ‘And now, my son, I will show you […] 7 […] another computation […]’.

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of the Astronomical Book, that which begins with 82:7.’104 Milik assumes that if his transcription is correct then something corresponding to what is present later in the Ethiopic version was present at this point in the Aramaic as well, even if it has been lost. The same fragment was then published in the official format by Tigchelaar and García Martínez. While admitting that Milik’s reading of line 7 is ‘palaeographically possible’, they read the fragmentary letters in line 7 differently. They also point out for the first time the vacat after ‘my son’105 and translate lines 6 and 7 as follows:106 Line 6 Line 7

] her [light] only. And now I am showing you, my son vacat [ ] a calculation he sho[w]ed [me

Tigchelaar and García Martínez refer to Milik’s comment on the unlikelihood of ‘another calculation’ at this point in the text and suggest that ‘therefore one might read ’ḥ̊[w]ẙn̊[y “he showed me”, as in 1 Enoch 79:2’. This has the advantage of linking line 7 with ‘He showed me all their law’ at the beginning of 1 En 79:2 in the Ethiopic text if ‘calculation’ corresponds to ‘law’ in the Ethiopic text. At the same time, however, they accept that one cannot reconstruct the ‘all’ of 1 En 79:2 in line 7 because if the needed Aramaic kol were present the upper tail of the lamed would have to appear. Summing up they conclude: ‘The Ethiopic text is related to, but different from, this Aramaic text. One may assume that the Greek translator rephrased and rearranged the Aramaic text.’107 VanderKam has accepted the Tigchelaar and García Martínez reading of line 7 but translates it as ‘…] a calculation. He showed m[e …’.108 In this case as well the Ethiopic text does not correspond to the Aramaic fragment. Drawnel does not accept the Tigchelaar and García Martínez reading of line 7, which he believes ‘does not find confirmation in the text of the manuscript’, and returns to that of Milik, translating the two lines as follows:109

106 107 108 109 104 105

Milik (1976), 294. It was still not reflected in García Martínez (1996), 448. DJD XXXVI, 164. DJD XXXVI, 163–64. In Nickelsburg and VanderKam (2004), 109, and VanderKam (2012), 515. Drawnel (2011), 196.

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Line 6 Line 7

] only its [light in it]. And now I am showing you, my son vac [ ] a different calculation [

In his edition of all the Enochian astronomical fragments from Qumran he concludes that ‘[t]he standard sapiential formula of knowledge transmission110 [in 1 En 79:1] constitutes a passage to a different literary unit from the section dedicated to the calculation of the days in the lunar year and the similitudes observed in the surface of the moon. There is a short vacat after this sentence before the break in the text, which might suggest that the sentence ended the whole preceding section; the two words in line 7 (‘a different calculation’) make it certain that the following context discussed a different topic.’111 In his commentary Drawnel stresses the significance of the present participle mḥwh, ‘am showing’, in line 6. The Ethiopic text renders this with a verbal form in the perfect, ‘I have shown’, thereby implying that the ‘showing’ has taken place in the past.112 ‘To stress the point further, the [Ethiopic] redactor added kwello that is absent in the Aramaic text. Thus the Ethiopic version does not leave any doubt that 79:1 is intended as the concluding part of the preceding section. The Aramaic section, on the other hand, implies just the contrary. […] The short vacat at the end of the line suggests that a new section followed, and line 7 preserves the expression that indicates the beginning of another calculation.’113 Then, when commenting on 1 En 79:1b, he says: ‘It is highly unlikely the same content of verse 1b [as in the Ethiopic text] was present in the missing portion of line 6 in 4Q209 frg. 26. As shown above, the text in line 6 clearly points to the beginning of a new section, and the expression “another calculation” in line 7 cannot refer to the preceding section dedicated to the moon. Additionally, there is no equivalent to the Aramaic expression [‘another calculation’] in 79:2, which suggests that the Ethiopic verse preserves the continuation of the redactional efforts made visible [by the addition of ‘everything’] in 79:1a.’114

Called a ‘short and anonymous formula of knowledge transmission’ in Drawnel (2011), 44. 111 Drawnel (2011), 393. In (2011), he 388, treats 1 En 79:1a as both a conclusion to 1 En 78:15–16 and a transition to ‘another calculation’. 112 Unless the present participle here should be translated as a past, in agreement with the Ethiopic version. See Johns (1972), 25. 113 Drawnel (2011), 386. 114 Drawnel (2011), 386. 110

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Drawnel cites with approval VanderKam’s comment that ‘… there is no textual evidence that 79:1–2 formed the end of an Enochic astronomical work’ and concludes that ‘[i]n the light of the last two lines in 4Q209 frg. 26 it appears quite obvious that some kind of additional calculation followed, although it is not possible to say what it was.’ He does, however, note that ‘ḥšbwn [‘calculation’] in frg. 26 7 is reflected by the cognate Ethiopic ḥassāb in 82:5, 6, 7, but without the adjective ’ḥrn [‘another’]’ and therefore suggests that ‘the introduction to the new section in 4Q209 frg. 26 6–7 finds in chapter 82 its purported continuation.’115 In the end, however, he acknowledges that ‘since line 6 is broken, much remains unknown.’116 There are problems with Drawnel’s analysis. One is that the Ethiopic text of 1 En 82:1–3, which looks very much like a doublet of 1 En 79:1–2, i.e. the ending to an entire work, also begins with a present tense but then quickly changes tense to continue in the past: Now my son Methuselah, I am telling you all these things and am writing (them) down. I have revealed all of them to you and have given you the books about all these things. (1 En 82:1)

Most readers of the whole of this verse would probably assume that although the ‘telling’ is taking place in the present, Enoch’s ‘writing’ has already taken place in spite of the fact that he says he is ‘writing (them) down’, since the present tense ‘am telling’ quickly becomes the past ‘have revealed’ and ‘am writing (them) down’ quietly turns into ‘have given you the books’. The use of the present tense in the first sentence does not prevent both the ‘revealing’ and the ‘writing’ from referring to something that has already taken place the past.117 In 1 En 76:14 Enoch had already said, ‘I have shown you everything, my son Methuselah’, which also suggests that the ‘I am showing’ in the Aramaic of 1 En 79:1 – as in the Ethiopic of 1 En 82:1 – actually refers to material that has already been revealed to Enoch in the past. A second and much more serious difficulty is presented by the vacat after ‘my son’ in line 6 of the Aramaic text. The preceding verb, meḥawweh, ‘am showing’, is a Pael form of the root ḥ-w-h. The Pael is intensive and in the four instances where it occurs in Daniel is always as Drawnel (2011), 387. Cf. Milik’s comments referred to above, p. 239, n. 104. Drawnel (2011), 393. 117 On the variable tense of Aramaic participles see Johns (1972), 25. Cf. Muraoka (2005), 66-67 115

116

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sociated with a complement that expresses what is being shown.118 This is also true of the examples of its use given in the standard dictionaries of Palestinian Jewish Aramaic119 and Babylonian Jewish Aramaic (in which the Pael is replaced by the Afel).120 It is also true of the three instances of the verb ḥ-w-h that appear in Drawnel’s edition of the Qumran Levi Document.121 And in 1 Enoch 106:19 manuscript 4QAstronomical Enochc (4Q204) frg. 5 ii 26–27 uses the Afel of ḥ-w-h with an objective complement: ‘For I know the mysteries [of the Lord which] the Holy Ones have told me (’ḥwywny) and have shown me [and which] I read in [the tablets] of heaven.’122 The four instances of ḥ-w-h that Stuckenbruck found in the fragments of the Book of the Giants also have expressed objects.123 In 4Q209 frg. 25 line 3 ‘another calculation’ appears as the objective complement of a related verb ḥ-z-h, ‘I was shown’.124 And when Tigchelaar and García Martínez restored the Afel of ḥ-w-h in line 7 of fragment 26 they thought they had an object in place in the form of ḥšbwn, ‘a calculation’. In Cook’s exhaustive Dictionary of Qumran Aramaic the root ḥ-w-y (the alternative form of ḥ-w-h) always appears with an objective complement in the Pael, while in the Pael/Afel it has an object wherever the context given is sufficient to reveal this.125 The most interesting evidence, however, is found in Beyer’s dictionary of Qumran Aramaic. The three instances of the root ḥ-w-y He gives for 1 Enoch are all analysed as involving verb + accusative + indirect object with lamed.126 Since he had only Milik’s transcription and plates to work from at the time, when he included 1 En 79:1 among his examples he clearly accepted – on the basis of an Ethiopic translation of the Greek version of the original text – that mḥwh had been followed in the missing portion of the fragment by the equivalent of an accusative with indirect object: ‘I am showing something to someone.’ It seems clear, therefore, that the normal objective complement is missing in the Aramaic text of 1 En 79:1. One would expect it to follow 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 118 119

Dan 2:4, 11, 24; 5:7. Sokoloff (1990), 190. Sokoloff (2002), 437. Drawnel (2004), 385. Milik (1974), 353. Stuckenbruck (1997), 246. Drawnel (2011), 393. Cook (2015), 77–78. Beyer (1984), 574.

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immediately after ‘my son’, and it does not. Given the consistent use of the Pael of ḥ-w-h with an objective complement its absence here calls for an explanation. Drawnel characterizes the vacat after ‘my son’ as ‘short’,127 yet even if the scribe began to write again immediately after the parchment breaks off, examination of the photographs of 4Q204 shows that it is still much longer than the normal gap between words in that manuscript. It seems unlikely, therefore, that fragment 26 ever contained an objective complement for meḥawweh. In fact, we have no way of knowing when the text began again after the ‘my son’ in 4Q209 frg. 26. It it is possible that the whole of the rest of line 6 was empty, and the beginning of line 7 as well. This means that there could be – if one uses Drawnel’s reconstruction as a guide – as many as fifty-three unfilled letter spaces before ‘another calculation’ appears. In such a situation the question of the relative value of the Aramaic, Greek, and Ethiopic texts inevitably arises. An early Aramaic text should normally be given greater weight than a much later Greek translation or the Ethiopic version derived from it after a few more centuries have passed. But what about the value of an Aramaic manuscript written one hundred and fifty or two hundred years after the book was first put together? And what if the Greek translation was probably made at about the same time in Alexandria and from another manuscript, as is very likely to be the case? After all, Drawnel himself has provided abundant evidence to show that the Ethiopic version derives from a different Vorlage than the texts found at Qumran. In this case the issue very quickly becomes a question of the relative value of the unknown Aramaic text that lies behind the Greek translation from which the Ethiopic version of 1 En 79:1–2 was eventually made. It is often very difficult to decide whether a problem we can see in the Ethiopic version arose while the text was being transmitted in Aramaic or at the time of the Greek translation or in the course of its transmission in Greek or at the time of its translation into Ethiopic or in the course of its transmission as an Ethiopic text.128 What we do know, however, is that the problem of the missing complement we have identified in the Aramaic fragment corresponding to verse 1 En 79:1 arose Drawnel (2011), 393. Some of these issues are discussed by Knibb (1978), 37–46, who concludes that we should be prepared ‘to give weight to the evidence and possible independence of the Ethiopic version.’ 127

128

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before the early years of the first century ce when 4Q204 was written and while the text was still being transmitted only in the Aramaic. Milik, Tigchelaar and García Martínez, Drawnel, and VanderKam all accept that the Ethiopic version of 1 En 79:1b–2 and therefore also the Greek text that lies behind it do not derive from the only Aramaic text we have. In this case the Ethiopic text of 1 En 79:1–2 assumes the status of an independent witness – whether good or bad – to a Greek text that mediates an Aramaic text that lies somewhere behind it. Fragment 26 of 4Q204 is not completely unrelated to the Ethiopic text of 1 En 79:1–2, however, since it shows exactly the same content if not the exact same word order as the Ethiopic version of 1 En 79:1a. Ultimately they must derive from the same source. And if the contents of 1 En 79:1b–2 are deficient in 4Q204 frg. 26 it is certainly legitimate to ask if our Ethiopic translation does not contain what is missing in the Aramaic. In such a case the criteria cannot be the manuscript evidence, since there is none. It must be whether the Ethiopic text makes sense and suits the tenor of the work as a whole. This is not an argument ex silentio, since the silence in this case is filled by the Ethiopic text. As a rule the Ethiopic version departs from the Qumran texts either because of incomprehension, a desire for simplification, or a desire to supplement the existing text. Its differences do not arise out of a desire to subvert the meaning found in the Greek translation. Although Drawnel has suggested that the Ethiopic text of 1 En 79:1b–2 is evidence of a redactor’s efforts to change the meaning of the original, there is no manuscript evidence to support this contention other than the disparity between 4Q204 frg. 26 line 6 and the Ethiopic version of 1 En 79:1a. In the Ethiopic version of 1 En 79:1–2 there is nothing resembling the complicated astronomical data that has caused such problems during the transmission of chapters 73, 74, and 78. What is being said in 1 En 79:1–2 is in fact quite simple. The passage contains nothing that would tempt a reasonably competent translator to alter it. If we accept that for some unknown reason the Aramaic text of verse 1 En 79:1 in 4Q209 frg. 26 does not supply the required complement for ‘am showing’, then the possibility that the Ethiopic version of verses 1 En 79:1b–2 is derived from a better Aramaic Vorlage must be considered, since it supplies in a very straightforward manner the objective compliment required by meḥawweh, ‘I am showing’. As Drawnel has said repeatedly,

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the differences between the Aramaic and Ethiopic texts suggest that they derive from different Aramaic Vorlagen.129 It is not difficult to imagine how an Aramaic Vorlage reflecting 1 En 79:1–2 and including the present participle in 1 En 79:1a from 4Q209 frg. 26 line 6 might have developed into the Ethiopic version we have to day. A passage that begins with a present switches to the past and stays there, just as in 1 En 82:1–2: (79) (1) Now my son I am showing you everything, and the law of all the stars of the sky is completed. (2) He [i.e., Uriel] showed me all their law for each day, each time in a jurisdiction, every year, its emergence, the command, every month, and every week.

Most readers of such a passage would assume that the present participle ‘am showing’ does not anticipate some future revelation. One can also easily imagine that the translator of 1 En 79:1–2 into Greek has come to the same conclusion. With the freedom that can be seen elsewhere in the Astronomical Book he has simplified the text by converting the initial present participle into a past – and by doing so has not altered the passage’s meaning. What then is the status of the ‘another calculation’ of 4Q209 frg. 26 line 7? It presumably introduced another set of data the subject of which is now unknown. The next body of material that might be called a ‘calculation’ in the Ethiopic version of the Astronomical Book is found in 1 En 80:9–20, but there it is called ‘the law of the stars’ (1 En 80:9). Drawnel has suggested that this is the material to which ‘another calculation’ refers.130 This may be true. It seems better, however, to admit that the last few lines of chapter 79 in the Aramaic manuscript from which 4Q209 derives were defective. The scribe made no attempt to fill out what was missing but did add data of an unknown nature to the end of his text, including in its introduction a reference to ‘another calculation’.131

Cf. his general comments in Drawnel (2011), 29. Drawnel (2011), 387. 131 Cf. Milik (1976), 274, who suggests that chapter 82 breaks off without completing the description of a whole year because a Greek or Ethiopic translator was faced with a copy that was ‘mutilated’ at the end. 129 130

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1 En 79:1–2 and the cosmic covenant 1 En 79:1–2 makes use of the vocabulary we have learned to associate with the myth of the cosmic covenant, a notion that is not mentioned in Jubilees and was apparently abandoned in the 364-day calendar tradition as preserved at Qumran. The ‘law’ (Eth šer‘āt) referred to in 1 En 79:1 and again in 1 En 79:2 (Eth šer‘ātomu) takes us back to the ‘law’ (Eth šer‘āt) that the moon rejected according to 1 En 80:4 and the ‘law (Eth šer‘āt) of the stars’ that was closed to sinners as a result of celestial disobedience before the Flood (1 En 80:7). This ‘law’, as we have seen, was part of the body of natural law that formed the content of the cosmic covenant. Even more significant is the reference to the ‘command’ in 1 En 79:2. This is surely the same ‘commandment’ (prostagma) that has been shown to be the equivalent of diathêkê tou ouranou in 1 En 106:13 and the same ‘command (prostagma/epitagên) of the Lord’ that was transgressed by the apostate planets according to 1 En 18:15 and 21:6. The ‘commands’ of the cosmic covenant provide much of the content of the Astronomical Book as this relates to the stars. 1 En 79:1–2 comes at the end of a long section devoted largely to the phases of the moon, yet it does not refer to the moon at all. Interest is focused entirely on the heavenly bodies as they relate to individual days and the fixed periods of the liturgical calendar: the year, the month, and the week. The expression ‘the law of all the stars’ as used here does not distinguish between the moon, the sun, and the fixed stars – a characteristic of the Astronomical Book before the introduction of data from the Tables of Lunar Visibility and Synchronistic Calendar – and there is no indication that the author has in mind a month that varies regularly between twenty-nine and thirty days. If today a reader sees a reference to lunar months in ‘every month’ (1 En 79:2), it is because this is what he expects to find. The presence of ‘every week’ at the end of the list in 1 En 79:2 is important. The week is not represented in the ‘law of the stars’ except as an arbitrary succession of seven days, each marked out, of course, by the rising of a single star. Nevertheless, the week is of paramount importance in the liturgical calendar. Its presence here is one more indication that although the Astronomical Book seldom refers even indirectly to the liturgy, a desire to keep the liturgy free from the tyranny of the moon was its primary justification. The week cannot be correlated with the lunar month.

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Rewritten Tradition in the Astronomical Book

It is probably no coincidence that the 364-day calendar tradition provides ‘the earliest literary attestation for counting the days of the week – much earlier than any reference found in other Jewish writings.’132 A liturgy focused on the days of the week is at the heart of the 364-day calendar tradition. It may well be the reference to the ‘week’ at end of 1 En 79:2 that led an early editor to remove verses 1 En 79:3–5 – which mention the ‘law of the week’ – from chapter 78 and insert them where we now find them in chapter 79. It is not unreasonable, therefore, to accept that 1 En 79:1–2 does indeed provide a proper conclusion to the Astronomical Book – as has been suggested by Charles,133 VanderKam,134 and Ben-Dov.135 This does not mean that in their present form they are a literal translation of the original text, but only that in the course of their descent through time the deficiencies present in 4Q204 frg. 26 6–7 did not arise in them. In this case 1 En 79:1–2 will be the closest we can get to the Astronomical Book’s conclusion before any material related to the phases of the moon was introduced.

1 En 79:6: Another Misplaced Verse? Drawnel says that ‘the concluding verse in 1 En 79:6 also contains the formula of knowledge transmission with some reference to the physical aspect of the luminaries that recall the description of the physical aspect of the moon in 4Q209 frg. 26 4–6 [i.e., in 1 En 79:5 and 78:17].’ Later he adds that ‘the text in 79:6 (‘appearance and likeness’) is an elaboration of frg. 26 4–5.’136 VanderKam says much the same thing: ‘The chapter ends as it began (in Ge‘ez) with a summation.’137 This is enough to tell us that something is out of place. Not only has 1 En 79:1–2 already summed up the whole work, but the fact that Uriel is the source of Enoch’s knowledge is already contained by implication

134 135 136 137 132 133

Ben-Dov (2008), 279. Charles (1912), 148–49. VanderKam (1984), 77–79; (2012), 516. Ben-Dov (2008), 104. Drawnel (2011), 45. VanderKam (2012), 520.

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in the words ‘He showed me all their law’ of 1 En 79:2. Yet 1 En 79:6 is nevertheless very definitely a summation of some kind: (79) (6) This is the appearance and the likeness of each luminary that Uriel, the angel who is their leader, showed me.138

A summation of what? The only luminaries whose ‘appearance’ and ‘likeness’ are ever discussed in the Astronomical Book are the sun and the moon, something that was done most recently in 1 En 78:2–17. The changing appearance of the moon is discussed only in the revised form of the Astronomical Book. In its present position 1 En 79:6 follows what we have identified as the ending of the Astronomical Book before its revision and is unrelated to anything that is said in the remaining chapters of the Ethiopic work.139 In the Ethiopic version 1 En 79:3–5 has been moved from their original place before 1 En 78:17 and inserted after 1 En 79:1–2. We can see, therefore, that the text of this section has been seriously disturbed at some stage. And if 1 En 79:3–5 has been displaced it seems quite possible that 1 En 79:6 belongs to the previous chapter as well. If it originally followed 1 En 78:17 it would provide a suitable ending to the composite section that began at 1 En 78:2 with ‘These are the two great luminaries’, bringing the whole section neatly to a close with ‘This is the appearance and the likeness of each luminary that Uriel, the angel who is their leader, showed me.’ And in this position it would very neatly supply the missing antecedent for ‘He showed me all their law’ in 1 En 79:2. As things stand ‘He’ must look back to 1 En 78:10, where Uriel was last mentioned.140 The fact that 1 En 79:6 speaks of the appearance of the moon shows that it belongs the revised text. We should accept that it entered the Astronomical Book along with other material in chapter 78 relating to the phases of the moon and originally brought that chapter to a close.

138 Its language recalls that of an earlier summary: ‘For Uriel the angel whom the Lord of eternal glory set over all the heavenly luminaries … showed me the sign, the seasons, the year and the days …’ (1 En 75:3). 139 If we accept with almost all scholars that chapter 80 was not part of the original work. 140 The original order will have been: 1 En 78:78:6–16; 79:3–5; 78:17; 79:6; 79:1–2.

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Summary If we accept that 1 En 79:1–2 brings the earlier form of the Astronomical Book to a close and then separate out those passages in chapters 72– 79 that clearly reflect the cosmology of Jubilees we are left with a work whose structure is simplicity itself: Introduction (72:1) The Law of the Sun (72:2–37) The Law of the Moon (73:1–3b) The Law of the Stars (75:1–3) The Gates of the Sun and Windows of Heaven (75:4–8) The Gates of the Winds (76:1–14) The Four Quarters of the Earth (77:1–8) Conclusion (79:1–2) 1 En 79:1–2 provides a suitable concluding statement for the preceding chapters even though it does not refer to any of the non-astronomical material that precedes it. None of the summaries refer to non-astronomical material. As a result of separating out all that relates to the phases of the moon we have ended up with a relatively brief Astronomical Book that presents the cosmological basis for the 364-day liturgical calendar by describing the movement of the heavens before the apostasy of the ‘wanderers’. To this have been added three short chapters describing the rest of what Enoch saw on his travels through the heavens. The insertions we have identified are all designed to align the cosmology of the original work with that of Jubilees. Those who changed to the revised cosmology had to ignore the discrepancy between the observed movements of the heavens and their traditional 364-day calendar. In much the same way those Eastern Orthodox Christians who still follow the Julian calendar for liturgical purposes ignore the discrepancy between the Julian calendar year and astronomical reality. They are happy to do so in order to preserve a venerable liturgical tradition. If this analysis of the Ethiopic version has successfully extracted from it the original form of the Astronomical Book we should expect what follows in the Ethiopic version to take the form of supplements to the original work.

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CHAPTER THIRTEEN THE SUPPLEMENTS TO THE ASTRONOMICAL BOOK

This chapter will examine chapters 80–82 of the Astronomical Book, the three chapters that follow the final chapter of the earlier form of the work, in order to assess their relationship to the cosmology of Jubilees and their place in the history of the book’s development. It should perhaps be said from the start that no one has found unity or consistency in this part of the work.1

1 En 80:1–8: Uriel Predicts the Apostasy of the Planets The contents of this chapter have already been discussed in detail. In chapter 11 we showed that 1 En 80:2–8 provides an accurate description from the point of view of someone following the 364-day calendar of what happened when the ‘wanderers’ rebelled. The sun would begin to rise a few minutes earlier each day, so that each day became shorter in terms of sidereal time. Soon the seasons would begin to come around too soon. When the moon delayed its rising it would begin to fall behind the sun, producing recurrent cycles of elongation and propinquation, phases of the moon, and a lunar month that did not correspond to the thirty- and thirty-one-day months of the divinely appointed liturgical calendar. When the other ‘wanderers’ rebelled they too would seem to have left their fixed paths across the heavens. Five of them, the five lesser planets, would begin to wander back and forth across the ecliptic, while others would simply disappear, only to return at rare and irregular See the comments of Uhlig (1984), 695, on the lack of unity in the sections after 1 En 79:2. 1

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intervals in the form of comets. All this would gradually happen in real time and soon produce the world we live in today. It is generally agreed that chapter 80 did not form part of the original Astronomical Book. In the Introduction Enoch states explicitly that the work will reveal ‘how every year of the world will be forever, until a new creation lasting forever is made’ (1 En 72:1). Thus it is difficult to think of Uriel’s prophecy as part of the work in its original form. Nevertheless, it presents a clearer picture of the tradition’s founding cosmology than any other text yet found. It seems possible therefore that chapter 80 was originally the ending of another similar work containing Enochian astronomical material. Because 1 En 80:1 says that Uriel has ‘revealed everything’ to Enoch, ‘this sun and this moon and those who lead the stars of the sky and those who turn them – their work, their times, and their emergences’, it would appear that the content of this work was much the same as that of chapters 72–78 of the Astronomical Book but without the passages that refer to the phases of the moon. It may have contained more information, but it could hardly have contained less. A work of this kind must lie behind the cosmology of Jude 13, since neither Jude nor chapter 80 accepts that God has sanctioned the phases of the moon. We would not expect to find this work at Qumran, whose community clearly had accepted the revised tradition. It not surprising, therefore, that chapter 80 is missing there. Whoever added it the end of work we now have will presumably have had both versions of the work in front of him but preferred the revised form. It was the revised form supplemented by chapter 80 that eventually reached the Ethiopian Church.

1 En 81:1–10: Enoch is to Pass On His Knowledge to Methuselah There is no reason to believe that this pericope belonged to the original form of the Astronomical Book. As Charles points out, not only does it say nothing about the calendar and the heavens or about the earth’s geography and meteorological phenomena, but the ‘seven holy ones’ – angel guides – mentioned in 1 En 81:5 appear nowhere else in the book. In Charles’s opinion chapter 81 has ‘the nature of a mosaic, and came prob-

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ably from the editor of the complete Enoch.’2 He wanted to remove it entirely. Nickelsburg moves it from its present position and inserts both it and chapter 82 between 1 Enoch 1–36 and 91–105, where he believes they served as a redactional link or ‘narrative bridge’ when the Book of the Watchers was combined with the Epistle of Enoch.3 VanderKam rejects Nickelsburg’s arguments4 and concludes that ‘[c]hapters 80–81 belong to an editorial layer or layers in which a redactor or redactors joined the astronomical sections with other parts of the Enochic corpus.’5 It is certainly noticeable that elsewhere in 1 Enoch Methuselah appears in a number of what seem to be linking passages. These include the First Dream Vision (1 Enoch 83–84), the introduction to the Second Dream Vision (1 En 85:1–2), the ‘Narrative Bridge’ (1 En 91:1–9, 18–19), and the Birth of Noah (1 En 107:1-3). The fact that the final chapter of 1 Enoch is introduced as ‘Another Book that Enoch wrote for his son Methuselah and for those who would come after him and keep the law in the last days’ (1 En 108:1) reflects clearly the link between the figure of Methuselah and the need to pass on knowledge of Enoch’s revealed truth. Chapter 81 is the only place in the Astronomical Book where the ‘heavenly tablets’ are mentioned: ‘He [presumably Uriel] said to me: “Enoch, look at the heavenly tablets, read what is written on them, and understand each and every item.” I looked at all the heavenly tablets, read everything that was written, and understood everything. I read the book of all the actions of people and of all humans who will be on the earth for the generations of the world’ (1 En 81:1–2). Nowhere else is Enoch told about the history of mankind, the clear focus of the tablets shown to Moses in Jubilees. In the Astronomical Book Uriel either shows Enoch the workings of the heavens or tells him about them. He does not ask him to read about them. In Jubilees the opposite is the case. There the ‘heavenly tablets’ are referred to constantly as the authoritative source of divinely sanctioned wisdom.6 Archangel Michael even dictates their contents to Moses so Moses can write them down (Jub 1:27; cf. Jub 50:13). This suggests that the author of the Methuselah passages in 1 Enoch was familiar with the 4 5 6 2 3

Charles (1893), 32, (1912), xlix. Nickelsburg (2001), 333–44. VanderKam (2012), 531–34. VanderKam (2012), 366. See VanderKam (2001), 89–93.

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The Supplements to the Astronomical Book

contents of Jubilees and may have wished to attach to Enoch the kind of authority Jubilees gives to Moses. The heavenly tablets are the source from which Enoch takes the Apocalypse of Weeks (1 En 93:2), while in the Epistle of Enoch (1 En 103:2) Enoch’s knowledge of ‘what must be’ is based on what he has read in there. Both these works can be dated to the middle of the second century bce, the same period as Jubilees, while the Astronomical Book – at least in its unrevised form – is probably much older.7 It may also be significant that chapter 81 also shows a heightened interest in God’s justice – one of the main preoccupations of Jubilees – which is not present elsewhere in the Astronomical Book. For VanderKam the important point is that ‘1 Enoch 81 is strange in its context’ and that ‘a number of the term and themes in 1 Enoch 81 relate it to other parts of the book so that it may indeed be an editorial insertion.’8 The present investigation would suggest that it is an addition added after the Astronomical Book had already been revised to align it with Jubilees. As is the case with chapter 80, no fragments of chapter 81 were found at Qumran.

1 En 82:1–3: Enoch’s Instruction to Methuselah This section also tells us nothing specific about the heavens. Enoch does little more than instruct Methuselah to ‘keep the book written by your father so that you may give (it) to the generations of the world’ (1 En 82:1). The content of this book is said to be ‘wisdom’, a theme that surfaces explicitly only in the Epistle of Enoch and in the much later Book of Parables. What is more, these three verses seem to pick up what was said about Enoch and his son Methuselah in 1 En 76:14 and 1 En 79:1 and then present it in the wrong chronological order.9 The process of transmission to future generations that is stressed in chapter 81 and 1 En 82:1–3 figures prominently in Drawnel’s interpretation of the Aramaic Levi Document as a wisdom text promoting the transmission of the 364-day calendar tradition through ‘apprenticeship in the patriarchal household’.10 Drawnel finds the origin of the prac-

Charlesworth (2002), 225–34. VanderKam (2012), 536. 9 Nickelsburg (2001), 342; VanderKam (2012), 547. 10 See the summary in Drawnel (2004), 78–85. 7 8

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tice in traditional Mesopotamian scribal education.11 The distinctive relationship between Levi, his teachers, and his descendants that is described in the Aramaic Levi Document is also reflected in chapters 81 and 1 En 82:1–3 – as in chapters 76 and 79 – by the way the wisdom Enoch receives from Uriel is then passed on to Enoch’s son, Methuselah. Methuselah also figures prominently in the Dream Visions (1 En 83:1; 85:1) and in the Epistle of Enoch (1 En 91:4, 19; cf. 94:1–4) as the channel through which Enoch’s wisdom is passed down to subsequent generations.12 It may be that the problem of transmission came to greater prominence in the later stages of the tradition. All in all it is highly unlikely that 1 En 82:1–3 formed part of the original work. No fragments of 1 En 82:1–3 were found at Qumran.

1 En 82:4–8: Enoch Again Summarises Uriel’s Revelations Ben-Dov has carefully analysed the similarities between this passage and the summary of chapters 72–74 found in 1 En 75:1–3 and concludes that ‘[t]here can be no doubt that these two passages stem from an original single passage. […] Generally speaking, 75:1–3 is closer to the original than 82:4b–8, the latter having apparently undergone a more extensive redaction.’13 Against the background of our analysis of the genesis of the Astronomical Book, 1 En 75:1–3 can be said to reflect more closely the original Astronomical Book while 1 En 82:4b–8 is a reworked form of the same passage. Since there is no need for two so similar summaries in a single text, the presence of 1 En 82:4–8 suggests that at some point during the work’s reception another version of the Astronomical Book came into existence from which this section has been taken. The fact that 1 En 82:4–8 begins with a blessing suggests that it summarized this work and brought it to a close. The presence of a blessing may well have opened the way for its transfer to the position it now occupies among the supplements to the original text. 1 En 82:4–8 presents the 364-day year in a rather awkward fashion by describing the sun as ‘entering and emerging for thirty days with the Drawnel (2004), 95. Methuselah is noticeably absent in the Aramaic Levi Document, which traces the source of the tradition back to Noah and no further. 13 These similarities are presented in tabular form in Ben-Dov (2008), 114–15. 11

12

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heads of the thousands of the order of the stars, with the four additional ones that divide between the four parts of the year that lead them [i.e., the heads of thousands] and enter with the four days’ (1 En 82:4). Knibb clarifies this by inserting an ‘and’ between ‘stars’ and ‘with’ in his translation,14 while Uhlig inserts ‘(und zusammen)’.15 Both wish to make it clear that the sun enters with the four additional stars as well with the heads of thousands that enter on the thirty days assigned to each month. This way of describing the year serves to emphasise the importance of the four ‘additional’ days and stars. The four additional days and stars are said to be ‘recorded’ (1 En 82:6) and the whole year is said to be ‘precisely recorded’ (1 En 82:7) – presumably on the ‘heavenly tablets’ – but Enoch is not asked to read these tablets. Instead, he says only that Uriel ‘gave orders for me regarding the host of heaven’ (1 En 82:7). The background presence of the heavenly tablets links this passage to 1 En 81:1–10, which as we have seen did not belong to the original work. 1 En 82:4–8 makes no reference to the significance of the moon in the computation of the year and focuses completely on the days of the sun. This it does in spite of the fact that in chapter 74 of the Ethiopic version Enoch said that ‘[t]he moon brings about the years precisely, all according to their eternal positions. They come neither early nor late by one day by which they would change the year: each is exactly 364 days’ (1 En 74:12). In 1 En 82:7 Enoch gives a list of the calendrical data that were revealed to him: ‘the months, the festivals, the years, and the days’. Before the apostasy of the sun and moon all of these were determined by the sun. Neither here nor in the similar summaries in chapters 75 and 79 is reference made to the phases of the moon. The alternative creation narrative in Jubilees says clearly: ‘The Lord appointed the sun as a great sign above the earth for days, sabbaths, months, festivals, years, sabbaths of years, jubilees, and all times of years’ (Jub 2:9). While Jubilees gives the sun due prominence at the time of creation by listing ‘days’ first, 1 En 82:7 gives it similar prominence by putting ‘days’ at the end. In both passages it is the sun – and not the moon – that marks out the length of the months. Here again we can see a connection between Jubilees’ alternative creation narrative and the cosmology of the earlier form of the Astronomical Book.16 Knibb (1978), 188. Uhlig (1984), 668. Isaac (1983), 60, and Olsen (2004), 177, also have ‘together with’. Ethiopic manuscript Abbadian 35 inserts ‘and’ for the same reasons. 16 VanderKam (2012), 553. He notes the presence of ‘months’ in the list of things God created on the fourth day according to Jub 2:9 and correctly suggests that these 14 15

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In 1 En 82:7 the Astronomical Book refers to ‘festivals’ for the first time. The Ethiopic version has ba‘ālāt at this point, a word which in the form ba‘ālātihomu corresponds in 1 En 82:9 to the Aramaic me‘odehûn in 4QAstronomical Enochb (4Q209) frg. 28 1. The Aramaic term takes us back immediately to Gen 1:14 where the Hebrew cognate mo‘ êdim appears. This is translated as ‘fixed times’ in the NRSV, but it would appear that in the second century bce Jubilees and the author of this passage thought that mo‘ êdim in Genesis 1:14 meant ‘festivals’. As VanderKam says, this ‘reasonable interpretation’ of the Genesis text was apparently ‘a fixed element in the interpretation of Gen 1:14’ in the 364-day calendar tradition.17 According to the 364-day liturgical calendar the festivals occur on fixed days in thirty-day or thirty-one-day months and are unrelated to the phases of the moon. Before the rebellion of the planets their timing could be determined by counting the days of the sun. This reference to the ‘festivals’ raises the possibility that when this revised version of 1 En 75:1–3 was written the timing of festivals according to the 364day calendar was being called into question. It is clear from Jub 6:32–38 (cf. 1:10, 14) that this was the case by the middle of second century bce. In 1 En 82:8 Enoch lists the heavenly bodies and groups all their movements together in a single qualifying clause – ‘the sun, the moon, the stars, and all the heavenly powers which revolve in their circuits’ (1 En 82:8). The statement that all these bodies ‘revolve in their circuits’ reflects the simplicity of the heavens when first created. Only after the rebellion of the planets did the moon start to shift back and forth across the ecliptic, and the five lesser planets and the comets begin their wanderings. Although we may be disposed to assume that this section contains a reference to the lunar months, it does not. 1 En 82:4–8 summarise what Enoch has seen without making any reference to the phases of the moon, even though this was the topic that justified revision of the original form of the book. 1 En 82:4–8 should therefore be counted among those passages that reflect the earlier cosmology. Why it appears here, however, is far from obvious. The way it begins with a blessing suggests that it once summarized a work much like the original form of the Astronomical Book. On the other hand it is not imare what he calls ‘solar’ months, i.e., non-lunar months determined by the 364-day calendar and not the phases of the moon. 17 So VanderKam (2012), 553, 558.

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possible that it was originally written as a continuation of 1 En 79:1–2, from which it follows on easily, and brought the whole work to an end – once more. No fragments of chapter 82:4–8 were found at Qumran.

1 En 82:9–20: The Law of the Stars, Their Leaders, and the Four Seasons The final section of the Ethiopic version of the Astronomical Book also takes the form of a summary. It begins: (82) (9) This is the law of the stars which set in their places, at their times, on their festivals, and in their months.18 (10) These are the names of those who lead them, who keep watch so they enter at their times, who lead them in their places, in their orders, in their times, in their months, in their jurisdictions, and in their positions.

The most important feature of this verse is the link made between the setting of the stars and the months. The expression ‘in their months’ cannot refer to lunar months since the lunar month cannot be coordinated systematically with the rising or setting times of the fixed stars. This point is made by Drawnel.19 The days of the liturgical month, however, were linked to individual stars, a point Drawnel makes in his comments on 1 En 82:4.20 This affects how one approaches the phrase ‘on their festivals’ in the same verse. The Ethiopic expression behind ‘on their festivals’ in 1 En 82:9, ba-ba‘ālātihomu has been interpreted in several ways. Milik thought it referred to ‘their Zodiacal periods’,21 an interpretation that was accepted by Tigchelaar and García Martínez.22 Neugebauer thought this unlikely and rendered the word as ‘festivals’.23 This is the transla18 The Aramaic text in 4Q209 frg. 28 1 adds at the end a reference to ‘their signs’ (dglyhwn), which may have been dropped because its meaning was no longer understood. The Aramaic behind the Ethiopic form of 1 En 82:9 might be translated as: ‘This is the law of the stars which set in their places, at their times, at their festivals, at their months, at their signs.’ One star and one day would be involved in every case, even if they are dealt with collectively here. 19 Drawnel (2011), 399. 20 Drawnel (2011), 408. 21 Milik (1976), 187. 22 DJD xxxvi, 166. 23 Neugebauer (1985), 418.

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The Supplements to the Astronomical Book

tion given by Uhlig, Knibb, and – initially – by VanderKam.24 Albani pointed out, however, that nowhere else are the festivals dated according to the stars and concluded ba-ba‘ālātihomu simply referred to the ‘set times’ at which stars rise at dawn. This translation has been accepted by Drawnel in the form of ‘at their appointed times’.25 As is noted by VanderKam, the problem with this interpretation is that it is not clear how these ‘set/appointed times’ are to be distinguished from the ‘times’ that have just been mentioned.26 If ‘festivals’ can be mentioned in 1 En 82:7, however, there seems to be no reason why they should not be mentioned in 1 En 82:9. In the creation world of the liturgy every festival occurred on the same day of the month each year and was marked both by the heliacal rising and the acronychal setting of individual stars, the ‘heads of thousands’. There is therefore no reason why 1 En 82:9 should not link the festivals to the stars and thereby link the festivals to the earlier cosmology of the 364day calendar tradition. Thus it seems reasonable to accept that the Greek translator has correctly translated the Aramaic of this clause as kai tais eortais autôn phainontai, which would seem to be the text lying behind the Ethiopic translation.27 The ‘law of the stars’ recalls the ‘law of all the stars’ in 1 En 79:1, where it is said to include ‘their law for each day, each time in a jurisdiction, every year, its emergence, the command, every month, and every week.’28 As has already been pointed out, the list in 1 En 79:1–2 focuses entirely on the individual days and individual fixed stars. In 1 En 79:2 attention is focused on the ‘emergence’ of individual stars at their heliacal rising, while 1 En 82:9 refers to when they set, that is, their acronychal29 disappearance. Both passages, however, think of the year as a series of days, each of which is marked out by the appearance or disappearance 24 VanderKam (2004), 114. In VanderKam (2012), 555, he gives ‘set times’ on the grounds that a reference to festivals at this point ‘may be unexpected in this context and indeed in the entire Book of the Luminaries, where festivals are of little to no concern.’ On the contrary, the purpose of the Astronomical Book is to establish the 364day liturgical calendar. 25 VanderKam (2004), 114. 26 VanderKam (2012), 558. 27 This is the Greek intermediary suggested by Drawnel (2011), 398. 28 The reference to ‘every week’ here is helpful, since it reminds us that when the world was created the same stars would rise on the same day of the week throughout the year. Every Sabbath would have its own unique and unchanging set of stars. 29 The acronychal setting of a star is the day on which it appears in west for the last time as the sun rises in the east.

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The Supplements to the Astronomical Book

of individual stars. In 1 En 82:11 and 1 En 82:12 a ‘head of thousands’ is provided for the stars that emerge for the first time each day. Eventually the same star would presumably lead these stars when they all disappeared from the heavens on another day each year. In the Hebrew Bible the angels are frequently referred to as ‘the host of heaven’ and this is reflected 1 En 82:11–12, which portray the stars as an army under the command of the four angels associated with the four days that the 364-day calendar adds to the 360-day Babylonian year. The fragmentary 4QPseudo-Jubilees? (4Q227) says that Enoch ‘wrote everything […] of the heavens and the paths of their armies and […] so that they would not stray […].’30 The reference must be to the stars and to the paths God assigned them in the cosmic covenant. 1 En 82:11b, which refers to ‘the twelve leaders of the orders who divide the months’, has always been difficult to interpret since it seems to provide a second leader for the first day of each month. According to Drawnel it is missing from the Aramaic text of 4Q209 frg. 28, and should therefore probably be considered a late interpolation. He believes it was added to clarify the meaning of 1 En 82:20.31 This final section of the Astronomical Book was characterized by Dillmann as a supplement to the astronomical chapters. Charles disagreed and proposed that it be moved to a point before 1 En 79:6 so that the summary statement could come later. His ideas were subsequently taken up by Beer and Martin. Such a rearrangement assumes – mistakenly – that the work as we have it in the Ethiopic version was originally a coherent whole. Neugebauer, who was aware of the Qumran material, dismissed the whole section as ‘obviously an addition taken from a different source. It contains one of those lists of freely invented names which enhance the authority of cosmologic revelations.’32 This suggests that like Dillmann he thought of it as a poor-quality supplement to the more serious chapters. Drawnel thinks individual names were given to the four additional stars because of ‘the necessity to justify the presence of the four additional leaders in the computus of the year’.33 Ben-Dov has proposed a date ‘around the beginning of the Common Era.’34 DSSSE (2000), 482-83. Drawnel (2011), 403, 405. 32 Neugebauer (1985), 413. 33 Drawnel (2011), 394. 34 Ben-Dov (2014), 4. Ben-Dov points out the similarity of this passage to certain forms of Hellenistic non-mathematical, popular astronomy, a kind of astro-meteorology in which meteorological phenomena are linked to the days of the year. This popular 30 31

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The Supplements to the Astronomical Book

Fanciful names are not given to the stars in passages that can be assigned to the original form of the Astronomical Book. Nor do they appear in the other related calendrical texts found at Qumran. When Josephus describes the Essenes as he knew them in the middle of the first century ce, however, he says that the members swore to keep secret (suntêrêsein) the names of the angels.35 We do not know where or when this practice arose. The fact that 1 En 82:9 refers to the months in terms of the movements of the fixed stars indicates that the author of this passage was still thinking in terms of the earlier cosmology, as does the insertion ‘and after them (come) the twelve leaders of the orders who divide the months’ (1 En 82:11). Lunar months cannot be correlated with individual fixed stars. The reference to ‘the names of those who lead them … who lead them to their places’ (1 En 82:10) reflects the creation narrative of Jubilees, where there is an angel for ‘all the spirits of creatures which are in the heavens, on earth, and in every (place)’ (Jub 2:2; cf. Jub 1:29). Nevertheless, this section in its Ethiopic form can hardly belong to the original work. This is of interest because again it suggests that Enochic works based on the earlier cosmology continued to circulate even after the revision of the Astronomical Book and could even be used to supplement a work that had been revised to refute them. Fragments of 1 En 82:9–13 were found at Qumran in 4QAstronomical Enochb (4Q209) frg. 28, which was written in the early years of the first century ce.

4Q211 frg. 1: A Description of the Seasons 4QAstronomical Enochd (4Q211) is made up of fragments from three columns of a single manuscript.36 The first of these contains part of a description of the transition from autumn to winter while columns two and three ‘describe operations that somehow relate to the stars.’37 No similar calculations are found in the Aramaic or Ethiopic text 1 Enoch or in any of the other calendrical texts from Qumran. tradition, which is already attested in MUL.APIN, was continued in the later Greek parapêgmata and survived until modern times in the form of popular ‘almanacs’. 35 Josephus, Bellum Judaicum 2.142. 36 First published in Milik (1976), 296–97, and more recently in Drawnel (2011), 227–34. 37 Drawnel (2011), 227.

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The Supplements to the Astronomical Book

Since autumn and winter are missing from the description of the seasons in chapter 82, which refers only to spring (1 En 82:16) and summer (1 En 82:19), Milik concluded that 4Q211 frg. 1 contained the original ending of the Astronomical Book that had been lost for some unknown reason before the translation of the Ethiopic text.38 Drawnel points out, however, that not only is there no overlap between 4Q211 and chapter 82, but that the Aramaic text does not contain any references to the leaders of the four parts of the year that preside over the four seasons or to the subordinate leaders under them, although they could, of course, have been located in the missing portions of the manuscript. He concludes that ‘it is not certain whether [4Q211] constitutes the last part of the [Aramaic Astronomical Book].’39 VanderKam goes further: ‘If the fragment does come from a copy of the Astronomical Book, it seems unlikely that its position would have been directly after the text of 82:20 or even close to it.’40 It seems best therefore to accept that 4Q211 comes from a work within the 364-day calendar tradition that circulated alongside the Astronomical Book and contained – like the Book of the Watchers and the Astronomical Book itself – a variety of short related texts. This would not prevent it from being related to the ‘Nature Homily’ at the beginning of the Book of the Watchers. Drawnel, like VanderKam, finds in the two passages similarities and parallels but no strictly verbal dependence.41 There is nothing in this fragment to tell us whether it refers to the original cosmology or to the revised form that accommodated the phases of the moon. In that it celebrates the regularity of nature it suits both the first creation of Enoch and Jubilees’ ‘new creation’ after the Flood.

Summary With the possible exception of 1 En 82:4–8 there is no reason to believe that any of the passages added to the Astronomical Book after chapter 1 En 79:1–2 was part of the original work. The various sections are evidence of a continuing process of revision that began before the middle 40 41 38 39

Milik (1976), 274. Drawnel (2011), 410. VanderKam (2012), 567. Drawnel (2011), 412; VanderKam (2012), 566–67.

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The Supplements to the Astronomical Book

of the second century bce and probably continued until the work was translated into Greek in the form now reflected in the Ethiopic translation. While the changes introduced in chapters 72–79 sought to bring the text closer to cosmology of Jubilees, the sections added in chapters 80–82 seem to have served a variety of purposes. Little more can be said perhaps, other than to recall Casaubon’s comment on the haphazard composition of the Historiae Augustae: ‘Only a prophet could divine what moved the maker of this collection to arrange it in this form.’42

42 ‘Quid fuerit consilii collectionis huius auctori, quando in istam formam hoc corpus digessit, vatibus relinquimus divinandum …’, Historiae Augustae sex. ed. I. Casaubon (Paris: 1603), Prolegomena, sig. e iiv. Quoted and translated in Grafton (1983), 80.

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CHAPTER FOURTEEN THE GROWTH OF THE ASTRONOMICAL BOOK

On the basis of this analysis of the different sections of the Astronomical Book it can be seen that they can be divided into three groups: (a) those that belong to the original work and reflect the original cosmology; (b) additional material that reflects the revised cosmology; and (c) other additional material, some of which does not touch on cosmological issues and some of which reflects the original cosmology but has been brought in from some other source. These three groups are set out in Table 3.

The Original Astronomical Book As we have seen, the sections of the Ethiopic Astronomical Book that reflect the earlier cosmology provide a short and clearly ordered description of the world as it was when first created and before the apostasy of the Wanderers. In outline it takes this form: Introduction (1 En 72:1) The Law of the Sun (1 En 72:2–37) The Law of the Moon (1 En 73:1–3b) The Law of the Stars (1 En 75:1–3) The Gates of the Sun and Windows of Heaven (1 En 75:4–8) The Gates of the Winds (1 En 76:1–14) The Four Quarters of the Earth (1 En 77:1–8) Conclusion (1 En 79:1–2) In this work the only mathematical presentation of the movements of the heavens occurs in chapter 72. It is called ‘the first law of the luminar-

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The Growth of the Astronomical Book

ies’ and describes the movements of the sun through the heavenly gates and the changing ratio of night and day during a 364-day year. The importance of the 364-day year is stressed – ‘the year is exactly 364 days’ (1 En 72:32) – and the information provided is referred to as ‘the law and course of the sun’ (1 En 72:35). The presentation of the ‘second law for the smaller luminary whose name is the moon’ in chapter 73 is based completely on the information about the sun contained in chapter 72, even to the point of saying that the days of the moon ‘are like the days of the sun.’ This is understandable, since when first created the moon did no more than ‘box and cox’ with the moon every day. It was not an independent indicator of time. Table 3: The growth of the Astronomical Book The Original Astronomical Book

72:1 72:2–37 73:1–3b

75:1–3 75:4–9 76:1–14 77:1–8

79:1–2

Additions that affect its cosmology

Additions not affecting the original cosmology

73:3c–8 74:1–8, 17 74:9–16

78:1–5 78:6–16, 79:3–5 78:17, 79:6 80:1–8 81:1–10 82:1–3 82:4–8 82:9–20

Chapter 75 assumes that its readers are familiar with the 360-day Babylonian creation year and focuses on the four stars that are associated with ‘those four (days) that are added’ to it to make up the 364-day crea-

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The Growth of the Astronomical Book

tion year of the Enochian tradition: ‘People err regarding them because those lights truly serve (in) the positions of the world: one in the first gate, one in the third heavenly gate, one in the fourth gate, and one in the sixth gate, and the accuracy of the world is completed in the 364 positions of the world’ (1 En 75:2). His opponents are those who accept the Babylonian account of creation, and their error is to reject the 364-day creation calendar revealed to Israel. These three chapters are followed by three other chapters that deal largely with the surface of the earth and its weather. The descriptions are primitive and although numbers are attached to various phenomena, they are all completely schematic in character. The sun’s disc has twelve ‘gates’ from which its heat emerges (1 En 75:4), and in addition to the twelve gates in the east and in the west through which the heavenly luminaries emerge and set there are ‘windows opened on the left and right’ of these gates that emit heat ‘at its time’ (1 En 75:7). ‘Chariots’ carry the heavenly bodies across the heavens (1 En 75:8). These have already been mentioned in connection with the sun and the moon (1 En 72:5; 73:2) and the heavenly bodies in general (1 En 75:3). They are not mentioned, however, in any of the material that relates to the phases of the moon, a detail that ties together the sections of the original work and marks them off from the work of revision and the calendrical texts from Qumran. There are twelve ‘gates’ for the twelve winds, and their characteristics are described: some of them bring blessing, others devastation, some bring ‘punishment’ and others ‘prosperity’ (1 En 76:1–14). There are four quarters to the earth and what happens in each is indicated, but only one third of the northern quarter is inhabited (1 En 77:1–3). Enoch sees seven mountains ‘higher than all the mountains on the earth’, seven rivers ‘larger than all the rivers’, and ‘seven large islands in the sea and on the land – two on the land and five in the Great Sea’ (1 En 77:5–8). The mythological and schematic character of all this information about the earth is obvious. None of it is based on accurate observation. In this respect it resembles the data provided in chapter 72, where the ratio between day and night is said to reach an extreme of two to one, twelve parts to six, at the summer solstice (1 En 72:14). This reproduces the ratio found in early Babylonian documents, but is something that never actually happens in the Middle East.1 A point already made by Weidner (1916), cols 74–75.

1

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The Growth of the Astronomical Book

The Characteristics of the Original Astronomical Book The Astronomical Book started as a short and well-structured introductory handbook on the cosmological foundations of the 364-day calendar tradition. After setting out the state of the heavens when the moon still ‘boxed and coxed’ with the sun and did not yet exhibit the phases it does today, the work then goes on to describe the surface of the earth and its weather. Nothing is said about the apostasy that would bring this situation to an end. The character of the work suggests that it and the 364-day calendar came into being within a priestly tradition at a time when mythology was still the normal vehicle for understanding the natural world. The stars are governed by angels who are governed in turn by higherranking angels operating under the oversight of Uriel, who himself is a servant of the God of Israel, creator of the universe. The ordinances said to determine the behaviour of the stars at the time of creation are not derived from observation. They constitute a series of ‘laws’ imposed on the angels by God. Only in chapter 80, which did not form part of the original book, does it become clear that these ‘laws’ are also a set of ‘commands’ forming part of a covenant that the angels are free to reject. The original work limited itself to describing only what was true of the heavens when first created, an Urwelt whose first week was then reflected and celebrated in the liturgical tradition associated with the 364-day calendar. Thus the general character of the original Astronomical Book differs markedly from that of the Tables of Lunar Visibility and Synchronistic Calendar that were used to revise its cosmology. There is nothing in the earlier sections that requires a detailed knowledge of Babylonian astronomical science ‘from the inside’. An awareness of the basic outline of the Babylonian creation myth as found in Enūma Elish and the use of naked eye astronomy would be enough. Neugebauer refers to ‘this primitive picture of the cosmic order’ and comments that ‘the linear pattern for the variation of length of daylight as well as the ration of 2:1 of its extrema suggest an early Babylonian background. But there is no visible trace of the sophisticated Babylonian astronomy of the Persian or Seleucid period.’2

Neugebauer (1985), 387.

2

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The Growth of the Astronomical Book

The Tables of Lunar Visibility and the Synchronistic Calendar Only after the cosmology of the 364-day calendar tradition was changed to legitimize taking into account the phases of the moon could the Tables of Lunar Visibility and Synchronistic Calendar have been created. While it would be possible to draw up a Synchronistic Calendar using naked-eye astronomy, whoever drew up the Tables of Lunar Visibility was clearly acquainted with the scribal practices and mathematical calculations of Babylonian astral science. They are ultimately based on scribal and astronomical practices attested in Tables A and B of Tablet XIV of Enūma Anu Enlil, which they adapt and develop with considerable skill. The Tables of Lunar Visibility and the Synchronistic Calendar will originally have been drawn up as separate documents, each with its own style of formulaic presentation. A form of Synchronistic Calendar survived the centuries to surface in Ethiopic MS 66 of the Bibliothèque Nationale and related manuscripts. It is possible that the Tables of Lunar Visibility are reproduced separately in 4QAstronomical Enocha (4Q208), although information drawn from the Synchronistic Calendar is occasionally inserted into them. The use of data from the Tables of Lunar Visibility to ‘correct’ the earlier form of chapter 73 and from the Synchronistic Calendar to supplement this data in chapter 74 was all that was needed to bring the Astronomical Book into alignment with the cosmology of Jubilees. The rest of the original information on the sun, the moon, and the stars could be allowed to stand.

The additional supplementary material The other insertions that have filled out the original form of the work to create the Astronomical Book we have today – with one notable exception – add nothing to our understanding of the work’s original cosmology. Some introduce ideas that have already appeared elsewhere (1 En 78:3–5; 78:6–14, 17; 82:4–8). Some are confused attempts to deal with problems associated with the calendar (1 En 74:10–16; 75:15–16). Some introduce fanciful names for the stars (1 En 78:1–3; 82:13–20). One passage seeks to present the fixed stars as an army, the ‘host of heaven’ (1 En 82:9–12). Two bring in the figure of Methuselah but seem to have no connection with the heavens at all (1 En 81:1–10; 82:1–3).

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The Growth of the Astronomical Book

It is unlikely that this information was inserted into the text by the same people who drew up the highly sophisticated Tables of Lunar Visibility. The fragments of 4Q209 show that the second block of data from the Tables of Lunar Visibility (1 En 78:6–14, 17) and chapter 82:9–13 were in their present locations before the early years of the first century ce and may have been added much earlier. We cannot be sure about the rest. The notable exception referred to above is, of course, chapter 80: Uriel’s prediction of the rebellion of the ‘wanderers’. Unlike all the other additions, chapter 80 is based firmly on the earlier cosmology and is the key to understanding both the movements of the heavens as first created and the timing of their rebellion. Since chapter 80 says nothing at all about God bringing the rebellion of the ‘wanderers’ to an end at the time of the Flood – as is required by the cosmology of Jubilees – it does not confirm the cosmology of the revised work and probably contradicts it. This suggests that chapter 80 was once the final chapter of an unrevised account of what was revealed to Enoch and was added to the Astronomical Book when it had otherwise already assumed its present form. This would seem to require that both its composition and present position be the work of a strand of the 364-day calendar tradition that still preserved the earlier mythology and cosmology that went with it. One candidate, of course, would be the strand that produced the Parables, since, as we have seen, their author or compiler had access to texts reflecting the earlier cosmology. In that case it also seems likely that these same people also brought together the five ‘booklets’ that make up the 1 Enoch we have now.

The Aramaic fragments of Astronomical Enoch Unfortunately the Aramaic fragments of the Astronomical Book can offer only limited assistance in reconstructing the literary history of the text. 4QAstronomical Enocha (4Q208): This manuscript, which was written c. 175 bce if not earlier, contains the Tables of Lunar Visibility, to which a certain amount of data about the gates through which the sun and moon pass has been added. Drawnel estimates that if the Tables covered a whole year they ‘might have originally reached thirty columns or more.’3 The fragments contain no material of any other kind and Enoch is never mentioned.

Drawnel (2011), 28.

3

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The Growth of the Astronomical Book

4QAstronomical Enochb (4Q209): The fragments of this manuscript, which was written in the early years of the first century ce, contain the supplemented Tables of Lunar Visibility and parts of chapters 76–79 and 82. If the Tables of Lunar Visibility covered a whole year, they would have been considerably longer than the whole of the unrevised form of the Astronomical Book. The fact that the two were copied together suggests that the Enochian text was added in order bolster their authority and convince readers that the Tables of Lunar Visibility and Synchronistic Calendar were also divinely revealed information about the universe. This is our earliest firm evidence for the revised text. 4QAstronomical Enochc (4Q210): The fragments of this manuscript, which was written around the middle of the first century bce, come from chapters 76 and 78. Strictly speaking it is not possible to tell whether they come from the revised or unrevised form of the work. 4QAstronomical Enochd (4Q211): A single fragment of this manuscript, which was written in the second half of the first century bce, contains material resembling the description of the seasons in chapter 82 but cannot be linked to the Ethiopic text with any certainty. Thus it is not even clear whether it belongs to the Astronomical Book at all. Thus the Aramaic fragments provide only a limited amount of information about the history of the Astronomical Book. The Tables of Lunar Visibility were probably in existence at the beginning of the second century bce, well before Jubilees was written. The initial revision of the Astronomical Book through the expansion of chapter 73 and the addition of earlier parts of chapter 74 could have taken place any time after the Tables were created. The fragments of 4Q208 and 4Q209 seem to present the Tables in their full form, but 4Q209, which was written in the early years of the first century ce and includes parts of chapters 76– 79 and 82, provides our first evidence that they had been combined with the original work. Only brief excerpts from the Tables are still found in the Ethiopic translation (1 En 73:4–8; 78:4–14, 17) and we have no way of knowing exactly when these excerpts were made.

A liturgical observation It is important to bear in mind at all times that the revision of the Astronomical Book did not affect the celebration of the liturgy. The liturgical calendar will have been left unchanged, a stable feature of community

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The Growth of the Astronomical Book

life throughout the last three turbulent centuries of the Second Temple period. No doubt this was a matter of pride in all strands of the 364-day calendar tradition. In much the same way today many Eastern Orthodox Christians whose liturgy follows the Julian calendar, centuries after the Gregorian calendar was introduced in the West by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582, are proud to say that they still adhere to the decisions taken by the Council of Nicaea in 325 ce. Loyalty to the ‘old’ calendar and its liturgy no doubt motivated all those who did not accept the calendrical reforms introduced during the second century bce.4

See VanderKam (1981a), 52–54.

4

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CHAPTER FIFTEEN SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

The liturgical week Our investigation of the links between liturgy and cosmology in the 364day calendar tradition began with the liturgical week. By using scattered references still preserved in the Ethiopic versions of 1 Enoch in combination with the alternative creation narrative found in Jubilees 2:2–18 it was possible to show that the four days of the week given special importance in the liturgy of the 364-day calendar tradition – Sunday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday – were all associated with the days of the first week of creation and drew their liturgical significance from these days. In the course of this investigation it proved possible to show that the relationship between Sunday and the notion of covenant in the 364-day calendar tradition was based on the myth of a cosmic covenant established between God and the angels on the first day of the week at the time of the world’s creation. In this covenant the angels put in charge of the universe swore an oath to govern the universe on God’s behalf according laws that he drew up himself. These laws were in effect ‘commandments’ much like the laws of the Mosaic code. Among these commands were those that ensured that the heavens moved in such a way as to bring about a 364-day year made up of exactly fifty-two weeks and four thirteen-week seasons. The will of God, as revealed to Enoch by the archangel Uriel, was that each of these seasons should be treated as having two thirty-day months and one thirty-oneday month. Within this calendrical framework were distributed the days of liturgical worship and celebration – in an order imposed by God – that according to Jubilees was gradually revealed to the patriarchs before being fully revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai. The timing of all liturgical

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Summary and Conclusions

events was correlated both with the first week of creation and with the movements of the heavens as first created. The effect of this was to create a weekly liturgy that reflected the world as it existed ‘in the beginning’.

The rebellion of the Watchers According to the original form of the 364-day calendar tradition, two major rebellions took place in the angelic realm. The Book of the Watchers describes how some of the angels – the ‘Watchers’ – abandoned their stations in the heavens, descended to earth, assumed human form, and fathered offspring by the women to whom they were attracted. At the same time the teaching of these fallen angels encouraged mankind to sin. The hybrid offspring of the Watchers and their human partners proved to be Giants, half human and half angelic, who then proceeded to wreak havoc among their human hosts. God finally intervened, imprisoned the fallen Watchers under the earth, caused the Giants to slay each other, and destroyed all mankind other than righteous Noah and his family on account of the wickedness that had arisen in the world because of the teaching of the Watchers. As a result of their origin in the heavens the spirits of the Giants survived the Flood and became what were later called evil spirits or ‘demons’. God has permitted these spirits to continue to torment mankind until the great day of judgement, when they will finally be judged and punished definitively.

The apostasy of the ‘wanderers’ The second major rebellion involved the ‘wanderers’, the stars and comets whose movements do not now conform to the pattern their governing angels were told to impose on them according to the terms of the cosmic covenant. This second apostasy in the heavens thus had a dramatic effect on the visible world and made it difficult to continue to follow the 364-day creation calendar. According to Jude 13 the apostasy of the ‘wanderers’ – like that of the spirits of the Giants – was never brought to an end. They persisted in their rebellion and will do so until the end of the present age. This seems to be implied by chapter 80 of the Astronomical Book as well. Then they, too, will finally be judged and condemned. Thus in this present world the heavens do not reflect the



Summary and Conclusions

will of God as enshrined in the cosmic covenant at the time of creation and the sun and moon we observe no longer tell us about God’s time – liturgical time. Our analysis of Jude 13 revealed a serious contradiction between Jude and the text he was generally thought to be interpreting: according to the Book of the Watchers Enoch saw the seven rebel planets already being punished while he was being shown around the heavens by Uriel. According to Jude 13 they were still in rebellion. In order to understand how this contradiction could have arisen it was necessary to take into account Hanneken’s demonstration that Jubilees, while ostensibly passing on Enochian theology and calendrical traditions, has radically revised its original theological and cosmological content. In Jubilees the story of the Watchers is modified to indicate that they originally left the heavens at God’s request in order to help mankind. Only afterward were they seduced by ‘the daughters of men’. In Jubilees the Giants eliminate each other as before, but in the aftermath of the Flood their spirits are brought back under God’s control, and now serve the purposes of divine justice. And finally, at the cosmological level, a ‘new creation’ after the Flood brings to an end all disobedience in the universe apart from that which originates in mankind. As a result the author of Jubilees does not look forward to a final cosmic cataclysm and great day of judgement. Instead, the world will enter a golden age of universal blessing when Israel fully and finally repents – and follows the 364-day calendar. This ‘new creation’ at the time of the flood means that for the author of Jubilees the heavenly bodies now move in accordance with God’s will. The sun crosses the sky 365¼ times in the course of each sidereal year and the moon exhibits phases in a twelve-month lunar year having 354 days. As a result the notion of the rebellion of the planets against the cosmic covenant is abandoned and the 364-day calendar loses the justification it had according to the earlier mythology. Its authority is now based entirely on the revelation given to Enoch by Uriel and has become a tradition that is accepted because it was revealed to Israel and was followed in the past. This was apparently the situation at Qumran, where neither the cosmic covenant nor the rebellion of the ‘wanderers’ is ever mentioned. Thus it was possible to show that the discrepancy between Jude and the Book of the Watchers as to the fate of the seven apostate stars reflected historical developments within the 364-day calendar tradition.

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Summary and Conclusions

The Book of the Watchers is revised On the basis of Hanneken’s work on Jubilees’ revision of the Book of the Watchers it proved possible to show that the Book of the Watchers had also been revised. Its theology and cosmology were skillfully adjusted by the introduction of supplementary material bringing them closer to the theology and cosmology of Jubilees. As a result it became clear that the expectations expressed in Jude 13 did not derive from the Book of the Watchers in its present state but had to be based on earlier traditions not reflected – or only partially reflected – in the revised work.

The Astronomical Book is revised The close connection between the Book of the Watchers and the Astronomical Book led to an investigation of the obvious contradiction in this work between a liturgical calendar that pays no attention to the lunar month and a whole series of passages that refer in detail to the phases of the moon. The starting point of our investigation was Uriel’s prediction of the apostasy of the ‘wanderers’ contained in chapter 80. A careful reading of this text and comparison with Marduk’s creation of the moon in Enūma Elish enabled us to see that before the fall of the planets the movements of the moon had been completely synchronized with the movements of the sun: the two had ‘boxed and coxed’ each day, each setting when the other rose and rising when the other set. As a result the moon did not exhibit phases when first created and was not an independent indicator of time. Understandably, therefore, the moon has no influence on the 364-day liturgical calendar, since the liturgy seeks to reproduce the Urzeit in the present. Removal from the Ethiopic text of the Astronomical Book of those passages that described the phases of the moon made it possible to discern the form the work had before it was revised to accommodate the revised cosmology of Jubilees. The original Astronomical Book proved to be a succinct statement of the movements of the heavenly bodies as first created plus three chapters describing the surface of the earth and its weather. The revisions made before the original ending in 1 En 79:1–2 are clearly designed to reconcile the 354-day lunar year of observation with the 364-day creation year. The passages added after the original ending serve a variety of purposes, not all of which are clear.

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Summary and Conclusions

Four fundamental myths To sum up, our investigation of the relationship between liturgy and cosmology in the 364-day calendar tradition led in the end to the ecognizen that this tradition was based on four primary myths: 1. the myth of the creation of the angels on the first day of creation as preserved in Jubilees 2:2–18; 2. the myth of a cosmic oath and covenant which is attested in scattered passages in 1 Enoch; 3. the myth of the fall of the Watchers found in Genesis 6, the Book of the Watchers, and elsewhere; and 4. the myth of the fall of the ‘wandering stars’ that is found in the Book of the Watchers and Jude 13, and whose results are described in detail in chapter 80 of the Astronomical Book. The first two myths form the cosmological foundations of the tradition, which is tied closely to the covenantal monotheism of Israel. The third explains the origin of human sin, while the fourth justifies the discrepancy between the observed movements of the heavens and the divinely revealed 364-day calendar. The revised tradition found in Jubilees and in the revised forms of the Book of the Watchers and Astronomical Book preserved the myth of the creation of the angels on the first day and the fall of the Watchers but dropped the cosmic covenant and rejected completely the myth of the continuing apostasy of the ‘wanderers’.

Six fundamental texts Our investigation also showed that in the history of the 364-day calendar tradition there are six primary texts. They fall into three groups:

The early tradition The original tradition is represented in written form (1) by the Book of the Watchers before its revision and (2) in the unrevised form of the Astronomical Book. These have had to be extracted from the form in which these texts have reached us, but they nevertheless deserve to be called primary or even ‘foundational’ texts since they are the basis of the later tradition.

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Summary and Conclusions

The revised tradition The revised tradition is represented (1) by the revised Book of the Watchers and (2) by the revised Astronomical Book, preserved both at Qumran and in an Ethiopic translation. Previous study of the 364-day calendar tradition, which has been based on these two texts, has inevitably been hampered not only by a failure to recognize and analyse the internal contradictions in these works but also by the fact that they have survived in their entirety only in a Ge‘ez translation of a Greek translation of the Aramaic original.

The properly astronomical texts In addition there are two fundamental astronomical texts that show how the revised tradition attempted to reconcile the phases of the moon with the 364-day liturgical year. These are (1) the Tables of Lunar Visibility and (2) the Synchronistic Calendar that were separated out by Drawnel on the basis of the confused data found in the fragments of 4QAstronomical Enocha (4Q208) and 4QAstronomical Enochb (4Q209). Large parts of the Tables of Lunar Visibility are represented in the Qumran fragments but only a few misleading scraps have survived in the Astronomical Book. The Synchronistic Calendar is fully preserved only in Ethiopic MS 64 in the Bibliothèque Nationale and related Ethiopic manuscripts. It would not be possible to reconstruct it simply on the basis of what survives in 1 Enoch. In the Tables of Lunar Visibility the daily circuit of the moon is correlated in a schematic fashion with a 354-day lunar year made up alternating twenty-nine- and thirty-day months. The amount of time the moon spends in the sky during its waxing and waning phases is strictly correlated with the amount of its light. A template for this presentation of the data can be found in Tables A and B of MUL.APIN XIV, but the data itself and the manner of its presentation show a much higher level of sophistication. In the Synchronistic Calendar we can see an ingenious attempt to calibrate the movement of the moon back and forth across the ecliptic by linking its daily circuit step by step to the six gates on the eastern horizon through which it rises each day as sun travels to the north and to the south during the year as described in chapter 72 of the Astronomical Book. The data in the Synchronistic Calendar do not seem to be represented in later calendrical texts from Qumran. The various different

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Summary and Conclusions

mishmarot texts, however, are ultimately based on the pattern of alternating thirty-day and twenty-nine-day months that is the basis for the Tables of Lunar Visibility. Texts of this kind would have been required as soon as it was decided to abandon the earlier cosmology and integrate the phases of the moon into the 364-day calendar tradition. Since these schemes are tied to the 364-day calendar, however, they would never have corresponded to observed reality. It is not known whether or not they were ever used.

The development of the 364-day calendar tradition All religious traditions change over time as certain features gain in importance or lose their relevance and are dropped. This was certainly the case within the 364-day calendar tradition. The revised forms of the Book of the Watchers and the Astronomical Book provide some of the evidence required to track these changes. Although manuscript evidence for the Tables of Lunar Visibility begins in the early years of the second century bce it seems unlikely that this is when they were first drawn up. In the second century bce the tradents of the 364-day calendar tradition were presumably based largely in Palestine, but, as Drawnel has shown, the Tables are based ultimately on Mesopotamian models found in the classic Babylonian text Enūma Anu Enlil. Those who were able to read such texts, understand them, translate their contents into Aramaic, and modify them for use in a tradition based on a 364-day ideal year must have had a traditional Babylonian scribal education. Since this was not available in Palestine, it seems likely that the revision of the earlier tradition took place in Mesopotamia, perhaps in Babylon. This has the effect of pushing back the origin of the tradition back in time, since in order for it to be worth spending this amount of energy on a radical revision of the tradition’s cosmology the tradition itself must already have enjoyed great authority. Drawnel concludes that ‘it is probable that such a calculation based on EAE XIV Tables A and B and vested in Aramaic garb is much older’ than the earliest manuscript evidence for its existence.1

Drawnel (2011), 47. This was also the opinion of VanderKam (1981), 54 and 56, n. 18. 1

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Summary and Conclusions

The impression of the earlier tradition given by the unrevised Book of the Watchers and the unrevised Astronomical Book also points to an early origin. The way in which the mythological language used to express rudimentary astronomical understanding and geographical knowledge is combined with a high level of theological awareness could even point to the period after the fall of Israel and before the destruction of Jerusalem. Its world is essentially that of the Priestly account in Genesis 1, whose Babylonian background is generally acknowledged. In chapter 80 of the Astronomical Book the apostasy of the moon is described in a way that is comprehensible only when compared with what is said about the movements of the moon in Enūma Elish. This suggests that the Priestly creation narrative and the early 364-day calendar tradition share a common Sitz im Leben and that both would be at home in a world where mythological thinking is still alive and well.

Further investigation The results of this study suggest that further work is needed on the origins of the 364-day calendar tradition and its cosmology and on the influence of this tradition on the first Christian communities. They also raise the question of how a second century bce cosmology based on an invisible hierarchy of cosmic angels managed to survive, increase in sophistication, and appear in the sixth century ce clothed in the NeoPlatonism of Dionysius the Areopagite.

The enduring trauma of change Jubilees expresses very clearly the strength of feeling that bound the 364-day tradition to a calendar that paid no attention to the moon.2 At the end of his account of the 364-day calendar the angel of the presence warns Moses that in the future an attempt will be made to abandon it and fix the liturgical feasts in accordance with the phases of the moon. For I know and from now on will inform you – not from my own mind because this is the way the book is written in front of me … There will be people who carefully observe the moon with lunar observations be See VanderKam (1981), 52–54, for a thorough presentation of the evidence for the centrality of the calendar for the Qumran community. 2

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Summary and Conclusions

cause it is corrupt (with respect to) the seasons and is early from year to year by ten days. Therefore years will come about for them when they will disturb (the year) and make a day of testimony something worthless and a profane day a festival. Everyone will join together both holy days with the profane and the profane day with the holy day, for they will err regarding the months, the sabbaths, the festivals, and the jubilee. For this reason I am commanding you and testifying to you so that you may testify to them because after your death your children will disturb (it) so that they do not make the year (consist of) 364 days only. Therefore, they will err regarding the first of the month, the season, the sabbath, and the festivals. (Jub 6:35–38)

The strength of the author’s commitment to the 364-day calendar is obvious. In the middle of the second century bce conflict between the liturgical calendar and observation would have been inevitable if the myth of the apostasy of the ‘wanderers’ no longer had the power to persuade. The revised cosmology we see in Jubilees means that after the Flood the heavens moved in accordance with God’s will since they had been given ‘a new and righteous nature’ at the time of the Flood (Jub 5:12). The most that those who kept on following the 364-day calendar could do was live with the discrepancy and persevere. One should never underestimate the strength of feeling that ties a community to its traditional calendar. A shared liturgical calendar has an important social function in any society, binding its individual members to a common understanding of time – God’s time – and coordinating its days of feasting, fasting, and celebration. Its influence on the broader network of human relationships is profound. Yet if we can easily see and understand the traumatic effect that the move to a lunisolar calendar would have had on those committed to the older tradition, we should not lose from sight the alienating effect that the introduction of the revised cosmology will have had on those who decided to persevere. The original mythological framework of the 364day calendar tradition managed to survive and reappears in the Epistle of Jude. Jude still believes that the ‘wanderers’ are in rebellion and that their punishment has yet to take place. He still believes that it is vain to expect God’s justice to manifest itself in this world. The world’s wrongs will only be righted in the eschaton. This raises once again the question of the relationship between the 364-day calendar tradition and Christian origins. If Jude believed that the planets were still in rebellion, then surely he followed the liturgical calendar that this myth justified.

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ἐὰν μὴ ἔλπηται ἀνέλπιστον οὐκ ἐξευρήσει, ἀνεξερεύνητον ἐὸν καὶ ἄπορον ‘He who does not expect will not find the unexpected, for it is trackless and unexplored.’

Heraclitus, Fragment VII Kahn (18 Diels), trans. Kahn

APPENDIX THE 364-DAY CALENDAR IN THE PRIESTLY ACCOUNT OF CREATION

The argument developed in this book has been based in large part on the understanding of the first week of creation found In Jubilees 2:2–18 and the meagre references to a cosmic oath and covenant in 1 Enoch. Without the creation of the angels on day one a cosmic covenant obliging them to carry out God’s will in the world that would subsequently be created would not have been possible. Among the requirements of this covenant were commandments governing the movements of the heavens. These were designed to ensure that that each year would have exactly 364 days and that the sun and moon would always share the nychthemeron between them. The discrepancy between the heavens as created and the heavens we observe today was believed to have arisen during the years before the Flood because the angels responsible for the stars whom the ancients called the ‘wanderers’ rebelled against the commandments given them by God. Having established on the basis of 1 En 80:2-8 how the heavens moved when first created according to the original 364-day calendar tradition we are now in a position to compare this understanding with the Priestly account of the creation of the heavenly bodies in Gen 1:14–19 and with the movements of the heavens we see today to see to which of these the Priestly account corresponds most closely. Our argument will address two questions raised by the text of Gen 1:14–19 that have never been answered satisfactorily: (1) why is the month not mentioned specifically as a unit of time? and (2) why was the sun not created until the fourth day – that is, after the plants?

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Appendix

Why is the month not mentioned in Genesis 1:14–19? The absence of any reference to the month among the units of time specified in Gen 1:14 invites reflection because the month is of such importance for the lunisolar liturgical calendar used throughout the Ancient Middle East.1 Chapter 80 of the Astronomical Book shows that according to the original cosmology of the 364-day calendar tradition the sun and the moon always shared the nychthemeron between them. Every morning as the sun came up the moon would set, and every evening as the moon came up the sun would disappear beneath the horizon. As a result the moon was always full because it was always directly opposite the sun. The relative length of day and night might change during the year, but throughout the year the sun was in the sky all day and the moon in the sky all night. This meant that the moon did not exhibit phases and was not an independent indicator of time. It simply tracked the movements of the sun. While it is true that many calendrical texts from Qumran describe the phases of the moon, this is because by the middle of the second century bce this branch of the 364-day tradition had abandoned the earlier cosmology in favour of the cosmology now found in Jubilees, which accepts that the phases of the moon we see today reflect the will of God. The 364-day solar calendar nevertheless continued to be used at Qumran because its members believed that it had been divinely revealed and because it structured a liturgical tradition that the community wished to preserve. The relationship between P and the 364-day calendar has been under discussion ever since the pioneering work of Annie Jaubert, who argued that the precise dates in P correspond almost without exception to the 364-day calendar’s liturgically privileged days of the week – Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday – and that this was an indication that the author(s) of P followed this calendar.2 Her views were frequently criticised, but when VanderKam revisited the issue twenty-five years after Jaubert first proposed this idea he concluded that Jaubert was correct: the dates in P do conform to the 364-day calendar and do suggest that this calendar was used by its author(s).3 According to Jaubert the earliest See VanderKam (1992), 810; Verderame (2017), 127. Jaubert (1965), 33. 3 VanderKam (1979), 410–11; reprinted (2000), 103. VanderKam (1981a), 72–74; reprinted (2000), 126–27, argues that the lunisolar calendar was introduced into Temple worship in Jerusalem around 150 bce. 1 2

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Appendix

evidence for the use of this calendar outside the Pentateuch is found in Ezekiel, the first of whose dated visions was received in 593 bce.4

An experiment This potentially early evidence for the use of the 364-day calendar raises the question of whether its original cosmology is reflected in the Priestly creation narrative in Genesis 1. In order to test this the text of Priestly account in Gen 1:14–19 is given below according to the NRSV. Comments on individual phrases then follow: God said, ‘Let there be lights in the dome of the sky, to distinguish between day and night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth.’ And it was so. 16 God made the two great lights – the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night – and the stars. 17 God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth, 18 to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day. 14

Verse 14 – ‘Let there be lights … to distinguish between day and night’ The role of the stars is peripheralized at once. The lights in question must be the sun and the moon, since the stars do not distinguish between day and night. They are always in the sky, even if we cannot see them during the day. In Enūma Elish the stars are the most important luminaries. They are created first, before the sun and the moon, and measure out the months and the year.5 According to the original creation narrative of the 364-day calendar tradition the sun and the moon distinguish clearly between day and night: the moon rises when the sun sets and the sun rises when the moon sets. Both of them are always full while present in the sky. In the world as it now is, however, this happens only once a month, at full moon. Jaubert (1953), 262; VanderKam (2000), 94; Joyce (2007), 67. Enūma Elish V, 1–5. See Verderame (2017), 127.

4 5

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Appendix

For half of the month the moon does not appear in the sky until after nightfall and on some nights it does not appear at all. If one says that nevertheless the moon still distinguishes the night because that is when we see it, this is undermined by the fact that the moon can frequently be seen during the day. In the cosmology of the 364-day calendar tradition, however, the sun and moon do distinguish clearly between day and night. The Hebrew root of the word translated here as ‘to distinguish’, b-d-l, means ‘to divide, to separate’. In the original cosmology of the 364-day calendar tradition the sun and the moon do indeed separate day and night: one appears only during the day and the other only during the night.

Verse 14 – ‘let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years’ A very important unit of time used to structure the liturgy throughout the Ancient Middle East is missing: the lunar month. Mô‘edim, the Hebrew word behind the NRSV’s ‘seasons’, comes from a root meaning ‘to appoint’ (y-‘-d) and a literal translation in the present context would be ‘appointed (times)’. The word is frequently used in the Hebrew Bible in a transferred sense to refer to the established feasts of the liturgical calendar because they are fixed on certain days of the year. Scholars have differed about the precise meaning of mô‘edim. The Septuagint of Genesis – probably translated in the middle of the third century bce – offers eis kairous, ‘for seasons’,6 i.e., the seasons of the year. The Latin Vulgate has tempora, which the Douay version renders as ‘seasons’. The Authorized Version and NRSV have ‘seasons’ as well. This might seem to indicate that the meaning is clear: the mô‘edim are units of time fixed by the sun. Most modern scholars have probably agreed with the Septuagint. Cassuto, for example, renders the Hebrew text as ‘for signs and for seasons/ and for days and years’ and thinks the ‘signs’ mark the ‘seasons’ and the ‘days and years’.7 Speiser translates as ‘let them be for signs and for seasons (and for days and years)’ and concludes that the verse intends to say that ‘they shall serve as signs for the fixed time periods, … that is, the days and years.’8 In neither case is there any direct reference to the month or to the moon. NETS (2007), 6. Cassuto (1961), 14, 44–45. 8 Speiser (1963), 6. 6 7

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Appendix

The earliest extant interpretation of Gen 1:14 – earlier than the Septuagint – is probably that found in the Astronomical Book of 1 Enoch, where Enoch says that Uriel ‘showed me the sign, the seasons, the year and the days’ (1 En 75:3). This work is generally thought to have been written in Aramaic probably not later than c. 300 bce.9 In its original form it may be much earlier. In Enoch’s description of the movements of the sun it is said to emerge and set during the third month of the first season ‘for thirty-one days because of its sign’ (1 En 72:13; cf. 72:19, 25). The following verse shows what this means by indicating that at the end of that month the length of the day is twice that of the night (1 En 72:14). In other words, the sun emerges for thirty-one days at this stage of the year because of the summer solstice, the ‘sign’ that marks the point when it should cease travelling north and begin to return towards the south.10 This certainly suggests that the author of chapter 72 linked the ‘signs’ of Gen 1:14 to the solstices and equinoxes. Only the sun is involved and not the moon. Already around 175 bce Sirach described the liturgical function of the moon using language that clearly shows he read Gen 1:14–19 in a very different way: the ‘signs’ are provided by the moon and the ‘fixed times’ are calculated according to a lunar calendar: It is the moon that marks the changing seasons, governing the times, their everlasting sign. From the moon comes the sign for festal days, (Heb mw'd) a light that wanes when it completes its course. The new moon, as its name suggests, renews itself; how marvellous it is in this change, a beacon to the hosts on high, shining in the vault of the heavens! (Sirach 43:6–8)

Passages like this combined with the repeated use of mô‘edim in the Hebrew Bible to refer to the fixed feasts and festivals of the liturgical year – thought to be determined by the moon – have encouraged many scholars to conclude that the phases of the moon must be found in the mô‘edim of Gen 1:14. The authors of BDB add this note to their entry under mô‘ed, 1.b.: ‘It is most probable that in Gn 114, where mô‘ed ǁ’otot,

See Charlesworth (2002), 225–34. See VanderKam (2012), 424–25.

9

10

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Appendix

the reference is to the sacred seasons as fixed by the moon’s appearance … although many Lexx. & Comm. refer these to the seasons of the year.’11 As one of their number Driver translates mô‘edim as ‘fixed times’ and believes it refers both to festivals and to feasts and to the four seasons.12 Wenham translates mô‘edim as ‘fixed times’ and then interprets this as a reference to ‘festival seasons’.13 Similarly VanderKam concludes his discussion of Gen 1:14–19 with ‘one could say that in this paragraph the sun and moon are given calendrical assignments for three of the entities that are significant in Biblical and post-Biblical calendars – days, years, and festivals.’14 All these scholars seem to assume that the sun determines the seasons and the moon the festivals and feasts according to a lunisolar calendar. Nevertheless, this is not the only way to interpret the text. ‘Fixed times’ is not misleading as a translation of mô‘edim, but it omits an important aspect of the word’s root meaning: ‘to appoint’. The mô‘edim are not simply ‘fixed (times)’, they are ‘appointed (times)’.15 They may be fixed, but that is because they are ‘appointed’ by God. This immediately recalls the passage in the Book of the Watchers where it is said that the apostate stars ‘did not come out in their appointed time’ (1 En 18:15) and another in the Astronomical Book where Uriel predicts that at some point ‘[m]any heads of the stars will stray from the command … and will not appear at the times prescribed for them’ (1 En 80:7). In these two passages the ‘appointed’ or ‘prescribed’ times are those laid down by God in the cosmic covenant, the ‘command’ referred to in 1 En 80:7 and 1 En 106:13. The authors of 1 En 18:15, 1 En 80:7, and 1 En 106:13 presumably believed that the ‘appointed times’ of Gen 1:14 underpinned the 364-day calendar, according to which both celestial phenomena and the liturgy had been permanently fixed by God. When this more accurate translation is used, the last clause of Gen 1:14 becomes ‘and let them be for signs and for appointed times and for days and years.’ The ‘appointed times’ will include all aspects of the liturgical calendar: not only the feasts and festivals of the liturgical calendar, but all the other chronological aspects of the year embodied in BDB (1953), 417. Driver (1926), 10. 13 Wenham (1987), 23. 14 VanderKam (1998), 4. 15 This translation of mô‘edim is used by Vermes (1997), 98–99, in 1QS I 9 and 14. So too García Martínez and Tigchelaar in DSSSE (2000), 71. 11

12

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Appendix

the cosmic covenant: the seven-day week, the thirty- and thirty-one-day months, the thirteen-week seasons, and the fifty-two week year, plus all the fixed feasts. Jubilees makes it clear that all were fixed from the beginning, since the higher ranks of angels followed the 364-day calendar and had therefore been celebrating the Festival of Oaths/Weeks on the fifteenth day of the third month ‘from the time of creation’ (Jub 6:18). At the very beginning of the Community Rule the requirement that members keep rigorously to the precise timing of the liturgical calendar features prominently: ‘They shall not stray from any one of all God’s orders concerning their appointed times; they shall not advance their appointed times nor shall they retard any one of their feasts. They shall not veer from his reliable precepts in order to go either to the right or to the left.’16 Here the ‘appointed times’ clearly refer to all the details of the liturgical calendar.17 The original cosmology of the 364-day calendar tradition required that when first created the sun and the moon together determine the length of each day and together measure out the days of the year. It is the sun, however, that determines whether a month has thirty or thirtyone days because of its relationship to the turning points of the year, the solstices and equinoxes. The moon just follows its lead. This is why Jubilees can say – even though its author accepts that the moon’s phases are part of God’s plan – that ‘[t]he Lord appointed the sun as a great sign above the earth for days, sabbaths, months, festivals, years, sabbaths of years, jubilees, and all times of the years’ (Jub 2:9). According to the original cosmology the sun and moon together determine both the seasons of the year and the fixed feasts of the liturgical calendar. One need only count the days in order to know what is or what should be happening. This suits the language of Gen 1:14 very well, since the moon simply follows the lead of the sun. For someone following the 364-day calendar the words ‘and let them be …’ would automatically be understood to mean ‘and let them (jointly) be for signs and for appointed times, and for days and years.’ We do not think along these lines today because we live in a very different world. When interpreted in the light of the 364-day calendar cosmology the meaning of mô‘edim is not a problem since 'appointed times' covers all 1QS I 14-15 = DSSSE (2000), 71. VanderKam (2012), 553, argues that the presence of ‘months’ in the list of God’s works in Jub 2:9 is an indication that the author had the solar months in mind at this point and that this understanding was a ‘fixed element’ in the tradition’s interpretation of Gen 1:14. Cf. VanderKam (2012), 558. 16

17

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Appendix

temporal aspects of the liturgical calendar. These in turn depend on the ‘appointed times’ imposed by God upon the heavens.

Verse 15 – ‘to give light upon the earth’ According to the original cosmology both the sun and the moon were full whenever they were in the sky. Today, however, only the sun is always full, while the moon is full on only one night each month. Otherwise it is present only for part of the night and sometimes not at all. Thus for much of the month it supplies little light and sometimes none at all. Yet Gen 1:15 seems to treat them as equals: ‘... and let them be for lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth.’ This suits the original cosmology perfectly, but is a strange way to describe what we see today.

Verse 16 – ‘the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night’ According to Gen 1:16 the roles of the sun and the moon are identical in their respective spheres: one ‘rules’ the day while the other ‘rules’ the night. This is true for the original cosmology of the 364-day calendar tradition, since each light is in the sky and full throughout their respective shares of the nychthemeron. In the world we observe today, however, this is true only of the sun. The moon can hardly be said to ‘rule’ (l-memšelet, lit. ‘for the rule of ’) the night when it cannot be seen. It is in the sky throughout the night only once each month. The rest of the time it is present for part of the night, sometimes it is not there at all, and on most nights only a part of it is visible and for part of the night. Thus its ‘rule’ bears no relation to the ‘rule’ of the sun, which completely dominates the day from dawn to dusk. The ‘rule’ of the two luminaries is equally balanced only according to the original cosmology of the 364-day calendar tradition. Drawnel points out that when the Aramaic š-l-ṭ, ‘to rule, to dominate’, is used as the equivalent of the Hebrew m-š-l in the Tables of Lunar Visibility (4Q208/4Q209), it means no more than ‘be present in the sky’.18 For example, 4QAstronomical Enochb ar [4Q209] frg. 7 iii 3–4), says: ‘[And then] it [i.e., the moon] rises and rules (šlṭ) over the rest of this day for two-anda-half sevenths …’19 Here ‘rule’ is used to describe the presence of the moon Drawnel (2011), 254. Drawnel (2011), 247. Cf. Drawnel (2011), 254, 420, 431, and see the place of this fragment in his reconstruction of the Tables of Lunar Visibility at (2011), 442–43, line 18 19

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Appendix

in the sky during the day. This attenuated meaning of the Aramaic š-l-ṭ, ‘to rule’ was forced on those members of the 364-day calendar tradition who adopted the revised cosmology that incorporated the phases of the moon. According to the original cosmology of the 364-day calendar tradition, however, the verb m-š-l in Gen 1:16 meant ‘to rule’ in the sense of ‘dominate completely’, since at the time of their creation both the sun and the moon were full and dominated the heavens whenever they were in the sky.

Verse 16 – ‘... and the stars’ The stars are mentioned here almost in passing, as if to indicate their relative insignificance. Yet throughout the Ancient Middle East they were used not only to tell time at night but also, as a guide for for farmers and sailors, who watched for the rising and setting of certain constellations. In Enūma Elish the stars and constellations are created before the two great lights, and the twelve months of the ideal creation year – and therefore, of course, the whole of the year – are linked to the stars before they are linked to the moon.20 The Astronomical Book in 1 Enoch, a foundational text for the 364-day calendar tradition, does not refer to the constellations at all, although it does coordinate the heliacal rising of individual stars with individual days (1 En 82:10–11). Only after the apostasy of the ‘wanderers’ do the fixed stars become important as the sole obedient creatures in the heavens. After the apostasy of the ‘wanderers’ the stars are the ultimate arbiters of God’s time.

Verses 17, 18, and 19 These verses do little more than repeat with occasional variations the information contained in lines 14–16. They do so, however, in such a way as to produce a substantial chiastic sub-section at the heart of the Priestly creation narrative.21 The care taken to shape the account of the fourth day – it is more artfully constructed than any other – shows that its author thought what it said about the world as first created was of great importance. As Wenham comments, ‘its artistry ‘suggests the author was particularly interested in the fourth day of creation.’22

36. Enūma Elish V, 1–5. Cf. Verderame (2017), 127. Wenham (1987), 21–22. 22 Wenham (1987), 7. 20 21

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Appendix

In Gen 1:18, it is said that the two great lights are ‘to rule over the day and over the night’ (li-mšol ba-yôm w-ba-laylah). Earlier, in Gen 1:16, an objective genitive/construct syntax was used (l-memšelet ha-yôm … l-memšelet ha-laylah). Cassuto points out that the b- in Gen 1:18 can mean either ‘over’ – the usual translation – or ‘during’.23 Both meanings suit the original cosmology of the 364-day calendar tradition. Neither really suits the heavens as we see them today. The use of the preposition b- in Gen 1:18 to vary what was said in Gen 1:16 and thereby introduce the sense of ‘during’ that is absent in the earlier verse fills out what was said in Gen 1:16 about the sun and moon: the two great lights, taken separately, rule (respectively) ‘during (the whole of) the day and (the whole of) the night.’

Summary Thus careful comparison of Genesis 1:14–19 with the cosmology behind the later lunisolar calendar and with the original cosmology of the 364-day calendar tradition leads to the conclusion that these verses correspond much more closely to the original cosmology of the 364-day tradition. They are difficult to reconcile however with the observational reality that is the basis for the later lunisolar calendar, the reality of what we see today. The latter assumes that the moon has a constantly changing presence in the sky, which does not correspond to the description of the sun and moon found in Gen 1:14–19, where the sun and moon are consistently treated as if they were functional equals even if one is ‘greater’ than the other. For those who followed the 364-day calendar tradition the puzzling term mô‘edim was not a problem, since the seasons, the months, and the festivals and feasts of the liturgy were all mô‘edim, occurring at ‘appointed times’ during a fixed and unchanging year. The word became a problem only when another understanding of the movements of the heavens at the time of creation was introduced.

Why was the sun not created until after the plants? The second question raised above is related to the first. In the Priestly account the creation of the heavenly bodies is described at greater length than that of anything other than mankind. The passage is also repetitive and exhibits a formal chiastic structure that has been pointed out by Cassuto (1961), 45–46.

23

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Appendix

Wenham.24 The whole passage contains exactly seven sentences, something which must surely be intentional: the number of sentences echos the length of the week, the fundamental time unit for the 364-day calendar.25 Nevertheless, the position of Gen 1:14–19 in the carefully crafted description of the first week of creation is problematic. One feature quickly strikes the reader as not quite right: the plants are created before the sun. At a time when most people were engaged in agriculture everyone must have known that plants will not grow except in the presence of the sun. One would expect the heavenly bodies to be created on the third day, after the heavens on the second day, and then the plants to be created on the fourth day. Heavens first and heavenly bodies next is the sequence found in Enūma Elish IV 135–V 22. In Gen 1:14-19, however, the creation of the luminaries is displaced onto the fourth day. Why?

Some suggestions The problem was already seen and commented upon by Philo, who concluded that God had created the plants before the luminaries in order to show mankind that the heavenly bodies do not control what takes place on earth and that all things are possible for the Creator of the universe.26 This kind of theological interpretation was adopted by the Church at an early stage.27 In the modern period, however, critics have generally adopted a different stance. Gunkel simply accepts that we cannot expect the author’s views to reflect those of modern science: ‘Genesis 1 can even maintain that the plants of the earth existed before the sun!’28 Clearly we moderns should not expect too much from people living in those centuries of general ignorance. Many contemporary readers would probably agree with him. Nevertheless Westermann still adopts a theological point of view and concludes that the author of P has consciously chosen to place the heavenly bodies between the plants and animals so as to reduce their importance by showing that they ‘are creatures like plants and animals.’29 Wenham (1987), 22. Westermann (1984), 126. 26 Philo, De opificio mundi 14.45–46. 27 Cf. Theophilus, Ad Autolycum 15; Basil the Great, Hexaemeron V (40C-D). 28 Gunkel (1997), 133 (English translation of third edition; first edition 1901). 29 Westermann (1984), 9. 24 25

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Appendix

Cassuto, on the other hand, argues that there is really no problem here because light had been created on the first day and ‘where there is light there must be heat’. This does not take into account, of course, the alternative creation narrative in Jub 2:1–18, our earliest explication of the Priestly narrative, where the light of the first day is associated with the ‘the heavens that are above’, a higher heaven than the ‘firmament’ created on the second day in which God would then set the visible ‘lights’ created on the fourth day (Jub 2:2, 8–9). In the middle of the second century bce the author of Jubilees thought the light of the first day was not the same as the light of the fourth day. The importance of the sun for plants is stressed in the Šamaš Hymn 9–22.30 The author of Jubilees was also well aware that plants – like the animals – need the sun if they are to flourish. He states explicitly that the sun ‘(serves) for wellbeing so that everything that sprouts and grows on the earth may prosper’ (Jub 2:10). And then, in connection with the fifth day, he makes the same point: ‘The sun shone over them [i.e., the creatures created on the fifth day] for (their) wellbeing and over everything that was on the earth – all that sprouts from the ground, all fruit trees, and all animate beings’ (Jub 2:12). Though he has, in effect, drawn attention to the problem, he seems to feel no need to offer an explanation. Cassuto goes on to suggest that the sequence of events in that first week is governed by the author’s desire to divide the first week into two three-day units so that what happens on each day in the second part of the week reflects what happened on the corresponding day in the first. The effect of this is to leave the seventh day on its own as the day on which God rested from his labours.31 The structure that Cassuto finds here is convincing and is accepted and developed by Wenham:32 1 – light 2 – sea and heaven 3 – earth with its plants

4 – heavenly luminaries 5 – fish and birds of the air 6 – land creatures and mankind 7 – the Sabbath

Such an arrangement has the effect of highlighting the importance of the luminaries by placing their creation at the midpoint of the week and Cited in Verderame (2017), 129. Cassuto (1961), 17. 32 Wenham (1987), 6–7, 21–22. 30 31

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Appendix

drawing a connection between the fourth day and the dramatic events of day one. Yet when everyone knows that plants need the sun to live and prosper, can literary or even theological considerations justify introducing a problem of this nature?

A liturgical approach The possibility of a different approach is opened up by Lambert, who points out that when Marduk creates the heavenly bodies in Enūma Elish V 1–22 he is not as interested in astronomy per se as he is in producing a cosmic framework for the Babylonian liturgical calendar. This is the ideal 360-day year made up of twelve thirty-day months with special significance attached to each month’s first, seventh, and fifteenth days.33 Commenting in general on the importance of the calendar for the author of Enūma Elish Lambert notes that ‘observation of the proper sequence of day, month, and year was a matter considered vital by the Babylonians’ and that as a result, ‘any detailed account of creation must include an explanation of the calendar.’ He also points to what he calls the ‘scientific treatment of the whole topic’ of the ideal calendar in Enūma Elish and notes that ‘[v]ery little mythology is present.’34 These last comments could be applied to the Priestly account of creation as a whole, where a serious attempt has been made to include all its aspects. Enūma Elish describes the creation of the heavens, certain features of the earth, and mankind. Nothing more. It says nothing about the creation as a whole of the plants and animals. The creation of the plants by Marduk was nevertheless part of the wider tradition and survives in the Uraš and Marduk myth, where Marduk is said to have created the plants for Uraš, chief god of the city of Dilbat.35 This was just not something the author of Enūma Elish wanted to get across to his audience. In the Priestly account, however, the rational and ‘scientific’ character of Enūma Elish’s description of the cosmological foundations of the calendar has been extended to the rest of creation. This is true to an even greater extent if Genesis is read in the light of the alternative creation account in Jubilees, since the role assigned to the angels in Jub 2:2 is clearly designed to ‘de-mythologise’ the world by eliminating the pagan gods. Lambert (2013), 172.; cf. Verderame (2017), 131. Lambert (2013), 172. 35 Lambert (2013), 315. 33

34

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Appendix

We have already seen above that the work of the sun and moon as described in Gen 1:14–19 reflects the situation at the time of creation according to the original cosmology of the 364-day calendar tradition. Together their movements underpin the 364-day calendar and show that its Priestly author had the same concern for accuracy in establishing a cosmological context for the liturgical calendar as did the author of the Babylonian Enūma Elish. It also suggests that in looking for the reason why the creation of the luminaries has been placed on the fourth day of the week we should consider the possibility of a calendrical connection here as well.

The calendrical significance of Wednesday For the 364-day calendar tradition Wednesday is the most important liturgical day of the week, second only to the Sabbath. Insufficient attention has been paid, however, to the fact that if the heavenly bodies do not come into existence on Wednesday, thereby making it the first day of the year, the festivals and celebrations of the liturgical year will not fall on the three days of the week that have special significance because of their connection with events in the creation narrative – Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday. Without this the correlation between the liturgical cycle and the first week of creation will be broken. Creation of the heavenly bodies on the fourth day is required if the calendar is to function properly.36 The 364-day calendar is made up of four identical seasons with exactly ninety-one days and thirteen weeks each. To produce these seasons it is necessary to intercalate one day, a Tuesday, at the end of each season in the Babylonian ideal 360-day year. Otherwise each season will not begin on a Wednesday, as is required if they are to be identical. Less obvious is the fact that the intercalation of this extra day at the end of each season also causes the first day of every month to fall on either Sunday, Wednesday, or Friday. This pattern disappears unless the extra day is intercalated at the end of the third month. Even more important, however, is the fact that if Wednesday were not the first day of the year, then III/15, the Festival of Oaths/Weeks, 36 According to Wenham (1987), 23, Beauchamp (1969), 113–16, has suggested that the choice of Wednesday for the creation of the heavenly luminaries was influenced by its liturgical importance in the 364-day calendar (I have not been able to consult Beauchamp’s work). Wenham dismisses this suggestion because he does not believe that the 364-day calendar lies behind the dates in the Hebrew Bible.

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Appendix

would not fall on a Sunday, the day on which the cosmic covenant was established and on which the Mosaic covenant was renewed each year at Qumran. Nor would I/15, the first day of the Festival of Unleavened Bread, or VII/15, the Festival of Booths, fall on a Wednesday every year. If the heavenly bodies had been created on the third day, immediately after the firmament, the Festival of Oaths/Weeks falls on a Sabbath and the other two festivals of congregation fall on Tuesday. The constraint is absolute: for the interconnections between liturgy and creation to work the heavenly bodies must be created on Wednesday. When the creation of the luminaries is placed on the fourth day of the week its ‘lights’ – perhaps fortuitously, perhaps by design – correspond to the creation of light on the first day. The creation of the plants on the third day then makes the remaining correspondences highlighted by Cassuto fall into place automatically, reproducing in both parts of the week the correlation established between the two different creations of light

The sun precedes the moon and the stars Calendrical considerations also seem to have determined the sequence in which the luminaries are listed. In Enūma Elish V 1–22 Marduk creates the stars first, the moon next, and finally the sun. This suits very well the Babylonian obsession with the movement of the ‘wanderers’ against the background of the fixed stars and the moon’s domination of their lunisolar liturgical calendar. In Babylonian mythology the moon is actually called the ‘father’ of the sun.37 Even though the Genesis account shows no evidence of literary dependence on Enūma Elish, there does seem to be the kind of relationship between them that is brought about by opposition. In Genesis the order found in the Babylonian myth is reversed so that instead of stars, moon, and sun we now have sun, moon, and stars. And whereas in Enūma Elish the account of the moon’s creation mentions specifically the important liturgical points associated with its monthly phases, in Gen 1:14–19 the moon is given no role whatsoever in determining the timing of the liturgy. Instead of the month the fundamental unit of liturgical time has become the week, the seven-day period established by the Genesis narrative itself, an arbitrary unit of time that has no correlate in the heavens. Nor are months of thirty and thirty-one days reflected in the heavens. Weeks and months are ‘appointed times’ Verderame (2017), 128.

37

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Appendix

determined by divine fiat at the time of creation. As a result, from an astronomical point of view the calendar depends entirely on the day and the sun. As for the fixed stars, although their annual progress across the heavens does determine the length of the year, in Genesis 1 they are mentioned last and almost in passing. Only after the apostasy of the sun will their true importance become clear as the sole determinants of God’s time. Of course one should not suppose that the Priestly author had direct access to the text of Enūma Elish. Nevertheless he seems to have been aware of what was said there in the same the way that the author of chapter 80 of the Astronomical Book in 1 Enoch seems to have been aware of what was said in Enūma Elish V 21–22 about the propinquation of the moon during the second half of the lunar cycle.38 If Gen 1:14–19 describes the state of the heavens at the time of creation according to the earlier 364-day calendar tradition it seems reasonable to conclude that their author assigned the creation of the luminaries to the fourth day to satisfy what he knew was a calendrical imperative. Had they been created on the third day the internal connections between liturgy and creation that the 364-day calendar generates would have disappeared. Calendrical considerations seem to have taken precedence over any concern that this would lead to the plants being created before the sun.

Conclusions We can say, therefore, that the Priestly author has written his own account of creation using ideas in general circulation throughout the Ancient Middle East.39 He has seen fit, however, to accommodate the whole sequence of events to the Procrustean bed of the week, which is the basis of the 364-day calendar. His account expresses his theology very clearly: the role of the pagan gods is systematically eliminated in favour of the God of Israel. Nevertheless, his overall aim is the same as that of the author of Enūma Elish. Both the creation narrative in P and the story of Marduk’s creation of the world in Enūma Elish provide what is called a ‘social charter myth’ justifying the social and religious See above, pp. 181-82. Cf. Lambert (1965), 289, who thinks that Mesopotamian creation traditions spread westward during the Amarna period (fourteenth century bce) and reached the Hebrew people in oral form.y. 38 39

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Appendix

norms of a particular society. Among the most important of such norms in any society is the liturgical calendar. Throughout the Ancient Middle East public worship – the liturgy – was a matter of great significance: the well-being of the whole people was involved. For this reason the calendar is a major focus of attention in the Priestly creation narrative, second only to the creation of mankind. In Enūma Elish significant liturgical moments in the ideal lunar calendar are spelled out alongside its cosmological presuppositions, but in the Priestly account only the calendar’s cosmological presuppositions are given. The significant days do not need to be singled out, since they arise from the creation narrative itself and will have been known through the associated liturgy. The author of Gen 1:14-19 makes no effort to distinguish the 364day calendar from that of his neighbours. This might reflect a desire not to emphasise in the public arena the differences between the calendar that he and his fellow priests used and the everyday practice of others. Or it might be that the cause of this discrepancy – the apostasy of the ‘wanderers’ – belonged to the realm of priestly knowledge and was not a suitable topic for public discussion.40 In any case, the rebellion of the ‘wanderers’ assumed by the 364-day calendar is never mentioned in P or elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible.41 Whatever the reasons for this lack of transparency, the creation of the luminaries on the fourth day confirms in its own way that a 364day creation calendar is assumed by the author of Gen 1:14–19 and was the calendar used by the Priestly group that lies behind P. And if the 364-day calendar structured the liturgical life of the Priestly tradition that is the origin of P, then this calendar lies at the heart of a liturgical tradition that has set an indelible mark upon the Pentateuch – and the subsequent history of both Judaism and Christianity.

40 For the tendency for priestly/scribal circles to keep their knowledge to themselves, see Lenzi (2008). 41 It is just possible, that Isaiah 24:21–23 (cf. Is 13:9–10) refers to the eschatological punishment of the sun and moon: ‘On that day the Lord will punish the host of heaven in heaven, and on earth the kings of the earth. […] Then the moon will be abashed, and the sun ashamed …’ The future punishment of sun and moon seems to imply that Isaiah thought they had disobeyed God’s will.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

I. Primary Literature A. Hebrew Bible, Apocrypha, and New Testament Biblia Hebraica, ed. R. Kittel et al.(Stuttgart: Württembergische Bibelanstalt, 1937). Septuaginta, 2 Vols., ed. A. Rahlfs (Stuttgart: Württembergische Bibelanstalt, 1935). The Greek New Testament, ed. K. Aland et al. (London: United Bible Societies, 1966) The New Testament in Syriac (London: British and Foreign Bible Society, 1962). The Jerusalem Bible, Standard Edition (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1966). The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Translation (Oxford: OUP, 1995). A New English Translation of the Septuagint, ed. A. Pietersma and B. G. Wright (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2007). The New Testament. A Translation, trans. David Bentley Hart (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2017).

B. 1 Enoch Lawrence, R. (1821) The Book of Enoch: An apocryphal production, supposed to have been lost for ages; but discovered at the close of the last century in Abyssinia now first translated from an Ethiopic MS. In the Bodleian Library (Oxford: J. H. Parker). Hoffmann, A. G. (1833–38) Das Buch Henoch, 2 vols (Jena: Croeker).

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Bibliography

Lawrence, R. (1838) Libri Enoch prophetae versio aethiopica (Oxford: J. H. Parker). Dillmann, A. (1851) Liber Henoch Aethiopice, ad quinque codicum fidem editus, cum variis lectionibus (Leipzig: Vogel). Dillmann, A. (1853) Das Buch Henoch übersetzt und erklärt (Leipzig: Vogel). Charles, R. H. (1893) The Book of Enoch: Translated from Dillmann’s Ethiopic Text, emended and revised in accordance with hitherto uncollated Ethiopic MSS. And with the Gizeh and other Greek and Latin fragments (Oxford: Clarendon Press). Beer, G. (1900) ‘Das Buch Henoch’, in E. Kautzsch (ed.), Die Apokryphen and Pseudepigraphen des Alten Testaments, 2 vols (Tübingen: Mohr), 2:217–310. Flemming, J. (1901) Das Buch Henoch: Herausgegeben im Auftrage der Kirchenväter-Commission der Königlich Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (GCS 5; Leipzig: Hinrichs). Charles, R. H. (1906) The Ethiopic Version of the Book of Enoch: Edited from Twenty-three MSS. Together with the Fragmentary Greek and Latin Versions (Oxford: Clarendon Press). Martin, F. (1906) Le Livre d’Hénoch: Documents pour l’ étude de la Bible, traduit sur le texte Éthiopien (Paris: Letouzey et Ané). Charles, R. H. (1912) The Book of Enoch, or 1 Enoch: Translated from the Editor’s Ethiopic Text, and edited with the introduction notes and indexes of the first edition wholly recast enlarged and rewritten; together with reprint of the editor’s text of the Greek fragments (Oxford: Clarendon Press). Charles, R. H. (1913a) ‘Book of Enoch’, in R. H. Charles (ed.), The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, 2 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press), 1:163–281. Bonner, C. (1937) The Last Chapters of Enoch in Greek (London: Chatto and Windus). Kenyon, F. G. (1941) The Chester Beatty Biblical Papyri: Descriptions and Texts of Twelve Manuscripts on Papyrus of the Greek Bible, fasc. 8: Enoch and Melito (London: Walker). Black, M. (1970) Apocalypsis Henochi Graece (Leiden: Brill). Milik, J. T. (1976) The Books of Enoch: Aramaic Fragments of Qumrân Cave 4 (Oxford: Clarendon Press). Knibb, M. (1978) The Ethiopic Book of Enoch: A New Edition in the Light of the Aramaic Dead Sea Fragments, 2 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press).

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Bibliography

Fusella, L., and P. Sacchi (1981) 'Il libro di Enoc’, in P. Sacchi (ed.), Apocrifi dell’Antico Testamento (Turin: Unione Tipografico-Editrice Torinese), 2:413–667. Isaac, E. (1983) '1 (Ethiopic Apocalypse of) Enoch’, in J. Charlesworth (ed.), Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 2 vols (Garden City, NY: Doubleday) 1:5–89. Knibb, M. A. (1984) ‘1 Enoch’, in H. F. D. Sparks (ed.), The Apocryphal Old Testament, (Oxford: Clarendon Press), 169–319. Uhlig, S. (1984) Das äthiopische Henochbuch (Gütersloh: Mohn). Black, M. (1985) The Book of Enoch or 1 Enoch: A New English Edition with Commentary and Textual Notes in Consultation with James C. VanderKam (Leiden: Brill). Caquot, A. (1987) ‘Hénoch = 1 Hénoch’, in A. Dupont-Sommer and M. Philonenko (eds), La Bible: Écrits intertestamentaires (Paris: Gallimard), 465–625. Tigchelaar, E. J. C., and F. García Martínez (2000) ‘4QAstronomical Enochab ar’ [= DJD XXXVI] (Oxford: Clarendon Press), 95–171. Nickelsburg, G. (2001) 1 Enoch 1: A Commentary on the Book of Enoch, Chapters 1–36; 81–108 (Hermeneia; Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press). Olson, D. (2004) Enoch. A New Translation (North Richland Hills, TX: Bibal Press). Nickelsburg, G. and J. C. VanderKam (2004) 1 Enoch. A New Translation (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press). Drawnel, H. (2011) The Aramaic Astronomical Book (4Q208–4Q211) from Qumran (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Nickelsburg, G. (2012) ‘1 Enoch 37–71. The Book of Parables’, in G. Nickelsburg and J. VanderKam, 1 Enoch 2. A Commentary on the Book of Enoch Chapters 37–82 (Hermeneia; Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press), 1–332. VanderKam, J. C. (2012) ‘1 Enoch 72–82. The Book of the Luminaries’, in G. Nickelsburg and J. VanderKam, 1 Enoch 2. A Commentary on the Book of Enoch Chapters 37–82 (Hermeneia; Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press), 333–569.

C. Jubilees Dillmann, A. (1850–51) ‘Das Buch der Jubiläen oder die kleine Genesis’, Jahrbücher der Biblischen wissenschaft 2 (1850), 230–56; 3 (1851), 1–96.

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Bibliography

Dillmann, A. (1859) Mașhafa Kufālē sive Liber Jubilaeorum (Kiel: van Maack/ London: Williams & Norgate). Ceriani, A. M. (1861–63) Monumenta Sacra et Profana, 2 vols (Milan: Bibliotheca Ambrosiana). Charles, R. H. (1893–95) ‘The Book of Jubilees, translated from a text based on two hitherto uncollated Ethiopic MSS.’, Jewish Quarterly Review 5 (1893), 703–08; 6 (1894), 184–217; 710–45; 7 (1895), 297–328. Charles (1895) Mașhafa Kufālē or the Ethiopic Version of the Hebrew Book of Jubilees (Anecdota Oxoniensia; Oxford: Clarendon Press). Charles, R. H. (1902) The Book of Jubilees or the Little Genesis (London: Adam and Charles Black). Charles, R. H. (1913b), ‘The Book of Jubilees’, in R. H. Charles et al. (eds), The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament in English, 2 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press), 2:1–82. Tisserant, E. (1921) ‘Fragments syriaques du Livre des Jubilés’, Revue Biblique 30, 55–86; 206–32. Denis, A. M. (1970) ‘Liber Jubilaeorum’, in A. M. Denis, Fragmenta Pseudepigraphorum Quae Supersunt Graeca (PVTG 3; Leiden: Brill), 70–102. Berger, K. (1981) Das Buch der Jubiläen (Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn). Rabin, C. (1984) ‘Jubilees’, in H. F. D. Sparks (ed.), The Apocryphal Old Testament, (Oxford Clarendon Press), 1–139. Wintermute, O. (1985) ‘Jubilees. A New Translation and Introduction’, in J. Charlesworth (ed.), The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 2 vols (Garden City, NY: Doubleday), 2:35–142. VanderKam, J. C. (1989a) The Book of Jubilees: a critical text (CSCO Scriptores Aethiopici 87: Louvain: Peeters). VanderKam, J. C. (1989b) The Book of Jubilees, trans. James C. VanderKam (CSCO Scriptores Aethiopici 88; Louvain: Peeters). VanderKam, J. C., and J. T. Milik (1994) ‘The Book of Jubilees’, in H. Attridge et al., Discoveries in the Judean Desert XIII. Qumran Cave 4. VIII, Parabiblical texts, part 1 [= DJD XIII] (Oxford: Clarendon Press), 1–140.

D. Cuneiform Literature Lambert, W. G. (2013) Babylonian Creation Myths (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns). Dalley, S. (2000), Myths from Mesopotamia. Creation, the Flood, Gilgamesh, and Others (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

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E. The Dead Sea Scrolls DJD I

DJD IV

DJD IX

DJD XI

DJD XIII

DJD XXI

Qumran Cave 1, ed. D. Barthélemy, O. P. and J. T. Milik et al. (Discoveries in the Judaean Desert I; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955). The Psalms Scroll of Qumran Cave 11 (11QPsa), ed. J. A. Saunders (Discoveries in the Judaean Desert of Jordan IV; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965). Qumran Cave 4. IV: Palaeo-Hebrew and Greek Manuscripts, ed. P. W. Skehan et al. (Discoveries in the Judaean Desert IX; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992). Qumran Cave 4. VI: Poetical and Liturgical Texts. Part 1, ed. E. Eshel et al. (Discoveries in the Judaean Desert XI; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998). Qumran Cave 4. VI: Parabiblical Texts, Part 1, ed. H. Attridge et al. (Discoveries in the Judaean Desert XIII; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994). Qumran Cave 4. Parabiblical Texts, Part 4, Pseudoprophetic Texts, ed. D. Dimant (Discoveries in the Judaean Desert XXI; Oxford Clarendon Press, 2001).

DJD XXVI

Qumran Cave 4. XIX: Serekh Ha-Yaḥad and Two Related Texts, ed. P. Alexander and G. Vermes (Discoveries in the Judaean Desert XXVI; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998). DJD XXXVI Qumran Cave 4. XXVI: Cryptic Texts and Miscellanea, Part 1, ed. S. J. Pfann et al. (Discoveries in the Judaean Desert XXXVI; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2000). DJD XL Qumran Cave 1: 1QHodayota with Incorporation of 1QHodayotb and 4QHodayota-f, ed. H. Stegemann and E. Schuller, trans. C. Newsom (Discoveries in the Judaean desert XL; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009). DSSSE García Martínez, F., and E.J.C. Tigchelaar, The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition (paperback), 2 vols (Leiden/Grand Rapids, MI: Brill/Eerdmans, 2000).

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Bibliography

F. Rabbinic Literature Genesis Rabbah, translated by H. Freedman (London: Socino Press, 1951). Targum Neofiti 1: Genesis, Translated with Apparatus and Notes by M. McNamara (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1992).

G. Greek and Roman Literature Cicero, De Natura Deorum, Latin text with translation by H. Rackham (LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1933). Heraclitus, Fragments, edited and translated by C.H. Kahn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979). Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, Books I-IV, trans. H.St.J. Thackeray (LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1930). Philo, Life of Moses, in Philo, Vol. VI, trans. F. H. Coulson (LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1935). Plato, Timaeus, in Plato, Vol. VI, Timaeus, Critias, Cleitopohon, Menexenus, Epistles, text with translation by R. G. Bury (LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1929). Seneca, Natural Questions, 2 vols, text with translation by T. H. Corcoran (LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971–72).

H. Early Christian and Patristic Texts Basil the Great, Homélies sur l’Hexaéméron, Greek text, introduction, and translation by S. Giet. (SC; Paris: Cerf, 1968) Didache, in The Apostolic Fathers with an English Translation, Vol. 1, trans. K. Lake (LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1912). Hermas, The Shepherd of Hermas, in The Apostolic Fathers with an English Translation, Vol. 2, trans. K. Lake (LCL; Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1912). Sibylline Oracles. translated with an introduction by J.J. Collins, in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, Vol. 1, ed. J.H. Charlesworth (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 1983). Theophilus of Antioch, Ad Autolycum, text and translation by R. M. Grant (Oxford Early Christian Texts; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970).

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II. Reference Works A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament based on the Lexicon of William Gesenius, F. Brown, S. R. Driver, and C. A. Briggs (eds), [corrected edition] (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1953). A Patristic Greek Lexicon, G. W. H. Lampe (ed.), (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961). A Greek-English Lexicon compiled by H.G. Liddell and R. Scott, revised and augmented by H.S. Jones [10th edition], (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1940). A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, W. Bauer, W. F. Arndt et al. (eds), revised and augmented by F. W. Gingrich and F. W. Danker from W. Bauer’s 5th ed. [2nd edition] (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979). Cook, E. M. (2015) Dictionary of Qumran Aramaic (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns). Johns, A. F. (1972) A Short Grammar of Biblical Aramaic (Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University Press). Leslau, W. (1987) Comparative Dictionary of Ge‘ez (Classical Ethiopic): Ge‘ez-English/English-Ge‘ez with an Index of the Semitic Roots (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz). Muraoka, T. (2005) Classical Syriac. A Basic Grammar with a Chrestomathy, Second, Revised edition (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz). Payne Smith, R. (1879, 1901) Thesaurus Syriacus, 2 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press). Sokoloff, M. (2002) A Dictionary of Jewish Babylonian Aramaic of the Talmudic and Gaonic Periods (Ramat-Gan: Bar Ilan University, 2002). Sokoloff, M. (2014) A Dictionary of Jewish Palestinian Aramaic (Leuven: Peters).

III. Secondary Literature Albani, M. (1994) Astronomie und Schöpfungsglaube: Untersuchungen zum astronomischen Henochbuch (WMANT 68; NeukirchenVluyn: Neukirchener Verlag, 1994). Arnold, R. C. D. (2006) The Social Role of Liturgy in the Religion of the Qumran Community (Leiden: Brill, 2006). Baltzer, K. (1971) The Covenant Formulary in Old Testament, Jewish, and Early Christian Writings (Oxford: Blackwell, 1971).

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Barthélemy, D. (1952) ‘Notes en marge de publications récentes sur les manuscrits de Qumrân’, RB 59 (1952), 199–203. Bauckham, R. J. (1983) Jude, 2 Peter (Waco, TX: Word Books, 1983). Ch 4 p. 7 Bautch, K. (2003) A Study of the Geography of 1 Enoch 17–19: ‘No One Has Seen What I Have Seen’, (JSJ Supplements 81; Leiden: Brill). Beauchamp, P. (1969) Création et séparation (Paris: Desclée. 1969). Beckwith, R. (1970) ‘The Modern Attempt to Reconcile the Qumran Calendar with the True Solar Year’, Revue de Qumrân 7/27, 392–95. Beckwith, R. (1981) ‘The Earliest Enoch Literature and Its Calendar: Marks of Their Origin, Date and Motivation’, Revue de Qumrân 39, 365–403. Beckwith, R. (1996) Calendar and Chronology, Jewish and Christian: Biblical, Intertestamental and Patristic Studies (Leiden: Brill). Bedenbender, A. (2007) ‘The Place of the Torah in Early Enochic Literature’, in G. Boccaccini and J. J. Collins (eds), The Early Enoch Literature (Leiden: Brill), 65–79. Beer, G. (1900) ‘Das Buch Henoch’, in Emil Kautsch (ed.), Die Apokryphen und Pseudepigraphen des Alten Testaments, 2 vols (Tübingen: Mohr), 2:217–310. Ben-Dov, J. (2007) ‘Exegetical Notes on Cosmology in the Parables of Enoch’, in G. Boccacinni (ed.), Enoch and the Messiah Son of Man (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2007), 143–50. Ben-Dov, J. (2008) Head of All Years: Astronomy and Calendars at Qumran in their Ancient Context (Leiden: Brill). Ben-Dov, J. (2011) ‘The 364-Day Year in the Dead Seas Scrolls and Jewish Pseudepigrapha’, in J. M. Steele (ed.), Calendars and Years II (Oxford: Oxbow), 69–105. Ben-Dov, J. (2014) ‘A Jewish parapegma?’, in Stern, S., and C.S.J. Burnett, eds, Time, Astronomy, and Calendars in the Jewish Tradition (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 1-25. Ben-Dov, J. (2017) ‘Time and natural law in Jewish-Hellenistic writings’, in J. Ben-Dov and L. Doering (eds), The Construction of Time in Antiquity. Ritual, Art, and Identity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 9–30. Bergsma, J. S. (2009) ‘The Relationship between Jubilees and the Early Enochic Books’, in G. Boccaccini and G. Ibba (eds), Enoch and the Mosaic Torah, The Evidence of Jubilees (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans), 36–51.

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Beyer, K. (1984) Die aramäischen Texte vom Toten Meer (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht). Black, M. (1985) The Book of Enoch or 1 Enoch (Leiden: Brill, 1985). Boccaccini, G. (1998) Beyond the Essene Hypothesis. The Parting of the Ways between Qumran and Enochic Judaism (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998). Boccaccini, G. (2002) ‘The Solar Calendars of Daniel and Enoch’, in J. J. Collins and P. W. Flint (eds), The Book of Daniel: Composition and Reception, 2 vols (Leiden: Brill), 2:311–28. Boccaccini, G. and G. Ibba (eds) (2009), Enoch and the Mosaic Torah: the evidence of Jubilees (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans). Bousset, W. (1901) ‘Die Himmelreise der Seele’, Archiv fur Religionswissenschaft 4, 136–69, 234–73. Braun, H. (1968) Art. ‘planaô ktl’, in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, vol. 6 (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans), 228–53. Brooke, G. J. (1998) ‘Exegetical Strategies in Jubilees 1–2’, in M. Albani (ed.), Studies in the Book of Jubilees (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck), 39–57 Burkitt, F. C. (1914) Jewish and Christian Apocalypses (London: Oxford University Press). Caquot, A. (1987) ‘Hénoch = 1 Hénoch’, in A. Dupont-Sommer and M. Philonenko (eds), La Bible: Écrits intertestamentaires (Bibliothèque de la Pléiade; Paris: Gallimard), 465–625. Cassuto, U. (1961) A Commentary on the Book of Genesis, I (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1961). Ceriani, A. (1861–63) Monumenta Sacra et Profana, 2 vols (Milan: Bibliotheca Ambrosiana). Charles, R. H. (1893–95) ‘The Book of Jubilees, translated from a text based on two hitherto uncollated Ethiopic MSS.’, Jewish Quarterly Review 5 (1893), 703–08; 6 (1894), 184–217; 710–45; 7 (1895), 297– 328. Charles (1895) Mașhafa Kufālē or the Ethiopic Version of the Hebrew Book of Jubilees (Anecdota Oxoniensia; Oxford: Clarendon). Charles, R. H. (1902) The Book of Jubilees or the Little Genesis (London: Black). Charles, R. H. (1912) The Book of Enoch, or 1 Enoch: Translated from the Editor’s Ethiopic Text … (Oxford: Clarendon Press). Charles, R. H. (1913a) ‘The Book of Enoch’, in R. H. Charles et al. (eds), The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament in English, 2 vols (Oxford: Clarendon Press), 2:163–281.

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Charlesworth, J. H. (2002) ‘A Rare Consensus among Enoch Specialists: The Date of the Earliest Enoch Books’, Henoch 14, 225–34. Collins, J. J. (1978) ‘Methodological Issues in the Study of 1 Enoch: Reflecting on the Articles of P. D. Hanson and G. W. Nickelsburg’, in Society for Biblical Literature 1978 Seminar Papers Vol. I (Missoula, MT: Scholars Press), 315–22. Collins, J. J. (1983) ‘Sibylline Oracles’, in J. H. Charlesworth (ed.), The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 2 vols (New Haven: Yale University Press), 1:317–472. Davenport, G. (1971) The Eschatology of the Book of Jubilees (SPB 20; Leiden: Brill, 1971). Davids, P. (2011) 2 Peter and Jude: a handbook on the Greek text (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press). Drawnel, H. (2004) An Aramaic Wisdom Text from Qumran: A New Interpretation of the Levi Document (SJSJ, 86; Leiden: Brill, 2004). Drawnel, H. (2007) ‘Moon Computation in the Aramaic Astronomical Book’, Revue de Qumran 23/1, 3–31. Driver, S.R. (1926) The Book of Genesis [12th edition], with a new appendix by G.R. Driver (London: Methuen). Fabricius, J. (1722–23) Codex Pseudepigraphus Veteris Testamenti, 2 vols (Hamburg and Leipzig: Liebezeit). Freedman, H. (trans) (1951) Mishnah Rabbah. Genesis, 2 vols (London: Socino Press). Gafton, A. (1983) ‘Protestant versus Prophet: Isaac Casaubon on Hermes Trismegistus’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 46, 78–93. García Martínez. F. (1996) The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated. The Qumran Texts in English, 2nd edition (Leiden: Brill). García Martínez, F. (1997) ‘The Heavenly Tablets in the Book of Jubilees’, in M. Albani et al., Studies in the Book of Jubilees (TSAJ 65; Tübingen: Mohn Siebeck), 243–60. García Martínez, F., and E. J. C. Tigchelaar (2000) The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition, 2 vols (Leiden: Brill/ Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans). Goff, M. J. (2003) ‘The Mystery of Creation in 4QInstruction’, Dead Sea Discoveries 10, 163–86. Grébaut, S. (1918–1919a) ‘Tables des levers de la lune pour chaque mois de l’année’, Revue de l’Orient chrétien 21, 422–28. Grébaut, S. (1918–1919b) ‘Variations de la durée des jours et des nuits pour chaque mois de l’année’, Revue de l’Orient chrétien 21, 429–32.

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Grelot, P. (1958) ‘L légende d’Hénoch dans les apocryphes et dans la Bible: origine et signification.’ RSR 46 (1958), 5–26, 181–220. Gunkel, H. (1997) Genesis [3rd edition], translated by M.E. Biddle (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press). Hallévi, J. (1867) ‘Recherches sur la langue de la rédaction primitive du livre d’Énoch’, Journal Asiatique 6/9, 352–95. Hanneken, T. R. (2010) ‘Creation and new creation in the Hebrew Bible and early Jewish literature’, n P. J. Rossi (ed.), God, Grace, and Creation (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis), 79–93. Hanneken, T. R. (2012) Subversion of the Apocalypses in the Book of Jubilees (SBLEJL 34; Atlanta, GA: SBL). Hanneken, T. R. (2014) ‘The Watchers in Rewritten Scripture: The Use of the Book of the Watchers in Jubilees’, in Harkins, (ed.), The Fallen Angel Tradition (Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Association of America), 25–68. Hanson, P. D. (1977) ‘Rebellion in Heaven, Azazel, and Euhemeristic Heroes in 1 Enoch 6–11’, JBL 96, 383–405. Hart, D. B. (2017) The New Testament. A Translation (New Haven, CN: Yale University Press). Jacobus, H. R. (2015) Zodiac Calendars in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Their Reception: Ancient Astronomy and Astrology in Early Judaism (Leiden). Jaubert, A. (1953) ‘Le calendrier des Jubilées et le secte de Qumrân’, VT 3, 250–64. Jaubert, A. (1957a) ‘Le calendrier des Jubilés et les jours liturgiques de la semaine’, VT 7, 35–61. Jaubert, A. (1957b) La date de la cène: calendrier biblique et liturgie chrétienne (Etudes bibliques; Paris: Gabalda). Jaubert, A. (1965) The Date of the Last Supper (Staten Island, NY: Society of St Paul). Joyce, P.M. (2009) Ezekiel: A Commentary (Library of Hebrew Bible/ Old Testament Studies 482; New York, NY /London: T & T Clark). Kee, H. C. (1968) ‘The Terminology of Mark’s Exorcism Stories’, NTS 14, 232–46. Kee, H. C. (1983) ‘Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs’, in J. H. Charlesworth (ed.), The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 2 vols (New Haven, CN: Yale University Press), 1:775–828. Knibb, M. (2002) ‘Interpreting the Book of Enoch: Reflexions on a Recently Published Commentary’, Journal for the Study of Judaism 33, 437–50.

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Knohl, I. (1995) The Sanctuary of Silence: The Priestly Torah and the Holiness School (Minneapolis: Fortress Press 1995). Koch, J. (1996) ‘Die Anfäng der Apokalyptik in Israel und die Rolle des astronomischen Henochbuchs’, in U. Glessmer and M. Krause (eds), Vor der Wende der Zeiten: Beiträge zur Apokalyptischen Literatur, Gesammelte Aufsätze, 3 vols (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag), 3:3–39. Kohler, K. (1902) Art. ‘Bat Ḳol’, in Jewish Encyclopedia (New York and London: Funk and Wagnalls), 6:588–94. Kugel, J. (1998) Traditions of the Bible: A Guide to the Bible as It Was at the Start of the Common Era (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press). Kugel, J. (2010) A Walk through Jubilees: Studies in the Book of Jubilees and the World of Its Creator (JSJ Suppl 156; Leiden: Brill). Kuhn, G. (1961) ‘Zum essenischen Kalender’, ZNW 52, 65–73. Kvanvig, H. (1988) The Roots of Apocalyptic. The Mesopotamian Background of the Enoch Figure and the Son of Man (Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlag). Kvanvig, H. (2004) ‘Jubilees – Between Enoch and Moses: A Narrative Reading’, JSJ 35/3, 243–61. Kvanvig, H. (2009) ‘Enochic Judaism – a Judaism without the Torah and the Temple?’ in G. Boccaccini and G. Ibba (eds), Enoch and the Mosaic Torah (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans), 163–77. Kvanvig, H. (2011) Primeval History: Babylonian, Biblical, and Enochic (Leiden: Brill). Lambert, W.G (1965) ‘A new look at the Babylonian background of Genesis’, JTS, N.s. XVI, 285–300. Lenzi, A. (2008) Secrecy and the Gods. Secret Knowledge in Ancient Mesopotamia and Biblical Israel (SAA Studies 19; Helsinki: Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 2008). McCarthy, D. J. (1978) Treaty and Covenant: a study in the ancient Oriental documents and in the Old Testament, 2nd ed. (Rome: Biblical Institute Press). McKnight, S. (2003) Art. ‘Jude’, in Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans), 1529–34. Milgrom, J. (2000) Leviticus 17–22: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (Anchor Bible 3A; New York: Doubleday). Murray, R. (1984) ‘The Origin of Aramaic ‘ ir, Angel, Orientalia 53, 303–17. Murray, R. (1992) The Cosmic Covenant. Biblical Themes of Justice, Peace and the Integrity of Creation (London: Sheed & Ward).

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Nelson, H. L. (2001) Damaged Identities, Narrative Repair (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press). Neugebauer, O. (1964) ‘Notes on Ethiopic Astronomy’, Orientalia 33, 49–71. Neugebauer, O. (1981) The ‘Astronomical’ Chapters of the Ethiopic Book of Enoch (72 to 82) (Copenhagen: Munksgaard). Neugebauer, O. (1985) ‘The “Astronomical” Chapters of the Ethiopic Book of Enoch (72–82): Translation and Commentary, with Additional Notes on the Aramaic Fragments by M. Black’, in M. Black, The Book of Enoch or 1 Enoch: A New English Edition with Commentary and Textual Notes in Consultation with James C. VanderKam (Leiden: Brill), 386–419. Newsom, C. (1980) ‘The Development of 1 Enoch 6–19: Cosmology and Judgment’, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 42, 310–29. Newsom, C. (1985) Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice: A Critical Edition (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press). Nickelsburg, G. (1977) ‘Apocalyptic and Myth in Enoch 6–11’, JBL 96, 383–405. Nickelsburg, G. and J. C. VanderKam (2004) 1 Enoch. A New Translation (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press). Olson, D. (2004) Enoch: A New Translation (North Richmond Hills, TX: Bibal Press). Osborne, A. (2015) ‘Calendrical Science in a Fallen World: Intercalation at Qumran’, Anaphora. The Journal of the Society for :Liturgical Study 9/1, 21–46. Osborne, A. (2017a) ‘The Liturgical Week according to the 364-day Calendar, Part 1: The Liturgical Calendar and Genesis’, Anaphora. The Journal of the Society for Liturgical Study 11/1, 5–24. Osborne, A. (2017b) ‘The Liturgical Week according to the 364-day Calendar, Past 2: Cosmic Oath and Cosmic Covenant’, Anaphora. The Journal of the Society for Liturgical Study 11/2, 1–24. Park, S. (2008) Pentecost and Sinai. The Festival of Weeks as a Celebration of the Sinai Event (London and New York, NY: T & T Clark). Pfann, S. (1999) ‘’The Essene Yearly Renewal Ceremony and the Baptism of Repentance’, in D. Parry and E. Ulrich (eds), The Provo International Conference on the Dead Sea Scrolls: Technological Innovations, New Texts, and Reformulated Issues (STDJ 30; Leiden: Brill), 336–52. Rivkin, E. (1978) A Hidden Revolution: The Pharisees’ Search for the Kingdom Within (Nashville, TN: Abingdon).

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Rochberg, F. (1998) Babylonian Horoscopes (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society). Rochberg, F. (1999) ‘Continuity and Change in Omen Literature’, in Renger et al. (eds), Munuscula Mesopotamica: Festschrift für Johannes Renger (Alter Orient und Altes Testament, Bd. 267; Münster: Ugarit-Verlag), 412–25. Rogerson, J. W. (2003) Art. ‘Zechariah’, in Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible (Grand Rapids, MI, Cambridge: Eerdmans), 721–29. Ruiten, J. van (1997) ‘The Interpretation of Genesis 6:1–12 in Jubilees 5:1–19’, in M. Albani, J. Frey, and A Lange (eds), Studies in the Book of Jubilees (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck), 59–75. Sacchi, P. (1990) ‘The Two Calendars of the Book of Astronomy’, in P. Sacchi, Jewish Apocalyptic and Its History (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press), 128–31. Saulnier, S. (2012) Calendrical Variations in Second Temple Judaism: New Perspectives on the ‘Date of the Last Supper’ Debate (Leiden: Brill). Scott, J. M. (2005) On Earth as in Heaven: The Restoration of Sacred Time and Sacred Space in the Book of Jubilees (JSJ Suppl. 91; Leiden: Brill). Segal, M. (2007) The Book of Jubilees: Rewritten Bible, Redaction, Ideology and Theology (Leiden: Brill). Skehan, P. W. (1975) ‘Jubilees and the Qumran Psalter’, Catholic Biblical Quarterly 37, 343–47. Speiser, E.A. (1964) Genesis (The Anchor Bible 1; New York, NY: Doubleday). Spitta, F. (1885) Der zweite Brief des Petrus und der Brief des Judas (Halle a. S.: Verlag des Buchhandlung des Waisenhauses). Stone, M. (1971) ‘Apocryphal Notes and Readings’, Israel Oriental Studies 1, 125–126. Stuckenbruck, L. T. (1997) The Book of the Giants from Qumran: Text, Translation, and Commentary (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck). Tiller, P. (1993) A Commentary on the Animal Apocalypse of 1 Enoch (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press). Tisserant, E. (1921) ‘Fragments syriaques du Livre des Jubilées’, Revue Biblique 30, 45–86, 206–03. Uhlig, S. (1984) Das Äthiopische Henochsbuch (Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn). Ullendorff, E. (1953) ‘James Bruce of Kinnaird’, Scottish Historical Review 32, 128–43. VanderKam, J. C. (1978) ‘Enoch Traditions in Jubilees and Other Second-Century Sources’, Society for Biblical Literature Supplementary Papers 18, 229–51.

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Bibliography

VanderKam, J. C. (1979) ‘The Origin, Character, and Early History of the 364-day Solar Calendar: A Reassessment of Jaubert’s Hypothesis’, Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 41, 390–411. VanderKam J. C. (1981a) ‘2 Maccabees 6, 7A and Calendrical Change in Jerusalem’, Journal for the Study of Judaism 12, 52–74. VanderKam (1981b) ‘The Putative Author of the Book of Jubilees’, JSS 26, 209–17. VanderKam J. C. (1984) Enoch and the Growth of the Apocalyptic Tradition (Catholic Biblical Quarterly Monograph Series 16; Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Association of America). VanderKam, J.C. (1992), Art. ‘Festival of Weeks’, in Anchor Bible Dictionary VI (1992), 895–97. VanderKam, J. C. (1995) Enoch: A Man for All Generations (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press). VanderKam, J. C. (1996) ‘1 Enoch, Enochic Motifs, and Enoch in Early Christian Literature’, in VanderKam, J. C., and W. Adler (eds), The Jewish Apocalyptic Heritage in Early Christianity (Assen: Van Gorcum/Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press), 33–101. VanderKam, J. C. (1998) ‘Authoritative Literature in the Dead Sea Scrolls’, DSD 5/3, 382–402. VanderKam J. C. (1999) ‘The Angel Story in the Book of Jubilees’, in E. G. Chazon and M. Stone (eds), Pseudepigraphic Perspectives: The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha in Light of the Dead Sea Scrolls. Proceedings of the International Symposium of the Orion Center for the Study of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Associated Literature(Leiden: Brill), 151–70. VanderKam, J. C. (2000) ‘Covenant and Biblical Interpretation in Jubilees 6’, in L. Schiffman, E. Tov, and J. C. VanderKam (eds), The Dead Sea Scrolls Fifty Years after their Discovery (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society), 92–104. VanderKam, J. C. (2001) The Book of Jubilees (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press). VanderKam, J. C. (2002) ‘Covenant and Pentecost’, Calvin Theological Journal 37, 239–54. VanderKam, J. C. (2004) From Joshua to Caiaphas. High Priests after the Exile (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press/ Assen: Van Gorcum). VanderKam, J. C. (2006) ‘1 Enoch 80 within the Book of the Luminaries’, in F. García Martínez, A. Steudel, and E. Tigchelaar(eds), From 4QMMT to Resurrection: Mélanges qumraniens en homage à Émile Puech (STDJ 61; Leiden: Brill, 2006), 333–55.

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VanderKam, J. C. (2007) ‘1 Enoch 73:5–8 and the Synchronistic Calendar’, in A. Hilhorst et al. (eds), Flores Florentino: Dead Sea Scrolls and other early Jewish studies in honour of Florentino García Martínez (Supplements to the Journal for the Study of Judaism 122; Leiden: Brill), 433–47. Verderame, L. (2017) ‘The Moon and the Power of Time Reckoning in Ancient Mesopotamia’, in J. Ben-Dov and L. Doering, eds, The Construction of Time in Antiquity: Ritual, Art and Identity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 124–41. Vermes, G. (1997) The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English (London: Allen Lane/Penguin Press). Wacker, M.-T. (1982) Weltordnung und Gericht: Studien zu 1 Henoch 22 (Forschung zur Bibel 45; Würtzburg: Echter). Weidner, E. (1916) ‘Babylonisches im Buche Henoch’, Orientalistische Literaturzeitung 19/3, cols 74–75. Wenham, G.J. (1987) Genesis 1–15 (Waco, TX: Word Books). Westermann, C. (1984) Genesis 1–11. A Commentary (London: SPCK). Williams, G. D. (2012) The Cosmic Viewpoint. A Study of Seneca’s Natural Questions (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Wintermute, O. S. (1985) ‘Jubilees. A New Translation and Introduction’, in J. H. Charlesworth (ed.), The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, Vol. 2 (New Yok, NY: Doubleday, 1985), 35–142. Yeomans, D. K. (1991) Comets. A Chronological History of Observation, Science, Myth, and Folklore (New York, NY: Wiley). Zeitlin, S. (1939) ‘The Book of Jubilees, Its Character and Its Significance’, Jewish Quarterly Review 30, 1–31. Zeitlin, S. (1958) ‘The Book of “Jubilees” and the Pentateuch’, Jewish Quarterly Review 48, 218–35.

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INDEX

I. Scripture Index Genesis Ch 1 21, 280, 285, 293, 298 1:124 1:1-5 22, 23, 25, 37 1:1-2:433 1:2 24, 25, 28, 29, 65 1:3, 5 25 1:6 29, 65 1:8 24, 49 1:9-1330 1:14 12, 257, 284, 287-89 1:14-19 283-85, 287-88, 292,293, 296-99 1:15290 1:16290-92 1:16-18182 1:18292 1:20-23, 27 31 1:2819 1:3114 Ch 2-4 62 2:2-324 2:311 2:4-24 31, 34 Ch 5 136 5:22, 24 159

Ch 6 277 Ch 6-11 139, 158 6:1-294 6:1-362 6:1-4 4, 62, 63, 158 6:1-763 6:5 114, 206 6:5-12114 7:4109 7:1110 Ch 8-9 51, 139 8:4 10, 119 8:511 8:14 11, 17 8:21-22105 8:22 135, 214 9:119 9:8-1118 9:8-17105 9:13137 9:16 18, 48 15:128 21:27-3339 22:15-1727 26:28-3140



Index

Exodus 2:1-1117 3:1-646 12:111 16:1; 40:1 10 16:22-3024 19:8, 24 16 19:1628 20:8-1124 21:24118 23:1657 24:7, 12 16 31:12, 17 11 31:12-1724 40:110 Leviticus 10:1748 23:15-16 9, 55 23:2714 23:39-4317 24:19118 Numbers 1:1; 10:11 10 33:310 33:3811 Deuteronomy 1:310 28:12190 5:1511 Joshua 4:1910 7:1140 Judges 2:2040 I Kings 11:1140

I Chronicles 16:1576 2 Chronicles 9:876 Ezra 7:9; 8:31 Nehemiah Ch 8-10

10 123

Job 1:6-12; 2:1-7 101 31:6199 38:4-734 38:735 38:32190 38:3353 Psalms 3:7190 5:1276 92(93):5 47, 48 132:32 147:4199 Ecclesiastes 9:676 Isaiah 13:9-10299 18:6135 24:21-23299 33:840 34:4153 34:1165 40:26199 54:9-1018 Jeremiah 3:2-3170 5:24-25170



Index

14:14-22170 3:3172 33:19-2654 33: 20-26 58 33:25, 35 53 49:1376 51:16190 Ezekiel 17:16-1840 Daniel 2:345 2:4, 11, 24 242 5:7242 4:10, 14, 20 62 Hosea 10:440 Zechariah 3:1-2101 3:2 85, 86 14:8135 Sirach 1:13; 7:1 102 21:27103 25:24 102, 151 33:1102 39:28-34103 40:8-10102 42:15-23124 43:6-8 125, 287 I Maccabees

48

Matthew 8:174 22:1374 25:3074 8:28-9:183

15:71 Mark 5:1-2083 Luke 1:3376 6:3829 8:26-3983 John 12:28-2927 Ephesians 6:1288 2 Peter 2:474 2:10-1185 2:17 74, 153, 2:17-18 79, 108, 109 3:5-7 108, 109, 110, 152 3:7 75, 153 3:8-13152 3:10, 12 152, 153 Jude 4 6 9 12 12-13 13

86, 121 72, 82, 86, 89, 143 85, 87, 98 79, 84 73, 79, 199 66, 67, 75-77, 79, 83, 84, 86, 88, 89, 91, 108, 110, 117, 153-54, 166, 198, 252, 274-77 141 14-15 72, 77, 122, 132 14-1671 1786 20-23 84, 98 2577



Index

II. Index of Old Testament Pseudepigrapha and Qumran Texts I Enoch Ch 1-5 129-30, 136 Ch 1-6 163 Ch 1-10 162 Ch 1-11 130 Ch 1-16 146 Ch 1-32 3 Ch 1-36 253 1:1-9 157, 160 1:2140 1:2-9130 1:8 2, 131 1:9 72, 122, 130, 132, 136 2:1 132, 134, 196 2:1-2134 2:1-5:3 130, 132, 146 2:1-5:4 157, 160-61, 165 2:2134 2:3-3:1133 2:4-9131 Ch 5-10 163 5:2, 3 134 5:4 130, 131 5:4-5131 5:4-9 130, 131 5:5-9 157, 160 5:6, 7, 9 131 5:12148 Ch 6-8 92, 103, 136 Ch 6-9 129 Ch 6-10 136 Ch 6-11 63, 139-40, 158 Ch 6-16 63, 93 Ch 6-36 130 6:1-294 6:1-6157 6:1-7:6 134, 158 6:446 6:647

6:7-8 157-58, 160 6:8160 7:1-6157 7:1-9:295 7:3-5207 7:6 137, 158, 161 8:194 8:1-2 161, 206 8:1-3 137, 161 8:1-4 157-58, 161 8:3 69, 94, 99, 145, 161, 202, 205 8:4 82, 137, 158, 161 8:4-9:11118 Ch 9-11 137, 139 9:1 48, 49, 158 9:1-10:14157-58 9:1-11:2161 9:482 9:1195 Ch 10 163 Ch 10-11 129, 137, 139 10:1137 10:2207 10:4-574 10:4-6 82, 117, 143 10:4-8137 10:5-696 10:6 86, 204 10:9-10 82, 97, 137 10:11-1282 10:1273 10:12-13 86, 96, 143 10:12-14137 10:13205 10:1473 10:15 138, 161 10:15-16138 10:15-11:2 138-40, 146, 158, 161, 165 10:16-21139



Index

10:17-18138 10:21, 22 138 11:2138 Ch 12-13 129 Ch 12-16 92, 140, 145, 159 12:1-2159 12:1-16:4158-59 12:2,6159 12:4 47-49, 51, 55, 72, 95, 140 Ch 13-15 163 13:1-3159-60 13:4159 Ch 14 163 Ch 14-16 129, 141, 144 14:5 73, 95 14:8-16:4140 Ch 15-16 103, 140 15:1-16:1158 15:1-16:4137 15:2-16:1138 15:3, 7 47, 72 15:3-1095 15:1047 15:11-16:198 15:899 15:8-16:1 82, 98, 121, 138 16:1 84, 86, 92, 117, 138 16:2-4159-60 Ch 17-19130, 140-42, 145-46, 151, 159 Ch 17-36 140 17:1 141-42, 145, 147, 150 17:1-8 141, 145, 154 17:1-18:11158-59 17:2 142, 147 17:3141 17:4 147, 149, 150 17:5 147, 149 17:8142 Ch 18 163 18:1141 18:1-5 141, 145, 154 18:1-667 18:1-19:2143

18:265 18:4 33, 37, 149, 215 18:5 52, 64 18:6147 18:6-9 142, 145 18:6-19:3141 18:10 65, 148 18:10-11 142, 144-45, 150, 159 18:11 63, 144 18:12 65, 66, 74 18:12-16 44, 52, 61, 64, 66, 67, 69, 71, 73, 74, 77, 78, 89, 91, 134, 142, 144-46, 148-49, 153, 158, 160, 162, 165, 167, 200-01 18:13148 18:14 148, 150 18:15 52, 55, 66, 68, 174, 177, 192, 195-96, 246, 288 19:1 92, 145, 153, 154 19:1-2 63, 142-44, 150, 159 19:1-3158-59 19:3 142, 145-46, 159-60 Ch 20 147 Ch 20-22 163 Ch 20-36 130 20:1-8149 20:1-36:4 158, 162-63 20:4150 Ch 21 150 Ch 21-36 146 Ch 21-22 147 21:1 65, 147 21:1-564 21:1-6 44, 52, 61, 67, 69, 71, 73, 74, 77, 78, 89, 91, 134, 148, 150, 153, 162, 165, 167, 200-01 21:2 65, 75 21:3148 21:6 52, 55, 64, 148, 192, 195-96, 246 21:7-10 151, 153 Ch 22 163 22:12 201, 206



Index

Ch 22-27 150 Ch 23-24 147 23:1-2149 23:4149-50 23:4-24:1149 Ch 25-27 163 Ch 28-29 163 Ch 31-32 163 Ch 31-34 163 32:6 62, 103, 151 Ch 33-36 151 33:1-36:4154 34:1-36:3155 Ch 35-36 163 36:333 Ch 37-71 24, 40 41:5 43, 44, 46, 55, 191, 200 41:5-7218 41:5-8190-91 41:6192-93 41:7191-92 41:8193 41:8ab193 43:1 199, 200 43:1-2199 43:2 44, 55 44:3-44:145 59:2-328 60:14-1528 65:10 204, 206 66:1-237 69:662 69:13-16ab46 69:1446 69:16 41-43, 46 69:16-25 42, 44, 55, 58 69:16cd-2546 Ch 72 173, 211, 213-15, 217, 222, 228, 230-32, 265-67, 278 Ch 72-77 154-55 Ch 72-74 255 Ch 72-78 252 Ch 72-79 169, 249, 263

Ch 72-82 72:1

12, 151 59, 61, 111, 114, 134, 169, 211, 249, 265-66 72:2 188, 196, 214 72:2-5 214, 217, 235 72:2-36235 72:2-37 212, 249, 265-66 72:3197 72:3-74:17231 72:4215 72:5 33, 37, 149, 178, 215, 267 72:6-32215 72:6-34218 72:9, 11 213 72:13 213, 287 72:14 267, 287 72:15, 17 213 72:19 213, 287 72:19-22228 72:21, 22, 23 213 72:25 213, 287 72:27, 29, 31 213 72:32 226, 266 72:35 178, 188, 196, 214, 266 72:37 215-16, 235 Ch 73214, 217, 221-22, 225, 231, 244, 266, 269, 271 Ch 73-74 237 73:1 188, 196 73:1b215 73:1-2235 73:1-3 214-15, 217 73:1-3a214-15 73:1-3ab 214, 217, 222 73:1-3b 217, 235, 249, 265, 266 73:2 149, 178, 267 73:2a215 73:2b215 73:2c215-16 73:3a214-16 73:3b215-18 73:3c 215, 217 73:3cd 217, 219



Index

73:3c-8 217, 266 73:3cd-8 218, 222-23 73:4 180, 219 73:4-7222 73:4-8 215, 220, 222, 236, 271 73:5-8218-20 73:7d-8222 73:8180 Ch 74 180, 221-23, 226, 244, 271 74:1 188, 196, 223 74:1-8266 74:1-9 223, 225-26 74:4-8223 74:4-9 191, 218, 223 74:5-9226 74:6180 74:9-16266 74:10225 74:10-11226 74:10-16 223, 225, 269 74:12 63, 226 74:13-16225-26 74:17 216, 223, 225-26, 266 Ch 75 256, 266 75:1 197, 227-28, 230 75:1-2174 75:1-3 135, 227, 229-31, 235, 249, 255, 257, 265-66 75:2 227-28, 267 75:3 33, 178, 230-31, 238, 248,  267, 287 75:4 178, 231, 267 75:4-8 249, 265 75:4-9 231, 266 75:5, 6 231 75:6-14236 75:7 232, 267 75:8267 75:8-9 178, 232 75:9232 75:15-16269 Ch 76 151, 155, 233-34, 255, 271 Ch 76-79 271

76:1-14 232, 249, 265, 266-67 76:14 196, 241, 254 Ch 77 142, 145, 233-34 77:1-3267 77:1-8 233, 249, 265-66 77:5-8267 Ch 78180, 235, 237, 244, 247-48, 271 Ch 78-79 221 Ch 78-82 235 78:1-2234 78:1-3 214, 269 78:1-5 213, 234, 266 78:2248 78:2-17248 78:3-5 235, 269 78:4-14271 78:6-8236 78:6-14 236, 269-70 78:6-16 235, 248, 266 78:6-17234 78:9236 78:10 176, 188, 248 78:10-14237 78:10-16236 78:11180 78:14237 78:15125 78:15-16 219, 236-37 78:17 235-38, 247-48, 266, 270-71 78:17-79:1238 78:17-79:5235 Ch 79 169, 245, 247 255-56 Ch 79-82 235 79:1 176, 188, 202, 235, 238, 240-46, 252, 254, 259 79:1-2 168, 174, 188, 236-38, 241-49, 258-59, 262, 265-66, 276 79:2 176, 196, 238-40, 246-48, 251, 259, 79:3237 79:3-5 235-37, 247-48, 266 79:5 174, 247



Index

79:6 235-36, 247-48, 260, 266 Ch 80 168-70, 184, 200-01, 212, 248, 252, 254, 270, 276-77, 280 Ch 80-81 169, 253 Ch 80-82 251, 263 80:1 168, 172, 202, 252 80:1-8 168, 251, 266 80:2 169, 177, 201, 206 80:2a 173, 202, 206 80:2b, 2c 174 80:2-3 177, 187, 199 80:2-5198 80:2-5ab187 80:2-6170 80:2-8 168-73, 200-02, 207-08, 251 80:3174 80:4 183, 186, 188, 246 80:4-5 175-76, 184, 186-87, 194 80:4a 176, 188 80:4ab175 80:4b 176, 189 80:5 183, 189 80:5a 184, 187, 200 80:5ab183-84 80:5abc175 80:5b 177-78, 184, 189, 200 80:5c187-89 80:6 66, 67, 172, 195, 197-98, 201 80:6a195-96 80:6b197 80:6c196-97 80:7 99, 169-70, 176, 188, 196, 246, 288 80:7a206 80:7b202 80:7d202 80:7-8201 80:8207 80:9245 80:9-20245 Ch 81 169, 252-55 81:2122 81:1-2 119, 168, 253

81:1-10 252, 256, 266, 269 81:5252 Ch 82 169, 253, 262, 271 82:1 241, 254 82:1-2245 82:1-3 168, 241, 254-55, 266, 269 82:4 197, 229, 256, 258 82:4-6229-30 82:4-8 255-58, 262, 266, 269 82:4-20174 82:5241 82:6 241, 256 82:7 239, 241, 256-57, 259 82:8 188, 257 82:9 174, 176, 188, 202, 257-59, 261 82:9-1033 82:9-12269 82:9-13 261, 270 82:9-20 135, 160, 258, 266 82:10261 82:10-11291 82:11 13, 197, 227, 260-61 82:11-12 160, 260 82:12 197, 260 82:13-20 234, 269 82:16262 82:17197 82:19262 82:20 197, 260, 262 Ch 83-84 253 83:1255 83:1-84:6109 84:5-6110 85:1255 85:1-2253 85:362 86:1-3163 87:1-88:3138 Ch 88-89 163 Ch 89 163 89:56-672 Ch 91-105 140, 253 91:1-9, 18-19 253



Index

91:4, 9 255 91:10-94:2164 92-105 130, 160, 93:2254 94:1-4255 94:10-11130 98:3130 98:9-99:2130 98:11131 99:253 99:9, 16 130 99:13, 14 131 100:4130 102:3131 102:5 201, 206 103:2 122, 254 103:8131 Ch 104-07 163 104:1-4119 Ch 106-07 49 106:13 55, 58, 134, 192, 196, 246, 288 106:13a 50, 52, 102 106:13b64 106:13-14 50, 51, 78 106:19242 107:1-3253 108:1253 108:7, 15 122 Book of the Giants Genesis Apocryphon

3, 163, 242 119

Jubilees 1:116 1:10257 1:14 208, 257 1:22-25123 1:23111 1:26 112, 123 1:26-28112 1:27 33, 253 1:28112

1:29

110-15, 119, 122-23, 144, 161, 199, 212, 261 Ch 2 42-44, 55 Ch 2-50 119, 122 2:132 2:1-323 2:1-18 21, 36, 294 2:2 24, 25, 27, 28, 30, 33, 37, 43, 59, 110, 112, 137, 148, 165, 188, 199, 230, 261, 294-95 2:2-3 35, 36 2:2-14; 8-10 31 2:2-18 6, 36, 37, 66, 137, 273, 277, 283 2:3 25, 34, 37 2:537 2:5-730 2:8-9, 10, 12 294 2:9 195, 218, 256, 289 2:10, 12 113 2:11-12, 14 31 2:1559 2:17-1832 3:132 3:1-35 103, 151 3:15-31170 4:1594 4:17 119, 213 4:19116 4:31 118, 120 5:1, 6 94, 95 5:2114 5:6-1173 5:7, 7-9, 9 97 5:10-1196 5:10-12 106, 115 5:11 96, 97, 111 5:11-12107 5:12 96, 107, 110-11, 113, 135, 139, 161, 212, 281 5:13 115-16, 151 5:14 115, 122 5:19115-16 Ch 6 57



Index

6:117 6:4 105, 176 6:919 6:10 17, 39 6:10-2256 6:1139 6:17 17, 47, 119 6:17-21120 6:18 19, 21, 36, 39, 60, 118, 289 6:18-19203 6:21 56, 119 6:21-2256 6:22 28, 112 6:23 9, 13 6:23-2713 6:23-31213 6:28-29, 31 119 6:32-38257 6:34-37125 6:35-38281 6:36213 6:37208 7:20119 7:2194 7:21-25114 7:26-2798 7:2792 8:2-4145 8:3 99, 203 9:499 9:15117 10:1, 13 99 10:1-1173 10:3 25, 99 10:5 99, 100 10:7 100, 161 10:8, 9 100 10:8-13138 10:11101 11:5102 12:16-18 27, 110 14:20; 15:1-3 19 15:1-456

15:27 32, 59 15:28-2953 16:12-1319 16:28-29119 18:14-1527 18:19119 22:1 19, 57 22:1-23:119 Ch 23 96 23:11, 13, 18 117 23:11-31113 23:15-31212 23:16-238 23:21-22, 26 123 23:26-27117 23:26-31 8, 117 23:27-29123 23:29 117, 123 23:32120 32:21-26120 32:28-29119 34:1-19119 34:18-1915 36:7 46, 58 49:8119 50:13253 Qumran Texts 1Q20 II 21 119 1QH IX (1) 7-13 36 1QHodayoth IX(I) 25-26 121 1QS I 9, 14 288-89 1QS I 16-III 12 18 11Q19 XIX 11-14 9 11Q19 XXI 12-16 35 11QPsa XXVI 11-12 4Q201 V 7 48 4Q204243-44 4Q204 frg. 26 244 4Q204 frg. 26 6-7 247 4Q208/4Q209 220-25, 271, 290 4Q209 238, 245, 270-71 4Q209 frg.23 3-10 234



Index

4Q209 frg. 25 242 4Q209 frg. 26 235, 237-38, 240-41, 243-45 4Q209 frg. 26 4-6 247 4Q209 frg. 26 6-7 241 4Q209 frg. 28 260 4Q209 frg. 28 1 258 4Q210 frg. 1 236 4Q210 frg. 1 ii 234 4Q211 frg. 1 261-62 4Q211 frg. 1 I 2-6 133 4Q216 frg. 1 V 1-11 22 4Q216 frg. 1 V 4 24 4Q317 189, 236 4Q317 frg. 1 + 1a ii 182-83 4Q319185 4Q319 IV 10-11 185 4Q320184-86 4Q320 1 I 1-5 186 4Q320 frg. 1 i 1-5 185 4Q328 2-6 12 4Q329 2.1-3 12 4Q400 frg. I i 4 49 4QAstronomical Enoch 242 (4Q204) frg. 5 ii 26-27 4QAstronomical Enoch 202, 213, (4Q208) 224, 269-70, 278 4QAstronomical Enoch 224, 232, (4Q209) 271, 278

4QAstronomical Enoch ar 290 (4Q209) 4QAstronomical Enoch 257, 261 (4Q209) frg. 28 4QAstronomical Enoch 232, 271 (4Q210) 4QAstronomical Enoch 261, 271 (4Q211) 4QAstronomical Enoch (4Q211) frg. 1 i 2-6 133 4QBrontologion (4Q318) 212, 234 4QEnocha(4Q208)189 4QEnochb(4QS209)189 63 4QEnochc I 8:27-30 4QEnoch (4Q201) 130, 132, 164 4QEnoch (4Q201) II 1-17 133 4QEnoch (4Q201) IV 7 49 4QEnoch (4Q204) 72, 146 4QEnoch (4Q204) 144 VII 27-30 4QEnoch ar (4Q201) 162-63 4QEnoch ar (4Q202) 163 4QEnoch ar (4Q204-07) 163 4QEnoch ar (4Q212) 164 4QPhases of the Moon 225 (4Q317) 4QPseudo-Jubilees (4Q227) 119, 260 35 11QPsa XXVI 11-12

III. Other Ancient Religious Texts Didache 87 Epistle of Barnabas  1 Enuma Anu Enlil  185-86, 220, 269, 279 Enuma Elish  26, 121, 181-84, 186, 191-92, 195, 199, 229-30, 268, 276, 280, 285, 291, 293, 295-99

Genesis Rabbah  30, 35 Prayer of Manasseh  46 Sibylline Oracles  110, 139 1.283-306  108, 139



Index

IV. Index of Names Ancient Apollonius 198 Ben Sira  102-03, 124-25, 138, 164 Basil of Caesarea  65 Basil the Great  293 Cicero  78, 197 Clement of Alexandria  2 Dionysius the Areopagite  280 Enmeduranki  136, 159 Epiphanius of Salamis  5, 23-25, 29, 35 Hermas 35

Heraclitus  xiii, 282 Hippolytus of Rome  65 Jerome 2 Tertullian 2 Josephus  107-08, 110, 261 Origen  2, 65 Philo  107-08, 110, 113, 293 Plato  73, 179, 191 Rufinus 65 Seneca 198 Theophilus  79, 293

Modern Albani, M.  36, 67-69, 170, 175, 185, 200-01, 216, 225-26, 228, 259 Arnold, R.C.D.  24 Baltzer, K.  40 Barthélemy, D.  9 Bauckham, R.J.  65, 71, 72, 76, 77, 81, 85-87, 152-53, 198-99 Bautch, K.  63, 67, 142, 144 Beauchamp, P.  296 Beckwith, R.  136, 171, 200-01 Bedenbender, A.  63 Beer, G.  66, 177, 260 Ben-Dov, J.  8, 13, 44, 56, 57, 120, 170-71, 182, 185-86, 213-14 216, 220-22, 225, 227-30, 233, 235-36, 247, 255, 260 Berger, K.  24, 25, 30, 34- 36, 101, 106-08, 111, 113, 115 Bergsma, J.S.  93 Beyer, K.  242 Black, M.  47-51, 63, 67, 133, 144, 170, 177, 187, 191, 199, 200, 204, 227, 233

Boccaccini, G.  91, 102, 120, 124, 228 Bonner, C.  51 Bousset, W.  66 Braun, H.  66 Brooke, G.J.  23, 35, 36 Bruce, J.  2, 3 Burkitt, F.C.  48, 49 Caquot, A.  67, 191, 205 Cassuto, U.  286, 292, 294 Ceriani, A.M.  6 Charles, R.H.  1, 3, 4, 6, 23, 47, 50 66, 73, 101, 107, 113, 130, 133, 142, 143, 149, 169, 172, 175-77, 183, 187, 191, 204-05, 220, 247, 252-53, 260 Charlesworth, J.H.  254, 287 Collin, J.J.  139 Cook, E.M.  242 Cross, F.M.  164 Danker, F.W.  74 Davenport, G.  107, 116 Davids, P.  72, 74, 76-78, 85, 86 Dalley, S.  121



Index

Dillmann, A.  3, 6, 63, 66, 67, 14244, 147, 169-72, 176-77, 187, 197, 199, 200, 219-20, 260 Drawnel, H.  134, 160, 168, 171, 174, 182, 191, 196, 214-17, 220-25, 232-37, 239-45, 247, 254-55, 25862, 270, 278-79, 290 Driver, S.R.  288 Fabricius, J.A.  5 Flemming, J.  176, 187 Freedman, H.  30 García Martínez, F.  120, 185, 224, 238-39, 242, 244, 258, 288 Goff, M.J.  142 Grébaut, S.  223-24 Grelot, P.  136 Gunkel, H.  293 Hallévi, J.  177, 189, 205, 234 Hanneken. T.R.  93, 95, 96, 98, 100-04, 106, 111-12, 114-16, 118, 127, 129, 148, 164, 166-68, 208, 275-76 Hanson, P.D.  63 Hart, D.B.  77 Hoffmann, A.G.  66, 178 Isaac, E.  47, 175, 177, 187, 204, 256 Jacobus, H.R.  212, 223, 234 Jaubert, A.  xv, 8-11, 14, 16, 284-85 Jauss, H.R.  127 Johns, A.F.  240 Joyce, P.M.  285 Kee, H.C.  85, 86, 126 Knibb, M.  41, 47, 48, 63, 129, 144, 175-78, 183, 187, 191, 204-05, 227, 243, 256, 259, Knohl, I.  15 Koch, J.  235-36 Kohler, K.  26 Krapf, L.  5, 6 Kugel, J.  35, 57, 139, Kuhn, G.  200-01 Kvanvig, H.  18, 36, 61-63, 123, 12627, 136, 158, 171, 177, 200,

Lambert, W.G.  181-82, 295, 298 Lampe, G.W.H.  65, 74 Lawrence, R.  3, 212 Lenzi, A.  299 Leslau, W.  188 Louis XV  2 McCarthy, D.J.  40 McKnight, S.  81 Milgrom, J.  15, 56, Milik, J.T.  3, 51, 63, 66, 72, 130, 133, 143, 162-64, 220, 224-25, 238-39, 241-42, 244-45, 258, 261-62 Murray, R.  58, 62 Nelson, H.L.  61 Neugebauer, O.  69, 170, 178, 180, 210-12, 216-17, 219-25, 228, 23233, 258, 260, 268 Newsom, C.  49, 63, 140-41, 144, 159 Nickelsburg, G.  1-5, 41-45, 47, 50, 51, 53, 58, 63, 65, 67-69, 129-30, 132-33, 136-37, 139-44, 146-47, 149-51, 154-55, 158, 160-62, 169, 172, 190-91, 193, 202-04, 218, 235, 239, 253- 54 Olson, D.  47, 51, 63, 67, 144, 17172, 175, 177, 187, 191, 204-05, 223, 227, 236 Osborne, A.  8, 39, 208 Park, S.  16, 17 Pfann, S.  18 Rabin, C.  6, 23, 101, 106-07, 143, 172, 204-05 Rahmani, I.E.  6 Rivkin, E.  102 Rochberg, F.  69, 186 Rogerson, J.W.  85 Ruiten, J. Van  111 Sacchi, P.  228-30 Saulnier, S.  9, 171 Scott, J.M.  12 Segal, M.  92-93, 111, 115



Index

Skehan, P.W.  35 Smith, P.  30 Sokoloff, M.  242 Speiser, E.A.  286 Spitta, F.  199 Stone, M.  113 Stuckenbruck, L.T.  242 Tigchelaar, E.J.C.  224, 238-39, 242, 244, 258, 288 Tiller, P.  138 Tisserant, E.  6, 30 Uhlig, S.  47, 50, 63, 66, 67, 143-44, 176, 187, 191, 204, 227, 251,256, 259 Ullendorff, E.  3 Van de Sandt  71 VanderKam, J.C.  xv, 1, 4-6, 8, 9, 11, 16-18, 22-25, 27-30, 33, 36, 42, 56, 57 ,91-93, 101, 104, 106-07, 110-13, 118-22, 124, 133,

136, 142, 147, 151, 159, 169-172, 174-78, 180, 187-89, 193, 195-97, 200-02, 204, 214, 217-18, 220, 223, 225–27, 229-239, 241, 244, 247, 253-54, 256-57, 259, 262, 272, 279-80, 284-85, 287-89 Verderame, L.  284-85, 291, 294-95, 297 Vermes, G.  288 Wacker, M.T.  64, 147 Weidner, E.  182, 267 Wenham, G.J.  288, 291, 29394,296 Westermann, C.  293 Williams, G.D.  198 Wintermute, O.S.  6, 22, 23, 25-27, 42, 56, 101, 106-07, 143 Yeomens, D.K.  198 Zeitlin, S.  56

