The Books of Enoch: Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4

A great number of critical studies have also appeared. During this same period, the textual foundation of Enochic literature was broadened by several discoveries: the 1886/7 finding at Akhmîm (Panopolis) of a Greek parchment codex from the fifth or sixth century, which contains almost the entirety of the first section of the Ethiopic book; the edition of a large part of the fifth section in Greek from a papyrus codex of the fourth century, acquired around 1930 by the Chester Beatty and Michigan University collections; and the publication of various early versions of the Books of Enoch in Greek, Latin, Coptic, and Syriac.

At the beginning of September 1952, I was thrilled to identify the first Aramaic fragment of Enoch among a heterogeneous mass of tiny fragments unearthed by the Ta'amrê Bedouins in a cave above the ruins of Ḥirbet Qumrân. By the end of that same month, I had the satisfaction of identifying further fragments while personally excavating the earth from Cave 4, before the pieces had even been properly cleaned or unrolled. Over the following years, successive purchases enriched this precious material, allowing me to identify seven manuscripts corresponding to the first, fourth, and fifth sections of the Ethiopic text, and four others corresponding to the third, or "astronomical," section. By late April 1970, I successfully identified various "pseudo-Enochic" manuscripts from 4Q (one entrusted to me for editing, the others to J. Starcky), as well as several fragments published previously among the manuscripts of Caves 1, 2, and 6, as part of an important Enochic work, the Book of Giants. In an Eastern Aramaic adaptation, made by Mani himself, this book was accepted into the Manichaean canon and translated into numerous languages across Asia, Africa, and Europe.

The Aramaic Enochic fragments were assigned to me for editing, alongside other material from Qumrân Cave 4, to be published in the series Discoveries in the Judaean Desert. The purpose of this volume is to provide a comparative textual and literary study of the Aramaic Enoch alongside its early versions on a scale incompatible with the editorial principles of the DJD series. Furthermore, I have restored the Aramaic text of passages known in ancient translations where the 4Q fragments overlap, ranging from a few words to nearly continuous text. These restorations are enclosed in brackets so the reader can see at a glance what is effectively preserved from the original manuscript fragments.