ARAMAIC BOOKS OF ENOCH

It is significant in every respect that, apart from one manuscript of the Astronomical Book and some copies of the Book of Giants, no manuscript of 4QEn has been found in the "classical" writing of the Herodian era The period of Herod the Great, roughly 37–4 B.C. or from the last period of the Essene occupation of Ḥirbet Qumrân. Qumrân scribes and readers must have gradually lost interest in the literary compositions attributed to Enoch, just as happened in Pharisaic circles. We should note that an early scroll, Enᵃ, had already been withdrawn from circulation and its detached leaves used for other purposes—for example, the verso of the first leaf for a schoolboy’s exercise. Finally, the absence of the Books of Enoch from other Qumrân caves is significant. Our copies of 4QEn were likely covered with dust on the shelves of the main library, and only a small number of Essene readers consulted them, particularly during the first century A.D.

Enochic literature was to have a full-blown renaissance in the early Christian communities, but this would come about through the medium of Greek translations.

THE ASTRONOMICAL BOOK (En. 72–82)

The four copies of the Aramaic astronomical document attributed to Enoch cover more than two hundred years. The majority of the fragments belong to an elaborately detailed and monotonous calendar in which the phases of the moon were synchronized with the sun in the framework of a 364-day year. The calendar also described the movement of these celestial bodies from one "gate" of the sky to another. This part of the work no longer exists in the Ethiopic version.