Endnote 12 – That’s No Gospel, It’s Enoch!

In 1992 the Spanish scholar Vittoria Spottorno (“Una nueva posible identificacion de 7Q5,” Sefarad 52 [1992], pp. 541–543) proposed that 7Q5 preserves text from the Book of Zechariah (7:3b–5), and provided a transcription to support her view. Spottorno’s identification, however, presents problems such as doubtful readings of several Greek letters and variations from all known Greek texts of Zechariah 7:3–5. For example, in verse 4, her lineup of letters requires Spottorno to omit “of hosts” to produce the shorter reading “the Lord” (compare NRSV, “the Lord of hosts”); and in verse 5, her reconstruction requires a longer text: “the priests of the land” (instead of the NRSV’s “the priests”).