Endnote 9 – Enoch’s Vision of the Next World

Jozef T. Milik, who identified and first published many of the Qumran fragments of Enoch from Qumran Cave 4, thought that copy c (4Q204) contained parts of chapters 1–6, 10, 13–15, 18, 31–32, 35–36 (all from the Book of the Watchers) and also bits and pieces of chapters 89 (from the Book of Dreams) and 104–107 (from the Epistle of Enoch). He also thought the Book of Giants was copied on this manuscript. Hence, by the years 30–1 B.C.E. (the date of the handwriting), these books were gathered on a single manuscript. Copy d (4Q205; from approximately the same date as copy c) preserves parts of the Book of the Watchers (22, 25–27) and the Book of Dreams (89), and copy e (4Q206) offers sections of the Book of the Watchers (20–22, 28–29, 31–34) and of the Book of Dreams (88–89), with a fragment from the Book of Giants. This manuscript was copied in ca. 100–50 B.C.E. (See Milik, The Books of Enoch, pp. 5, 178–79, 217, 225.)

We also have reason to believe that the Astronomical Book, although it may be the most ancient Enoch book, at first was not copied on the same scroll with the other Enoch booklets. It was so long in its Aramaic form that it alone would have occupied a full scroll. No parts of it are attested on any Qumran manuscript that contains text from another Enoch booklet. In addition, it has long been recognized that the Book of Parables (37–71), which calls itself a second vision, differs from the other booklets. No copy of it has been identified among the thousands of fragments in the Qumran caves. It is reasonable to think that it had its own history, while its relatively late date of composition makes it unlikely that it would have appeared on the Qumran copies. So, we can bracket chapters 37–71 and 72–82 as Enoch works that were not associated with the others in the sense of being copied on the same manuscript.