Apocryphal books (Old Testament); Enoch (Biblical figure); Ethiopic book of Enoch -- Criticism, interpretation, etc.
his contemporaries wrongly followed a different reckoning, and therefore
celebrated the feasts at the wrong time. The ‘sinners who sin in the
reckoning of the year’ are the Pharisees; and the righteous ones who are
blessed, the _Zaddîkim_,[13] who walk upon the paths of righteousness
(_Zedek_) as the name is made to imply, are the Sadducees.”[14] The
point may appear small to us, but we may compare with it the
Quartodeciman controversy in the Church during the second century. It
is, at any rate, a strong point in favour of the Sadducæan authorship of
“The Book of the Heavenly Luminaries.”
The pre-Maccabæan portions (assuming that some portions of it _are_
pre-Maccabæan) of the book of Enoch must certainly be ascribed to the
_Chassidim_; but it is not on that account necessary to ascribe _all_
the later portions to the Pharisees. Three points especially militate
against this: some of the teaching concerning the Messiah; the,
generally speaking, universalistic spirit, which is quite un-Pharisaic;
and the attitude towards the Law, which is not that of the Pharisees. It
is not to be denied that some portions (_e. g._ cii. 6 ff.) are from the
hands of Pharisees; nor can it be doubted that the whole collection in
its present form has been worked over by a Pharisee, or Pharisees; but
that all the post-Maccabæan portions in their original form emanated
from Pharisaic circles does not appear to have been proved. It seems
more likely that, with the exceptions already referred to, the various
component parts of the book were written by Apocalyptists who belonged
neither to Pharisaic nor yet to Sadducæan circles.
Language
The Book of Enoch exists only in the Ethiopic Version; this was
translated from the Greek Version, of which only a few portions are
extant.[15] The Latin Version, which was also made from the Greek, is
not extant, with the exception of i. 9, and cvi. 1-18; the fragment
containing these two passages was discovered by the Rev. M. R. James, of
King’s College, Cambridge, in the British Museum. The book was
originally written either in Hebrew or Aramaic; Charles thinks that
chapters vi.-xxxvi., lxxxiii.-xc. were Aramaic, the rest Hebrew. It is,
however, very difficult to say for certain which of these two languages
was really the original, because, as Burkitt says, “most of the most
convincing proofs that the Greek text of Enoch is a translation from a
Semitic language fit equally well with a Hebrew or an Aramaic original”;
his opinion is that Aramaic was the original language, “but that a few
passages do seem to suggest a Hebrew origin, yet not decisively.”[16]
General Contents
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