The Bible and the Dead Sea Scrolls: The ... - josephprestonkirk

374 ENOCH AND THE ARCHANGEL MICHAEL
evidence: it is found in what would appear to be much earlier Jewish
material. The appeal in Milik’s fourth argument to Arabic Hermetic traditions
to explain the equation between Metatron and Enoch is unnecessary.
The identification can be explained as a natural development within
the mystical tradition. It is very curious, if Milik is correct, that the impact
of Arabic Hermeticism is not more evident in 3 Enoch or in the other merkabah
tracts. Out of the scores of names for Metatron found in the merkabah
traditions Hermes does not appear to be attested. Milik’s final argument
is simply mistaken. It assumes that 3 Enoch was written in western Europe.
In fact it was almost certainly written in the East—either in Babylonia or
in Palestine (see the section below on the provenance of the book).
It can be shown conclusively that the vast majority of the ideas contained
in 3 Enoch, including the Enoch-Metatron doctrine, were known in
both these centers long before the twelfth century C.E. (1) Enoch is
found in certain recensions of the Alphabet of Akiba and in 3 En. 48C
(Kitab al-Anwar 1.4.2). This short account appears to be a summary of a
longer version of the elevation of Enoch closely akin to 3 Enoch 3–15. (2)
If we are right in surmising that 3 Enoch has drawn some of its materials
from the Babylonian Talmud, then its final redaction can hardly be earlier
than the fifth century C.E. (3) The magical bowls from Nippur show
that many of 3 Enoch’s ideas about Metatron and about the heavenly
world were known in magical circles in the sixth and seventh centuries
C.E. All things considered, then, though 3 Enoch contains some very old
traditions and stands in direct line with developments which had already
begun in the Maccabean era, a date for its final redaction in the fifth or
the sixth century C.E. cannot be far from the truth.
Alexander has rightly suggested that 3 Enoch draws on Palestinian
apocalyptic traditions about Enoch, in particular those pertaining to
the identity of Enoch and Metatron attested in Palestinian works: the
Targumim and the fourth-century Re)uyot Yehezqe)l. 51 Metatron is mentioned
a number of times in the incantation bowls from Babylonia, and
invoked as “the Great Prince,” “the Great Prince of God’s Throne,” “the
Great Prince of the Whole World”; and in Mandaean literature as Yoraba—the
great Yaho—cf. Yahoel. There are three highly suggestive references
to Metatron in the Babylonian Talmud (b. Sanh. 38b; b. Hag. 15a;
b. Abodah Zarah 3b). Particularly significant is the close relationship
between the account of the humbling of Metatron in 3 Enoch 16 and that
in b. Hag. 15a.
51. B. Mesi(a 2:132; ed. Gruenwald, ibid., 130.