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

PAOLO SACCHI 381
invasion of Palestine narrated in 56:5–7. Since the only Parthian invasion
acceptable to the common opinion for the time when BP was composed
was the one which took place in 40 B.C.E., when the Parthians intervened
in favor of the last Hasmoneans (Antigonus Asmoneus) against the
Antipatrids (Herod the Great), 40 B.C.E. became the terminus a quo for the
composition of BP.
The discovery of the Dead Sea manuscripts has introduced a new element
into the discussion. While the library at Qumran contained many
and lengthy fragments of 1 Enoch in the original language, the collection
contained no fragment of BP. It is therefore necessary to pose the question
about the book’s absence. Whether it is true that BP occupies the
second place in the Ethiopic Pentateuch after having taken the place of
another book, the so-called Book of Giants, the question as to why BP was
unknown to Qumran remains open. There are two possibilities: it had
not yet been written in 68 C.E. when the caves at Qumran were closed;
or it belongs to a group other than the one at Qumran. Given the presence
of the rest of 1 Enoch in the Qumran library, which was very well
represented at Qumran, and BP‘s undeniable place in the Enochic tradition,
at first only the first hypothesis was taken into consideration.
We should also remember that some scholars have resolved the problem
by simply saying that the absence of the book can even be attributed to
chance. 11 This line of reasoning could be adopted, but only after having
demonstrated both that the work cannot have been created after 70 C.E., and
that the Qumranites had no specific reason to exclude it from their library.
Moving the date after 70 C.E. causes serious problems, this time of a
historical rather than a theological nature, since BP seems to fit clearly in
some part of the period running from 40 B.C.E. to the end of the first
century C.E. Once again there are two possibilities: either to assign it
decidedly to the years between 70 and 100 C.E., considering it to be
contemporary with the great apocalypses of the day, the Fourth Book of
Esdras, the Syriac Apocalypse of Baruch, and the canonical book of Revelation,
or give it an even later date. In the latter case the possibility that the book
originated in Christian circles would again have to be taken into consideration.
The former solution would not change the old problems very
much while the second would mean returning, though in a more critical
manner, to the positions of more than one hundred years ago.
11. Cf. J. Clifford Hindley, “Towards a Date for the Similitudes of Enoch. An
Historical Approach,” NTS 14 (1968): 551–65; Jonas C. Greenfield and Michael A.
Stone, “The Books and the Traditions of Enoch,” Numen 26 (1979): 89–103; Christopher
L. Mearns, “Dating the Similitudes of Enoch,” NTS 25 (1979): 360–69; Gillian
Bampfylde, “The Similitudes of Enoch; Historical Allusions,” JSJ 15 (1984): 9–31.