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

PAOLO SACCHI 393
Biblica Italiana” (Rocca di Papa, September 1997 47 ), presents itself. Not
only is Mosaic Law not mentioned in the Book of Watchers, but the Book of
Dream Visions even tells us that on Mount Sinai Moses only received the
revelation of the house of God, that is, the tabernacle and—the metaphor
aside—the Temple (1 En. 89:36). BP never mentions the Law, not even in
reference to behavior or judgment; BP only speaks of righteousness. It
would seem, therefore, that while the Enochians had their reasons for distancing
themselves from the Qumranites, because unlike the latter they
still believed in human freedom of choice, the Qumranites, too, had good
reason to break away from the Enochians; the Qumranites accepted
Mosaic Law, even though in an enlarged form, integrated with their own
rules of behavior, their mishpatim.
In BP there is no mention at all of impurity, nor is mention made of
Mosaic Law. Sin is a result of violence, and the identification between the
two is especially strong when the violence is perpetrated against the weak.
The true sinners are only “those who possess the earth.” The humans
are responsible for their sins, as stated forcefully in the most recent stratum
of the Epistle of Enoch (1 En. 98:4), but salvation cannot come through
the humans’ justice. It can only come through divine forgiveness, if the
humans humbly recognize their sins. Only “those who possess the
earth,” to be identified with those who hold any form of power according
to the current view, 48 are excluded from this possibility. Even in a list
of attitudes in singing God’s praises there is no word corresponding to
“purity” (1 En. 61:11); the list includes the spirits of trust, wisdom,
patience, mercy, righteousness, peace, and goodness. If there is anything
uniting BP with the rest of the previous Enochic tradition it is the idea
that evil is in some way the result of an angelic sin, but here it is identified
with having revealed heavenly knowledge, which should have
remained exclusively in the hands of the angels (1 En. 65:6–8). Even the
art of writing is condemned as a heavenly secret that should have
remained such (1 En. 69:8–11). Sin is the consequence of the teachings
of evil angels; it is not the consequence of an angelic contamination.
Even in the oldest stratum of Slavonic Enoch or 2 Enoch (the so-called
Recension B: around mid-first century C.E.), impurity is not given
importance; evil is represented by violence, good by love, and these representations
extend even to the animals.
47. Paolo Sacchi, “Gesù davanti all’impuro e alla Legge,” RStB 11 (1999): 43–64.
48. For a different interpretation, see Chialà, Parabole di Enoc, who maintains that the
different expressions indicating the wicked, like “those who possess the earth,” “powerful,”
“kings,” etc. are only metaphors to indicate the powers existing between Heaven
and earth, i.e., the angels (293–301). Isaac, on the contrary, narrows the meaning of
this type of expression to a group of powerful people, the “landowners.”