the-bible-and-the-dead-sea-scrolls

EPHRAIM ISAAC 365
list (Edoranchus) 7 who taught solar divinatory rites. However, Borger
has recently suggested Enmeduranki’s adviser Utuabzu, the seventh in
the bit meseri list of antediluvian sages and who was also said to have
ascended to heaven, as Enoch’s Mesopotamian prototype. 8
In Rabbinic Literature there is an ambivalent attitude towards Enoch.
On the one hand, he is portrayed as a culprit and a hypocrite who died
from a plague at a young age—Enoch’s lifespan of 365 years is relatively
short in the genealogy of Seth—to be spared from further folly that would
have disallowed his heavenly ascent. 9 These pejorative accounts may be
based on the confusion of the two biblical Enochs, the descendant of Cain
and the son of Yared. More commonly, however, he is portrayed as a pious
worshiper of the true God, who was removed from among the dwellers on
earth to heaven or Gan Eden without tasting the pangs of death, and who
received the names and offices of Metatron and Safra Rabba, the Great
Scribe, who was credited with the invention of the art of writing. 10 This is
the prevailing Rabbinic view of Enoch’s character and exaltation.
However, in various other Rabbinic accounts, Enoch becomes a poly-professional:
an angel, a scribe, an ascetic who preaches repentance, a proselyte,
a king in whose 243 years of rule peace reigns on earth, a cobbler who
sews worlds together as he pronounces the benediction “Blessed be the
name of the glory of His kingdom for ever and ever.” 11
Important books from Late Second Temple period attributed to Enoch
are found in the Pseudepigrapha. 12 According to E. G. Hirsch, Enoch
was “forgotten by the Jews and reappears as the hero and author of several
pseudepigraphic midrashim, in part elaborations of material contained
7. Hermann Gunkel, Genesis, Übersetzt und Erklärt (Göttingen: Vanderhoeck und
Ruprecht, 1910), 124; ET The Legends of Genesis: The Biblical Saga and History (trans. W.
H. Carruth; intro. by W. F. Albright; New York: Schocken Books, 1964).
8. Rykle Borger, “Die Beschwörungsserie bit meseri und die Himmelfahrt Henochs,”
JNES 33 (1974): 192–93; cf. Pierre Grelot, “Le legende d’Henoch dans les apocryphes
et dans le Bible: son origine et signification,” RSR 46 (1958): 24–25.
9. See Moritz Friedländer, Patristische und Talmudische Studien (Vienna: A. Hölder,
1878), 99; idem, “La Secte de Melchisédec, et l’Épitre aux Hébreux” (3 Parts), 1–26,
188–98; REJ 6 (1882): 187–99; Genesis [Bereshit] Rabba 5:24; Yalqut. Gen. 5:24; Rashi
and Ibn Ezra on Gen 5:24. Cf. also Wis 4:10–14; Zacharias Frankel, Über den Einfluss
der palästinischen Exegese auf die alexandrische Hermeutik (Leipzig: J. A. Barth, 1851),
44–45; Sir 44:16; Zohar to Views of Gen 5:24; and Philo Abr. 17–26.
10. Tg. Ps.-J. Gen 5:24; Yalqut Gen. 5:24; Jubilees 4. According to some he also was
an astronomer and a mathematician, Sefer Yuhasin, 5; Sefer ha-Yuhasin was written by
Abrahm ben Samuel Zacuto (15th Century.) Samuel Shalom’s edition of the work
(Constantinopele 1566) has been reprinted many times. cf. Gregorius Bar Hebraeus (ca.
thirteenth century C.E.), Syriac Chronicle, part 1, 5
11. Yal. Hadash 25b; Yal. Reubeni 28b; Bereshit, Hayye Hanok, etc.
12. Halevy, “Cainites et Sethites,” 21.