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

382 QUMRAN AND THE DATINGOFTHEPARABLES OF ENOCH
The most radical approach to the later dating of BP was taken by
Milik in 1976. 12 He brought the date down to the third century and
attempted a complex and coherent explanation. Even though his conclusions
have been rejected, his work was of great stimulus to later research.
Milik deduces that the only possible explanation for the book’s
absence from Qumran is that it was written later, choosing the third century
once again in connection with the information on the Parthian invasion,
mentioned in 56:5–7 and fairly emphasized by Sjöberg, because it
is the only clear reference to a historical event in BP. 13 Milik interprets
the passage as an allusion to Shapur I’s defeat of the emperor Valerian in
260, which led to an invasion of Palestine by the surrounding peoples.
Already in 1968, 14 Hindley had tried to find another Parthian invasion
later than 70 C.E., and had indicated the time of Trajan’s war against the
Parthians in 117 C.E. Hindley’s point of departure for rejecting identification
of the invasion mentioned in BP with the one of 40 B.C.E. was
that Flavius Josephus had recounted the event as though it had been welcomed
with satisfaction by the Jews (Ant. 14.324 et seq.; J.W. 1.248 et seq.),
while BP narrates the invasion with horror.
In reality, Flavius Josephus presents the episode of the Parthian invasion
in 40 B.C.E. as the cause of massacres and a war that not only pitted
Parthians against Romans, but also Jew against Jew (Ant. 14.359). In
regard to this situation, in J.W. (1.252) he writes, “the killing (among Jews)
never ended.” He also narrates that the Parthians sacked Jerusalem and its
surrounding countryside (Ant. 14.363). There is also a curious detail that
corresponds to the account given in BP, that the Parthians sent their cavalry
ahead (J.W. 1. 250) and it sacked the area around Mount Carmel.
The passage of chap. 56 tells of an invasion from the east (Parthians,
Medes). They invade “the land of their 15 elect ones” and they trample it.
After this first phase there will be a resistance “of my righteous ones”
(with no variants), which hinders their horses. At this point war breaks
out among the invaders, but (if I understand the text correctly) the Jews
themselves fight some on one side (the Parthians) and some on the
other (the Romans sent in aid of Herod); it is a civil war, as seems to be
12. Jozef T. Milik, The Books of Enoch (Oxford: Clarendon, 1976).
13. Also James H. Charlesworth considers the information concerning the Parthian
invasion a historical one. See “The Date of the Parables of Enoch (1 En 37–71),”
Henoch 20 (1998): 96.
14. Hindley, “Towards a Date.”
15. Their: with most manuscripts. The text of MS F, my, is lectio facilior. The author
tells us that Parthians penetrated into a part of Palestine, where their supporter
received them with favor, because they hoped to be freed from Romans. In fact, it is
the beginning of the civil war that Josephus speaks of in the subsequent chapters.