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

GABRIELE BOCCACCINI 61
Thanks to the collective efforts of specialists from different countries
and different fields of research, slowly but surely, the emphasis has
shifted from the study of the Enoch texts to the study of the intellectual
and sociological characteristics of the group behind such literature. 45
This is fully recognized by George Nickelsburg in his commentary on 1
Enoch: “Collective terms like ‘the righteous, the chosen, the holy’ indicate
a consciousness of community [by people]…who believed that their possession
of the divinely given wisdom contained in the Enochic texts, constituted
them as the eschatological community of the chosen, who are
awaiting the judgment and the consummation of the end time.” 46
In summary, we now may with some confidence talk of Enochic
Judaism as a nonconformist, anti-Zadokite, priestly movement of dissent,
active in Israel since the late Persian or early Hellenistic period (fourth
century B.C.E.). 47 At the center of Enochic Judaism was neither the
Temple nor the Torah, but a unique concept of the origin of evil that
made the “fallen angels” (the “sons of God,” also mentioned in Gen
6:1–4) to be ultimately responsible for the spread of evil and impurity on
earth, the perpetrators of a “contamination that has spoiled [human]
nature and…was produced before the beginning of history.” 48
B. Enoch and Qumran Origins
The problem of Qumran origins cannot be easily dismissed simply by
arguing multiple influences. In history there is no such thing as a group
or movement that suddenly emerges, coming from nowhere, taking a little
from everywhere. In the case of Qumran, it is apparent that both
Enochic and Zadokite thought influenced the sectarian literature.
However, since in the sectarian scrolls, the members of the Qumran sect
Boyarin, James H. Charlesworth, John and Adela Collins, Hanan and Esther Eshel,
Philip R. Davies, Florentino García Martínez, Lester L. Grabbe, Martha Himmelfarb,
Klaus Koch, Michael Knibb, Robert Kraft, Helge Kvanvig, George W. E.
Nickelsburg, Paolo Sacchi, Lawrence H. Schiffman, Loren T. Stuckenbruck, David
W. Suter, Michael Stone, James C. VanderKam, and Benjamin Wright.
45. See Gabriele Boccaccini, “The Rediscovery of Enochic Judaism and the Enoch
Seminar,” in The Origins of Enochic Judaism (ed. G. Boccaccini; Turin: Zamorani, 2002),
and in Hen 24, nos. 1–2 (2002): 9–13; also see David R. Jackson, Enochic Judaism:
Three Defining Paradigm Exemplars (London: T & T Clark, 2004).
46. George W. E. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch: A Commentary (Hermeneia; Minneapolis:
Fortress, 2001), 64.
47. See James H. Charlesworth, “A Rare Consensus among Enoch Specialists: The
Date of the Earliest Enoch Books,” Hen 24 (2003): 225–34.
48. Paolo Sacchi, “Riflessioni sull’essenza dell’apocalittica: pecccato d’origine e libertà
dell’uomo,” Hen 5 (1983): 57.