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

GABRIELE BOCCACCINI 63
an anti-Zadokite ideology? Or should we rather stop “talking Zadokite”
and read the references to the “sons of Zadok” not as evidence of an
actual genealogical relation but typologically, as Philip Davies already
suggested many years ago? 50
C. The Parting of the Ways between Qumran and Enochic Judaism
The relationship between Enoch and Qumran was not limited to the
period of the origins of the community; instead, it is far more complex
and fascinating. After Enochic Judaism played such an important role in
Qumran origins, something happened to separate the Enoch and the
Qumran group. In the library of Qumran, which preserved and cherished
all Enoch books composed before the birth of the community, the
later literature of Enoch is conspicuous by its absence. This suggests the
existence “outside Qumran…[of] circles that transmitted” the ancient
Enoch literature. 51 Furthermore, in the later Enoch literature we read
statements and see the development of ideas that openly contradict the
principles of individual predeterminism held by the sectarians of
Qumran. We no longer need to face the mystery of the absence of the
Parables/Similitudes of Enoch (1 Enoch 37–71) from the Qumran library: its
exclusion is the logical consequence of the schism between Qumran and
Enochic Judaism. 52
As the Enochic movement lost its touch with Qumran, at the same
time Qumran lost its interest in the Enoch literature. 53 The last quotation
of Enoch is in the Damascus Document, therefore at a very early stage in the
life of the community. The more the community strengthened its dualistic
and predeterministic worldview, the more they lost interest in a
literature that, although “assert[ing] deterministically, on the one hand,
that…sin…had its origin in the divine realm…on the other hand, maintain[ed]
that…evil originated not with God’s permission, but as the result
of a rebellious conspiracy that was hatched behind God’s back.” 54
50. Philip R. Davies, Behind the Essenes, 51–72.
51. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch, 77.
52. On the Parables/Similitudes as an Enochic pre-Christian document, see George
W. E. Nickelsburg and James C. Vanderkam, 1 Enoch: A New Translation (Minneapolis:
Fortress, 2004), 3–6; Paolo Sacchi, “Qumran e la datazione del Libro delle Parabole
di Enoc,” Hen 25, no. 2 (2003): 149–66; and James H. Charlesworth, “The Date of
the Parables of Enoch,” Hen 20 (1998): 93–98.
53. James H. Charlesworth, “The Origins and Subsequent History of the Authors
of the Dead Sea Scrolls: Four Transitional Phases among the Qumran Essenes,” RevQ
10 (1980): 213–34.
54. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch, 47.