the-book-of-enoch-r-h-charles - Fallen Angels

Inii'odnetion Ixv
understand how an Ethiopic translator in the sixth or seventli
century a.d. could have used the Greek version for the four books of
Enoch, 1-36 72-82 83-90 90-108, and an Aramaic for the fifth,
i.e. the Parables, 37-71. It is very probable that the entire book
was translated early in the first century of the Christian era into
Greek. That the Semitic original was early lost is to be inferred
from the fact that no evidence of any kind testifies to its existence
after the birth of Christianity, whereas multitudinous evidence attests
the existence of the Greek version.
We may, therefore, safely relegate to the limbo of impossibilities
the hypothesis that chapters 37-71 of the Ethiopic version were
translated directly from the Aramaic.
' We have now to consider what Schmidt terms the most convincing
evidence of an Aramaic original ', i. e. the Ethiopic translations of
the term ' Son of Man '. The Ethiopic translation was made, as we
have just seen, from the Greek. Hence whatever explanation we
give of the three forms must be justified by a Greek retranslation.
This fact at once discounts any attempt to find a Greek prototype for
'Sguala 'gmahfijaw 'offspring of the mother of the living'. This
Ethiopic phrase is used indifferently as a rendering of avOpoiTroi, vJos
avOpwTTOv, avdpoiiroi, viol avOpunruiv, avrip. And the full form walda
'gguala 'gmahSjaw = wios ivOpwirov in Dan. T^^ Ps. 79^^, in Ezekiel
about ninety times, Rev. 1^^ 14^*, and in the Gospels always = o
vios Tov avOptiTTTov. In Itself the Ethiopic phrase can mean ' son of
man ' or ' the Son of Man '. But if the translator wished to make
it clear that the latter title was used, he could do so by prefixing
a demonstrative pronoun as a rendering of the Greek article o.
This
is done in every instance in the Parables save three. In the course
of eight verses in 89''^~'^ the Greek article is so rendered eleven
times.
Let us now examine the other two titles walda sab'S and walda
b'gsi. sab's distinctively = av^pwiros (though in a few cases
it := av-^p). Thus walda sab'S = vlbs dvOpdnrov. It can also = 5 vlb's
TOV dvOpmrov, but to make this unmistakable the translator could
prefix the demonstrative pronoun as the equivalent of 6.
Next comes walda b'gsi. b'gsi = dv-^p generally, but as Dillmann
{Lex. 519) puts it, it stands creberrime for avOpunroi. In fact in the
Ethiopic Version of our book it is used as a rendering of avOpwnros in
1^ 151. If more of the Greek version had survived we should no
doubt find many other instances.
The result of the above examination comes to this. The above