The book of Enoch : translated from Professor Dillmann's Ethiopic ...

General Introduction. 21
merit of Jewish religious thought, and points to the Essene
and Zoroastrian elements which have found a place in it.
De Faye, Les apocalypses juives, Paris, 1892, pp. 28-33,
305-216.
§ 8. From a Hebrew Original through the Medium
of a Greek Translation.
Laurence and Hoffmann believed on various grounds that
the original was written in Hebrew. Jellinek (Zeitschr.
D.M.G., 1853, p. 249) argues for the same conclusion from
Hebrew fragments of Enoch which are preserved in various
Jewish writings. Din. (Buck Henoch, Einleit. li-liii) holds the
same view and urges in support of it the accurate knowledge
shown by the book of the localities round Jerusalem, the
intimate acquaintance of its writers with the Old Testament,
and that not through the medium of the LXX but directly
with the Hebrew, the frequent etymologies resting only on a
Hebrew basis and the Hebraistic style, which is so all per-
vading that there is not a single expression in the book which
does not readily admit of retranslation into Hebrew.
The evidence furnished by Din. is quite sufficient to esta-
blish a Hebrew original. And his conclusion has been further
and finally confirmed by Hallevi. This scholar. has retrans-
lated the entire book into Hebrew, and in the Journal Asiatique,
Avril-Mai, 1867, pp. 352-395, has proved his thesis to demon-
stration. There is much that is far-fetched and more
ingenious than true in this able article, yet none the less
its author has established his contention. As proofs of a
Hebrew original he adduces (1) frequent paronomastic expres-
sions possible only in Hebrew (see Crit. Note on vi. 6) ; (2)
Hebrew etymologies of proper names; (3) unintelligible
expressions rendered clear by reproduction in Hebrew.
This Hebrew original was first translated into Greek.
Portions of this translation still exist (see pp. 62-75, 83-85).
It was from this Greek translation that the Ethiopic version