Notes on the Greek Texts of Enoch

Abstract

THE AIMT of the following notes is twofold: first, to restore the true meaning, and as far as possible the original (Semitic) form, in passages known to be obscure and presumably corrupt; second, to establish finally-that which has not hitherto been established-the original language of the book in each of its parts. The procedure is determined by the problem. It is necessary first to collect the passages which as they stand are mere nonsense and to examine them closely; wherever then the requirement of the context is clear (a most important condition) and the source of the difficulty can be definitely located, especially where the trouble clearly lies in a single word, there is always a fair prospect of solving the riddle by conjecturing the underlying Semitic text. The requirements are strict. The Semitic word conjectured in any case must be such as would naturally have been employed; it must account perfectly for the Greek rendering; to be accepted as final it must be the evident solution of the difficulty which had been recognized. If the proposed interpretation of the word, or of the clause, is forced, the conjecture is not worth making. It sometimes happens that the proffered solution postulates a faultily written original text. Semitic scribes, like other scribes, made their slips in copying; and since their texts contained no vowels, any alteration of the consonant frame would be likely to make a serious change in the sense. Such conjectures, always precarious, must meet severe tests if they are to be accepted. It is necessary that the scribal error should be recognized as natural, that the faulty reading should explain the Greek, and that the precise form of the clause containing the restored original reading should be evident. Since the vocabulary of Aramaic so often coincides with that of Hebrew, some easily recognized mistranslations are found to give no help toward settling the question between the two languages. In the majoritv of cases, however, such as are presented in the following pages, the essential differences stand out in a way to permit no possible question. It will appear plainly, from the evidence set forth, that in all parts of the book alike only one language can be considered as the original, and this language is Aramaic, not Hebrew. The demonstration may serve to correct some erroneous ideas as to the use of the former literary medium in Palestine in the last centuries B. C. The Book of Enoch was very nearly an unknown quantity until the Ethiopic version was brought from Abyssinia by the famous African traveler James Bruce in 1773 and published by Richard Laurence in 1838. It was readily seen that the Ethiopic text was a translation from Greek; whether the Greek itself was a translation, was matter for conjecture. In the absence of any external testimony, or of Church tradition, it was at first the prevailing opinion that Greek was the original language. Some doubted this, in view of the nature of the book and especially of its obviously Palestinian features, and were inclined to think of a Hebrew Enoch. This opinion was given powerful support by two noted scholars in the middle of the nineteenth century. August Dillmann, who edited the Ethiopic text in 1851 and translated it, with a commentary, in 1853, and Joseph Halevy, who published his essay in the Journal Asiatique in 1867, argued ably and in detail for a Hebrew original of the whole book. What they actually succeeded in demonstrating was that the Greek is a translation, a faithful rendering of a text which was Semitic but not necessarily Hebrew. A few preferred to believe that the original was Aramaic, while still others clung to the theory of a Greek composition. The discovery of the Gizeh Greek and its publication by M. Bouriant in 1892 brought a new and most important element into the critical problem. Many things which had been guessed at could now be established. The status of critical opinion at that time in regard to the original language of the book is perhaps best illustrated from the works of R. H. Charles, whose publications of the Enoch material hold a place of first importance. In his translation and commentary, The Book of Enoch, 1893, he printed the Gizeh Greek in an Appendix, but declared (p. 5) that he had not been able to give it any thorough study. On page 325 he says: I have treated the question of a Hebrew original as one now practically settled. In the case of