3. Enoch’s Science
James VanderKam
[☞ p3.1] Enoch, so far as we know, was the first hero in the Jewish tradition with whom scientific material was associated. His area of scientific research and writing was astronomy, and an entire booklet containing his teachings on the subject has been preserved. The Astronomical Book of Enoch or the Book of the Luminaries survives on a series of fragments from four manuscripts found in Qumran cave 4 (4Q208-211)1 and to a greater extent though in a different form in a large number of Ethiopic copies. The Aramaic fragments preserve text in the original language of the composition; the Ethiopic version is a translation of a Greek rendering of the Aramaic. Virtually nothing of that intermediate Greek version is extant so it will play only a modest part in this essay.2
[☞ p3.2] Enoch’s scientific concerns—or, as they are presented in the texts, the revelation to him of scientific data—come to expression in other places than the Astronomical Book. For example, in the Book of Watchers (1 Enoch 1-36) he mentions teachings about some astronomical subjects (among others) by angels who sinned in the way they made the information available to people (1 Enoch 8). In the same booklet Enoch himself tours the cosmos and views its structures, but the overlapping sections (especially chs. 33-36) offer little that adds to the store of his understanding of the way the universe works. In the Book of Parables (1 Enoch 37-71) he again sees or names parts of the universe (41:3-8; 43-44; 59:1-3; 60:11-22; 69:13-25; 71:4) as he travels with angels, but in none of these passages, although they treat some of the same topics as the Astronomical Book, is there the sustained attention to the paths of the luminaries and the measure of their movements that one finds in the astronomical chapters.3
[☞ p3.3] Features of the versions in which the Astronomical Book has come down to us confront readers with a challenge in employing it for close study. The Aramaic copies are badly damaged so that only pieces have survived, usually small ones and ones often difficult to read. From the remains it appears that a systematic, list-like presentation of lunar data was at the heart of the composition. For date after date the texts record the time during which the moon was visible or invisible and the amount of the lunar surface that was illuminated or not illuminated. The Ethiopic manuscripts appear to preserve a complete composition, but the relation between the Ge‘ez text and the Aramaic is decidedly problematic. So, for example, the Ethiopic translation includes only an abbreviated version of the lunar material that appears to be so ample in the Aramaic text. Nonetheless, the two share a number of sections and traits so that one can draw some conclusions from the work.4
[☞ p3.4] The goal of this paper is to ask some basic questions about the nature of the science one finds in the astronomical work associated with Enoch: the data in it, the ways in which they are presented, and their sources. Once that material is before us, there will be consideration of broader issues in connection with ancient Jewish science, including the Astronomical Book of Enoch.
I. The Book Itself
[☞ p3.5] First let me furnish a sketch of what is contained in this earliest Jewish scientific work. Because of the differences between the two versions—the Aramaic and the Ethiopic—the parts they share will be the focus. Whatever its earliest shape may have been, at some point the work came to encompass several different elements, all encased in the literary frame of a father instructing his son, possibly in a testamentary situation (76:14; cf. 4Q209 23 1-2 and 4Q210 ii 14).
[☞ p3.6] A. Lunar data: Most of the extant text on the Aramaic fragments offers sections detailing the amount of light and the time of visibility the moon has each night throughout successive months. All the letters and words surviving from 4Q208 and everything on 4Q209 frgs. 1-22, 30-40 (?) fit into this category; there is also lunar material in other fragments, but it is not part of these particular sections (e.g., 4Q210 iii). It is as if an author has taken tabular data and written it in prose form. The lunar data are attested in highly truncated form in the Ethiopic version in 73:1–74:9; 78:6-17. In both versions the moon passes through a series of gates on the horizon; the gates are, as Otto Neugebauer showed,5 equal segments or arcs of the horizon. The gates are mentioned frequently in the Aramaic fragments, while the Ethiopic text says there are six on the eastern and six on the western horizon (e.g., 72:3). The highest ordinal with the noun gate in the Aramaic is sixth (see 4Q208 33 2), suggesting that the same structure underlies its data. In both versions the amount of the moon’s surface illuminated and darkened and the time of the moon’s visibility and invisibility are expressed in fourteenths: the Aramaic fragments speak of half seventh parts (cf. 4Q210 iii 6), and the Ethiopic uses fourteenth parts.6 The lunar data are coordinated with dates in the months. H. Drawnel has analyzed the lunar sections of the Aramaic fragments in great detail and concluded that the tables contain these details: for the waxing phase of the moon, they note: A. the time involved is at night, B. the time from sunset to moonset, C. the setting of the moon, D. the time from moonset to sunrise, E. from sunrise to moonrise, F. an equation (regarding the amount of light), and G. from moonrise to sunset. There is another pattern when the waning phase of the moon is under consideration.7
[☞ p3.7] The fact that both versions operate with fourteenths means that questions arise about the length of a lunation: does the system presuppose that a month lasts 28 days? There are a couple of places where treatments of the middle and the end of the month are almost preserved, but, typically, just where one would like a few more words, the fragments break off. For instance, in 4Q209 6 7-9 the writer describes the 28th of a month (the number is preserved entirely) and mentions that a half of a seventh part of the lunar surface is illuminated. During that night the remaining half of a seventh is obscured so that the moon is devoid of light, hidden with the sun. This is the last preserved line on the fragment (apart from a couple of letters in line 10) so that the treatment of the next day is lost. 4Q209 8 3 mentions night fifteen and apparently indicates that on the preceding night the moon was visible the full time; the next surviving letters (line 4) may refer to the sun and its course. See also 4Q210 iii 4 which speaks of the fourteenth day, while line 5 lists the fifteenth day and says its light is complete.8
[☞ p3.8] B. Solar data: The annual course of the sun, month by month, is the subject of the opening chapter in the Ethiopic version (ch. 72). There the sun, like the moon and stars, moves through the six gates on the eastern and western horizons during a year of twelve months. Each month consists of 30 days except numbers 3, 6, 9, and 12 that have a thirty-first day for a total of 364 days. Several times in the book the writer mentions that the year lasts 364 days and chides those who think it consists of 360 days only (see ch. 75; 82:4-8).9 The sun is less prominent in the surviving parts of the Aramaic version, but the noun occurs nine times. In one case, only the first letter of the word survives; for three or four of the remaining eight passages so little of the context is extant that no meaning can be gleaned from them. As for the better preserved sections one can tell that the writer spoke of the sun moving through various sections (4Q209 7 iii 1-2, 5) and that it goes back over the same course through which it had come (4Q209 7 iii 5). In addition, the text must have compared the number of days in a certain period measured by the sun with one measured by the moon because it says the moon has a lack or deficit in comparison with the sun (4Q209 26 3).10 It also deals with the relative movements of the sun and moon, as it mentions that the moon completely lacks light on its surface when it sets with the sun (4Q209 6 9). None of the Aramaic fragments evidences a text such as 1 Enoch 72 which is almost totally devoted to the annual path of the sun through the gates on the horizon.11
[☞ p3.9] C. Geographical data: Both versions contain a section regarding the twelve gates for the twelve winds, three in each of the four cardinal directions (1 Enoch 76; 4Q209 23 1-2; 4Q210 ii 1-10, 14; the number twelve for the gates is preserved on 4Q210 ii 14, as is the number four for the quarters or directions), and a unit about the four quarters of the earth and its seven great mountains (1 Enoch 77; 4Q209 23 3-10; 4Q210 ii [14]-20). These are sections in which there is a larger measure of overlap between the versions than in the lunar material, although there are many differences as well. Geographical sections in astronomical/astrological works are expected, as the sun, moon, and stars were thought to affect events in different places on the earth.12 Enoch’s astronomical work was influenced by such models but modifies them in a non-divinatory direction.13 The fact that in the booklet he receives revelations about astronomical topics from an angel would not have appeared strange in the ancient context where Enoch’s astronomical writing first appeared.
[☞ p3.10] D. Patterns: In all of these sections there are certain patterns that can be summarized as follows.
[☞ p3.11] 1. The laws governing the creation are unchanging.14
[☞ p3.12] a. 1 Enoch 72:1, a passage not reflected in the Aramaic fragments but entirely consistent with them, enunciates the point clearly: “The book about the motion of the heavenly luminaries, all as they are in their kinds, their jurisdiction, their time, their name, their origins, and their months which Uriel, the holy angel who was with me (and) who is their leader, showed me. The entire book about them, as it is, he showed me and how every year of the world will be forever, until a new creation lasting forever is made.”15 The principle of a stable world is one reason why most of ch. 80, which predicts the dissolution of the created order, is unlikely to be an original part of the booklet.
[☞ p3.13] b. The phenomena described in the booklet do not deviate from the course or pattern. For instance, the lunar data in the Aramaic fragments appear to be set, fully predictable lists. The numbers move by one-fourteenths (halves of a seventh) between zero and one; they never deviate. The same could be said for the solar data in the Ethiopic version and for the lunar material although it is only partially preserved and has a few difficult passages.
[☞ p3.14] 2. In line with its ideal, schematic character, the book frequently uses a small set of numbers: 3, 4, 7, 12, and 14:
[☞ p3.15] a. 3: Each season lasts three months (82:11), and each of the four cardinal directions has three gates through which three winds blow (76:1-3; cf. 4Q210 ii 1-10).
[☞ p3.16] b. 4: There are four cardinal directions and four parts of the earth (77:1-3 4Q209 23 3-9; 4Q210 ii [14]-19); there are also four seasons (and four additional days in the solar year in the Ethiopic version)
[☞ p3.17] c. 7: Though the week is not an important unit in either version, the solar year lasts exactly 52 of them; there are seven great mountains, rivers, and islands in the earth (77:4-8; see 4Q209 23 10; 4Q210 ii 20); the light of the sun is seven times that of the moon (72:36; 73:3; 78:4); and the Aramaic version speaks repeatedly of sevenths when dealing with the moon. Of course, Enoch himself was the seventh from Adam.
[☞ p3.18] d. 12: There are 12 months, 12 gates, six on each horizon, through which the sun, moon, and stars pass in their annual cycles (ch. 72); there are also 12 openings in the sun’s disc (75:4), 12 gates for the 12 kinds of winds, three in each of the cardinal directions (ch. 76; cf. 4Q210 ii 1-10).
[☞ p3.19] e. 14: There are 14 units of the moon’s surface that can be illuminated, and there are 14 units of time the moon is visible/invisible (e.g. 74:1-9; 78:6-17; see 4Q210 iii 3-9). Each of these corresponds with one date in the waxing and waning phases of the moon. (The solar day has 18 parts, but with 6 and 12 being the extremes [ch. 72].)
[☞ p3.20] 3. Observation: A repeated phenomenon in the more completely preserved Ethiopic version is Enoch’s observation of the data he describes. The same can be glimpsed for the Aramaic as well though to a lesser extent, perhaps due to its poor state of preservation. The angel Uriel reveals aspects of nature to Enoch, but the patriarch says repeatedly that he saw them—they were not simply dictated to him (see below for the references). There is no explicit mention of his actually being on a journey with Uriel in the astronomical work (in ch. 81 he is with seven angels but the chapter may belong to an editorial layer), though he may have been; otherwise he must have been located in a very special place to be able to see what he claims to have seen.
[☞ p3.21] The statements about observing or seeing the features concerning which he reports should be subdivided into two principal categories
[☞ p3.22] a. Enoch says that Uriel showed phenomena to him
[☞ p3.23] a book about the motions of the luminaries (72:1)
[☞ p3.24] the moon as it carries out its prescribed course, its positions and light (74:2)
[☞ p3.25] sign (= an extra day each season), seasons, year, days (75:3)
[☞ p3.26] 12 gates open on the disc of the sun’s chariot (75:4)
[☞ p3.27] a law regarding light from the sun that illumines the moon (78:10)
[☞ p3.28] all the laws, etc. of the stars (79:2)
[☞ p3.29] the luminaries (79:6)
[☞ p3.30] the luminaries, months, festivals, years, days (82:7) (cf. 80:1; 81:1)
[☞ p3.31] b. Enoch says he saw certain objects
[☞ p3.32] six gates (72:3)
[☞ p3.33] the law about the moon (73:1)
[☞ p3.34] another course and law (74:1: this example may clarify what is meant by seeing a law: “Another course and law I saw for it; by that law it carries out its monthly course.” Enoch sees the motions of the relevant heavenly body and perceives its law or has it revealed to him by observing that motion)16
[☞ p3.35] the relative positions of the sun and moon (74:9)
[☞ p3.36] chariots in the sky (75:8)
[☞ p3.37] twelve gates open for the winds (76:1)
[☞ p3.38] seven great mountains (77:4)
[☞ p3.39] seven great rivers (77:5)
[☞ p3.40] seven great islands (77:8)
[☞ p3.41] everything that precedes this point in the text (80:1) (cf. 81:2 where he looks at the heavenly tablets)
[☞ p3.42] c. For the sake of completeness, it should be noted that Enoch in turn shows the information to his son Methuselah
[☞ p3.43] I have shown you everything (all the material in 72-76? 76:14); it is also in the Aramaic (4Q209 23 1-2; 4Q210 ii 14)
[☞ p3.44] I have shown you everything (79:1); this too is reflected in the Aramaic (see 4Q209 26 6-7)
[☞ p3.45] I am telling you these things (82:1) (cf. 82:2; 81:5)
[☞ p3.46] The Aramaic copies preserve a few such references and certainly had room for others though the relevant parts on the manuscripts have not survived.
[☞ p3.47] At 76:14: Their prosperity and their interpretation I have sh[own. (4Q209 23 2)
[☞ p3.48] At 74:1 (?): ] another calculation I was shown17 for it that it went (4Q209 25 3)
[☞ p3.49] At 79:1: Now I am telling you, my son blank [ (4Q209 26 6)
[☞ p3.50] ?]a calculation he showed m[e
[☞ p3.51] Enoch claims to have seen a remarkable set of the world’s features, including ones at the ends of the earth. But is anything he claims to have seen implausible? Note that he nowhere asserts he saw an angel leading heavenly luminaries; the leaders of the stars in ch. 82 are never called angels and may simply be stars.
[☞ p3.52] E. Sources: A study of the astronomical booklet leads to the conclusion that Enoch’s scientific teachings are based, at least in large part, on two major sources: sections of the Hebrew Bible and an early form of astronomy that comes to expression in cuneiform works such as Mul.Apin and Enuma Anu Enlil 14.18
[☞ p3.53] 1. The Hebrew Bible: If one thinks of ancient science, even of early Jewish science, the Hebrew Bible does not spring to mind as a prominent source for such material. There is in it no composition or part of a composition that could be called scientific even with an elastic definition of the term (for definitions of the term, see the discussion below). This is not to say that no one during the biblical period did scientific work; it is merely to say that nothing recorded in the Hebrew Bible is a scientific composition.19 Qohelet could, in a sense, be an exception. The sage set up an experiment and tried to carry it out in a systematic, logical manner to arrive at a conclusion. As Michael Fox describes what he did, Qohelet used his reason to examine experience in order to produce knowledge. He wished to attain it through discovery, not simply to repackage prior knowledge. He thus went about investigating his world; his empirical argumentation proceeded from sensory experience with an emphasis on validation. He observed in order to gain knowledge and reported on his discoveries (using expressions such as “I saw,” “I realized”). For him there was no independent external standard. In this way Qohelet sought to produce knowledge that did not exist before and in a sense relativized that knowledge.20 But it would be difficult to label even Qohelet a scientific treatise.
[☞ p3.54] Though it contains no scientific treatises, the Hebrew Bible does include a number of statements that could serve as foundations for the development of a scientific outlook regarding aspects of the universe.
[☞ p3.55] a. Genesis: In Gen 1:1-2:4a God created an orderly universe in six days. The entire account reflects a simple classification of entities. For example, it divides between the plants and the fruit trees and separates the various kinds of beings into ones living in the waters, in the air, and on the land. Also, in its orderly approach, the creative work of God proceeds in an evolutionary manner, culminating in the fashioning of human beings, male and female. Each item in the creation has its own place and function. So the larger luminary rules the day, the smaller one the night, and humans control the rest of creation. There is no suggestion or hint that this orderly arrangement will ever change or end. A stable order is an important condition for the descriptive, classifying work of scientists, although they must also deal with what appear to be disruptions of that regularity.
[☞ p3.56] The next unit in the Priestly source is Genesis 5. Its genealogy rests on a chronological system that may be keyed to the date of the flood—a system whose development was perhaps a scientific pursuit in itself. The flood, a subject that dominates chs. 6-9, complicates matters because it nearly destroyed the order established in Genesis 1. In the sequel to the story of the deluge, there are foundational statements offering information that would allow the fashioning of a scientific worldview. According to the J account, the time after the flood will be characterized in this way: “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease” (Gen 8:22).21 The Priestly source approaches the matter somewhat differently. In Genesis 9, where creation language is repeated, the deity promises: “I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth” (9:11). The stability of the creation is restored and will not again be disrupted.
[☞ p3.57] It is clear from 1 Enoch 72-82 that the writer of the Enochic text knew and used Genesis 1, especially the passage regarding the creation of the heavenly lights on day four. So, for example, he designates the sun “the great light” (72:4, 35-36) and the moon “the smaller light” (73:1), and he refers to sign(s) in connection with the luminaries (72:13, 19; cf. 78:7 and 82:16, 19). Furthermore, 1 Enoch 75:3 and 82:7, 9-10 contain summary statements that take up several terms from Gen 1:14-19: times, days, years, set times, and rule.22
[☞ p3.58] b. Other passages regarding a stable created order: The writer of the Enochic work could have based his assumption about the unchanging character of the natural order on another series of scriptural passages, although he is not as explicit about this as he is regarding his use of Genesis 1. One is Jer 31:35-36 which not only expresses the idea but also uses a term important in 1 Enoch:
Thus says the Lord, who gives the sun for light by day and the fixed order [חקת] of the moon and the stars for light by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar—the Lord of hosts is his name: if this fixed order [החקים האלה] were ever to cease from my presence, says the Lord, then also the offspring of Israel would cease to be a nation before me forever. 23
[☞ p3.59] Earlier in the book, Jeremiah used the fixed order of nature as a platform for moral judgment on his contemporaries in a way that later became popular: “I placed the sand as a boundary for the sea, a perpetual barrier [חק עולם] that it cannot pass; though the waves toss, they cannot prevail, though they roar, they cannot pass over it. But this people has a stubborn and rebellious heart …” (5:22-23).24 The fixity of nature to which he appeals is in line with the impression given by Genesis 1 and the post-flood statements and would be congenial to a scientific outlook.
[☞ p3.60] These passages stand in contrast to ones that predict the dissolution of the natural order before the end arrives. In an interesting contrast to the Jeremiah sections just quoted, Second Isaiah was able to use the breakdown of the natural order in a positive fashion: “Lift up your eyes to the heavens,/ and look at the earth beneath;/ for the heavens will vanish like smoke,/ and the earth will wear out like a garment,/ and those who live on it will die like gnats;/ but my salvation will be forever,/ and my deliverance will never be ended” (Isa 51:6). The writer of the Enochic work clearly adopted the approach in the other series of texts.25
[☞ p3.61] 2. Mesopotamian sources: This is not the place to treat the topic in detail, but, as a number of scholars have shown over the last few decades especially, the science that comes to expression in the Astronomical Book of Enoch is beholden to a type of astronomy attested in sources such as Mul.Apin and Enuma Anu Enlil 14. In the former, there are close parallels to Enoch’s astronomy in some of the proportions (e.g., for times of light and darkness during the days in a year and in the linear progressions for the luminaries). The four tables in the latter provide interesting similarities with the lunar material in 1 Enoch. Tables A and B give data for each day of the month, and C and D cover an entire year, selecting just two dates for each month. The tables do not furnish exactly the same numbers as in Enoch’s work: in them all months have 30 days and the fractions are fifteenths. But they utilize the same linear progressions and schematic form, e.g., for the time the moon is visible/invisible in the sky. The basic linear patterns are of the same type in the two works.26
II. The Astronomical Book of Enoch and Ancient Science
[☞ p3.62] A. Science: Whether the material in the Astronomical Book of Enoch should be labeled science depends, of course, on what is meant by science. The authors of several papers in this volume have formulated definitions of the term. So, for example, J. Ben-Dov writes that it is “the systematic observation of natural phenomena in an attempt to describe their regularity and make sense of the irregularities. This attempt involves a specialization of knowledge, as well as the use of earlier scientific corpora by way of translation or accommodation.”27 In 2002 P. Alexander, in the context of dealing with Enochic booklets, wrote that
we can identify ‘science’ wherever we find a strong interest in understanding how the physical world works, provided three simple conditions are fulfilled: (1) There is an explicit or implicit assumption that nature is regular and is governed by immutable laws which are accessible to the human mind. (2) An attempt is made to produce a rational model of the physical world which reduces the bewildering complexities of natural phenomena to a small number of underlying primary elements, or to the operation of a small number of fundamental laws. (3) Explicitly or implicitly, a significant element of direct observation of the physical world is involved.28
[☞ p3.63] Adopting aspects of definitions such as these, it can be seen that the material in 1 Enoch 72-82 may be called science.
[☞ p3.64] 1. Systematic observation of natural phenomena that are assumed to operate according to consistent laws accessible to human understanding: As noted above, a presupposition of Enochic thought is that God has assigned the various parts of the created world specific laws that they obey without exception (unlike people). The patterns for the solar and lunar years do not change, as sun, moon, and stars always travel upon their assigned paths at the times prescribed for them. Those patterns Enoch learned from observation of phenomena and perhaps from instruction in their patterns—all directed by the angel Uriel.29 That is, the correct information is presented as being accessible to a human being despite the fact that he obtained it in a special way. The luminaries operate in a consistent fashion that can be described and charted. The writer also reduced something as complex as lunar motion to simple, obviously overly simple, patterns; he apparently did the same for the sun.
[☞ p3.65] 2. Use of earlier scientific corpora: Again as indicated above, the material in the Enochic work is based on more ancient sources containing similar information (especially the more primitive kind of astronomy in Mul.Apin and Enuma Anu Enlil 14, but with influence from scriptural texts), although the writer developed the inherited evidence in accord with his understanding of the way the world worked. It is reasonable to suppose he drew such information from works written in Aramaic, the language in which he himself was writing.30 I believe the astronomical booklet could have been written in the eastern diaspora where there would have been direct contact with the astronomical traditions known to us from Mul.Apin and Enuma Anu Enlil 14.31
[☞ p3.66] 3. Based on observation: One of the pervasive elements in 1 Enoch 72-82 and one attested in the Aramaic fragments as well is that Enoch saw or was shown the phenomena about which he wrote (see above). At any rate, that is how it is presented in the text.
[☞ p3.67] B. Purpose: All of this raises the question why the author wrote the Astronomical Book of Enoch. One reasonable suggestion is that priests would have had need for an astronomical compendium of information for calculating the times for festivals, new moons, and similar dates, although festivals are rarely mentioned in the booklet. As Drawnel has argued, the work could fall into the category of didactic priestly instruction:
The comparison between the Aramaic Levi Document and the Aramaic Astronomical Book helps explain the fragmentary text of the latter composition. The astronomical text that intends to calculate monthly moon illumination belongs to the priestly lore of didactic literature, in which simple arithmetical knowledge was used both for the sacrificial purposes and astronomical calculation. The didactic character of the Astronomical Book appears in the literary pattern of knowledge transmission according to which father/-teacher instructs his son/pupil and the vocabulary pattern of “showing” and “seeing” of the learned subject metaphorically refers to the didactic role of the teacher and student respectively.32
[☞ p3.68] Perhaps that is how we should view this science: as an attempt to produce something very schematic to provide basic knowledge to aspiring priests or others whose work would require some knowledge about the workings of God’s creation, especially the ways to measure time.33
[☞ endnote-chapter3-1] 1 Joseph T. Milik made available much of the evidence in preliminary form in his The Books of Enoch: Aramaic Fragments of Qumrân Cave 4 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), 273-297 with pls. XXV-XXX. Publication of 4Q208-209 was completed by Eibert J.C. Tigchelaar and F. García Martínez, “208-209. 4QAstronomical Enocha-b ar,” in Qumran Cave 4 XXVI: Miscellanea, Part 1 (DJD 36; J. VanderKam and M. Brady, consulting editors; Oxford: Clarendon, 2000), 95-171. Henryk Drawnel has now produced a thorough edition of the four Aramaic mss.: The Aramaic Astronomical Book (4Q208–4Q211) From Qumran: Text, Translation, and Commentary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).
[☞ endnote-chapter3-2] 2 Milik identified some Greek fragments as containing text from the Astronomical Book of Enoch (Joseph T. Milik, “Fragments grecs du livre d’Hénoch [P. Oxy. XVII 2069],” Chronique d’Égypte 46 [1971]: 321-348, especially 333-341); Randall Chesnutt has more recently examined the fragments and strengthened the case for identifying them as from the Enochic book: “Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 2069 and the Compositional History of 1 Enoch,” JBL 129 (2010): 485-505.
[☞ endnote-chapter3-3] 3 For comparisons of these sections with the Astronomical Book, see my survey in George Nickelsburg and James C. VanderKam, 1 Enoch 2: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch, Chapters 37-82 (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2011), 390-398.
[☞ endnote-chapter3-4] 4 See my analysis of the relation between the Aramaic and Ethiopic versions in 1 Enoch 2, 351-357.
[☞ endnote-chapter3-5] 5 “Notes on Ethiopic Astronomy,” Or 33 (1964): 49-71, especially 51-58.
[☞ endnote-chapter3-6] 6 There is too little left of the Greek version to be sure about the point, but it may preserve the same division into fourteen parts as in the Ethiopic version (see Chesnutt, “Oxyrhynchus Papyrus 2069,” 493-494).
[☞ endnote-chapter3-7] 7 Henryk Drawnel, “Moon Computation in the Aramaic Astronomical Book,” RQ 23/89 (2007): 3-41; see pp. 35-36 for the two tables. For a slightly revised version of the tables, see The Aramaic Astronomical Book, 243-259.
[☞ endnote-chapter3-8] 8 Drawnel (The Aramaic Astronomical Book, 285-290) discerns two patterns, one for months with the full moon on day 14 and one for months with it on day 15 (see also pp. 421-424). In 1 Enoch 74:10-16 there are 354 days in twelve lunations; 78:15-16 refers to six months of 30 days and six of 29.
[☞ endnote-chapter3-9] 9 There is ample Ancient Near Eastern evidence for a schematic year of 360 days, and the Enochic astronomy seems also to presuppose the same number as the gate system implies, although the author argues the year really does consist of 364 days. Whether the situation is to be explained as evidence for a redaction of an earlier form of Enochic astronomy (see the survey in J. Ben-Dov, Head of All Years: Astronomy and Calendars at Qumran in their Ancient Context [STDJ 78; Leiden: Brill, 2008], 32-37) or as an incomplete revision of the earlier system that was never part of the Astronomical Book would be difficult to determine. However one views the development, there is no denying that the gate system in relation to the annual movements of the sun fits a 360-day year better than the one of 364 days.
[☞ endnote-chapter3-10] 10 1 Enoch 74:10-16 compares the lengths of the solar and lunar years, but no Aramaic or Greek fragment corresponding with this section has survived.
[☞ endnote-chapter3-11] 11 Milik (The Books of Enoch, 273) thought the Aramaic form of the astronomical work may have included a “broad introduction (approximately equivalent to En. 72)”, but there is no trace of such a section in the surviving fragments.
[☞ endnote-chapter3-12] 12 See James VanderKam, Enoch and the Growth of an Apocalyptic Tradition (CBQMS 16; Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 1984), 52-75, 89-104.
[☞ endnote-chapter3-13] 13 The relation between ancient astrology and what looks more like astronomy to us is a complicated one. As Francesca Rochberg argues, even scribes of the highly technical astronomical works in the last centuries of cuneiform literature were committed to “tradition and the idea of the divine nature of knowledge” (The Heavenly Writing: Divination, Horoscopy, and Astronomy in Mesopotamian Culture [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004], 298; see her entire discussion on pp. 237-299). The same data were shared by the omen series and the more mathematical astronomical works, though they were applied to distinguishable ends. See also her comment (p. 96): “In a preliminary way, however, it might be suggested that, apart from the divinatory purpose of the omen series, the status of these series as systematically acquired corpora of ‘what was known’ justifies an identification as science.”
[☞ endnote-chapter3-14] 14 A similar view comes to expression in other Enochic works (see, for example, 1 Enoch 2:1–5:3; 69:13-25).
[☞ endnote-chapter3-15] 15 Translations of 1 Enoch are from Geroge W.E. Nickelsburg and James C. VanderKam, 1 Enoch: The Hermeneia Translation (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2012).
[☞ endnote-chapter3-16] 16 It seems unlikely that Uriel is showing Enoch information inscribed on the heavenly tablets. In 1 Enoch 72-82, those tablets are mention only in 81:1-2 where they have nothing to do with astronomical information. There are also strong reasons for thinking that ch. 81 is an editorial unit and not an original part of the composition (see VanderKam in Nickelsburg and VanderKam, 1 Enoch 2, 531-536).
[☞ endnote-chapter3-17] 17 For the passive form here, see the detailed discussion in the paper of Seth Sanders in this volume and Drawnel, The Aramaic Astronomical Book, 314-315 (he thinks it “denotes the mental process of studying and learning the astronomical computus” [315] ).
[☞ endnote-chapter3-18] 18 See Annette Y. Reed, “”Was There Science in Ancient Judaism? Historical and Cross-cultural Reflections on ‘Religion’ and ‘Science,’” SR 36 (2007): 467-476. She too speaks about the combination of exegetical and scientific inquiry.
[☞ endnote-chapter3-19] 19 One could consider the classification systems in various places in the Priestly source as scientific in nature; see Sanders’ paper in this volume.
[☞ endnote-chapter3-20] 20 Michael Fox, “Qohelet’s Epistemology,” HUCA 58 (1987): 137-154.
[☞ endnote-chapter3-21] 21 Biblical quotations are from the NRSV.
[☞ endnote-chapter3-22] 22 See James C. VanderKam, “Scripture in the Astronomical Book of Enoch,” in Things Revealed: Studies in Early Jewish and Christian Literature in Honor of Michael E. Stone (ed. E. Chazon, D. Satran, and R. Clements; JSJSup 89; Leiden: Brill, 2004), 93-97. In the same essay there is a treatment of Isa 30:26 which speaks about how, some day, “the light of the sun will be sevenfold” that of the moon (apparently). This is their relation according to 1 Enoch 73:3; 78:4. The verse is another important scriptural basis for parts of 1 Enoch 72-82, though it does not deal with the present order of nature (see pp. 97-103).
[☞ endnote-chapter3-23] 23 The term חק seems to lie behind some uses of Ethiopic śer‘at.
[☞ endnote-chapter3-24] 24 The passage is particularly interesting in that it speaks of a “fixed order” in connection with the sea which is elsewhere treated as a threat to that order (see Robert Carroll, Jeremiah: A Commentary [OTL; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1986], 187). See also Job 38-41, a section where the emphasis falls on human inability to understand parts of the creation.
[☞ endnote-chapter3-25] 25 In his essay “Enoch and the Beginnings of Jewish Interest in Natural Science,” in this volume, Philip Alexander distinguishes two attitudes toward the physical world in the wisdom tradition of the Persian period. One comes to expression in Job 38-41 where it is assumed that the ways of God in the physical world are beyond human understanding; the other is in Proverbs 8 where, one can infer, it is a good thing for humans to study the wisdom that created the world. The circles behind the Enoch tradition took the Proverbs 8 approach that corresponds with the one adopted in the series of passages (such as Genesis 1) surveyed above, though for Alexander the scriptural passages are not scientific in his sense of the word (240; for his definition of science, see below).
[☞ endnote-chapter3-26] 26 Detailed treatments of the subject include Matthias Albani, Astronomie und Schöpfungsglaube: Untersuchungen zum astronomischen Henochbuch (WMANT 68; Neukirchen: Neukirchener Verlag, 1994), 155-272; Ben-Dov, Head of All Years, 153-396; and Drawnel, “Moon Computation,” 3-41; The Aramaic Astronomical Book, 301-311.
[☞ endnote-chapter3-27] 27 See his paper in the volume.
[☞ endnote-chapter3-28] 28 “Enoch and the Beginnings of Jewish Interest in Natural Science,” 224.
[☞ endnote-chapter3-29] 29 Revelation of scientific data is not a misnomer in an ancient text, as we have seen. Alexander thinks the writers responsible for Enoch’s astronomical work appealed to revelation because “they were consciously attempting to domesticate within Jewish tradition a body of alien wisdom” (“Enoch and the Beginnings of Jewish Interest in Natural Science,” 232). An appreciable part of Enoch’s science derives from foreign sources, but why should such borrowing require a special literary framework—revelation by an angel—to “domesticate” it? Does Genesis resort to such a framework to introduce creation traditions or flood stories drawn from non-Israelite sources? The revelatory basis in the Astronomical Book is related to the exegetical tradition that Enoch spent time with the angels (Gen 5:21-24) and the further development that a being with a name like Uriel would be the one associated with information about the workings of the celestial lights. One should also object to Alexander’s proposal that an Enoch-Moses rivalry lies behind the revelatory framework—Enoch is associated with “a paradigm based primarily on science as opposed to one based primarily on law” for Moses (234). One can infer from some texts that Moses did not enjoy as high a status in the Enochic tradition as he did elsewhere (e.g., the Apocalypse of Weeks [1 Enoch 93, 91]), but if we confine our attention to the astronomical writing of Enoch it is inappropriate to claim that such a rivalry is present in the sense that the Enochic circle was trying to establish a new, scientific paradigm as opposed to one based on law. In Enoch’s book about the luminaries the focus is on the scientific evidence and nothing is said about covenant and the like. Whatever may have happened later, there is no indication in it of the conflict that Alexander describes. I do not know whether the Enochic people were trying to introduce a new scientific paradigm or were merely attempting to offer a fuller explanation of phenomena than Genesis and other parts of the Bible provide. That fuller explanation need have no implications for a worldview based on the Mosaic law. Alexander, it should be said, has in mind more than the Astronomical Book when he writes about a Moses-Enoch rivalry.
[☞ endnote-chapter3-30] 30 Alexander quite understandably proposes that the well-educated circles behind Enochic astronomy belonged to the scribal and priestly classes of society (“Enoch and the Beginnings,” 239).
[☞ endnote-chapter3-31] 31 See Albani, Astronomie und Schöpfungsglaube, 248-272; VanderKam, 1 Enoch 2, 383.
[☞ endnote-chapter3-32] 32 Henryk Drawnel, “Priestly Education in the Aramaic Levi Document (Visions of Levi) and Aramaic Astronomical Book (4Q208-211)”, RQ 22/88 (2006): 561-562; cf. 567. He adds that he finds it reasonable to think the booklet “was composed by a priestly teacher who intended to pass to his priestly students simple astronomical and calendaric notions vested in the garb of an angelic instruction” (567). Such practices parallel and were influenced by Babylonian models. His argument that the didactic context would also lead one to expect a section such as 1 Enoch 80:2-8 misses the point that these verses do not talk simply about a misunderstanding of astronomical laws by sinners but an actual breakdown in the natural order (see 562-565).
[☞ endnote-chapter3-33] 33 See also VanderKam, 1 Enoch 2, 359, 367-368.
