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The Ethiopic Book of Enoch: A new edition in the light of the Aramaic Dead Sea fragments, Volume 2: Introduction, Translation & Commentary PDF

266 Pages·1978·11.78 MB·English
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Preview The Ethiopic Book of Enoch: A new edition in the light of the Aramaic Dead Sea fragments, Volume 2: Introduction, Translation & Commentary

THE ETHIOPIC BOOK OF ENOCH A NEW EDITION IN THE LIGHT OF THE ARAMAIC DEAD SEA FRAGMENTS BY MICHAEL A. KNIBB IN CONSULTATION WITH EDWARD ULLENDORFF INTRODUCTION, TRANSLATION AND COMMENTARY 1978 OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS Oxford University Press, Walton Street, Oxford 0x2 6DP OXFORD LONDON GLASGOW NEW YORK TORONTO MELBOURNE WELLINGTON IBADAN NAIROBI DAR ES SALAAM LUSAKA CAPE TOWN KUALA LUMPUR SINGAPORE JAKARTA HONG KONG TOKYO BELHI BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS KARACHI ISBN O 19 826163 2 © Oxford University Press 1978 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press Printed in Great Britain at the University Press, Oxford by Vivian Ridler Printer to the University CONTENTS ABBREVIATIONS vi INTRODUCTION I 1. Previous Editions of the Ethiopic Text of Enoch i 2. The Aramaic Fragments of the Book of Ejioch 6 3. The Greek Version of the Book of Enoch 15 4. The Ethiopic Version of the Book of Enoch 21 5. The Versions Underljring the Ethiopic Text of Enoch 37 6. A Note on the Translation 47 BIBLIOGRAPHY 48 LIST OF SIGLA 53 TRANSLATION 55 REFERENCE INDEX 253 AUTHOR INDEX 259 ABBREVIATIONS HTR Harvard Theological Review J A Journal asiatique J AOS Journal of the American Oriental Society JBL Journal of Biblical Literature JES Journal of Ethiopian Studies JSS Journal of Semitic Studies JTS Journal of Theological Studies NTS New Testament Studies PL Patrologia Latina RB Revue biblique RRAL Rendiconti delta Reale Accademia dei Lincei (Classe di Scienze Morali, Storiche e Filologiche) RSE Rassegna di Studi Etiopici SAB Sitzungsberichte der Deutschen (Preussischen) Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin ThBl Theologische Blatter ZAW Zeitschrift fur die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft ZDMG Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlcindischen Gesellschaft ZNW Zeitschrift fiir die Neutestamentliche Wissenschaft INTRODUCTION I. Previous Editions of the Ethiopic Text of Enoch^ THE importance of the Ethiopic version of Enoch lies to a great extent in the fact that, although we now possess substantial por tions of Enoch in a Greek form and fragments of Enoch in an Aramaic form, it is only in Geez that an entire version of this work has survived. Until a few centuries ago little was known about the Book of Enoch, and the short Greek excerpts in Syncellus, cover ing 6. i-io. 14 and 15. 8-16. i,^ provided the only source of infor mation. A report of the existence of an Ethiopic version of Enoch reached Europe in the seventeenth century, ^ but modem know ledge of this book really dates from 1773, the year in which the traveller James Bruce returned from Ethiopia and brought with him three manuscripts of Enoch.'^ Two of these manuscripts (Bodl 4 and Bodl 5)5 are now in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, while the third (Paris 32), a specially prepared copy of Bodl 5, was given by Bruce to Louis XV and is now in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris. The first edition of the Ethiopic text of Enoch, published by R. Laurence in 1838,* consisted of a transcript of one of the manu scripts brought to Europe by Bruce, namely Bodl 4; Laurence had earlier published an English translation of Enoch based on the same manuscript.' During the course of the nineteenth century ' Useful summaries of nineteenth-century work on the text of Enoch are to be found in A. Dillmann, Das Buck Henoch, Leipzig, 1853, pp. Iviiff., and J. Flemming and L. Radermacher, Das Buch Henoch (Die griechischen christ- lichen Schriftsteller der ersten drei Jahrhunderte s)> Leipzig, 1901, a f., 12 f. (These two works are hereafter referred to as Dillmann, Translation and Flemming, Translation.) In this section I confine myself only to the more im portant works on Enoch. ' For details see Section 3 below. ' Cf. Flemming, Translation, a. * On Bruce cf. E. Ullendorff, The Ethiopians, 3rd edn., Oxford, 1973, n-13. 5 The sigla used for the Ethiopic manuscripts are listed in full in Section 4 of the Introduction, those for the Greek manuscripts in Section 3, and those for the Aramaic in Section 2; a complete list of sigla is also provided immediately before the translation of Enoch. However, it is hoped that in general the sigla are self-explanatory. ' R. Laurence, Lihri Enoch Versio Aethiopica, Oxford, 1838. ' R. Laurence, The Book of Enoch the Prophet, Oxford, iSai; 2nd edn. 1832 (1833); 3rd edn. 1838. 826163 B a INTRODUCTION many more manuscripts of Enoch were brought to Europe, but when, in 1851, Dillmann issued the first critical edition of the text,* he was still only able to make use of five (Bodl 4, Bodl 5, Frankfurt MS., Curzon 55, and Curzon 56). Despite this, his edition (to gether with the German translation which he published in 1853)' remains of considerable value. A fresh impetus to the study of the text was provided by the dis covery at Akhmim in the winter of 1886/7, and the publication in 1892, of a manuscript containing a Greek version of Enoch 1-32,'° and the years between 1892 and 1912 were marked by a not in considerable concern with the text of Enoch. Dillmann himself published an article devoted to the Akhmim manuscript" in which he gave also some collations of three Ethiopic manuscripts in the Abbadian collection;'^ this article is still of considerable value and interest, although in one or two cases Dillmann was misled by the somewhat unsatisfactory initial publication of the Greek manu script. R. H. Charles, who had already been working on the text of Enoch, was able to use the Akhmim manuscript in the English translation of Enoch which he published in 1893 ;'3 for this trans lation Charles made use not only of the five Ethiopic manuscripts which had been available to Dillmann in 1851, but also of nine other manuscripts which had in the meantime been acquired by the British Museum (BM Add. 24185, BM 485, BM 484, BM 486, BM 490, BM Add. 24990, BM 491, BM 492, and BM 499). Charles argued that BM 485 and (to a lesser extent) BM 491 represented a text somewhat older than that found in the five manuscripts used by Dillmann or in the other British Museum manuscripts, and he accordingly based his translation largely on BM 485. A second, much revised, edition of this translation appeared in • A. Dillmann, Liber Henoch Aethiopice, Leipzig, 1851 (hereafter Dillmann, Text). ' See note i above. For details see Section 3 below. " 'Uber den neugefundenen griechischen Text des Henoch-Buches', SAB 1892, 1039-54 and 1079-92. " Dillmann uses the sigla d, e, and f for these manuscripts (cf. SAB 1892, 1046), but does not further describe them. However, Dillmann's d = Abb 197, e •= Abb 35, and f = Abb 55 (cf. Flemming, Translation, 3). R. H. Charles (The Book of Enoch, 2nd edn., Oxford, 1912, xv) appears to suggest that Dillmann gives collations of Berl not Abb 197, but an examination of Dillmann's evidence relating to 10. 7 and 31. i makes clear that Dillmann's d = Abb 197. " R. H. Charles, The Book of Enoch, Oxford, 1893. PREVIOUS EDITIONS 3 1912.''* Besides this English translation of Enoch, German transla tions were pubHshed by Beer in and Flemming in 1901,'* while a French translation was published by Martin in 1906. "7 But perhaps more important from our immediate point of view was the publication of two editions of the Ethiopic text, by Flenmiing in 1902"* and by Charles in i9o6.'9 Flemming knew of twenty-six Ethiopic manuscripts of Enoch, and made direct use of fourteen of these for both his edition and his translation. More precisely, he himself collated nine manu scripts (BM 485, BM 491, Ryl, Berl, Abb 35, Abb 55, Abb 99, Abb 197, and Munich ^o),^ but took over from Dillmann's text- edition of 1851 the latter's collations of Bodl 4, Bodl 5, Frankfurt MS., Curzon 55, and Curzon 56. Flenuning made only sparing use of the collations of BM Add. 24185, BM 484, BM 486, BM 490, BM Add. 24990, BM 492, and BM 499 which had been given by Charles in his translation of 1893, on the grounds that these manu scripts contained a text which agreed essentially with that of the five manuscripts used by Dillmann in his text-edition of 1851. For the same reason he made no use at all of Abb 16, Abb 30, Vat 71, Paris 114, and Paris 32.^' Flemming rightly recognized that the Ethiopic manuscripts of Enoch fall into two groups. Group I con sisting of the older manuscripts BM 485, Berl, Abb 35, and Abb 55, together with BM 491, and Group II consisting of all the other manuscripts." Flemming noted that the readings of Group I " R. H. Charles, The Book of Enoch, 2nd edn. This edition of the work is hereafter referred to as Charles, Translation. '5 G. Beer, 'Das Buch Henoch', Die Apokryphen und Pseudepigraphen des Alten Testaments, Tubingen, 1900, ii. 217-310 (hereafter Beer, Translation). See above, note i. Cf. also the translation of P. Riessler in Altjiidisches Schrifttum ausserhalb der Bibel, Augsburg, 1928, 355-451, 1291-7. " F. Martin, Le Livre d'Henoch, Paris, 1906 (hereafter Martin, Translation). Das Buch Henoch, Athiopischer Text herausgegeben von J. Flemming (Texte und Untersuchungen, neue Folge, vii. i), Leipzig, 1902 (hereafter Flemming, Text). " R. H. Charles, The Ethiopic Version of the Book of Enoch (Anecdota Oxoniensia, Semitic Series xi), Oxford, 1906 (hereafter Charles, Text). ^° For the Abbadian manuscripts Flemming relied in part on collations made by A. Meyer. 2' Paris 32 is the copy of Bodl 5 given by Bruce to Louis XV. " Note that in practice Flemming's Group II = Bodl 4, Bodl 5, Frankfurt MS., Curzon 55, Curzon 56 (i.e. the manuscripts used by Dillmaiui) plus Ryl, Abb 99, Abb 197, and Munich 30, a total of nine manuscripts. But Flemming also ascribed to this Group the seven British Museum manuscripts (BM Add. 24185, BM 484, BM 486, BM 490, BM Add. 24990, BM 492, BM 499) and the 4 INTRODUCTION frequently agree with the Greek against those of Group II, and based his edition and translation on the Group I manuscripts; like Charles, he regarded BM 485 as the most important and best manuscript. Flemming's collations of BM 485, BM 491, and Berl are, as Charles indicates,^^ not entirely accurate, but, apart from this, Flemming's text-edition and translation are in many ways the most convenient and helpful of the tools hitherto available for the study of Enoch, since Flemming's judgement on textual matters was often more sensible than that of Charles. The major difference between the editions of Flemming and Charles is that the latter provides a larger number of textual variants than the former. This increase is partly, but not entirely, the result of the use of manuscripts ignored by, or unknown to, Flemming. In fact, Charles knew of twenty-eight manuscripts of Enoch, and made direct use of twenty-two.^ He himself collated sixteen manuscripts (BM Add. 24185, BM 485, BM 484, BM 486, BM 490, BM Add. 24990, BM 491, BM 492, BM 499, Berl, Abb 35, Abb 55, Vat 71, Munich 30, Garrett MS., and Westenholz MS.), but, like Flemming, took over from Dillmann's text-edition of 1851 Dillmann's collations of Bodl 4, Bodl 5, Frankfurt MS., Curzon 55, and Curzon ^6;^^ he likewise took over from Flemming the latter's collations of Ryl (which, however, he used only sparingly). In addition to the evidence which Charles gives from these twenty-two manuscripts he occasionally also gives readings from two other manuscripts, Abb 99 and Abb 197; Charles apparently took these readings from Flemming's text-edition. Charles thus left completely out of account only four manu scripts: Abb 16, Abb 30, Paris 114, and Paris 32. These four were also left out of account by Flemming, and in view of the indica tions of the age and character of the manuscripts there can be little question that Charles and Flemming were right to ignore them.^* five other manuscripts (Abb 16, Abb 30, Vat 71, Paris 114, Paris 32) which he did not use. 23 Text, p. xxvi. ^* Charles gives these figures as twenty-nine and twenty-three because he counts BM 48sa, the duplicate version of 97. 6b-io8. 10 which is to be found in BM 48s, as a separate manuscript. " Cf, Text, pp. xviii, xxv. On Paris 114 cf. H. Zotenberg, Catalogue des manuscrits ethiopiens {gheez et amharique) de la Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, 1877,47: 'Le texte de cette copie pr^sente la mSme redaction que tous les autres exemplaires connus de cet ouvrage; les le9ons s'accordent, tantot avec celles de I'un, tant6t avec celles de I'autre des cinq mss. d'aprfes lesquels a 6t€ imprim6 le texte public par M. Dillmarm.'

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