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‘Who is this Son of Man?’
regarded as an authentic work of the prophet Enoch, ‘the seventh from Adam’, and thus included, along with Jubilees, in the Ethiopian Old Testament canon.
Though tiny fragments of the original Aramaic were discovered at Qumran, and substantial fragments in Greek (as well as smaller extracts in Latin, Coptic and Syriac) are extant, none of these preserves material from the Parables. An Ethiopic version remains our only witness to the text of the Parables. The Book of Enoch was in all likelihood translated into Ethiopic from a Greek exemplar, although Syriac cannot be entirely excluded, sometime in the Askumite period, i.e., sometime between the fourth and seventh centuries. Our earliest Ethiopic manuscript of Enoch, Lake Tana 9, dates from the early fi fteenth century.5 Thus approximately a thousand years of copying separates our earliest manuscript of the Parables from its introduction into Ethiopia, and the Ethiopic manuscripts contain ample evidence of textual corruption. Moreover, the Ethiopic text represents, in all likelihood, a translation of a translation.6 We cannot be certain whether the original language of the Parables, as opposed to the other portions of Enoch, was Aramaic or Hebrew; either way, we stand at two removes from 5. Other early manuscripts include EMML 7584 (late 15th), Paris Abbadianus 55
(15–16th), EMML 1768 (15–16th), EMML 2080 (15–16th), British Library Or. 485 (early 16th), and Berlin Or. Petermann II, Nachtrag 29 (16th). A handful of others date from the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries, but the majority belong to the eighteenth.
6. Maurice Casey ( The Solution to the ‘Son of Man’ Problem [LNTS, 343; London: T&T
Clark, 2007], pp. 95–97) argues that the Parables were translated into Ethiopic directly from the Semitic original, which he thinks was Aramaic. In fact, it is possible, but hardly probable, that the exemplar of the Parables was anything other than Greek. Greek was well known in the Aksumite kingdom, and the translators of the Ethiopic Bible worked primarily from Greek exemplars. By contrast, evidence for Syriac and/or Aramaic is slender at best. See M. A. Knibb, Translating the Bible: The Ethiopic Version of the Old Testament: The Schweich Lectures of the British Academy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 15–40. Moreover, Casey has also missed the signifi cance of a text like 1En. 46.1. The Ethiopic states that the son of man’s face was ‘full of grace like one of the holy angels’. It has been noted that the Aramaic fragments of 1 Enoch from Qumran avoid the term )k)lm (‘angel’) and prefer terms like Nyry(
(‘watchers’) and Ny#ydq (‘holy ones’), whereas the Greek fragments of 1 Enoch translate both these terms with a1ggeloi and tend to preserve e0grh/goroi (‘watchers’) for the fallen angels. See the excurses ‘The Watchers and Holy Ones’, in G. W. E. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1
(Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001), pp. 140–41. Since the Ethiopic behind 46.1
presupposes a1ggeloj, it follows that it is more likely a translation of a Greek Vorlage than an Aramaic (or Hebrew) one.
7. The Elect Son of Man of the Parables of Enoch 133
that original Semitic text of the Parables.7 Of even greater signifi cance is the fact that comparison of those portions of the Book of Enoch which are extant in Aramaic, Greek and Ethiopic reveal ‘evidence of editorial intervention’, that is, the Greek and Ethiopic versions are not simple translations of the Aramaic, but a reworking of the Aramaic text.8 Thus real care is required when working the Parables: We do not possess the original text and not insignifi cant evidence suggests that the text which we do have should be treated with a certain degree of caution.9
Within the text of the Book of Enoch, the Parables ( 1En. 37-71) form the second major division of the Enochic pentateuch coming after the Book of the Watchers (6-36) and before the Book of the Heavenly Luminaries (72–82), the Dream Visions (83–90) and the Epistle of Enoch (91–105).10 The Parables, however, are generally regarded as the last portion of the Enochic corpus to have been written. While the precise date of the Parables’ composition remains a matter of some debate, both Charles’ arguments for a date prior to 64 BC
and Milik’s arguments for ‘around the year AD 270 or shortly afterwards’ are now universally regarded as too early and much too late, respectively.11 Today 7. However, there is some limited, but not uncontroversial, evidence that the Ethiopic translators had access to a Semitic Vorlage, as well as the Greek. See E. Ullendorf, ‘An Aramaic
“Vorlage” of the Ethiopic Text of Enoch?’ in Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Studi Etiopici (Roma, 2–4 aprile 1959) (Rome: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, 1960), pp. 259–67; and M. A. Knibb, ‘The Date of the Parables of Enoch: A Critical Review’, NTS 25 (1978–79), pp. 345–59, esp. 351.
8. See M. A. Knibb, ‘The Book of Enoch or Books of Enoch? The Textual Evidence for 1 Enoch’, in Essays on the Book of Enoch and Other Early Jewish Texts and Traditions (SVTP, 22; Leiden: Brill, 2009), pp. 36–55, esp. 36–44. The quoted material comes from p. 44.
9. Cf. the conclusion of M. A. Knibb, ‘Textual Evidence’, p. 44: ‘Thus the relationship between the Ethiopic and Greek on the one hand and the Aramaic on the other is not that of straight translation, but is rather comparable to that between the Hebrew of the Massoretic Text of Jeremiah and the Hebrew text that served as the Vorlage of the Greek of Jeremiah.’
10. An Introduction (1–5) and two brief appendices, The Birth of Noah (106–107) and Another Book which Enoch Wrote (108), frame these fi ve sections. I use the term ‘Enochic pentateuch’ in the general sense that it is a fi ve-part work associated with Enoch, without meaning to imply that it was necessarily composed or edited in imitation or in competition with the Mosiac Pentateuch. Cf. also Knibb, ‘The Book of Enoch or Books of Enoch?’, p. 41, esp.
n. 23.
11. R. H. Charles, The Book of Enoch or 1 Enoch (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1912), pp. liv–lvi, 67; J. T. Milik, The Books of Enoch: Aramaic Fragments of Qumrân Cave 4 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), pp. 89–98, quoting p. 96.
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‘Who is this Son of Man?’
most would place the Parables at the turn of the eras,12 while a signifi cant minority would argue for later in the fi rst century AD.13 The question cannot be settled here; the issues are too many and too involved. One issue raised by Milik should be addressed, albeit briefl y. Milik pointed to the absence of any portion of the Parables among the 11 different copies of the Book of Enoch, or portions thereof, at Qumran. This fact is still cited from time to time, e.g.
by Michael Knibb, as a primary reason for placing the Parables after AD 70.14
This consideration loses much of its force, however, when it is remembered just how little text of the Book of Enoch, estimated to be about 5 per cent, has been preserved in the 11 Qumran manuscripts and when it is realized how many fragments from Qumran, ‘running into the thousands’, remain unidentifi ed.15
Other than this all too brief discussion, it will have to suffi ce for our purposes to record that no contemporary Parables’ scholar would stray outside of the years 34 BC to AD 135. The Parables, then, come either from just prior to Jesus 12. Cf. e.g. J. C. Greenfi eld and M. E. Stone, ‘The Enochic Pentateuch and the Date of the Similitudes’, HTR 70 (1977), pp. 51–65; M. E. Stone, ‘Enoch’s Date in Limbo; or, Some Considerations on David Suter’s Analysis of the Book of Parables’, in Boccaccini, Enoch, pp. 444–49; G. W. E. Nickelsburg, Jewish Literature between the Bible and the Mishnah (London: SCM, 1981), pp. 221–23; Nickelsburg, ‘Son of Man, ABD 6 (1992), pp. 137–50; Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1 (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2001), p. 7; J. H. Charlesworth, ‘Can we Discern the Composition Date of the Parables of Enoch?’, in Boccaccini, Enoch, pp. 450–68; G. Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis: The Parting of the Ways between Qumran and Enochic Judaism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), pp. 144–49.
Cf. also J. J. Collins, ‘The Son of Man in First Century Judaism’, NTS 38 (1992), pp. 448–66
and Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to Jewish Apocalyptic
Literature, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2nd edn, 1988), pp. 177–78, who would place the Parables in the early or mid-fi rst century AD.
13. E.g. Knibb, ‘The Date of the Parables’, who argues for the end of the fi rst century.
However, it is important to note that Prof. Knibb has recently gone on record to affi rm that while this late date makes sense, he ‘would not rule out other possibilities, particularly the case’ for the turn of the eras ‘made by George Nickelsburg’. Knibb, Essays, p. 6. Cf. also his
‘Messianism in the Pseudepigrapha in the Light of the Scrolls’, DSD 2 (1995), pp. 165–84, esp. 171.
David Suter, on the other hand, would place the Parables in the fi rst century before but
‘as close as possible to the fall of Jerusalem’. See D. W. Suter, ‘Enoch in Sheol: Updating the Dating of the Book of Enoch’, in Boccaccini, Enoch, pp. 415–43, citing 440.
14. Knibb, ‘The Date of the Parables’, p. 358.
15. Stone, ‘Enoch’s Date in Limbo’, p. 446.
7. The Elect Son of Man of the Parables of Enoch 135
of Nazareth and the emergence of the early Christian movement or are roughly contemporary with the latter.16
Milik’s case for a Christian provenance has proved no more persuasive than his arguments for a late date. As Michael Knibb has noted, ‘given the subject matter of the Parables it seems very hard to understand the absence of clear references to Christ if the Parables are Christian’.17 Forceful evidence that the original language was either Hebrew or Aramaic further strengthens the case for Jewish provenance.18 At the Third meeting of the Enoch Seminar, which was concerned with the Parables of Enoch, the 44 assembled Enoch specialists were at one point asked by the chair, Gabriele Boccaccini, if we could agree that the Parables were a Jewish, rather than a Christian, composition: Only 16. In another context I have argued for a date in the fi rst century BC. See D. D. Hannah,
‘The Book of Noah, the Death of Herod the Great, and the Date of the Parables of Enoch’, in Boccaccini, Enoch, pp. 469–77. My reasons for preferring the early date, which I still fi nd compelling, focus on (1) what I and a number of other scholars regard as a possible allusion to the events leading up to the death of Herod in 4 BC at 1En. 67.8-13, and (2) the fact that this passage occurs in the midst of what appears to be a long interpolation from a Noah Apocryphon ( 1En. 65.1–69.25). However, (3) it is only here in the Noah material that we encounter themes characteristic of the original text of the Parables. What are themes otherwise absent from the interpolated Noah material and characteristic of the original Parables doing in an interpolation? It would seem that the interpolator here brings his text up to date by referring to a well-known recent event, i.e. the death of Herod, and thereby ‘tips his hand’. If this is accepted, the interpolator must have been active roughly contemporary with 4 BC, but the material with which he worked, both the original Parables and the Noah Apocryphon, must be earlier.
17. Knibb, ‘The Date of the Parables’, p. 350.
18. Knibb (‘The Date of the Parables’, pp. 350–51) mentions two mistranslations and a Semitic idiom. First, 45.3 (‘On that day the Elect One will sit on the throne of glory, and will choose their works’) where the Ethiopic word for ‘to choose’ (
; xarya), is in all probability
a mistranslation of rxb, which in both Hebrew and Aramaic can mean either ‘to choose’ or
‘to test’; and, second, 52.9 (‘All these things will be denied and destroyed from the face of the earth’) in which the verb ‘to deny’ (
; keḥeda) does not fi t and is probably to be explained as a mechanical rendering of the Hebrew/Aramaic כחד ( kḥd; ‘to hide, to efface’). Finally, at various points throughout the Parables the Ethiopic word ( yabs; ‘dry ground’) is used,
instead of the more expected
( medr; ‘earth’), for the world. This recalls an idiom to be found in both Hebrew and Aramaic, and, thus, this choice of word is ‘more readily explicable’
if the Parables were written in either Semitic language than in Greek.
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‘Who is this Son of Man?’
R. A. Kraft held out that a non-Jewish provenance was a possibility.19 A work of Jewish provenance from the end of the fi rst century would still provide valuable insights into the Judaism which served as the matrix in which early Christian ideas developed (cf. the use made of 4 Ezra and 2 Baruch by New Testament scholars). Of course, if the Parables date from the turn of the eras or early in the fi rst century, their signifi cance would be even greater. Either way, the dismissal of the Parables which followed Milik has now been rejected. No one can hope to come to terms with the New Testament ‘Son of Man’ without some understanding of the Parables of Enoch.
There also remains real disagreement over the Sitz im Leben of the Parables within Second Temple Judaism. Perhaps most would regard the Parables as a non-sectarian product of ‘common Judaism’, to borrow a term of E. P. Sanders.20
Others of us would still wish to see ‘the righteous and elect ones’, with whose vindication the Parables are preoccupied, as a sectarian subset within Second Temple Judaism. However that debate is settled, it is clear that, in the words of John Collins, ‘the major focus of [the Parables] is on the destiny of “the righteous and chosen” and their wicked counterparts’.21 Succinctly put, the group behind the Parables, whether or not they should be classed as a sect, regarded themselves as ‘the righteous and the elect’. Their adversaries were ‘the kings and the mighty’, i.e., those who possessed political power when the Parables were composed. The principal concern of the Parables is to assure the faithful that despite appearances God will one day intervene, and at the resurrection and fi nal judgement their faithfulness would be rewarded, while ‘the kings and the mighty’ will be dispatched to Sheol.
Finally, something must be said about the complicated problems surrounding the composite nature of the Parables and the latter’s structure. It has 19. According to David Suter (‘Enoch in Sheol’, p. 427, n. 51), in a private conversation Kraft suggested ‘that before settling for a Jewish provenance and a pre-70 dating, the possibility of a Gnostic context needed further exploration’. I was not privy to that conversation, but I remember well the question concerning provenance put by Boccaccini and the almost complete unanimity – the only time we came as close to universal assent over any of the issues regarding the Parables.
20. See esp. the case made by Pierluigi Piovanelli, ‘“A Testimony for the Kings and the Mighty Who Possess the Earth”: The Thirst for Justice and Peace in the Parables of Enoch’ and Daniel Boyarin, ‘Was the Book of Parables a Sectarian Document? A Brief Brief in Support of Pierluigi Piovanelli’, in Boccaccini, Enoch, pp. 363–79 and pp. 380–85, respectively.
21. Collins,
Apocalyptic Imagination, p. 181.
7. The Elect Son of Man of the Parables of Enoch 137
long been recognized that within the text of the Parables we fi nd extraneous material which differs to no little extent from the rest of the Parables. Most of this extraneous material concerns not Enoch but Noah, and is probably to be explained as deriving from an otherwise unknown Noah apocryphon.
R. H. Charles identifi ed 54.7–55.2; 60; and 65.1–69.25 as fragments of a Book of Noah. Not all would follow him in every detail, but there is no question that at least parts of chapter 60 and most, if not all, of 65.1–69.25 are Noahic, rather than Enochic, in character and that 64.1–69.25 interrupts the narrative of 63.12
and 69.26-29. It is generally agreed that this material is to be regarded as a later interpolation into the text of the Parables and that it may well come from an otherwise lost Book of Noah.22 Other passages may also be interpolations, most notably chapters 42 and 70–71. We will have occasion to return to the latter in due course. For now, it will be suffi cient to remark that all of this material (42; 54.7–55.2; 60; 65.1–69.25 and 70–71) must be treated with caution.
While all of it belongs to the fi nal form of the text, at l
east the Noahic material is quite disruptive and should not be given the same weight as the rest of the Parables.
The Elect son of man
Nomenclature
As intimated above, the eschatological mediatorial fi gure of the Parables is variously termed the Righteous One (
[ ṣādeq]), the Messiah or Anointed
One (
[ masih]), the Elect One (
[ xeruy]) and the (or that) son of man
(
[ walda be’si];
[ walda sab’] and
[ walda ‘eg w āla ’emma-ḥeyāw]). It hardly needs to be remarked that two of these terms correspond to the preferred nomenclature for the group behind the Parables. The group regarded themselves as the righteous (
; ṣādeqān)
and elect (
; xeruyān). It is, therefore, not surprising in the least that they 22. Cf. the recent treatments of Nickelsburg and Knibb and the responses to them in Boccaccini, Enoch: G. W. E. Nickelsburg, ‘Discerning the Structure(s) of the Enochic Book of Parables’, pp. 23–47; M. A. Knibb, ‘The Structure and Composition of the Parables of Enoch’, pp. 48–64; L. T. Stuckenbruck, ‘The Parables of Enoch according to George Nickelsburg and Michael Knibb: A Summary and Discussion of Some Remaining Questions’, pp. 65–71 and B. G. Wright, ‘The Structure of the Parables of Enoch: A Response to George Nickelsburg and Michael Knibb’, pp. 72–78.
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‘Who is this Son of Man?’
referred to their champion as both the Righteous One (
; ṣādeq) and the
Elect One (
; xeruy). The fi rst two titles are the least frequent, occurring twice each: Righteous One at 38.223 and 53.6,24 Messiah at 48.10 and 52.4.
That the Hebrew and Aramaic חישׁמ ( mašiḥa) could be used of the Messiah, of course, requires no defence, but at least Luke, in the New Testament, also treats
‘the Righteous One’ as a messianic title (Acts 3.14; 7.52; 22.14).25 Both go back to the Old Testament Scriptures, and the Parables’ use of them presupposes considerable preoccupation with the text of Scripture. It is, however, the other two designations, the Elect One and son of man, which predominate in the Parables. Elect One appears no less than 16 times,26 while the three Ethiopic phrases rendered ‘the (or that) son of man’ together occur 14 times.27 The latter two designations are clearly those preferred by the author(s), but the four complement one another and to a certain extend are interchangeable with one another. Note, for example, how Righteous One and Elect One are combined at 53.6. In the same way, righteousness is said to characterize the Elect One at 39.6
Who Is This Son of Man Page 20