Textual and redactional aspects of the Book of Dreams - 1 Enoch 83-90

Abstract

The redactor of 1 Enoch 83-90 brings together two very distinct Enochian traditions: the Flood Vision and the Animal Apocalypse. Although each tradition reflects a social reaction to the threat of hellenization in the second century BCE, they offer radically different social constructions of the eschatological role of insiders and outsiders; presenting in the Flood Vision a spatial apocalyptic perspective with a strong deterministic outlook, and in the Animal Apocalypse a less deterministic perspective within a temporal apocalyptic framework. By bringing these two traditions together, the redactor creates a new text (the Book of Dreams), which reinterprets the apocalypse with the vision. Although redactional activity is not extensive in the Book of Dreams, it does indicate a later stage in the tradition history, a stage reflecting back upon the success of the Maccabean revolt.

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Social tensions and community self-defining processes typify the periods leading up to and following the Maccabean revolt in the second century BCE. Diverse reactions to both the cultural threat of hellenization and the success of the revolt are reflected within the redactional activity undergirding the Enochian traditions. Not only were these traditions influential upon the development of Jewish and Christian apocalyptic traditions, they also serve to give us insight into the relationship between social tensions and theological development. The very raison d'etre of redaction is to appropriate existing traditions, relocate them within an alternative social milieu, and thereby directly apply those newly worked traditions (as new literary products) to a different community context. While analyzing redactional activity, one must appreciate both the close relationship between social formation and theological developments, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the literary products that emerged from such activity. The Enochian traditions in 1 Enoch offer a helpful example of such a relationship, and raise issues as to the function of a redactor as author and the very nature of early Jewish and Christian texts.

The Book of Dreams is a composite of two distinct Enochian traditions, which have been tied together by the redactor of Book IV of 1 Enoch. The first independent section of the Book of Dreams is the vision of the Deluge (henceforth the Flood Vision), comprising chapters 83-84. The second is the Animal Apocalypse (chapters 85-90). Enoch scholarship has tended to focus on the other traditions embedded within 1 Enoch, notably the Book of the Watchers. Even within scholarly discussion of the Book of Dreams, the Flood Vision is normally dealt with superficially, and even then usually as a preamble to its larger counterpart, the Animal Apocalypse. Little work, to my knowledge, has been devoted to ascertaining the role of the redactor in bringing these two Enochian traditions together in Book IV, and this neglect is likely due, in part, to lack of appreciation of the relationship between these two sections. This article addresses the question of redactional activity, exploring the textual and redactional aspects of the Book of Dreams. Our study falls into three sections. First, we explore the textual aspects of the Flood Vision, and second, a detailed exploration of the narrative progression of the Animal Apocalypse will be offered. By walking through each tradition used by the redactor, we shall bring forth the distinct nature of each and thereby set the stage for section three, which analyzes the redactional activity used to tie these two traditions together. An important question to ask in closing will be whether our redactor is merely an editor or also plays the role of author through his redactional activity.

The independence of the two sections comprising the Book of Dreams is supported by both the form of each section and the voice shifts that the redactor makes. We also find that the Qumran fragments of 1 Enoch contain only sections of the Animal Apocalypse. Admittedly, there are only four short fragments 4Q[En.sup.e] 4 (= 1 En 89:31-37); 4Q[En.sup.d] 2i and 2ii (= 1 En. 89:11-14, 29-31); 4Q[En.sup.e] 41 and 4ii and 4iii (= 1 En 88:3-89:6, 7-16, 26-30); and 4Q[En.sup.f] 1 (= 1 En 86:1-3) (see Milik for translations and orthographical introductions to each fragment). These fragments hardly offer conclusive evidence that the Animal Apocalypse circulated (at least to Qumran) separate from the Flood Vision. The fragments comprise only a small portion of even the Animal Apocalypse, and even then mainly of chapters 88 and 89 (with only one fragment from chapter 86; see Davidson: 96). When we consider the internal evidence of form and voice shifts, however, the Qumran evidence helps to argue, cumulatively, for a separate circulation of these two sections.

Textual Aspects of the Flood Vision (1 Enoch 83-84)

The internal form of the Book of Dreams indicates that the two sections are very distinct. The Flood Vision contains a mythical representation of a dream. In this short vision, Enoch has a dream (83:3a), rather than a revelatory vision, of an eschatological disaster that is to come upon the earth, evidently the coming great deluge of Noachic traditions. The dream is very short, and merely filled with scenes of destruction: