Preface: The Enigma of Jubilees and the Lesson of the Enoch Seminarxv(Australia, Canada, Denmark, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary,
Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, South Africa, the United
Kingdom, the United States of America, and the Vatican), veterans or new
comers of the Enoch Seminar, who for the occasion were asked to contribute
to our understanding of the document in its original historical and literary
context.
An impressive number of twenty-eight papers (those here published)
were submitted and circulated in advance. They were discussed at Camaldoli
in plenary sessions and small groups, and then revised for publication. In
addition, nineteen short papers were presented. Edited by Pierpaolo
Bertalotto and Todd Hanneken, they have been published separately in a
companion issue of the journal Henoch (vol. 31, no. 1, 2009).
Special thanks go to all the distinguished specialists for contributing to
this volume, to Giovanni Ibba (University of Siena) for his expert support in
the editing process with the precious assistance of Jason von Ehrenkrook,
James Waddell, and Jason Zurawski, to J. Harold Ellens, Todd Hanneken,
and Isaac Oliver for their hard and skillful work as secretaries of the Enoch
Seminar, to the Department of Near Eastern Studies of the University of
Michigan and to the Michigan Center for Early Christian Studies for their
loyal and generous sponsorship, and last but not least, to Eerdmans for pro
ducing this third volume in collaboration with the Enoch Seminar, follow
ing Enoch and Qumran Origins: New Light on a Forgotten Connection (2005)
and Enoch and the Messiah Son of Man: Revisiting the Book of Parables
(2007).
As in the previous meetings of the Enoch Seminar (Florence 2001,
Venice 2003, and Camaldoli 2005), the debate at Camaldoli 2007 could not
avoid repeatedly returning to the very same question: "How distinctive was
Enochic Judaism?" John J. Collins, one of the leaders of the Enoch Seminar,
recently addressed the question in an article in Meghillot: Studies in the Dead
Sea Scrolls V-VI; A Festschrift for Devorah Dimant, edited by M. Bar-Asher
and E. Tov (Haifa: University of Haifa; Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 2007), ""17-
*34. While concluding that indeed "Enochic Judaism reflects a distinctive
form of Judaism in the late third/early second period" (""33), Collins high
lighted the major points of controversy among second temple specialists.
What was Enochic Judaism: a militant opposition party, a competing form
of Judaism, or a mystical school whose frame of interest was simply some
thing other than the Mosaic Torah? Were the authors of this literature "dissi
dent priests" or something else? The uncertainties that surround the defini
tion of Enochic Judaism affect and complicate its relation with Jubilees and