Helge S. Kvanvigthe Enochic Sinaitic law had another content than the Mosaic one. Enoch
would, nevertheless, have joined the Mosaic discourse.
However, enough Aramaic text survives in 4Q201, ii, 11-13 to restore a
quite reasonable Aramaic wording of the passage in the transition from 1 En
5:3 to 5:4: "year [after year his works do not change], they carry out his word.
However, you have changed your works [and do not carry out his word.. .]."
The key words are here 13137, "work," and "IBNO, "word, speech, command."
There is a direct link in terminology between the word of God that nature
follows in its work and the same word of God that the sinners change in
their work. The concept is God's rule in nature, as it is perceived in creation
hymns; cf. Pss 33:4-15 and 148:5-13. Of special interest here are two occur
rences of me'mar in the Targum of Job, both related to God's rule in nature.
In 11Q10, xxviii, 9 it circumscribes Hebrew "71p, God's "voice" (Job 37:2); in
xxxiii, 8 it translates Job's "mouth," HS, in the rhetorical question whether
Job can be compared with God in power (Job 39:27). Thus me'mar is no
technical term for law that implies a reference to the Torah on Sinai; it is a
reference to the cosmic order that according to Enoch should rule both na
ture and human lives.
The examination of the Book of the Watchers points in two different direc
tions concerning the temple and the law. There are enough reasons to sup
pose that the scribes of this book were critical toward the temple. It is no
surprise that the temple is of concern since it is the basic institution of Judah
that should interest scribes with priestly ambitions. The critical attitude is,
however, not presented in open polemic. The critic works in a more subtle
way, as we have described in the relation between master narrative and
counterstory. Especially tricky here is the plot created in 1 En 12-16 where the
Watchers were cast in the roles of priests who had lost their purity in the
same manner as the people in stories of penitence, but were denied forgive
ness and placed under condemnation.
The question of the Torah is different. As far as I can see, there is no
reference to a Mosaic Torah revealed on Sinai at all. This could be seen as a
deliberate denial of its legitimacy. But this would be a conclusion ex silentio.
There is a considerable difference between the temple as the basic institu
tion and the Torah of Moses as a literary construct, known from Neh 8-10
and the redaction activity in the formation of the Pentateuch and the
Deuteronomistic Work of History. The silence about this Mosaic Torah
could therefore rather be disregarded, because it had not yet gained broad
authority. For the oldest part of the book it could even be ignorance, be-