Enochic Judaism — a Judaism without the Torah and the Temple?cause they were not familiar with the plot created in the Deuteronomistic
tradition.
I am therefore hesitant to use the relation to the Torah at this early
point of the Enochic tradition as a touchstone for the relation between an
Enochic group and other parts of the Judean society. I think Nickelsburg is
basically right when he emphasizes that it is the special character of the
Enochic revealed wisdom that makes it different from Mosaic Judaism,
rather than the lack of the Torah, at least at this early point of the Enochic
writings.^32 As a special kind of combination of wisdom and eschatology, the
early Enochic writings belonged to a particular wisdom tradition. Only in
the later development of this tradition does it meet the Mosaic Judaism, as
we know it from for instance Neh 8-10, as a challenge.^33 At the beginning
there was created a master narrative of the rebellion in heaven with a plot
very different from the master narrative in Neh 8-10 and similar narratives
in the Priestly and Deuteronomistic traditions.
The Apocalypse of Weeks
The date of the Apocalypse of Weeks (1 En 93:1-10 + 91:11-17) has been se
verely discussed.^34 I am inclined to think it is a separate unit incorporated
into the Epistle of Enoch (1 En 92-105). Further, I think that the lack of any
reference to the Maccabean revolt points to an earlier date than this revolt.^35
Accordingly, the Apocalypse is the first text known that recounts the whole
history from proton to eschaton. In the narration Enoch predicts the whole
of history on the basis of what is written on the heavenly tablets. The real au
thor is to be found in the seventh of the ten weeks, thus forming the past his
tory from the first to the seventh week as vaticinia ex eventu and his future
- G. W. E. Nickelsburg, "Enochic Wisdom: An Alternative to the Mosaic Torah," in
Hesed Ve-Emet: Studies in Honor of Ernest S. Frerichs, ed. J. Magness and S. Gitin (Atlanta:
Scholars Press, 1998), 123-31. - This would be similar to the development in other wisdom traditions as they are
described by Sanders, with the difference that the Enochians never adopted the Mosaic To
rah in the way it was done in for instance Ben Sira; cf. J. T. Sanders, "When Sacred Canopies
Collide: The Reception of the Torah of Moses in the Wisdom Literature of the Second Tem
ple Period," /S/32 (2001): 121-36. - Cf. for a recent discussion, C. Berner, Jahre, Jahrewochen und jubilaen, BZAW 363
(Berlin: De Gruyter, 2006), 118-25. - Cf. Berner, Jahre, Jahrewochen und Jubilaen; Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 44of, 447-49.