Gabriele Boccaccinibeen disrupted by the presence of evil. In my opinion, this is the reason why
there is no explicit anti-Mosaic polemic and, as Kvanvig says, "there is no
Enochic purity code, no Enochic Torah." The wisdom the Enochians received
prevented them from developing any competing halakah. Their revelation was
telling them that the world was not what it should have been.
Grant Macaskill emphasizes that "Enochic Judaism and Zadokite Ju
daism had actually much more common ground" than generally thought.^33
I think he is correct. Yet, this does not eliminate the Enochic nonconformist
attitude. Two groups that share the same priestly worldview and — ideally
— the same halakah may well find themselves at odds with each other. While
opposing the Zadokite leadership, the early Enochians were not competing
with Moses, they were merely complaining. They saw an illegitimate priest
hood serving in the temple and evil spreading on earth out of God's control.
Contrary to what the Zadokites claimed, they concluded that the Law of
Moses was not ruling on earth. As long as the Mosaic Torah was the law of
the Zadokite priesthood, any rapprochement was impossible.
The Maccabean revolt marked a turning point. Ironically, the tragic
events of those years helped strengthen both Enochic and Mosaic traditions.
On one hand, the collapse of the Zadokite order and the hardship of
the persecution confirmed the Enochic view that the world was profoundly
corrupted and evil. The legitimacy of the Zadokite priesthood relied essen
tially on their continuous success; their downfall proved their illegitimacy.
On the other hand, the Mosaic Torah underwent a radical transforma
tion from being the law of the ruling priesthood to becoming the national
law of Israel. "The greatness of the Maccabees was to present themselves not
as the leaders of a rival priestly family, as they were, but as champions of the
national tradition against the Greeks. ... It was through the experience of
the Maccabean revolt that the Zadokite torah became the Jewish torah tout
court as the essential element of Jewish national identity."^34 It was now possi
ble to be "pro-Mosaic" without being "pro-Zadokite."
The new situation opened the path to a process of rapprochement be
tween Enochic and Mosaic traditions, which is evident in many sources of
the period, including Enochic literature. The books of Daniel and Dream
Visions offer examples of texts where Mosaic and Enochic traditions are in
tegrated. But neither text produced a real synthesis.
- Grant Macaskill, "Priestly Purity, Mosaic Torah, and the Emergence of Enochic
Judaism," Hen 31, no. 1 (2009). - Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis, 91.