Annette Yoshiko Reed
mained fluid for quite some time, and even authoritative books circulated in
different text-traditions.^34
It may be more apt to approach the mid-second century B.C.E. as a
moment in the prehistory of the biblical canon, marked by diversity and dy
namism.^35 Even if all Jews accepted the authority of the Pentateuch by then,
it is likely that they — like Jews and Christians long after them — held a
broad range of different opinions about the precise nature of its authority,
the scope of knowledge that could be gained from it, its status in relation to
other Israelite/Jewish books, and its status in relationship to non-Jewish
books.
In my view, the contrast between "Zadokite Judaism" and "Enochic Ju
daism" proves helpful insofar as it forces us to take seriously the full range of
our extant evidence, as now expanded by the Dead Sea Scrolls. There is no
doubt that the scholarly model proposed by Boccaccini also pushes us to
seek a new understanding of texts traditionally dismissed as "Old Testament
Pseudepigrapha" and what they might tell us about the religious landscape
of second temple Judaism. His theories expose the methodological problems
involved in assuming, even after the Qumran discoveries, that there was a
single "normative" or "mainstream" Judaism in second temple times from
which rabbinic Judaism developed and from which Christianity broke. In
addition, the very idea of "Enochic Judaism" represents a bold — and neces
sary— challenge to the often unquestioned assumption that the Pentateuch
held an exclusive or central position for all Jews in second temple times.
Nevertheless, it may be telling that Jubilees itself — as our most ex
plicit early evidence for the acceptance of Enochic books — presents the
Book of the Watchers as consonant with the Pentateuch and reads the two as
supplementary accounts of earthly events as interpreted from a heavenly
perspective. In the narrative portions of Jubilees, we see some hints that the
text of the Pentateuch is granted a level of authority not granted the text of
the Book of the Watchers.^36 Yet Enochic models are arguably more central
for the text's overarching depiction of textual authority, its angelic media
tors, and its human agents.^37 Jubilees' depiction of angels and fallen angels
draws heavily on Enochic models. Yet it transforms these models by subor-
- Himmelfarb, "Torah," 28-29.
- J. C. VanderKam, From Revelation to Canon: Studies in Hebrew Bible and Second
Temple Literature, JSJSup 62 (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 1-30. - I. van Ruiten, "A Literary Dependency of Jubilees on 1 Enoch?" in Enoch and
Qumran Origins, 90-93. - Kvanvig, "Jubilees," esp. 260.