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Daniel C. Olson
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Among scholars of 2 Enoch, Francis Andersen’s verdict stands as firmly today as it did more than 40 years ago: “All attempts to locate the intellectual background of 2 Enoch have failed.”1 One does not have to read very far into the secondary literature on this apocalypse to discover that to this day it is still considered an oddity, a misfit. A big part of the problem in placing the book in space and time, we are told, is that 2 Enoch “has no interest in history.”2

The present study is an admittedly audacious attempt to put an end to the “enigma”3 of 2 Enoch. If it seems disinterested in history, it is only because the book is not interested in the history we have assumed it would be interested in if it were interested in history, and that is because we have assumed the book is Jewish or Christian, when it is neither. It was authored by a Samaritan, and it reflects Samaritan theology and concerns throughout. Once this is recognized, interpreting 2 Enoch is not particularly difficult. Composed most likely in the first century CE, its context is the sectarian controversies within Samaritanism during that era. It was most likely written in a center of Samaritan learning, probably Shechem (or possibly Sebaste).

The “2 Enoch” of this study is for the most part the 2 Enoch of the short recension, which more faithfully reflects the original book. The long recension bears witness to a later version contaminated by additions and alterations.4 The goal of the original author was to incorporate the Enochic tradition into Samaritanism in order to combat the Dosithean heresy and also to persuade his co-religionists to resume a full sacrificial cultus in the sacred meadow next to old Shechem, in the shadow of Mt. Gerizim. In order to do this, the author presented Enoch as the past and future “prophet like Moses” (Deut 18:15, 18), a figure of central importance in Samaritanism.

1

Francis I. Andersen, “2 (Slavonic Apocalypse of) ENOCH,” in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Volume 1: Apocalyptic Literature and Testaments, ed. James H. Charlesworth (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1983), 95 (henceforth “Andersen, OTP 1”).

2

So Andersen (OTP 1:91). Böttrich agrees: “The book lacks all national or messianic ideas. It is definitely not interested in history at all.” Christfried Böttrich, “The ‘Book of the Secrets of Enoch’ (2 En): Between Jewish Origin and Christian Transmission. An Overview,” in Andrei Orlov, Gabriele Boccaccini, and Jason M. Zurawski, eds., New Perspectives on 2 Enoch: No Longer Slavonic Only (SJS 4; Leiden: Brill, 2012), 37–67 (quote, 58).

3

Referring to Andersen’s much quoted line, “In every respect 2 Enoch remains an enigma,” words which have become almost a mantra among students of 2 Enoch (OTP 1:97).

4

Although it remains broadly true that the manuscripts divide into two main recensions, and scholars still find it convenient to speak of them in this way, there is admittedly more nuance to the categories and textual relationships than this. Some prefer to speak of four categories (short, very short, long, very long), although the “long/very long” distinction may be questioned. See Grant Macaskill, The Slavonic Texts of 2 Enoch (SJS 6; Leiden: Brill, 2013), 9–35. Among the longer MSS, R deserves special attention as the oldest known text. (Throughout this study, Macaskill’s sigla for 2 Enoch MSS are used, most of which have long been standard.).

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