The Book of Enoch

manuscripts that were available to them, but for the Book of Enoch, there are no such indications. On the contrary, all the changes and deviations of the younger recension can be explained and understood here without difficulty only from the Ethiopic, as a glance at the list above shows (cf. especially 5, 6. 10, 17. 14, 21. 19, 1. 21, 7. 22, 3. 26, 3. 89, 43. 99, 7), and as the critical apparatus for the Ethiopic text will prove on every page.

Yet the list teaches us something else as well, namely that the two groups only rarely stand in opposition to one another in a united fashion. Often, one or two representatives are missing from Group I, which then side with Group II; indeed, in some cases, only a single manuscript is on the side of the Greek referring to the Greek source text while all others stand on the opposite side. On the other hand, representatives of II occasionally join Group I, though certainly much more rarely and in small numbers. It should also not be concealed that a few times—I count 5 cases: Chap. 2, 1. 6, 6. 8, 3. 9, 1. 14, 3—Group II agrees with the Greek against I, but these are only trifles or slips of the pen through which the meaning is in no way affected, so that the observation made above remains fully valid.

The most important manuscript HS abbreviation for Handschrift/manuscript is G, incidentally the same Codex Orient. Oriental Codex 485 of the British Museum, which also provides the most excellent textual witness for the Book of Jubilees.¹⁾ G is the best representative of the older textual form, because it has preserved it relatively the most purely. It is certainly not without flaws; we encounter quite a few inaccuracies, oversights, and textual corruptions in it, which, however, can be easily recognized and also corrected with the help of the other representatives of I.²⁾

The fragment G^a, encompassing Chap. 97,6^b—108,10, which is inserted into G, likewise belongs to the first group. However, it differs not only from G itself but also from MQT and U through a series of peculiarities, of which the most striking is the use of the 1st person in Chap. 103,9—15 as opposed to the 3rd person in all other traditions. It is also not impossible that Chap. 91,8—97,6^a, which follow the inserted piece, originate from the same exemplar as this, for here too the text is of rather inferior quality and is characterized by many omissions, just like G^a.³⁾

1. Charles, Eth. Version of the book of Jubilees, Oxford 1895 p. XIII.
2. Charles sometimes overestimates G and mistakes writing errors for important readings, e.g., 41, 9. 69, 12. 81,6. Cf. also the review of his book by Dillmann in the Theol. Literaturzeitung Theological Literary Newspaper 1893 p. 442 ff.
3. I cannot concur here with the view of Charles (p. 266) and thus...