The Book of Enoch

certainly not all changed, but by far the majority were, and all corrections are not to be viewed as deteriorations; rather, a number of quite obvious errors have been improved by them. As between G and M, there are also a number of points of contact between T and U, especially small peculiarities of word order, which point to a common basis. It is also noteworthy that especially in the last part, where U becomes almost unusable, T usually already has the late readings in the text itself.

The manuscripts of the second group, which are entirely very young, thus represent the Vulgata the common or widely used version as it has shaped itself over time; only a few, primarily AVWY, have preserved an old reading here and there. None requires a special characterization; such individualities as in Group I do not occur among them. But despite all similarity, there are still so many small peculiarities in word forms, word order, omissions, and so much change in the characteristic errors that, of the 9 manuscripts I have examined precisely, none can be traced back to another with certainty.

From the previous explanations, it emerges that an edition of the Ethiopic text must first rely on Group I. If the representatives of I do not agree, one will give preference to that reading which has support in the Greek, provided that the latter itself is in order. In the case where the Greek and the Ethiopic differ from each other, the Ethiopic must first be given a hearing, provided there is undoubtedly no inner-Ethiopic corruption. If its reading gives a meaning, it is to be retained; if it gives none, it is nevertheless to be communicated for the time being, and the correct version is to be added in parentheses, for we want to become acquainted with the Ethiopic textual tradition alongside the Greek, and indeed as it is, not as it should be. The matter becomes more difficult where the control by the Greek is missing and Group I is divided within itself; there, one can only decide from case to case; by and large, G will be the safest guide. However, it would be folly to want to ignore Group II entirely when constituting the text; despite all "improving corruptions," the correct version can sometimes be hit upon, or better said, preserved, and in grammatical respects, it deserves the most decided attention. Occasionally, conjecture¹⁾ can also help; it is...

1. A large number of astute conjectures are provided by Jos. Halévy: Recherches sur la langue de la rédaction primitive du livre d'Énoch Research on the language of the primitive redaction of the Book of Enoch in the Journ. asiat. Sér. VI Journal Asiatique, Series VI