Beyond the Essene Hypothesis: the Parting of the Ways between Qumran and Enochic Judaism (review)

Hebrew SllIdies 44 (2003) 273 Reviews BEYOND THE ESSENE HYPOTHESIS: THE PARTING OF THE WAYS BETWEEN QUMRAN AND ENOCHIC JUDAISM. By Gabriele Boccaccini. Pp. xxii + 230. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Willirun B. Eerdmans, 1998. Paper, $25.00. In this imaginative and well-written book, Boccaccini seeks to specify the identity of the Essene movement and its relationship to the Qumran community of the Dead Sea by constructing a literary history of texts that represent "Enochic Judaism," a movement within second temple Judaism distinct from the Zadokite Judaism that predominated until the Maccabean revolt. It is this Enochic Judaism that gave rise to the Essene theology characteristic of many of the Qumran texts. In part I, "The Essenes in Ancient Historiography" (chap. 2), Boccaccini distinguishes between the depictions of the Essenes by the Jewish authors Philo and Josephus, who describe a diffuse network of Essene communities throughout Palestine, and the non-Jewish authors Pliny the Elder and Dio of Prusa, who describe a single Essene settlement near the Dead Sea. Boccaccini concludes that the historiographical record shows that the community of the Dead Sea described by Pliny and Dio was a radical and minority group within the larger Essene movement described by Philo and Josephus, who were more interested in major trends of Jewish theology and society than in its peculiar and sensational manifestations. In part 2, (chap. 3, "The Prehistory of the Sect," chap. 4, "The Formative Age," and chap. 5, "The Schism between Qumran and Enochic Judaism"), Boccaccini presents a "systemic analysis" of "middle Judaic" texts that is based on the theory that there was a schism within the Judaean priesthood between Zadokites loyal to Mosaic traditions and a nonconformist priestly party loyal to the revelations of Enoch that traced the origin of evil and impurity to a primordial angelic rebellion rather than to an ancient act of human disobedience. The history of this priestly movement, rooted in "Enochic Judaism," is revealed in the "Enochic chain of documents" found at Qumran: I) its prehistory as a distinctive movement within middle Judaism is attested in the Book of the Watchers, the Astronomical Book, and the Dream Visions of I Enoch as well as Aramaic Levi, 2) its formative communal organization as an "established movement" (p. 75) following the demise of Zadokite leadership after the Maccabean crisis is attested by the book ofJubilees, the Temple Scroll (II QTemple), the Proto-Epistle of Enoch, and the Halakhic Letter (4QMMT), 3) its emergence as a distinct group led by the teacher of righteousness is attested in the Damascus Document, and 4) its settlement as a schismatic sectarian group at Qumran is attested in The Community Rule (I QS), the Thanksgiving Hymns (I QH), the War Scroll (lQM), the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice (4Q400-407). and the pesharim Hebrew Studies 44 (2003) 274 Reviews (I QpHab, 4QpNah). This "systemic" analysis of texts leads to the same result as historiographic analysis and-according to part 3 (chap. 6, "Comparative Analysis" and "Conclusion: The EnochiclEssene Hypothesis")-confirms the hypotheses of many contemporary scholars: "the community of the Dead Sea Scrolls was a radical and minority group within Enochic Judaism" (p. 162), while the mainstream Enochians (reflected in 2 Enoch, the Apocalypse of Abraham, 4 Ezra, and the Lives of Adam and Eve) comprised the wider non-Qumranian Essene movement described by Philo and Josephus. What Boccaccini has in effect described is a sequence of fascinating but conceivably related religious innovations that he typifies as an "Enochic Judaism" that began to take shape somewhere in the fourth or third century B.C.E. Other than its appeal to the figure of Enoch and to a distinctive account of the origin of evil, it is a rather iII-defined movement: "we do not know exactly who the Enochians were" (p. 78). Indeed "a major problem is given by the absence in Enochic literature of any detailed reference to the communal life of the Enochians" (p. 166). In other words, the existence of such a movement is a matter of conjecture, an imaginative typologicalhistorical construct designed to explain the similarities and differences between the Qumran community and its literature and what we know about the Essenes. On the basis...