ENOCHIANS, URBAN , QUMRANITES: THREE SOCIAL GROUPS, ONE INTELLECTUAL MOVEMENT

Gabriele Boccaccini University of Michigan, United States

1. Introduction

Ten years have passed since I rst presented at the 1995 meeting of the Italian Biblical Association at L’Aquila, and then at the 1997 Princeton Symposium on the , what is now known as “the Eno- chic-Essene Hypothesis.”1 I picked this term, hypothesis, very seriously. The value of a hypothesis lies primarily not in its power of persuasion but rather in the lasting capability of making the scholarly community re ect on a possible way of reassembling proven yet scattered pieces of evidence within a broader framework to form a new picture of a familiar scene. A hypothesis always goes beyond accepted paradigms and in its most challenging perspectives even dares to be provocative and controversial, provided that it remains consistent to its methodological, philological and historical premises (iuxta sua propria principia). While contributing at large to the contemporary renaissance of Enochic studies, the Enochic-Essene Hypothesis has drawn attention speci cally to two related, yet distinct phenomena, that is, “the Enochic roots of the community” and “the parting of the ways between Qumran and Enochic Judaism.” A virtually ignored topic, such as the relationship between Enochians, Essenes and Qumranites, has quickly become one of the crucial issues in the research of Judaism. Along with the publication of the proceedings of the Second Seminar (“Enoch and Qumran Origins”) and of the rst volume

1 Both papers were published shortly afterwards: G. Boccaccini, “E se l’essenismo fosse il movimento enochiano? Una nuova ipotesi circa i rapporti tra Qumran e gli esseni,” RSB 7/2 (1997) 49–67; and Idem, “The Origins of Qumran in Light of the Enoch Groups,” in The Hebrew Bible and Qumran, ed. J. H. Charlesworth (N. Richland Hills: Bibal, 2000) 63–92. See then G. Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis: The Parting of the Ways between Qumran and Enochic Judaism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998). 302 gabriele boccaccini of George Nickelsburg’s comprehensive commentary on 1 Enoch,2 four recent contributions (by David Jackson, Eyal Regev, Paolo Sacchi, and John Collins, respectively) seem to me the most relevant and challeng- ing for an update of the Enochic-Essene hypothesis.3 These important developments are a much welcome invitation to revisit, clarify and, when necessary, correct some aspects of my hypothesis and highlight its potential for future research.

2. The Methodological Dilemma; or, From Communities of Texts to Intellectual Movements and Social Groups

A methodological question has resurfaced consistently in the scholarly debate of these years—How can we move from “books” to “people” or from “communities of texts” to “communities of people”? A book is a book, not an intellectual movement or a social group. With Martin Goodman, we all agree that “it is unwarranted and misleading to treat each text and author as if it or he constituted a separate Judaism.”4 But as George Nickelsburg reminds us, “texts are historical artifacts, created in time and space, by real human beings”5 We have to look at ancient documents not only as a possible source of

2 See G. Boccaccini, ed. Enoch and Qumran Origins: New Light from a Forgotten Connection (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 2005) 327–435; and G.W.E. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1: A Com- mentary (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001). The volume Enoch and Qumran Oringins includes contributions by an international group of 47 specialists, who attended the Second Enoch Seminar in Venice (1–4 July 2003). The fth section of the volume is entirely devoted to a discussion of the Enochic-Essene Hypothesis with articles by David W. Suter, Annette Y. Reed, John J. Collins, Jeff S. Anderson, James R. Davila, Corrado Martone, Pierluigi Piovanelli, John C. Reeves, William Adler, James C. VanderKam, Benjamin G. Wright III, Paolo Sacchi, Torleif Elgvin, and Claudio Gianotto, followed by a response of the Author.. 3 See the books of David R. Jackson (Enochic Judaism: Three De ning Paradigm Exem- plars, London: T&T Clark International, 2004), and Paolo Sacchi (Regola della Comunità, Brescia, Paideia, 2006), and the articles of Eyal.Regev (“From Enoch to John the Essene: An Analysis of Sects Development in 1 Enoch, Jubilees, and the Essenes,” in New Perspectives on Old Texts, ed. E. Chazon, et al. [Leiden: Brill, 2006]) and John J. Collins in the present volume. 4 M. Goodman, “ and Variety in First-Century Judaism,” Proceedings of the Israel Academy of Science and Humanities 7.6 (2000) 201–213 (here 202). Seth Schwartz’s statement that “Boccaccini has generally adopted bad habits shared by Neusner and some scholars of assuming that books correspond to groups, or Judaisms,” (S. Schwartz, Imperialism and Jewish Society, 200 BCE to 640 CE, Princeton: , 2001, 81) must be excused as a polemical blunder, as it is far removed from the principles of my methodology. 5 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 2.