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Enoch and Jubilees in the Canon of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church*

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Enoch and Jubilees in the Canon of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church* ENOCH AND JUBILEES IN THE CANON OF THE ETHIOPIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH* Leslie Baynes Traditionally the Ethiopian Orthodox Church has numbered eighty- one books in its biblical canon. Often, but not always, its canon lists include 1 Enoch (Ge‘ez Henoch) and Jubilees (Ge‘ez Kufale), making it the only community in modern Christendom that holds them in such high regard. Since these two books are part of the living tradition of a contemporary religious group, we have a unique opportunity to investigate how they function in it by speaking with the very people who use them. This study investigates the Ethiopian concept of canon and the place and function of 1 Enoch and Jubilees in it as assessed by scholarly and ecclesiastical works. We also consider the perspectives of clergy and laity in Ethiopia and the United States in order to illus- trate, underscore, and contrast the evaluation of these writings with those of the standard textual sources.1 This study demonstrates that the Ethiopian concept of canon differs from western and even other eastern Christian traditions, and that the primary readers of 1 Enoch and Jubilees traditionally have been the scholarly elite, as is true of their readers today. In terms of interpretation, the primary (though not the only) significance of the two books in Ethiopian thought has been christological. It may be helpful to begin with a very brief overview of Enochic literature and Jubilees and their reception in the early church, both Western and Eastern. Enochic booklets and Jubilees are ancient Jewish works. The earliest sections of what became 1 Enoch date to the fourth century b.c.e.2 Jubilees can be dated more precisely, probably to about * Jim VanderKam’s contributions to the study of 1 Enoch and Jubilees need no elaboration here. Those of us who follow him are mere Epigoni. It is to Jim that many of us, his students, owe our continued interest in these two books, and it is through his generous and patient instruction that we are able to study them in Ge‘ez. On this happy occasion, Jim, cheers! 1 I wish to thank the College of Humanities and Public Affairs, Missouri State Uni- versity, for partial funding to travel to Ethiopia in March 2010. 2 George W. E. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1 (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 2001), 1. In contrast to western critical scholarship, “traditional Ethiopian scholarly opinion 800 leslie baynes 160–150 b.c.e.3 The earliest extant fragments of both, in Aramaic and Hebrew, respectively, were discovered in the caves of Qumran in the mid-twentieth century. The yaḥad at Qumran may have granted Eno- chic literature and Jubilees the same status as Genesis, although it is important to note that statements about the “canonicity” of any book are lacking in the Dead Sea Scrolls.4 While Jubilees’ influence in the ancient world was limited, Eno- chic literature was quite popular at least to the time of Augustine in the Western Church and somewhat later in the Eastern Church.5 The Book of Jude (vv. 14–15), for instance, quotes 1 En. 1:9 verbatim and is familiar with the Watchers story.6 Since Jude would eventually find a place in the New Testament canon, its citation of Enochic literature proves important in later disputes about the status of these writings. The Epistle of Barnabas introduces an allusion to Enoch’s works with the formula “for scripture says (Λέγει γὰρ ἡ γραφή).”7 Justin Martyr uses the Book of the Watchers and to a much lesser extent Jubilees in his Second Apology; Irenaeus does the same in Against Heresies.8 Tertullian and Origen employ Enochic literature extensively, but both admit that not everyone holds it in the same esteem as they do. Tertul- lian launches a spirited defense of the authority of Enoch’s work to counter its naysayers, relying, among other things, on the fact that Jude used it.9 Origen expresses more ambivalence. As George Nickels- burg writes, “He considers [the works of Enoch] to be the authentic products of the patriarch and cites them as Scripture; however, he also indicates that others in the church do not hold this opinion.” Origen seems content to rest in that ambiguity; he does not defend the writ- regards Enoch and Job as the first O.T. books to be written, dating En. in 4014 b.c.” Roger W. Cowley, The Traditional Interpretation of the Apocalypse of John in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church (University of Cambridge Oriental Publications 33; Cam- bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 15. 3 James C. VanderKam, The Book of Jubilees (Guides to Apocrypha and Pseude- pigrapha; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), 21. Traditional Ethiopian schol- arship takes the Mosaic context of Jubilees at face value. 4 See VanderKam, The Book of Jubilees, 7; cf. James C. VanderKam, The Dead Sea Scrolls Today (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 153–156; James C. VanderKam and Peter Flint, The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 2002), 172–181. 5 VanderKam, The Book of Jubilees, 13. 6 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 86. 7 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 87. 8 Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 88. 9 Tertullian, De cult. fem 1.3. .
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