4 - Dating the Animal Apocalypses

Summary

This chapter argues that the Animal Apocalypses of Enoch need to be redated. More specifically, I will demonstrate that the decoupling of the Apocalypse of the Birds from the Vision of the Beasts bears significant implications for the dating of both works.

Previously, scholars assuming a single Animal Apocalypse combined material evidence for the Vision of the Beasts with historical references within the Apocalypse of the Birds to assign the entire work a date in the second century bce. But if the Animal Apocalypse breaks into two as argued in my previous chapter, this analysis quickly becomes untenable. I will argue that, since the Vision of the Beasts is bereft of the particular text that brought the work into the Hellenistic era, its window of composition could widen considerably to include much more of post-exilic Judaism. I will also demonstrate that the text of the Apocalypse of the Birds, now bereft of the material attestation that seemed to domesticate the work in the second century bce, does not inevitably point towards the Maccabean Revolt or even the Hellenistic era at all. The windows of composition for both works are wider than has ever been imagined. This realization opens the way for a new envisioning of the development of the works in historical time, as will be endeavored for the Apocalypse of the Birds in upcoming chapters.

On dating the Vision of the Beasts

The Vision of the Beasts, as identified in my previous chapter, runs from 1 En 85.1–89.58. Its terminus ante quem is established by the four manuscripts in which its text is found at Qumran. The earliest of these manuscripts appears to date to the second century bce. The terminus ante quem, or latest possible date, of the Vision of the Beasts, then, is still the second century bce.

But the question of an earliest possible date, or terminus post quem, is fundamentally transformed. If we wanted to attempt a dating based on historical events mentioned, the “latest” reference in the extant text of the Vision of the Beasts is to the sixth-century bce destruction of Jerusalem.