Response to Gabriele Boccaccini.

It is gratifying to receive affirmation of my historical integrity from a hardnosed historian like Gabriele Boccaccini, even in a work so filled with theology. That does not keep him, however, from making several helpful corrections to my work. Our disagreements are centered on 1 Enoch. He rightly notes that Enoch is not identified with Metatron in 1 Enoch 70-71, as I wrongly state. He dates I Enoch 14 a hundred years earlier than I had (285 B.C.E., not 185). He faults me for overlooking the last twenty years of scholarly research on Second Temple Judaism, and in the Enoch literature in particular. He is right; I failed to take into account the writers he listed. Having done remedial reading of those authors, however, I find them pretty much holding the same views I do.

Earlier scholars picked earlier dates for the Similitudes of Enoch [chapters 37-71 in 1 Enoch). R. H. Charles assigned a date for the Similitudes between 94 and 64 B.C.E.; Pfeiffer preferred 100-80 B.C.E. But members of the SNTS Pseudepigrapha Seminar which met in 1977 in Tubingen and again in 1978 in Paris dated it from the first century C.E. Its absence from the fragments of 1 Enoch discovered at Qumran led J. T. Milik to date it anywhere from 70 to 270 C.E., a view that virtually no one accepts. Other scholars agree with a first-century C.E. date. David Winston Sutter ("Weighed in the Balance: The Similitudes of Enoch in Recent Discussion," Religious Studies Review 7 [1981]: 218) says that "a strong case can be made for a first-century dating either before or after the destruction of the Temple in 70 C.E.," though not much before 70. Matthew Black insists we cannot rule out a pre-70 dating for at least some of the oldest translations in the book (this against Milik's late date) (The Book of Enoch [Leiden: Brill, 1885], 187). Lawrence H. Schiffman picks "the late first century" C.E. (Redaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls [Philadelphia: the Jewish Publication Society, 1994], 182-85). In their revision of Schurer's History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus [Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1979], 505, 520-21), Vermes, Millar and Black believe a pre-70 date is unlikely. The translator of 1 Enoch for the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (1983), E. Isaac, states the emerging consensus: "I am convinced that 1 Enoch already contained the Similitudes by the end of the first century C.E." The inability of scholars to reach a firm consensus about the date of the Similitudes counsels caution in picking a date. At the very least, we can say that Dr. Boccaccini's date at the end of the first century B.C.E. seems out of step with present scholarship.

Gabriele dates the Similitudes toward the end of the first century B.C.E. due to an allusion to a Parthian invasion in 56:5-7. But Parthian invasions took place frequently in that entire period: under Mithradates II (around 124-87 B.C.E.), then in 96, 53, 40, and 36, then in 12-9 B.C.E. in an almost lost allusion to a Parthian king who plotted against Rome (Ant. 16:253), again during the reign of Vologases (around 51-76 C.E.), then in 115-16, 164, 197, and 216-17 C.E. More specifically, Nero's general, Corbulo, set about recovering Armenia from the Parthians. The campaign proper ran from 58-63 C.E. The Book of Revelation registers the fear engendered by the Parthian cavalry, with their "Parthian shot" (a shot fired while in feigned retreat), alluded to in Rev. 9:10--"They have tails like scorpions, with stingers, and in their tails is their power to harm people for five months." The riders number two hundred million, they wear breastplates the color of fire, sapphire and sulfur, and they come from the great river Euphrates. Whether the allusion is based on an actual invasion, or is an apocalyptic symbol of terror and bloodshed, this passage is proof that fear of the Parthians was palpable at the end of the first-century C.E.

Additional confirmation of a late first century date is the evidence of borrowing. None of the earlier New Testament writings reflects dependency on the Similitudes, whereas later books, specifically Matthew, Revelation, and Jude (which has a direct quote from the Similitudes), have numerous parallels (see my The Human Being, pp. 294 notes 22-23). Pseudo-Philo's Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum 3:10 has a clear allusion to 1 Enoch 51:1. Since Pseudo-Philo is now being dated ca. 100 C.E., this requires a date for the Similitudes earlier in the first century C.E. All of the parallels to the Similitudes in the Gospels appear to be additions by the evangelists. None of the parallels, early or late, seem to be the work of later scribes assimilating the Similitudes to Christian writings. If there is textual influence, it seems to be from the Similitudes to the New Testament, not the other way around. There is no trace of Christianizing in the Similitudes. In chapter 71 Enoch is identified as the Son of Man, an identification no Christian would ever make. So a date is needed for the publication of the Similitudes that explains its absence in the earlier strata of the New Testament and its presence in the later writings. Any time from 50-90 C.E. would be adequate. The Similitudes were thus unknown to Jesus, but familiar to at least some Christian writers in the second half of the first century. Kathlene Peterson Nicol argues that 1 Enoch 70-71 is the climax toward which the whole of the Similitudes builds: The son of man is Enoch, not Jesus. Consequently, she believes that at least the final redactor of the Similitudes was engaged in conscious anti-Christian polemic in reaction to the use of the son of the man in the Gospels ("'Son of Man': Its Background and New Testament Usage," B. D. thesis, Union Theological Seminary, 1970).

Dr. Boccaccini believes that "the son of man" is a title of a messianic figure who will come at the end of time as the eschatological judge. But this conclusion is based on his belief that the Similitudes are pre-Christian. The figure in Dan. 7:13 is simply compared to a human being; it cannot be the basis of a title. That leaves only the Similitudes, which in fact do develop a titular son of man figure. If we date the Similitudes in the second half of the first century C.E., we can see how the titular use of the son of man infiltrated the later books of the New Testament.

One of the best learnings Gabriele has given me is the recognition that there are many Judaisms and many churches in the first century. This is a truth I keep forgetting, and I need to be reminded publicly so I attend to it. Boccaccini has given me much to mull over, and I appreciate the generous way he has indicated the problems he finds with my work, while still expressing genuine sympathy for my theological intentions. His response to my book is a model of constructive criticism, for which I am grateful.

Walter Wink is Professor of Biblical Interpretation at Auburn Theological Seminary in New York City.