Textual and Redactional Aspects of the Book of Dreams (1 Enoch 83–90)

Abstract

The redactor of 1 Enoch 83–90 brings together two very distinct Enochian traditions: the Flood Vision and the Animal Apocalypse. Although each tradition reflects a social reaction to the threat of hellenization in the second century BCE, they offer radically different social constructions of the eschatological role of insiders and outsiders; presenting in the Flood Vision a spatial apocalyptic perspective with a strong deterministic outlook, and in the Animal Apocalypse a less deterministic perspective within a temporal apocalyptic framework. By bringing these two traditions together, the redactor creates a new text (the Book of Dreams), which reinterprets the apocalypse with the vision. Although redactional activity is not extensive in the Book of Dreams, it does indicate a later stage in the tradition history, a stage reflecting back upon the success of the Maccabean revolt.