Giants/A copy
Enoch’s letter
4Q203 — Book of Giantsᵃ
The second tablet of Enoch’s letter, in the handwriting of the noted scribe, addressed to Shemihazah and all his companions. The land is crying out.
- Siglum
- 4Q203
- Findspot
- Cave 4, Qumran
- Copy dated
- Late first century BCE
- Cited
- 4Q203 frag. 8 (EnGiantsᵃ); ed. Stuckenbruck, DJD 36
Fragment 8 is as close as the Aramaic book comes to a complete page of official speech. A copy of the second tablet of the letter which Enoch sent: in the name of God the great and holy one, to Shemihazah and all his companions. What you have done, and your wives, and your sons, and the wives of your sons, by your licentiousness on the earth. The land complains about you and the deeds of your children.
The letter confirms that Enoch’s office in this book is the same as in 1 Enoch 12–16: scribe of righteousness, go-between, and the one who must announce that the petition has failed. The difference is the addressee. In the Book of Watchers he speaks to the fathers. Here a tablet is also aimed at the household — sons and sons’ wives included.
Milik wondered whether 4Q203 and 4Q204 (a copy of 1 Enoch) belonged to one manuscript. If they did, Giants was copied physically beside Watchers, Dreams, and the Epistle: one spine, two cameras.