judge

This appears to be contradicted by the quote provided by Toto. Are you able to explain the basis for your assertion?

The Son of Man "first appears as pre-existent in the apocryphal First Book of Enoch, which was originally written in Hebrew or Aramaic about 150 B.C.E. From that period on, the concept of the Messiah who was created in the six days of Creation, or even prior to them or who was born at variously stated subsequent dates and was then hidden to await his time, became a standard feature of Jewish Messianic eschatology."
-Raphael Patai, The Messiah Texts

andrewcriddle

The issue is that the Similitudes of Enoch unlike all the other major parts of Enoch was not found at Qumran and is probably later than the rest, which was written in stages from c 250-100 BCE.

I doubt IMHO whether the Similitudes is Christian influenced but it may be after 70 CE. There is a reference to the Son of Man in II (IV) Esdras, which in its original form is a Jewish work from shortly after the fall of Jerusalem.

Andrew Criddle

DCHindley

I recall years ago photocopying all of 1 Enoch, cutting each verse apart, then rearranging them to compare by theme the Book of Watchers (section 1 of 1 Enoch) with the Similitudes (Section 2). I found that one seems to mirror the other (Similitudes is probably the child) in many ways, such as both having passages that seem to be borrowed from some sort of book of Noah. Its also got a strong Social Justice angle (not very keen on rich folks), similar to that found in the Epistle of Enoch section of 1 Enoch. I couldn't find any smoking gun that definitively pointed to Christian authorship or editing, though.

FWIW, J C Hindley (no relationship, honest) argued for a date c. 113-117 CE for the Similitudes, claiming that the references to the Parthians at 56.5-7 refers to Trajan's dealings with them rather than their assault on Jerusalem in 40 BCE ('Toward a Date for the Similitudes of Enoch: An Historical Approach', NTS 14, 1968).

http://books.google.com/books?id=joQ...vgyXpcJKVRW6oo

Then there's that dang 4 Ezra (2 Esdras, Latin Apocalypse of Ezra, whatever) mucking things up. I've always liked it though, especially the part where he gets high on something he drinks and goes into a trance and dictates all the lost books of the bible (the OT) and a bunch of apocryphal books as his disciples desperately try to keep up with copying it as he spoke.

DCH