Troublesome Topic: HOW TO VIEW PHOTOS OF FRAGMENTS OF THE BOOK OF ENOCH IN THE QUMRAN SCROLLS

If you are interested in the book of Enoch, I recommend that you go to the website of The Dead Sea Scrolls Digital Library, sponsored by the Israel Antiquities Authority (see link to that website below).

If you type Enoch in the search bar of that website, it will take you to several pages of photos of fragments, each page containing from around 10 to over 70 photos. This website shows a total of 475 photos of fragments from the Book of Enoch in the Dead Sea scrolls. Beyond that there are several pages of photos that are labeled Enoch, the Book of Giants. The Book of Giants was not part of the Book of Enoch, but they are often lumped together because they have some of the same themes. Therefore, I take that label to mean that the pages labeled in that way are a combination of fragments from the Book of Enoch and from The Book of Giants. It is possible that the scrolls of the Book of Enoch and the Book of Giants were placed in the same jar or jars, and as they fell apart, the pieces became mixed together at the bottom of the jars. The committee labeled each fragment before they knew which scroll all of them belonged to. I did not include those in the 475 mentioned above.

If you would rather go poking around in that site, the fragments for the book of Enoch are found under the para-biblical texts. The fragments from the Book of Enoch were found in Cave 4.

MOSTLY SMALL FRAGMENTS

You will notice that many of the fragments are just one or two words. Some have several words,  but they are often parts of different lines of text. The Israeli committee in charge of deciphering those fragments is dealing with the largest, most difficult puzzle in the world! Here is that link: https://www.deadseascrolls.org.il/explore-the-archive/search#q=’enoch’+AND+site_en:’Qumran,%20Cave%204′

The next lesson in this series is DATING THE BOOK OF ENOCH.