Vered Noam lately discussed the rabbinic abandonment of the Second Temple mindset. It is not reserved to TEH TALMUD!: the Palaestinian "Yerushalmi" Talmud and the Midrashim share in this (where they sometimes dispute Talmud elsewhere). I understand that Flavius Josephus wasn't much a fan of that Temple neither.
Noam gears up to this with (what I read as) the implicit lament that the rabbis' sourcing isn't what it could be. The rabbinate had imposed a rule to use orality for anything not in Tanakh. Daniel and Esther survive of course but they present themselves as Diaspora-lit. Ben Sira hung around the fringe. Otherwise very little is written. Jews had to beg the Christians for readings of Josephus, until writing their own "Yosippon"; the same holds for the book of Judith. 1 Maccabees was famously rejected until the recent Zionism. Ginsberg's "Legends of the Jews" records stories clearly not written until the Middle Ages (including a Judith). This may incidentally explain why Jewish records of the early Islamic era are so poor by comparison with Syriac-literate Christians.
I'll here raise an aside on one contemporary source: Judith. MS Copilot is telling me that Judith had been composed in Hebrew by the style of the Chronicler (with the DtrH behind him, especially Judges). It was translated into Greek using the וַיְהִי > kai egeneto trope, sometimes treating this as a conjunction which וַיְהִי is not. Copilot is raising several arguments for Judith's subsequent exclusion in any language.
Those two digressions done wit', Noam would add that Judith's book assumes Second Temple halakha. Maybe not as egregious as the Aramaic Levi / Tobit cluster on account Judith was, in fact, in Hebrew suggesting more alignment with Jubilees than with 1Q20 the Genesis Apocryphon. I'd say theologically Judith would side more with the latter given how sectarian is the former (we're not here to argue those two).
On topic of Aramaic, we've seen hints that Yom Kippur might have started as a mere preparation for the older holiday Sukkot. That was done under the Aramaic-speaking Babylonians, providing the month Nisan and its akītu. The Levides deemed Yom Kippur worthy of Aramaic. Second Temple veneration of Enoch, Noah, and Levi couldn't be retained to Aramaic, as we'll note from Jubilees' existence, and Ben Sira will literally sing their paean.
Where the rabbis dismissed the late figures Judith and Tobit, they didn't so alone. Noam notes they went as far as to wave off Levi, Enoch - even Noah (contrast R. Singer here). This goes to explain Ben Sira's eventual failure within Judaism as well.
Noam sees this as a deliberate repudiation of the entire Second Temple apparatus (Ezekiel should be proud). Esther, as a national novel bypassing overt piety, survived pious threshing. As perhaps-byproduct, this threshing undercuts the basis of Christianity which stems from a rival miqveh (Isaiah's translation > Mark+Matthew) and/or from Mary being a Levide (> Luke).
With a vital exception. On the High HolyDays the liturgy exalts these men. Most of them...
Noam notes these same figures had featured in the Qumran liturgi(es) for these Holy Days. He cites Menahem Kister that the 5Q13 fragments 1-2 present a draught of the (now-rabbinic) Avodah piyyutim, in which all Creation exists for the Yom Kippur. Ben Sira 42:15-50:24 is similar (NB. Ben Sira is also found in Qumran); 1Q20 in which Noah atones for the world should belong here as well.
This - say Kister and Noam - has subsequently gotten spliced into a summary of Mishneh Yoma. Unlike the Second Temple, the Mishnaists to their piyyut didn't bring Enoch, and further tried to freeze out the Enoch-associated Nephilim of Senîr. The latter effort didn't wholly succeed.
Another point in the piyyutim is how they don't bring anyone to replace Enoch... like, oh, Moses. This reminds of the Haggadah, as opposed to standard rabbinic veneration of Moses The Exagog and Lawgiver which is shared even with gentiles like Trogus. The Qahat / Amram works exist in the Aramaic Levi tradition precisely to bridge this gap; Ben Sira also praises Moses (and glides over anything Nephilish). To me this suggests extreme antiquity to the piyyut-genre core.
Now we are ready to interrogate Noam's assumption that Enoch belonged to this Second Temple Heilsgeschichte intrinsically. In my opinion this proposal is one that Noam needs to argue. Noam already knows Ethiopic "1 Enoch" is a composite, so is only entertaining chapters 1-36 the "Watchers". "Watchers" might be composite even at the Qumran level. I think most scholars today, for 1E 1-16, allow - deeper - for an ancient Genesis 6 / 1E 6-11 reading as did without even Enoch. Such scholars must admit if the piyyutim poems started early enough, some might never have noted Enoch in the first place. They would have vied with Ben Sira and 5Q13 in the Kippur rituals. On the other extreme we have Enoch as redeemer...
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