The Book of Enoch (also 1 Enoch) is a pseudepigraphic work ascribed to Enoch, the great-grandfather of Noah and son of Jared (Genesis 5:18).
While this book today is non-canonical in most Christian churches, it was explicitly quoted[2]:8 in the New Testament (Letter of Jude 1:14-15) and by many of the early Church Fathers. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church to this day regards it to be canonical.
It is wholly extant only in the Ge'ez language, with Aramaic fragments from the Dead Sea Scrolls and a few Greek and Latin fragments. There is no consensus among Western scholars about the original language: some propose Aramaic, others Hebrew, while the probable thesis according to E. Isaac is that 1 Enoch, as Daniel, was composed partially in Aramaic and partially in Hebrew[2]:6. Ethiopian scholars hold that Ge'ez is the language of the original from which the Greek and Aramaic copies were made, pointing out that it is the only language in which the complete text has been found[3].
According to Western scholars its older sections (mainly in the Book of the Watchers) date from about 300 BC and the latest part (Book of Parables) probably was composed at the end of the 1st century BC;[4] it is argued that all the writers of the New Testament were familiar with it and were influenced by it in thought and diction.
Content
The Book of Enoch describes the fall of the Watchers, the angels who fathered the Nephilim. The fallen angels went to Enoch to intercede on their behalf with God after he declared to them their doom. The remainder of the book describes Enoch's visit to Heaven in the form of a vision, and his revelations.
The book consists of five quite distinct major sections (see each section for details):
The Book of the Watchers (1 Enoch 1 – 36) The Book of Parables of Enoch (1 Enoch 37 – 71) (Also called the Similitudes of Enoch) The Astronomical Book (1 Enoch 72 – 82) (Also called the Book of the Heavenly Luminaries or Book of Luminaries. ) The Book of Dream Visions (1 Enoch 83 – 90) (Also called the Book of Dreams) The Epistle of Enoch (1 Enoch 91 – 108) The shared view[6] is that these five sections were originally independent works (with different dates of composition), themselves a product of much editorial arrangement, and were only later redacted into what we now call 1 Enoch. This view is now opposed only by a few authors who maintain the literary integrity of the Book of Enoch, one of the most recent (1990) being the Ethiopian Wossenie Yifru[3]. Józef Milik has suggested that the Book of Giants found amongst the Dead Sea Scrolls should be part of the collection, appearing after the Book of Watchers in place of the Book of Parables, but for various reasons Milik's theory has not been widely accepted.
Canocity
The book is referred to, and quoted, in Jude 14-15:
"And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these [men], saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, To execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him." Compare this with Enoch 1:9, translated from the Ethiopic (found also in Qumran scroll 4Q204=4QEnochc ar, col I 16-18[7]:711)
"And behold! He cometh with ten thousands of His holy ones To execute judgement upon all, And to destroy all the ungodly: And to convict all flesh Of all the works of their ungodliness which they have ungodly committed, And of all the hard things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him." Another probable Biblical reference can be found in I Peter 3:19,20 to En. 21:6. 1 Enoch is considered as Scripture in the Epistle of Barnabas (16:4)[8] and by many of the early Church Fathers as Athenagoras[9], Clement of Alexandria[10], Irenaeus[11] and Tertullian[12] who wrote c. 200 that the Book of Enoch had been rejected by the Jews because it contained prophecies pertaining to Christ.[13]
However, some later Fathers denied the canonicity of the book and some even considered the letter of Jude uncanonical because it refers to an "apocryphal" work[14]. By the fourth century it was mostly excluded from Christian lists of the Biblical canon, and it was omitted from the canon by most of the Christian church (the Ethiopian Orthodox Church being an exception).
The traditional view of the Ethiopic Orthodox Church, which reckons 1 Enoch as an inspired document, is that the Ethiopic text is the original one, written by Enoch himself. In their view the following opening sentence of Enoch is the first and oldest sentence written in any human language, since Enoch was the first to write letters:
"ቃለ፡ በረከት፡ ዘሄኖክ፡ ዘከመ፡ ባረከ፡ ኅሩያነ፡ ወጻድቃነ፡ እለ፡ ሀለው፡ ይኩኑ" "በዕለተ፡ ምንዳቤ፡ ለአሰስሎ፡ ኲሉ፡ እኩያን፡ ወረሲዓን።" "Qāla barakat za-Hēnōk zakama bārraka ḫirūyāna wa-ṣādḳāna 'ila halaw yikūnū baʿilata mindābē la'asaslō kʷilū 'ikūyān wa-rasīʿān" "Word of blessing of Henok, wherewith he blessed the chosen and righteous who would be alive in the day of tribulation for the removal of all wrongdoers and backsliders."
Manuscript tradition
Ethiopic
The most extensive witnesses to the Book of Enoch exist in the Ge'ez language. R. H. Charles’ critical edition of 1906 subdivides the Ethiopic manuscripts into two families:
Family α: thought to be more ancient and more similar to the Greek versions:
A - ms. orient. 485 of the British Museum, 16th century, with Jubilees B - ms. orient. 491 of the British Museum, 18th century, with other biblical writings C - ms. of Berlin orient. Petermann II Nachtrag 29, 16th century; D - ms. abbadiano 35, 17th century E - ms. abbadiano 55, 16th century F - ms. 9 of the Lago Lair, 15th century Family β: more recent, apparently edited texts
G - ms. 23 of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, 18th century H - ms. orient. 531 of the Bodleian Library of Oxford, 18th century; I - ms. Brace 74 of the Bodleian Library of Oxford, 16th century J - ms. orient. 8822 of the British Museum, 18th century K - ms. property of E. Ullendorff of London, 18th century; L - ms. abbadiano 99, 19th century; M - ms. orient. 492 of the British Museum, 18th century N - ms. Ethiopian 30 of Monaco of Baviera, 18th century; O - ms. orient. 484 of the British Museum, 18th century; P - ms. Ethiopian 71 of the Vatican, 18th century; Q - ms. orient. 486 of the British Museum, 18th century, lacking chapters 1-60
Aramaic
Eleven Aramaic-language fragments of the Book of Enoch were found in cave 4 of Qumran in 1948,[15] and are in the care of the Israel Antiquities Authority. They were translated for and discussed by Józef Milik and Matthew Black in The Books of Enoch[16]. Another translation has been released by Vermes and Garcia-Martinez [17]. Milik described the documents as being white or cream in color, blackened in areas, made of leather which was smooth, thick and stiff. It was also partly damaged with the ink blurred and faint.
4Q201 = 4QEnoch a ar, Enoch 2,1-5,6; 6,4-8,1; 8,3-9,3.6-8 4Q202 = 4QEnoch b ar, Enoch 5,9-6,4; 6,7-8,1; 8,2-9,4; 10,8-12; 14,4-6; 4Q204 = 4QEnoch c ar, Enoch 1,9-5,1; 6,7; 10,13-19; 12,3; 13,6-14,16; 30,1-32,1; 35,; 36,1-4; 106,13-107,2; 4Q205 = 4QEnoch d ar; Enoch 89,29-31; 89,43-44 4Q206 = 4QEnoch e ar; Enoch 22,3-7; 28,3-29,2; 31,2-32,3; 88,3; 89,1-6; 89,26-30; 89,31-37 4Q207 = 4QEnoch f ar 4Q208 = 4QEnastr a ar 4Q209 = 4QEnastr b ar; Enoch 79,3-5; 78,17; 79,2 and large fragments that do not correspond to any part of the Ethiopian text 4Q210 = 4QEnastr c ar; Enoch 76,3-10; 76,13-77,4; 78,6-8 4Q211 = 4QEnastr d ar; large fragments that do not correspond to any part of the Ethiopian text 4Q212 = 4QEn g ar; 91,10; 91,18-19; 92,1-2; 93,2-4; 93,9-10; 91,11-17; 93,11-93,1. Also at Qumran (cave 1) have been discovered 3 tiny fragments in Hebrew (8,4-9,4; 106).
Greek and Latin
The 8th century work Chronographia Universalis by the Byzantine historian George Syncellus preserved some passages of the Book of Enoch in Greek (6,1-9,4; 15,8-16,1). Other Greek fragments known are:
Codex Panopolitanus (Cairo Papyrus 10759), named also Codex Gizeh or Akhmim fragements, consists of fragments of two 6th century papyri containing portions of chapters 1-32, recovered by a French archeological team at Akhmim in Egypt, and published five years later in 1892. Vatican Library code Gr. 1809, f. 216v (11th century): including 89,42-49 Chester Beatty Papyri XII : including 97,6-107,3 (less chapter 105) Oxyrhynchus Papyri 2069: including only a few letters, that made the identification uncertain, from 77,7-78,1; 78,1-3; 78,8; 85,10-86,2; 87:1-3 It has been claimed that several small additional fragments in Greek have been found at Qumran (7QEnoch: 7Q4, 7Q8, 7Q10-13), dating about 100 BC, ranging from 98:11? to 103:15[18] and written on papyrus with gridlines, but this identification is highly contested.
Of the Latin translation only 1,9 and 106,1-18 are known. The first passage occurs in Pseudo-Cyprian and Pseudo-Vigilius [19]; the second was discovered in 1893 by M. R. James in a 8th century manuscript in the British Museum and published in the same year[20].
History
Second Temple period
The 1976 publication by Milik[16] of the results of the paleographic dating of the Enochic fragments found in Qumran made a breakthrough. According to this scholar, who studied the original scrolls for many years, the oldest fragments of the Book of Watchers are dated 200-150 BC. Since the Book of Watchers shows evidence of multiple stages of composition, it is probable that this work was extant already in the third century BC[21]. The same can be said about the Astronomical Book.
It was no longer possible to claim that the core of Book of Enoch was composed in the wake of the Maccabean Revolt as a reaction to Hellenization"[22]:93. Scholars thus had to look for the origins of the Qumranic sections of 1 Enoch in the previous historical period, and the comparison with traditional material of such a time showed that these sections do not draw exclusively on categories and ideas prominent in the Hebrew Bible. Some scholars speak even of an "Enochic Judaism" from which the writers of Qumran scrolls were descended[23]. Margaret Barker argues that "Enoch is the writing of a very conservative group whose roots go right back to the time of the First Temple"[24]. The main peculiar aspects of the Enochic Judaism are the following:
- the idea of the origin of the evil caused by the fallen angels, who came on the earth to unite with human women. These fallen angels are considered ultimately responsible for the spread of evil and impurity on the earth[22]:90;
- the absence in 1 Enoch of formal parallels to the specific laws and commandment found in the Mosaic Torah and of references to issues like Shabbat observance or the rite of circumcision. The Sinaitic covenant and Torah are not of central importance in the Book of Enoch[25]:50-51;
- the concept of "End of Days" as the time of final judgment that takes the place of promised earthly rewards[22]:92;
- the rejection of the Second Temple's sacrifices considered impure: according to Enoch 89:73, the Jews, when returned from the exile, "reared up that tower (the temple) and they began again to place a table before the tower, but all the bread on it was polluted and not pure";
- a solar calendar in opposition to the moon-based calendar used in the Second Temple (a very important aspect for the determination of the dates of religious feasts);
- an interest in the angelic world that involves life after death[26].
Most Qumran fragments are relatively early, with none written from the last period of the Qumranic experience. Thus it is probable that Qumran community gradually lost interest in the Book of Enoch[27].
The relation between 1 Enoch and the Essenes was noted even before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls[28]. While there is consensus to consider the sections of the Book of Enoch found in Qumran as texts used by the Essenes, the same is not so clear for the Enochic texts not found in Qumran (mainly the Book of Parables): it was proposed[29] to consider these parts as expression of the mainstream, but not-Qumranic, essenic movement. The main peculiar aspects of the not-Qumranic units of 1 Enoch are the following:
- a Messiah called "Son of Man", with divine attributes, generated before the creation, who will act directly in the final judgment and sit on a throne of glory (1 Enoch 46:1-4, 48:2-7, 69:26-29)[7]:562-563
- the sinners usually seen as the wealthy ones and the just as the oppressed (a theme we find also in the Psalms of Solomon).
Early Influence
Classical Rabbinic literature is characterized by near silence concerning Enoch. It seems plausible that Rabbinic polemics against Enochic texts and traditions might have led to the loss of these books to Rabbinic Judaism.[30]
The Book of Enoch plays an important role in the history of the Jewish mysticism: the great scholar Gershom Scholem wrote: "the main subjects of the later Merkabah mysticism already occupy a central position in the older esoteric literature, best represented by the Book of Enoch"[31]. Particular attention is paid to the detailed description of the throne of God included in chapter 14 of 1 Enoch.
For the quotation of the Book of Watchers in the Christian Letter of Jude see section: Canonicity.
There is little doubt that 1 Enoch was influential in molding New Testament doctrines about the Messiah, demonology, the resurrection, and eschatology[2]:19. The Book of Enoch influenced also many Biblical apocrypha, as Jubilees, 2 Baruch, 2 Esdras, Apocalypse of Abraham and obviously 2 Enoch.
The Greek text was known to, and quoted by nearly all the Church Fathers: references can be found in Justin Martyr, Minucius Felix, Irenaeus, Origen, Cyprian, Hippolytus, Commodianus, Lactantius and Cassian[32]:430, although these references come exclusively from the first five chapters of 1 Enoch. After Cassian (died 435 CE), and before the modern "rediscovery", some excerpts are given in the Byzantine Empire by the 8th century monk George Syncellus in his chronography and in the 9th century it is listed as an apocryphon of the New Testament by Patriarch Nicephorus[33].
Rediscovery=
Outside of Ethiopia, the text of the Book of Enoch was considered lost until the beginning of the 17th century, when it was confidently asserted that the book was found in an Ethiopic (Ge'ez) language translation there, and Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc bought a book that was claimed to be identical to the one quoted by the Epistle of Jude and the Church Fathers. Hiob Ludolf, the great Ethiopic scholar of the 17th and 18th centuries, soon claimed it to be a forgery produced by Abba Bahaila Michael[34].
Better success was achieved by the famous Scottish traveller James Bruce, who in 1773 returned to Europe from six years in Abyssinia with three copies of a Ge'ez version[35]. One is preserved in the Bodleian Library, another was presented to the royal library of France, while the third was kept by Bruce. The copies remained unused until the 1800s, Silvestre de Sacy, in "Notices sur le livre d'Enoch"[36] included extracts of the books with Latin translations (Enoch chapters 1,2,5-16,22,32). From this a German translation was made by Rink in 1801.
The first English translation of the Bodleian/Ethiopic manuscript was published in 1821 by Richard Laurence, titled The Book of Enoch, the prophet: an apocryphal production, supposed to have been lost for ages; but discovered at the close of the last century in Abyssinia; now first translated from an Ethiopic manuscript in the Bodleian Library. Oxford, 1821. Revised editions appeared in 1833, 1838, and 1842.
Laurence in 1838 also released the first Ethiopic text of 1 Enoch to be published in the West, under the title: Libri Enoch Prophetae Versio Aethiopica. The text, divided into 105 chapters, was soon considered unreliable as it was the transcription of a single Ethipic manuscript[37].
In 1833 Professor Andreas Gottlieb Hoffmann of the University of Jena released a German translation, based on Laurence's work, called Das Buch Henoch in vollständiger Uebersetzung, mit fortlaufendem Kommentar, ausführlicher Einleitung und erläuternden Excursen. Two other translations came out around the same time one in 1836 called Enoch Restitutus, or an Attempt (Rev Edward Murray) and in 1840 Prophetae veteres Pseudepigraphi, partim ex Abyssinico vel Hebraico sermonibus Latine bersi (A. F. Gfrörer). However both are considered to be poor - the 1836 translation most of all and is discussed in Hoffmann[38].
The first critical edition, based on five manuscripts, appeared in 1851 as Liber Henoch, Aethiopice, ad quinque codicum fidem editus, cum variis lectionibus, by August Dillmann. It was followed in 1853 by a German translation of the book by the same author with commentary titled Das Buch Henoch, übersetzt und erklärt. It was considered the standard edition of 1 Enoch until the work of Charles.
The generation of Enoch scholarship from 1890 to the WW1 was dominated by Robert Henry Charles. His 1893 translation and commentary of the Ethiopic text already represented an important advancement as it was based on ten additional manuscripts. In 1906 R.H. Charles published a new critical edition of the Ethiopic text, using 23 Ethiopic manuscripts and all available sources at his time. The English translation of the reconstructed text appeared in 1912 and the same year in his collection of The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament.
The publication, in the early 1950s, of the first Aramaic fragments of 1 Enoch among the Dead Sea Scrolls profoundly changed the study of the document, as it provided evidence of its antiquity and original text. The official edition of all Enoch fragments appeared in 1976, by Jozef Milik.
In 1978 a new edition of the Ethiopic text was edited by Michael Knibb, with an English translation, while a new commentary appeared in 1985 by Matthew Black. The renewed interest in 1 Enoch spawned a number of other translations: in Hebrew (A. Kahana, 1956), Danish (Hammershaimb, 1956), Italian (Fusella, 1981), Spanish (1982), French (Caquot, 1984) and other modern languages.
In 2001 George W.E. Nickelsburg published the first volume of a comprehensive commentary on 1 Enoch in the Hermeneia series[25]. Since the year 2000, the Enoch seminar has devoted several meetings to the Enoch literature and has become the center of a lively debate concerning the hypothesis that the Enoch literature attests the presence of an autonomous non-Mosaic tradition of dissent in Second Temple Judaism.
The Book of the Watchers This first section of the Book of Enoch describes the fall of the Watchers, the angels who fathered the Nephilim (cf. the bene Elohim, Genesis 6:1-2) and narrates the travels of Enoch in the heavens. This section is said to have been composed in the fourth/third 3rd century BC according to Western scholars.[39]
[edit] Content of the Book of the Watchers I-V. Parable of Enoch on the Future Lot of the Wicked and the Righteous.
VI-XI. The Fall of the Angels: the Demoralization of Mankind: the Intercession of the Angels on behalf of Mankind. The Dooms pronounced by God on the Angels of the Messianic Kingdom.
XII-XVI. Dream-Vision of Enoch: his Intercession for Azazel and the fallen angels: and his Announcement of their first and final Doom.
XVII-XXXVI. Enoch's Journeys through the Earth and Sheol:
XVII-XIX. The First Journey. XX. Names and Functions of the Seven Archangels. XXI. Preliminary and final Place of Punishment of the fallen Angels (stars). XXII. Sheol or the Underworld. XXIII. The fire that deals with the Luminaries of Heaven. XXIV-XXV. The Seven Mountains in the North-West and the Tree of Life. XXVI. Jerusalem and the Mountains, Ravines, and Streams. XXVII. The Purpose of the Accursed Valley. XXVIII-XXXIII. Further Journey to the East. XXXIV-XXXV. Enoch's Journey to the North. XXXVI. The Journey to the South. [edit] Description of the Book of the Watchers The introduction to the Book of Enoch tells us that Enoch is "a just man, whose eyes were opened by God so that he saw a vision of the Holy One in the heavens, which the sons of God showed to me, and from them I heard everything, and I knew what I saw, but [these things that I saw will] not [come to pass] for this generation, but for a generation that has yet to come."
It discusses God coming to Earth on Mount Sinai with His hosts to pass judgement on mankind. It also tells us about the luminaries rising and setting in the order and in their own time and never change.
"Observe and see how (in the winter) all the trees seem as though they had withered and shed all their leaves, except fourteen trees, which do not lose their foliage but retain the old foliage from two to three years till the new comes." How all things are ordained by God and take place in his own time. The sinners shall perish and the great and the good shall live on in light, joy and peace.
"And all His works go on thus from year to year for ever, and all the tasks which they accomplish for Him, and their tasks change not, but according as God hath ordained so is it done." The first section of the book depicts the interaction of the fallen angels with mankind; Sêmîazâz compels the other 199 fallen angels to take human wives to "beget us children".
"And Semjâzâ, who was their leader, said unto them: 'I fear ye will not indeed agree to do this deed, and I alone shall have to pay the penalty of a great sin.' And they all answered him and said: 'Let us all swear an oath, and all bind ourselves by mutual imprecations not to abandon this plan but to do this thing.'. Then sware they all together and bound themselves by mutual imprecations upon it. And they were in all two hundred; who descended in the days of Jared on the summit of Mount Hermon, and they called it Mount Hermon, because they had sworn and bound themselves by mutual imprecations upon it." The names of the leaders are given as "Samyaza (Shemyazaz), their leader, Araqiel, Râmêêl, Kokabiel, Tamiel, Ramiel, Dânêl, Chazaqiel, Baraqiel, Asael, Armaros, Batariel, Bezaliel, Ananiel, Zaqiel, Shamsiel, Satariel, Turiel, Yomiel, Sariel."
This results in the creation of the Nephilim (Genesis) or Anakim/Anak (Giants) as they are described in the book:
"And they became pregnant, and they bare great giants, whose height was three thousand ells[40]: Who consumed all the acquisitions of men. And when men could no longer sustain them, the giants turned against them and devoured mankind. And they began to sin against birds, and beasts, and reptiles, and fish, and to devour one another's flesh, and drink the blood." It also discusses the teaching of humans by the fallen angels chiefly Azâzêl:
"And Azâzêl taught men to make swords, and knives, and shields, and breastplates, and made known to them the metals of the earth and the art of working them, and bracelets, and ornaments, and the use of antimony, and the beautifying of the eyelids, and all kinds of costly stones, and all colouring tinctures. And there arose much godlessness, and they committed fornication, and they were led astray, and became corrupt in all their ways. Semjâzâ taught enchantments, and root-cuttings, Armârôs the resolving of enchantments, Barâqîjâl, taught astrology, Kôkabêl the constellations, Ezêqêêl the knowledge of the clouds, Araqiêl the signs of the earth, Shamsiêl the signs of the sun, and Sariêl the course of the moon." Michael, Uriel, Raphael, and Gabriel appeal to God to judge the inhabitants of the world and the fallen angels. Uriel is then sent by God to tell Noah of the coming apocalypse and what he needs to do.
"Then said the Most High, the Holy and Great One spoke, and sent Uriel to the son of Lamech, and said to him: Go to Noah and tell him in my name "Hide thyself!" and reveal to him the end that is approaching: that the whole earth will be destroyed, and a deluge is about to come upon the whole earth, and will destroy all that is on it. And now instruct him that he may escape and his seed may be preserved for all the generations of the world." God commands Raphael to imprison Azâzêl:
"the Lord said to Raphael: 'Bind Azâzêl hand and foot, and cast him into the darkness: and make an opening in the desert, which is in Dûdâêl (Gods Kettle/Crucible/Cauldron), and cast him therein. And place upon him rough and jagged rocks, and cover him with darkness, and let him abide there for ever, and cover his face that he may not see light. And on the day of the great judgement he shall be cast into the fire. And heal the earth which the angels have corrupted, and proclaim the healing of the earth, that they may heal the plague, and that all the children of men may not perish through all the secret things that the Watchers have disclosed and have taught their sons. And the whole earth has been corrupted through the works that were taught by Azâzêl: to him ascribe all sin." God gave Gabriel instructions concerning the Nephilim and the imprisonment of the fallen angels:
"And to Gabriel said the Lord: 'Proceed against the biters and the reprobates, and against the children of fornication: and destroy [the children of fornication and] the children of the Watchers from amongst men [and cause them to go forth]: send them one against the other that they may destroy each other in battle" Some,[citation needed] including R.H. Charles, suggest that 'biters' should read 'bastards' but the name is so unusual that some[citation needed] believe that the implication that's made by the reading of 'biters' is more or less correct.
The Lord commands Michael to bind the fallen angels.
"And the Lord said unto Michael: 'Go, bind Semjâzâ and his associates who have united themselves with women so as to have defiled themselves with them in all their uncleanness. 12. And when their sons have slain one another, and they have seen the destruction of their beloved ones, bind them fast for seventy generations in the valleys of the earth, till the day of their judgement and of their consummation, till the judgement that is for ever and ever is consummated. 13. In those days they shall be led off to the abyss of fire: (and) to the torment and the prison in which they shall be confined for ever. And whosoever shall be condemned and destroyed will from thenceforth be bound together with them to the end of all generations."