The Book of Enoch (also 1 Enoch; ; ) is an ancient Jewish apocalyptic religious text, ascribed by tradition to the patriarch Enoch who was the father of Methuselah and the great-grandfather of Noah. The Book of Enoch contains unique material on the origins of demons and Nephilim, why some angels fell from heaven, an explanation of why the Genesis flood was morally necessary, and a prophetic exposition of the thousand-year reign of the Messiah. Three books are traditionally attributed to Enoch, including the distinct works 2 Enoch and 3 Enoch.

1 Enoch is not considered to be canonical scripture by most movements of Judaism or branches of Christianity, although it is part of the biblical canon used by the Ethiopian Jewish community Beta Israel, as well as the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church.

The older sections of 1 Enoch are estimated to date to , and the latest part (Book of Parables) is probably from . Scholars believe Enoch was originally written in either Aramaic or Hebrew, the languages first used for Jewish texts. Ephraim Isaac suggests that the Book of Enoch, like the Book of Daniel, was composed partially in Aramaic and partially in Hebrew. A short section of 1 Enoch is cited in the Epistle of Jude, being attributed to "Enoch, the Seventh from Adam" (1 Enoch 60:8). The full Book of Enoch survives in its entirety only in the Geʽez translation.

Synopsis

The first part of the Book of Enoch describes the fall of the Watchers, the angels who fathered the angel-human hybrids called Nephilim. themselves a product of much editorial arrangement, and were only later redacted into what is now called 1 Enoch.

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, the , and narrates the travels of Enoch in the heavens. This section is said to have been composed in the 4th or 3rd century BCE according to Western scholars.

Contents

  • 1–5: Parable of Enoch on the Future Lot of the Wicked and the Righteous.
  • 6–11: 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.
  • 12–16: Dream-Vision of Enoch: his Intercession for Azazel and the fallen angels: and his Announcement of their first and final Doom.
  • 17–36: Enoch's Journeys from the Earth and Sheol: Enoch also traveled through a portal shaped as a triangle to heaven.
  • 17–19: The First Journey.
  • 20: Names and Functions of the Seven Archangels.
  • 21: Preliminary and final Place of Punishment of the fallen Angels (stars).
  • 22: Sheol or the Underworld.
  • 23: The fire that deals with the Luminaries of Heaven.
  • 24–25: The Seven Mountains in the North-West and the Tree of Life.
  • 26: Jerusalem and the Mountains, Ravines, and Streams.
  • 27: The Purpose of the Accursed Valley.
  • 28–33: Further Journey to the East.
  • 34–35: Enoch's Journey to the North.
  • 36: The Journey to the South.

Description

The introduction to the book of Enoch reflects that Enoch was "a righteous man, whose eyes were opened by God, saw the vision of the Holy One in the heavens, which the angels showed me, and from them I heard everything, and from them I understood as I saw, but not for this generation, but for a remote one which is for to come".

It discusses God coming to Earth on Mount Sinai with his hosts to pass judgment on humankind. It also recalls the luminaries rising and setting in the order and in their own time and never change:

The book also discusses how all things are ordained by God and take place in his time. The sinners shall perish and the great and the good shall live on in light, joy and peace.

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":

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 ('giants') as they are described in the book:

It also discusses the teaching of humans by the fallen angels, chiefly Azazel:

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 cataclysm and what he needs to do. The first known use of "Son of Man" as a definite title in Jewish writings is in 1 Enoch, and its use may have played a role in the early Christian understanding and use of the title.

It has been suggested that the Book of Parables, in its entirety, is a later addition. Pointing to similarities with the Sibylline Oracles and other earlier works, in 1976, Józef Milik dated the Book of Parables to the third century. He believed that the events in the parables were linked to historic events dating from . According to this theory, these chapters were written in later Christian times by a Jewish Christian to enhance Christian beliefs with Enoch's authoritative name. followed Milik's reasoning, and suggested that because no fragments of chapter 37–71 were found at Qumran, a later date was likely. Knibb would continue this line of reasoning in later works. In addition to being missing from Qumran, chapters 37–71 are also missing from the Greek translation. and gave an early date for the work between 94 and 64 BC. The 1906 article by Emil G. Hirsch in The Jewish Encyclopedia states that Son of Man is found in the Book of Enoch, but never in the original material. It occurs in the "Noachian interpolations" (lx. 10, lxxi. 14), wherein it has clearly no other meaning than "man". The author of the work misuses or corrupts the titles of the angels. Chapter 69 ends with, "This is the third parable of Enoch." Like Elijah, Enoch is generally thought to have been brought up to Heaven by God while still alive, but some have suggested that the text refers to Enoch as having died a natural death and ascending to Heaven. The "Son of Man" is identified with Enoch. The text implies that Enoch had previously been enthroned in Heaven. Chapters 70–71 seem to contradict passages earlier in the parable where the Son of Man is a separate entity. The parable also switches from third person singular to first person singular.

When J.T. Milik first proposed the late date of the Book of Parables, he proposed that the section had replaced an earlier work, the Book of Giants. The Book of Giants follows the giants, the children of the Watchers, who dream of the coming devastation and ask Enoch to interpret the dreams and to intercede for them. One of the recovered fragments of the Book of the Giants from Qumran was written by the same scribe who transcribed a portion of the Book of Enoch, and it is thought that they could belong to the same manuscript (4QEnGiants<sup>a</sup>ar and 4QEn<sup>c</sup>ar). Although it is not certain, this would make the Book of Giants the missing piece of Qumran's Enochic pentateuch, later replaced by the Book of Parables in the version of 1 Enoch that was translated into Ge’ez. 4Q208 and 4Q209 have been dated to the beginning of the 2nd century BC, providing a terminus ante quem for the Astronomical Book of the 3rd century BC. The fragments found in Qumran also include material not contained in the later versions of the Book of Enoch.

This book contains descriptions of the movement of heavenly bodies and of the firmament, as a knowledge revealed to Enoch in his trips to Heaven guided by Uriel, and it describes a Solar calendar that was later described also in the Book of Jubilees which was used by the Dead Sea sect. The use of this calendar made it impossible to celebrate the festivals simultaneously with the Temple of Jerusalem. It is not known how they used to reconcile this calendar with the tropical year of 365.24 days (at least seven suggestions have been made), and it is not even certain that they felt the need to adjust it. mixed by the final redactor:

  • Apocalypse of Weeks (93:1–10, 91:11–17): this subsection, usually dated to the first half of the 2nd century BC, narrates the history of the world using a structure of ten periods (said "weeks"), of which seven regard the past and three regard future events (the final judgment). The climax is in the seventh part of the tenth week where "new heaven shall appear" and "there will be many weeks without number for ever, and all shall be in goodness and righteousness".

Aramaic

Eleven Aramaic-language fragments of the Book of Enoch were found in cave 4 of Qumran in 1948 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. Other translations were released by Geza Vermes and by Garcia-Martinez. Milik described the documents as being white or cream in color, blackened in areas, and made of leather that was smooth, thick and stiff. They were also partly damaged, with the ink blurred and faint.

  • 4Q201 = 4QEnoch <sup>a</sup> ar, Enoch 2:1–5:6; 6:4–8:1; 8:3–9:3,6–8
  • 4Q202 = 4QEnoch <sup>b</sup> ar, Enoch 5:9–6:4, 6:7–8:1, 8:2–9:4, 10:8–12, 14:4–6
  • 4Q204 = 4QEnoch <sup>c</sup> 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 <sup>d</sup> ar; Enoch 89:29–31, 89:43–44
  • 4Q206 = 4QEnoch <sup>e</sup> 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 <sup>f</sup> ar
  • 4Q208 = 4QEnastr <sup>a</sup> ar
  • 4Q209 = 4QEnastr <sup>b</sup> 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 <sup>c</sup> ar; Enoch 76:3–10, 76:13–77:4, 78:6–8
  • 4Q211 = 4QEnastr <sup>d</sup> ar; large fragments that do not correspond to any part of the Ethiopian text
  • 4Q212 = 4QEn <sup>g</sup> ar; Enoch 91:10, 91:18–19, 92:1–2, 93:2–4, 93:9–10, 91:11–17, 93:11–93:1

thumb|right|200px|[[Chester Beatty Papyri|Chester Beatty XII, Greek manuscript of the Book of Enoch, 4th century]]

Greek

thumb|4th century AD manuscript, with the end of 'The Epistle of Enoch' and the beginning of the Passion homily of 'Melito'; note the large text reading ΕΠΙΣΤΟΛΗ ΕΝΩΧ (EPISTOLĒ ENOCH)

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 fragments, 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.

According to Elena Dugan, this Codex was written by two separate scribes and was previously misunderstood as containing errors. She suggests that the first scribe actually preserves a valuable text that is not erroneous. In fact the text preserves "a thoughtful composition, corresponding to the progression of Enoch's life and culminating in an ascent to heaven". The first scribe may have been working earlier, and was possibly unconnected to the second.

  • Vatican Fragments, 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, which 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&nbsp;BCE, ranging from 98:11? to 103:15 and written on papyrus with grid lines, but this identification is highly contested.

Portions of 1 Enoch were incorporated into the chronicle of Panodoros () and thence borrowed by his contemporary Annianos.

Coptic

A sixth- or seventh-century fragmentary manuscript contains a Coptic version of the Apocalypse of Weeks. How extensive the Coptic text originally was cannot be known. It agrees with the Aramaic text against the Ethiopic, but was probably derived from Greek.

Latin

Of the Latin translation, only 1:9 and 106:1–18 are known. The first passage occurs in the Pseudo-Cyprianic Ad Novatianum and the Pseudo-Vigilian Contra Varimadum; the second was discovered in 1893 by M. R. James in an 8th-century manuscript in the British Museum and published in the same year.

Syriac

The only surviving example of 1&nbsp;Enoch in Syriac is found in the 12th&nbsp;century Chronicle of Michael the Great. It is a passage from Book&nbsp;VI and is also known from Syncellus and papyrus. Michael's source appears to have been a Syriac translation of (part of) the chronicle of Annianos.

History

Origins

Ephraim Isaac, the editor and translator of 1 Enoch in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, writes that "1 Enoch is clearly composite representing numerous periods and writers", with the various sections spanning from the early pre-Maccabean era (i.e. ) to AD 160. George W. E. Nickelsburg writes that "1 Enoch is a collection of Jewish apocalyptic traditions that date from the last three centuries before the common era".

Second Temple period

Paleographic analysis of the Enochic fragments found in the Qumran caves dates the oldest fragments of the Book of the Watchers to 200–150&nbsp;BC. 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. David Jackson speaks even of an "Enochic Judaism" from which the writers of Qumran scrolls were descended. Margaret Barker argues, "Enoch is the writing of a very conservative group whose roots go right back to the time of the First Temple". The main peculiar aspects of this Enochic Judaism include:

  • the idea that evil and impurity on Earth originated as a result of angels that had intercourse with human women and were subsequently expelled from Heaven;
  • the concept of "End of Days" as the time of final judgment that takes the place of promised earthly rewards;

Most Qumran fragments are relatively early, with none written from the last period of the Qumranic experience.

The relation between 1 Enoch and the Essenes was noted even before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. 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 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) Particular attention is paid to the detailed description of the throne of God included in chapter 14 of 1 Enoch. The limits of the influence of 1 Enoch are discussed at length by R.H. Charles, Ephraim Isaac, in their respective translations and commentaries. It is possible that the earlier sections of 1 Enoch had direct textual and content influence on multiple Biblical apocrypha, such as Jubilees, 2&nbsp;Baruch, 2 Esdras, Apocalypse of Abraham and 2 Enoch, though even in these cases, the connection is typically more branches of a common trunk than direct development.

The Greek text was known to, and quoted, both positively and negatively, by a number of Church Fathers: references can be found in Justin Martyr, Minucius Felix, Irenaeus, Origen, Cyprian, Hippolytus, Commodianus, Lactantius and Cassian. After Cassian 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.

Rediscovery

Sir Walter Raleigh, in his History of the World (written in 1616 while imprisoned in the Tower of London), makes the curious assertion that part of the Book of Enoch "which contained the course of the stars, their names and motions" had been discovered in Saba (Sheba) in the first century and was thus available to Origen and Tertullian. He attributes this information to Origen,

although no such statement is found anywhere in extant versions of Origen.

Outside of Ethiopia, the text of the Book of Enoch was considered lost until the beginning of the seventeenth century, when it was confidently asserted that the book was found in a Geʽez 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.

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 Geʽez version. 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 19th century; Silvestre de Sacy, in "Notices sur le livre d'Enoch", included extracts of the books with Latin translations (Enoch chapters 1, 2, 5–16, 22, and 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. Revised editions appeared in 1833, 1838, and 1842.

In 1838, Laurence also released the first Geʽez text of 1&nbsp;Enoch published in the West, under the title: Libri Enoch Prophetae Versio Aethiopica. The text, divided into 105&nbsp;chapters, was soon considered unreliable as it was the transcription of a single Geʽez manuscript.

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 one in 1840 called 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.

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 World War I was dominated by Robert Henry Charles. His 1893 translation and commentary of the Geʽez 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 Geʽez text, using 23 Geʽez 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.

Canonicity

Judaism

Judging by the number of copies found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Book of Enoch was widely read during the Second Temple period. Today, the Ethiopian Beta Israel community of Haymanot Jews is the only Jewish group that accepts the Book of Enoch as canonical and still preserves it in its liturgical language of Geʽez, where it plays a central role in worship. However, the Book of Enoch was excluded from both the formal canon of the Tanakh and the Septuagint and therefore, also from the writings known today as the Deuterocanon. Possible reasons for Enoch's exclusion from the canon of Rabbinic Judaism include that its teachings on fallen angels and the corruptibility of man did not accord with orthodox Jewish teaching. Its focus on mystical and apocalyptic themes rather than legal and ethical concerns also differs from Rabbinic Judaism.

While books like Enoch were fully accepted by the Qumran community, the later rabbis treated them with suspicion and saw them as inauthentic,

: "The term Pseudepigrapha means false writings, i.e., writings whose authors used false names such as biblical heroes like Ezra and Enoch. They did not use their own names because they were considered by the sages of mainstream Judaism to be underground prophets whose writings were inauthentic."

Christianity

By the fifth century, the Book of Enoch was mostly excluded from Christian biblical canons, and it is now regarded as scripture only by the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church.

References in the New Testament

"Enoch, the seventh from Adam" is quoted in :

: And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, To execute judgment upon all, and to convict 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&nbsp;1:9, translated from the Ethiopic (also found in Qumran scroll 4Q204=4QEnoch<sup>c</sup> ar, col I 16–18):

:And behold! He cometh with ten thousands of His Saints to execute judgment 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.

Compare this also with what may be the original source of in Deuteronomy 33:2: In "He cometh with ten thousands of His holy ones". According to Charles (1912), this "... text reproduces the Masoretic of Deuteronomy&nbsp;33 in reading = ἔρχεται, whereas the three Targums, the Syriac and Vulgate read , = . Here, the Septuagint diverges wholly. The reading is recognized as original. The writer of 1–5, therefore, used the Hebrew text and presumably wrote in Hebrew."

Other English translations of this passage vary widely.

According to John Barton, under the heading of canonicity, it is not enough to merely demonstrate that something is quoted. Instead, it is necessary to demonstrate the nature of the quotation.

In the case of the Jude 1:14 quotation of , it would be difficult to argue that Jude does not quote Enoch as a historical prophet since he cites Enoch by name. However, there remains a question as to whether the author of Jude attributed the quotation to the historical Enoch before the flood or to a midrash on Deuteronomy 33:2–3.