My book, The Book of Enoch for Beginners, was published on September 27, 2022. It just hit 100 reviews on Amazon, with an average of 4.4 stars or 4.18 on Goodreads. Jacob Prhalow recently reviewed the book, as did Brent Niedergall. Click through and read what they have to say. I appreciate the early reviews on Amazon and comments I have received saying the book is easy to read and well-designed.
The book had its origins in my PhD program in 2005, but also right here on Reading Acts. In 2016, I edited material I produced for a PhD seminar class on the Old Testament pseudepigrapha into a series of blog posts in summer 2016. Those posts have always been popular; Enoch appears in my “top ten” posts monthly. People hear things about First Enoch and look to Google for answers.
What is The Book of Enoch for Beginners: A Guide to Expand Your Understanding of the Biblical World? When you travel, sometimes you buy a tour guidebook to give you the highlights of the place you are visiting. This book is like a tour guide for First Enoch. It is only 152 pages, so the book is not a detailed, academic commentary on Enoch. I try to explain some of the details in each section of the book and offer suggestions on how First Enoch can shed light on Judaism and Christianity in the first century. If you need an academic commentary on 1 Enoch, you should invest in Nickelsburg and VanderKam’s two-volume Hermenia commentary. They are expensive but by far the best work on Enoch.
Why write a book on First Enoch? A few people have asked me why I spent time studying a non-canonical book like First Enoch. This book is not in the Bible, not even in the Apocrypha. Unless you are an Ethiopian Christian, you might have never heard of this book before! There are two main reasons I wrote the book. First, it is a fascinating glimpse into the world of developing Judaism in the centuries just before Jesus. Most people think of First Enoch as an apocalypse, and although that is not wrong, it is not apocalyptic in the modern sense. There are some wild “end of the world as we know it” scenes in the book, but they are not at all like a science fiction movie, nor are there predictions about how American gas prices somehow lead to the rise of the antichrist. The book talks far more about how people lived as faithful Jews in an evil world and gives some insight into what was important to Jews living in the time between the Testaments.
Second, there is a great deal of misinformation out there about what is in First Enoch. Recent conspiracy theories capitalize on the general population’s ignorance of First Enoch and make claims about the book that are just not true (including flat earth theories). Some People imagine later Roman Catholics suppressed First Enoch because it has the “real truth.” Movies like Noah or supernatural television shows dredge First Enoch for information about angels and demons. My book tries to explain what First Enoch actually says in order to put to rest some of these strange ideas.
First Enoch for Beginners is only $12.99 in paperback,and delivery is free for Amazon Prime members (and as of today, it is 15% off for some reason). The Kindle version is only $6.99 and is available for free to borrow in Kindle Unlimited. It was the #1 New Release in Amazon’s “Additional Biblical Texts” category when it came out (but it has dropped to #103). I admit that is a narrow category, but most of the top books are free/cheap reprints of apocryphal books.
If you do buy the book, please consider leaving (hopefully) five stars on Amazon and, if you have the time, a short review (25 words is Amazon’s minimum). Stars and reviews sell books these days.
Irwin, Brian P., with Tim Perry. After Dispensationalism: Reading the Bible for the End of the World. Lexham Press, 2023. xxiii+405 pp. Hb. $24.00 Link to Lexham Press
Brian Irwin is an associate professor of Old Testament at Knox College in Toronto. He has written many articles and book chapters on Old Testament topics. Tim Perry is a professor of theology at Providence Seminary in Otterburne, Manitoba. He is active in parish ministry and has written extensively on ecumenical dialogue and Mariology, including Mary for Evangelicals: Toward an Understanding of the Mother of Our Lord (InterVarsity, 2006). After Dispensationalism is an irenic critique of Dispensationalism that attempts to correct some of the excessive interpretations of apocalyptic literature. The authors state early on that “this book commends dispensationalism’s scriptural zeal even as it finds that its way of reading often misses what the biblical authors wished to communicate” (2).
In the first part of the book, “The World of End-Times Teaching,” Irwin and Perry trace the history of dispensationalism. They begin with a survey of early attempts at predicting the end times, starting with early rabbinic and church writers who held to a 6000-year history of the world. Since “a day is like 1000 years,” these writers looked forward to a final 1000-year kingdom in the near future. After a summary of the (non-dispensationalism) Millerite movement, they conclude that we should not make predictions about the end of the world (since Jesus told us not to bother). These kinds of predictions miss the point of the original authors of the Bible (27).
A standard and fair history of dispensationalism follows from Darby to the Scofield Reference Bible, including an account of Dallas Theological Seminary. Then, the authors move to Hal Lindsey and Tim LaHaye, who they describe as representing “end times as entertainment” (60). Chapter four is important since it outlines dispensationalism’s main ideas. These include literal interpretation, dispensations, a separation of Israel and the church, the pre-tribulational rapture, and the premillennial return of Christ. As most surveys observe, some of these elements appear in other forms of conservative theology, but the combination is “dispensational theology.” There are many examples of premillennialism throughout church history, but that does not mean early church fathers were dispensationalists.
Irwin and Perry then outline dispensationalism’s “end time story,” including the restoration of Israel to the land, the rebuilding of the temple, a rapture followed by a seven-year tribulation, Armageddon, and the return of Christ to establish the millennial kingdom. After the 1000-year kingdom, Christ judges the world at the great white throne judgment followed by “the new heavens and the new earth.” Once again, this is a fair summary of the kinds of things dispensationalism teachers about the end times. Although there are a few charts from Clarence Larkin (always entertaining and out of copyright), they avoid drawing on the lurid details found in the Left Behind movies.
For Irwin and Perry, the main problem is that dispensationalism needs to pay more attention to the original biblical audiences and contexts (95). Dispensationalism’s unrelenting focus on present fulfillment means literal interpretation can be idiosyncratic and constantly shifting. The solution? Study the literary genre of prophecy and apocalyptic (chapter five). This chapter clearly describes biblical prophecy, clarifying common misconceptions that Old Testament prophecy is only about the future. The authors use Ezekiel 34 as an example. The original audience would have understood this prophecy as the near-future return from exile, specifically, 538 BC, when Cyrus the Great permitted the Jews to return to the land and rebuild the temple. However, does the return from exile exhaust the details of Ezekiel 34? Is this an example of a prophecy that has an immediate fulfillment in the prophet’s life and another at the time of the Messiah? This would be like Isaiah 7:14, “The virgin will give birth to a child.” The prophecy refers to an actual child being born at the time of Isaiah but is then used in the New Testament to describe the coming of the Messiah.
This book is a fair summary of dispensationalism up to the mid-twentieth century. Like other writers outside of dispensationalism, the authors know Darby and Scofield but then leap to Hal Lindsey, Tim LaHaye, and the Left Behind books and films. There is some interaction with Dwight Pentecost and a little with John Walvoord, but for the most part, Pentecost’s 1964 Things to Come is the most recent dispensationalist in this book. For example, in the 1990s, Progressive dispensationalists published several important books hoping to revise (or reform) dispensationalist thought, and these books generated significant responses from other dispensational writers.
Like Daniel Hummel’s Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism, Irwin and Perry seem to be unaware there are many dispensational writers producing scholarship that do not predict the end of the world, the rapture, or map out the tribulation period. One example is the assertion that “most dispensationalist interpreters” evaluate John’s description of the New Jerusalem “in terms of engineering” (155). Dispensationalist Robert Thomas is aware of allusions to Ezekiel and thought the tangible aspects of the city’s architecture were not without “symbolic meaning” (2:461). He compares the size of the city to modern geography and concludes, “the prophet is struggling to express the vastness of the city through language accommodate to this creation” (2:467). DTS faculty member Buist Fanning’s recent commentary on Revelation tries to avoid excessive literalism and spiritualizing. He says, “Working out what the specific symbols mean and how much the mirror that future reality will still demand good judgment, but this is the broad approach taken in the present commentary” (539). John’s description is “under the influence of Ezekiel,” and the names of the apostles “represent the fullness of the New Testament church” (540). There is no speculation about the “engineering” of the New Jerusalem. For Daniel, recent commentaries by Paul Tanner and Joe Sprinkle approach the book from a dispensational perspective without devolving into excessive literalism or speculation. Although Fanning, Tanner, and Sprinkle do not state, “This is a dispensationalist commentary,” they represent the current state of dispensationalist scholarship on Daniel and Revelation.
Concerning apocalyptic literature, Irwin and Perry offer a clear description of the genre that aligns well with contemporary academic scholarship. Much of this section is similar to what I have written on apocalyptic, especially on Revelation. My main issue with their definition of apocalyptic is that it does not allow for any prediction as part of the genre. For example, Daniel 11 is certainly apocalyptic, and I completely agree with the fact that it refers to the Maccabean revolt. However, beginning in Daniel 11:36, there is a shift from the history leading up to the events of the revolt to a prediction of a judgment on the willful king. If this willful king is Antiochus IV Epiphanes, then the description of his demise is wrong. Maybe Michael refers to Judas Maccabees (or the Hasmoneans), but can “many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt” (Dan 12:2) really refer to real-world events in the lifetime of the prophet? Either the writer of Daniel 11 “gets it wrong,” or he begins looking forward to a future judgment that has not yet happened (from his perspective). So, apocalyptic can have a predictive quality (even if scholars disagree on what a particular apocalypse predicts).
The third section of the book demonstrates these principles using texts from Ezekiel, Daniel, and Revelation. These are not full-blown commentaries on either book. In fact, there are barely two pages on Daniel 10-12. They conclude, “Most scholars agree that Daniel’s original audience were Jews in Judea suffering under the Seleucid emperor Antiochus IV Epiphanies” (210). This is not wrong, but it does not entertain the possibility that Daniel 11:36-45 is a genuine prophecy about a final judgment of an ultimate enemy of God. If Daniel 7:13-14 refers to a “son of man” with authority to judge the arrogant horn and rule over a kingdom that will never end, when did that happen in the prophet’s lifetime? It seems like Daniel has in mind a future judgment that cannot be tied to anything in history. Irwin and Perry do, in fact, see a future aspect to the book of Revelation. Commenting on the New Heaven and New Earth, they suggest, “The scene of perfect peace and relationship with God is not yet realized, however, so this final section and the book as a whole concludes with the reminder and encouragement that Christ is coming soon” (282).
Part of the problem is Irwin and Perry assume one must approach Revelation as either a futurist, a preterist, or an idealist. A survey of recent commentaries on Revelation shows this either/or method does not work. Most commentators recognize that Revelation is grounded in a first-century situation and can be applied to all cultures and contexts in church history. But it also looks forward to a consummation of the ages, whatever that looks like. I realize this seems a little bit like wanting to have my cake and eat it too, but Revelation itself claims to be a prophecy (Rev 1:3). It certainly speaks to the culture of the prophet’s day but also has application to various cultures throughout church history. That is how scholars approach Romans 13:1-7, for example. Paul addresses a real issue in the first century that can be applied to any culture at any point in church history (now and in the future). Why not approach Daniel and Revelation the same way?
Irwin and Perry conclude the book with thirteen theses summarizing their approach to prophecy and apocalyptic. None of these are surprising to dispensationalists outside of the entertainment-style dispensational theology of LaHaye and Lindsay. Many dispensationalists have warned against trying to interpret revelation through the lens of a modern newspaper, and they’re warning that modern political Israel is not equivalent to the future biblical Israel regathered in the land. I wholeheartedly agree with their warnings in this final chapter, but I still think Daniel and Revelation look forward to the return of Christ and the future kingdom of God.
Conclusion. Despite this overly long review and some misgivings about the details, this is really a very good book. Everyone needs to heed their warnings to stop reading current events through the lens of Revelation. Irwin and Perry provide an excellent introduction to understanding prophecy, even if I am more willing to see a future aspect in some details than they are. I wish they were reading more contemporary dispensationalists.
Irwin describes current dispensationalism as like a supertanker with its engines cut. It is still moving but is aimless and slowly losing momentum (37). Daniel Hummel goes further in his Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism (Eerdmans 2023, review coming soon). Scot McKnight blames Dispensationalism for many of America’s political woes in Revelation for the Rest of Us (Zondervan 2023, reviewed here). Yet a book like Discovering Dispensationalism (SCS Press, 2023) seems to indicate that Dispensationalism is “not quite dead yet,” even if scholarship does not take notice.
The physical book is an attractive 5×8 inches and hardback, a handy size. Unfortunately, the book uses endnotes. There is a thirty-three-page bibliography, so the body of the book is only 297 pages. The book is illustrated with various charts and graphs.
NB: Thanks to Lexham Press for kindly providing me with a review copy of this book. This did not influence my thoughts regarding the work.
McKnight, Scot with Cody Matchett. Revelation for the Rest of Us: A Prophetic Call to Follow Jesus as a Dissident Disciple. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2023. xiii+3412 pp. Hb; $26.99 Link to Zondervan
In the introduction to this new book on Revelation, Scot McKnight describes his early encounters with Revelation in the early 70s. This was all eerily familiar to me. Like McKnight, in my teens, I read The Late Great Planet Earth, listened to Larry Norman warn us about being left behind, and watched the Thief in the Night movies many times. Conspiracy-laced interpretations of Revelation did not end in the 1970s and have only become more paranoid since the Left Behind series (and the freedom of the internet to publish anything and everything).
McKnight says he believed in a pre-tribulation rapture and premillennialism well into his academic career until one day he stopped believing it. The predictions were always wrong, and these writers seriously misread the Book of Revelation. For McKnight, premillennial and especially dispensational interpretations represented by the Left Behind series interpretations result in escapism. “Escapism is as far from Revelation as Babylon is from New Jerusalem” (xiii). Instead, this book intends to read Revelation as dissident literature. “The Book of Revelation is for modern-day disciples who have eyes to see the power of the empire in our world and in our churches and in our lives (13). As a result, there is no speculation of how Revelation will be fulfilled in this book. But there is a prophetic call for evangelical Christianity to repent of its association with Babylon. For McKnight and Matchett, Revelation “is an apocalyptic-prophetic book revealing the evils of the empire and summoning readers to discerning discipleship as we live into the new Jerusalem” (143).
The authors specifically reject classic dispensationalism. It is too “prediction heavy…looking for signs of Revelation on your Twitter feed” (94). McKnight and Matchett do not think Revelation predicts literal events and the book does not have a chronological plot. “Prophetic does not mean prediction” (95). This is almost true. They are correct that most prophetic books speak to the people of their day, calling them back to covenant faithfulness. However, Old Testament prophets do predict future events such as the fall of Jerusalem, the exile, the return from exile, etc. These were all chronological events and literal predictions.
The first two chapters deal with introductory issues. Revelation was written by someone named John, who likely wrote the book after Rome destroyed Jerusalem in A. D. 70 and likely after Nero’s Great Fire and subsequent persecution of Christiana. He wrote to encourage Christians in Asia Minor to “follow the lamb” by being disciples of Jesus in this world. John was a dissident imprisoned because of the word of God. His critique of Rome was in many ways like the prophets of the Hebrew Bible. But he used a different strategy: he wrote an apocalypse. An apocalypse reveals that what people think is real is not actually real at all. (Interested readers should read Appendix 2, “What is an Apocalypse?”)
Rather than a chapter-by-chapter commentary on Revelation, the next two sections of the book describe the “Playbill of Revelation” and the “Dramatic Narrative” of the book. In the first five chapters, McKnight and Matchett introduce the various characters of the book (Babylon, the Lamb, and the Faithful Witnesses). Babylon is Rome. Commenting on the Great Whore, “it would have taken very little imagination in John’s day to recognize this so-called great city is Rome. Babylon is a natural name for an anti-God empire, so it is a useful metaphor for all empires throughout history. “Babylon is a timeless trope” (47). The Book of Revelation essentially contrasts “Team Babylon” against “Team Lamb,” with faithful witnesses (“allegiant witnesses”) caught between. Although they do not focus on this in the book, one could also describe an unfaithful group of witnesses (“un-allegiant witnesses”?) who worship the beast and do not follow the Lamb.
This is “the drama of Revelation.” But this plot is not for spectators. It is for dissidents and requires “reading with imagination in order to locate the characters in the dramatic narrative” (94). Revelation is about the Lamb’s final and complete defeat of the dragon and its Babylons and the establishment of a new Jerusalem (97). To understand this, the reader needs to know the back story of Israel in the Old Testament. John retells Israel’s story “with some adjustments” (99). Those adjustments can be summed up as “Jesus.” McKnight acknowledges that, in some ways, the Kingdom of God is already here, but it is not yet completely here (already/not yet). The seven churches, for example, have a foot in the Kingdom of God but the other in Babylon. Revelation, therefore, calls Christians to reject radical secularism, Christian nationalism, and civil religion.
The fourth section of the book, “Living in Babylon,” surveys the seven churches (Rev 2-3). These churches have disordered love, distorted teachings, corrupted worship, and inconsistent behaviors. “Babylon is creeping into the seven churches” (181). After Constantine, this becomes more intense. When the state became the power of the church, “the state does what the state states do. Aligning the church with Babylon was “the most tragic mistake in church history” (183). Chapter 18 discussions “worshiping in Babylon.” Certainly, worship is the key theme of Revelation. There are frequent worship scenes throughout the book, and the beast demands alternative worship. The authors discuss what they call “nine songs for dissident disciples of the Lamb” (190). Worship is a witness of the works of God and the Lamb and a way to signal allegiance (202). “The aim of all worship is Christoformity” (205).
In the fifth section of the book, McKnight and Matchett “turn up the heat” and look at the relevance of Revelation for today. “It’s not pretty.” They begin by outlining the four marks of Babylon: arrogance, economic exploitation, militarism, and oppression (racism and a caste system). Each of these is easily illustrated by the Roman Empire of John’s day (or, I would add, by any empire and culture in history). However, McKnight directs this application to modern America. Christians are always called to be dissidents from the system of Babylon. The call of revelation is “come out of Babylon,” not “jump in bed with the Great Whore” (my words, but it catches the spirit of McKnight’s chapter).
So how do we live in Babylon? McKnight says, “American evangelicalism has lost its way, and it’s suffocating on its own urp” (220). The rest of the chapter illustrates this evocative phrase. He refers to the politics of hate, specifically the insurrection on January 6 and the “embarrassing use of Christian symbolism among the rioters” (227). “Evangelicalism is no longer identified by its theology or mission, but by its politics” (223). “What is happening today among evangelicals is a perversion of biblical Christianity” (227). He names names and calls out many of the leaders of the right wing of the Republican Party who claimed to be evangelical Christians.
He suggests that eschatology, particularly dispensationalism, has shaped the evangelical world toward becoming increasingly Republican. Sadly, this may be true. McKnight points out (rightly) that there is a high correlation between a belief in Armageddon, the rapture, and pre-millennialism and the extremists among the January 6 insurrectionists. He suggests that this “homegrown eschatology” was more American than biblical. Although I am a premillennialist, I agree that “Left Behind” eschatology has led to paranoid conspiracy thinking among people self-identifying as evangelicals. I have two responses to McKnight’s claim.
First, McKnight is correct, “Evangelicalism is no longer identified by its theology or mission, but by its politics,” but that identification comes from the media, who mistakenly think of people like Jerry Falwell Jr. or Paula White as representatives of evangelicalism. The word “evangelical” has become distorted. It no longer refers to a conservative theology and gospel-oriented mission but rather a hate-filled fundamentalism that is “more American than biblical.” It’s not biblical at all! I agree with McKnight that this is a “mutant form of evangelicalism,” and a radical form of premillennialism may have fueled that mutation, but that does not mean premillennialism is wrong. Imagine rejecting Calvinism because Calvinists in South Africa created apartheid. I can reject apartheid (or Calvinism), but those are separate issues. Same with premillennialism. Reject the ultra-whacky conspiracy interpretations of Revelation because they are absolute garbage. Reject premillennialism for biblical reasons if you want. But do not reject premillennialism because some idiots have made a mess of it.
Second, people who used to consider themselves evangelicals (before everything turned political) are in many ways to blame for bad interpretations of Revelation. Many academic dispensational scholars avoid working in Revelation. There are only a handful of premillennialist scholars who have written on Revelation. For example, Buist Fanning’s commentary on Revelation (ZECNT, 2020; reviewed here) is premillennial and treats many of the details in Revelation much like McKnight does in this book. Dispensationalist Alan Kurschner published A Linguistic Approach to Revelation 19:11–20:6 and the Millennium Binding of Satan (Brill, 2022) and recently co-edited a volume with Stanley Porter, The Future Restoration of Israel: A Response to Supersessionism (Pickwick, 2023). Kurschner recently started an online Revelation commentary. But to be honest, it is not much!
Third, I see several differences between my approach to Revelation and McKnight’s. I think one can approach the book within a premillennialist framework and still fully embrace the book as dissident literature in the first century and every time and place throughout church history. This is not an either/or decision; most recent commentaries on Revelation ignore the old preterist, futurist, or idealist categories because a good commentary sees the application of the book to the first century and every generation of the church. But there is a future orientation in Revelation as well. The book does really look forward to some victory over evil and restoration in the future, even if there is no “roadmap for the future.”
In a sidebar on millennial positions, McKnight states that the millennium is a “sideshow at best in Revelation” (143). He points out that there are only three verses in the entire book that mention the millennium. “Revelation should never be read through the framework of the millennium,” and “it is a colossal example of missing the point of the whole book” (143). For McKnight, a better question is, “Ignoring the millennium entirely, what would be your view of the Book of Revelation?” Indeed, the 1000 years are only mentioned in Revelation 20 (six times, not three). But if that 1000-year period is the “kingdom of God,” then it is a more pervasive theme in Revelation than McKnight acknowledges. Imagine saying the “kingdom of God” is a “sideshow at best” in Revelation.
The book’s final chapter is a “Manifesto for Dissident Disciples.” If Revelation is a call to public discipleship, then pastors will preach a gospel that subverts Babylon. Christian leaders should follow the Lamb, not Babylon! American Christians are worshipping false gods and bowing before the dragon (236). McKnight suggests that American evangelicals need to learn a lesson from the Barman Declaration, Karl Barth’s statement of resistance to national socialism in 1934.
Conclusion. My reservations aside, this is an important book addressing evangelicalism with the message of the book of Revelation. I fully agree with McKnight and Matchett: Revelation is a condemnation of the power of Rome and a lens to evaluate the empire in any historical and cultural context. You must read this book even if you disagree with McKnight and Matchett’s premises. This book should be required reading for all conservative Americans since it is a powerful challenge to reject Babylon and follow the Lamb. To the one who has an ear, let them hear.
NB: Thanks to Zondervan for kindly providing me with a review copy of this book. This did not influence my thoughts regarding the work.
Burke, Tony, ed. New Testament Apocrypha, Vol. 3: More Noncanonical Scriptures. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2023. 683 pp. Hb; $85. Link to Eerdmans
In the introduction to the second volume of New Testament Apocrypha, Tony Burke observed that the number of documents called “Christian Apocrypha” is quite high. In 1992 Clavis apocryphorum Novi Testameni listed 346 texts, but there were omissions, and recent discoveries increased that number. This volume includes twenty-nine translations of non-canonical Christian writings with introductions and notes. This series aims to make available overlooked in previous English language collections.
Before the first volume in this series, the standard collection of Christian noncanonical Christian literature was The New Testament Apocrypha (edited by M. R. James in 1924) and updated by Wilhelm Schneemelcher, New Testament Apocrypha (Vol. 1: Gospels and Related Writings; Vol. 2: Writings Relating to the Apostles Apocalypses). J. K. Elliot’s New Testament Apocrypha (Oxford, 1993) expanded the collection of Christian Apocrypha. New Testament Apocrypha Volume 3 continues this tradition by collecting texts not already found in these earlier works.
A few of the texts from the projected list at the end of Volume 2 are not included (The Book of the Rooster, The Discovery of John the Baptist’s Head, Dream of Nero, On the Star, and the Vision of Theophilus). In addition, a few of the titles have changed since the projected list was published.
The introduction for each document in the collection begins with a summary of the contents followed by a list of available manuscripts, versions, and editions. Most introductions have a few paragraphs on the literary and theological importance of the work and comments on the genre, structure, original language, date, and provenance. Some introductions place the document into a historical context or comment on potential literary sources. Finally, each introduction includes translation notes and a bibliography. Marginal notes suggest references to canonical scripture or other Christian Apocrypha.
Burke suggests the “crown jewel in volume 3 is Janet E. Spittler’s translation of Acts of John by Prochorus.” This sixty-page text is presented in English for the first time and is known from 150 Greek manuscripts and translations in Coptic, Arabic, Ethiopic, Armenian and Old French. Some stories from this text appear in paintings in the Church of John on Patmos, indicating the importance of this apocryphal book to some early Christians. Even though the book was popular and well-attested, it has received far less attention than the Proto-Evangelium of James (for example). Spittler’s thirty-four-page introduction suggests the book was written before AD 630, likely from Antioch rather than Patmos (“the author hasn’t the faintest idea of the size and character of the island”) or Ephesus.
The narrator of Acts of John is Prochorus, one of the deacons (Acts 6:5). When the apostles and deacons cast lots to decide where they will go to evangelize, Prochorus’s lot indicates he will follow John to Ephesus. The text narrates a series of miracles and exorcisms, usually ending in the conversion of a pagan. John wrote the Gospel of John while in exile on the island of Patmos, dictating the book to Prochorus. What is remarkable is the book does not engage current theological debates. Spittler points out there is no emphasis on celibacy or sexual asceticism. In fact, John helps a couple conceive. There is an allusion to Dormition in the first paragraph, “the mother of us all departing from this life” before John left for Ephesus. This would imply Mary’s Dormition in Jerusalem rather than Ephesus.
The story of the Hospitality and Perfume of the Bandit illustrates how some early Christians connected canonical texts. On their flight to Egypt, Joseph, Mary, and the baby Jesus are attacked by a bandit who had sworn to rob and kill the next people he encountered. After seeing the blessed Mary and child Jesus, he decides instead to lead them to his own home and offer them hospitality. The bandit’s child is leprous, but after bathing in the same bathwater as Jesus, is completely healed. Later, Mary washes out baby Jesus’s clothing and rings the water into an alabaster vessel. The water became a precious and fragrant perfume. She gives this perfume to the bandit, who then sells it for a great price to Mary Magdalene. Mary Magdalene was still “making a living from sin,” but when she used the perfume on herself, all her bodily pollution and desire for sin left her. She keeps the rest of the perfume and uses it to anoint the Lord’s feet. This reflects the tradition that the woman in Mark 14:3-9 was Mary Magdalene, a detail absent from Mark. In John 12, the woman is Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus (not Magdalene). The woman is not identified in Luke 7:37-39, but because Luke 8:2 introduces Mary Magdalene for the first time, the tradition reflected by this apocryphal story first developed. The bandit is the one crucified alongside Jesus who asked to be remembered when the Kingdom comes.
The first Revelation of Matthew about the End Times is known from only two late medieval manuscripts. This short text is notable because it describes the Antichrist physically. Just before the Triumphal Entry, Jesus tells Matthew the coming Antichrist will be tall and thin, with long hair and a long nose. He will have eyes like a cat and large ears. He has leprous spots on his head, which remain even when he changes his appearance. The elect will wait for Christ’s arrival in caves, eating only vegetables and water, and will not touch women. The Antichrist and Gog and Magog will be defeated by Michael the archangel on the Mount of Olives. Translator Stephen Pelle suggests some similarities with the Apocalypse of Elijah, especially in its description of the Antichrist.
The second Revelation of Matthew about the End Times was composed in sometime in the twelfth or early thirteenth century and is unrelated to the first Revelation. The short text is an expansion on Matthew 24, combined with elements of canonical Revelation. Charles Wright and Stephen Pelle place three recensions in parallel columns. Several details in this text are interesting, I will mention only a few. First, the Antichrist is from the tribe of Dan (a tribe missing from Revelation 7) and raised in Chorazin and Bethsaida (two towns condemned by Jesus for their unbelief, Matthew 11:20-24). Second, Enoch and Elijah are the two unnamed witnesses in Revelation 11. Third, the second Revelation of Matthew gives a series of fifteen signs of the end, possibly influenced by 4 Ezra. Finally, the book’s last section refers to humanity’s resurrection: “They will advance into the air toward the Lord when he comes to the judgment of the world” (Recensions 2A and 2B). This is a clear allusion to 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17. Although not a rescue before the great tribulation, it is certainly rapture-like.
Conclusion. In his introduction to this volume, Burke says there are still more Christian Apocrypha awaiting publications, and he hints that a fourth volume may follow in the future. A fourth volume would enhance this already important three-volume contribution to the study of early Christian Apocrypha.
Contents of New Testament Apocrypha, Volume 3
Part One: Gospels and Related Traditions of New Testament Figures
The Hospitality and Perfume of the Bandit—Mark G. Bilby
The Gospel of the Twelve—James Toma
The Dialogue of Jesus and the Devil—Chance E. Bonar and Slavomír Čéplö
The Story of the Image of Edessa—Nathan J. Hardy
The Dream of the Rood—Alexander D’Alisera and Samuel Osborn
The Eremitic Life of Mary Magdalene—Brandon W. Hawk
The Martyrdom of Zechariah—Tony Burke and Sarah Veale
The Decapitation of John the Forerunner—Tony Burke
Part Two: Apocryphal Acts and Related Traditions
The Acts of Andrew and Paul—Christian H. Bull and Alexander Kocar
The Acts of Andrew and Philemon—Ivan Miroshnikov
The Story of John Meeting Cerinthus—Lorne R. Zelyck
The Acts of John in Rome—Janet E. Spittler
The Acts of John by Prochorus—Janet E. Spittler
The Memorial of John—Rick Brannan
The Martyrdom of Mark—Tobias Nicklas
The History of Paul—Jacob A. Lollar
The Preaching of Simon Cephas in the City of Rome—J. Edward Walters
The Disputation of Peter and Nero—J. Edward Walters
The Acts of Christ and Peter in Rome—Julia A. Snyder and Slavomír Čéplö
The Passion of Peter and Paul—Carson Bay
The Preaching of Philip—Ivan Miroshnikov
Part Three: Epistles
The Epistles of Ignatius, John, and Mary—Gregory Given
The Epistle of James to Quadratus—Brent Landau, Bradley Rice, and J. Edward Walters
The Epistles of Longinus, Augustus, Ursinus, and Patrophilus—Tony Burke
Part Four: Apocalypses
The Revelation about the Lord’s Prayer—Peter Tóth
The Dialogue of Mary and Christ on the Departure of the Soul—Christine Luckritz Marquis
The Questions of John (Interrogatio Iohannis)—Stephen C. E. Hopkins
1 Revelation of Matthew about the End Times—Stephen Pelle
2 Revelation of Matthew about the End Times—Charles D. Wright and Stephen Pelle
NB: Thanks to Eerdmans for kindly providing me with a review copy of this book. This did not influence my thoughts regarding the work. I purchased this volume for Logos Bible Software.
I was interviewed for the podcast Talk Junkies last week. The topic was 1 Enoch, based on my recently published The Book of Enoch for Beginners. I enjoyed chatting with Paul about apocryphal books (and quite a few other things before we were done). Hopefully this podcast helps clarify what 1 Enoch is and what we can expect when reading books like 1 Enoch. This is a link to their YouTube channel if you would like to listen to the podcast (like and subscribe, as the say). It is available where ever podcasts are found.
The Book of Enoch for Beginners was published on September 27 and is $12.99 in paperback (delivery is free for Amazon Prime members). The Kindle version is only $6.99 and is available to borrow in Kindle Unlimited for free. It was the #1 New Release in “Additional Biblical Texts” category on Amazon.
What is The Book of Enoch for Beginners: A Guide to Expand Your Understanding of the Biblical World? When you travel, sometimes you buy a tour guidebook to give you the highlights of the place you are visiting. This book is like a tour guide for 1 Enoch. It is only 152 pages, so the book is not a detailed, academic commentary on Enoch. I try to explain some of the details in each section of the book and offer some suggestions on how 1 Enoch can shed like on both Judaism and Christianity in the first century. If you need an academic commentary on 1 Enoch, you should invest in Nickelsburg and VanderKam’s two-volume Hermenia commentary. They are expensive, but by far the best work on Enoch.
Why write a book on 1 Enoch? A few people have asked me why I spent time studying a non-canonical book like 1 Enoch. This book is not in the Bible, not even in the Apocrypha. Unless you are an Ethiopic Christian, you might have never heard of this book before! There are two main reasons I wrote the book, First, it is a fascinating glimpse into the world of developing Judaism in the centuries just before Jesus. Most people think of 1 Enoch as an apocalypse, and although that is not wrong, it is not apocalyptic in the modern sense. There are some wild “end of the world as we know it” scenes in the book, but they are not at all like a science fiction movie nor are there predictions about how American gas prices somehow lead to the rise of the antichrist. The book talks far more about how people live as faithful Jews in an evil world and gives some insight into what was important to Jews living in the time between the Testaments.
Second, there is a great deal of misinformation out there about what is in 1 Enoch. Recent conspiracy theories capitalize on the general population’s ignorance of the book and make claims about the book that are just not true (including flat earth theories). People think the book was suppressed by later Roman Catholics because it has the “real truth.” Movies like Noah or supernatural television shows dredge 1 Enoch for information about angels and demons. My book tries to explain what 1 Enoch actually says in order to put to rest some of these strange ideas.
Like Isaiah 6, Ezekiel 1 and Daniel 7, Enoch sees a flaming throne and a being with bright clothing light lightning. The name of the one on the throne in Daniel “Ancient of Days” is similar to the “Antecedent of Time.” There is a huge multitude of angelic witnesses in both Daniel and 1 Enoch.
Jim West reviewed the book as did Brent Niedergall. Click through and read what they have to say. I appreciate the early reviews on Amazon and comments I have received saying the book is easy to read and well designed. If you get the book, please consider leaving (hopefully) five-stars on Amazon and if you have the time, a short review (25 words is Amazon’s minimum). Stars and reviews sell books these days.
