1 Enoch

This is a brief follow-up to my earlier post on finding a translation of Enoch. Several people have offered suggestions in the comments to supplement by opinion that the “best value” translation is the Fortress Press reprint of Nickelsburg and VanderKam from the Hermeneia series. But if you want to read the Ethiopic text of of 1 Enoch, the resources available tend to be very expensive and hard to find.

James Hamrick has created a number of Reading Guides for reading 1 Enoch. He is a Graduate Student at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, blogs at The Ancient Bookshelf. He has posted a few these to Academia.edu. He uses the text from R.H. Charles and creates a worksheet with a vocabulary list. Hamrick does not offer any grammatical comments, but for a beginning student these worksheets will make for good practice.

Hamrick posted similar documents for Ethiopic Jubilees as well as a set of Ge’ez Flashcards.

The Book of the Watchers describes the fallen angels (1 Enoch 6-8).  In the biblical story of the Nephilim, the sons of God saw the daughters of men were beautiful so they married them and had children (Gen 6:1-4). These children were called the Nephilim, the “mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.” In Genesis, the story shows how far the wickedness of humans had become: humans interacted sexually with spiritual beings. No details are given on how this might be possible, but the next verse in Genesis says “the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.” This brief story is tantalizing: who are these “sons of God” and what were the Nephilim? 1 Enoch offers an expansion of this biblical story in chapters 6-11. Are the Nephilim fallen angels?

In 1 Enoch, the sons of God are the “sons of heaven,” angelic beings led by Shemihazah. The name Shemihazah (שׁמיחזה, šemîḥăzāh) means “My name has seen” and is sometimes vocalized as Semyaz of Semyaza (Nickelsburg, 179). “Name” refers to God, so the name refers to constantly watching God. This is ironic since God will see this rebellion and render judgment on the Shemihazah. Some readers want to find some reference to Satan as the leader of fallen angels in the Book of Enoch. As the story progresses, however, Azazel emerges as the ringleader (but later Enoch will intercede on behalf of Azazel). This is an example of how foolish (and impossible) it is to project modern Christian angelology on 1 Enoch. Azazel is not the modern version of Satan at all!

The two hundred angels take an oath to descend to Mt Hermon, find women to marry and have children with them. 1 Enoch 6:7-8 lists the names of the leaders of these angels. Most have names with some reference to God (Remashel, “evening of God” or Kokabel, “star of God” ). The most interesting of these names is Dan’el, a name associated with the Ugaritic literature and often offered as an explanation of the legendary character of Daniel.

This is Fake.

In chapters 7 and 8 the angels make good on their oath and take women as wives. They teach humans “magical medicines, incantations, the cutting of roots and about plants.” The origin of folk-medicine is therefore ascribed to these angelic beings. The children of the angels are giants standing three hundred cubits (an improbable 450 feet tall!) These giants eat so much food the humans cannot feed them anymore. The giants proceed to eat humans as well as all other kinds of animals.

The text notes especially that they drank the blood of animals, “sinning against them.” In the biblical flood story, the Noahic covenant includes a command about consuming blood. 1 Enoch 7-8 is a reflection upon this command which was probably given because the antediluvian world did in fact consume blood.

In addition to teaching humans in interpret a wide range of signs, they teach humans medicinal magic. The angel Azazel teaches humans metal-working, including making of ornaments and weapon making. Azazel also teaches them to make eye-shadow and other physical ornamentation. This may be a polemic against pagan practice of using make up in their religious ceremonies. Other angels teach the humans how to track the stars (astrology and divination) and the signs of the moon. These angels are responsible for teaching humans all sorts of sinful practices. Humanity cries out as a result of this oppression, a cry which “goes up to heaven.”

This detailed expansion of the biblical stories blames wicked angelic beings for revealing mysteries to humans which will result in sin. It is not Adam’s rebellion in the garden that is responsible for human evil, but wicked angelic beings who do not remain in their appointed place. What is more, the great Flood is not the result of human sin, but the rebellion of these angelic beings.

This is a significant re-writing of the worldview of Genesis 6. What is the author’s motivation for this shift of blame?

1 Enoch 1-5 is an introduction to the Book of the Watchers (1 Enoch 6-36). Nickelsburg  argues the superscription to the book is an allusion to Deuteronomy 33:1 and he translates it to make the allusion more clear.

Deuteronomy 33:1 This is the blessing with which Moses the man of God blessed the people of Israel before his death.

1 Enoch 1:1 The words of the blessing with which Enoch blessed the righteous chosen who will be present on the day of tribulation, to remove all the enemies; and the righteous will be saved.

Chapter 1 describes a “day of tribulation” (יום צרה, εἰς ἡμέραν ἀνάγκης) during which the ungodly will be destroyed and a great cataclysm. The chapter is rich with apocalyptic language here: mountains and high places falling down, earth split asunder, etc. This tribulation is a time when the “God of the universe” will come forth from his dwelling and “march upon Sinai and appear in his camp” (1:4). This awesome event will cause all to tremble, even the Watchers, the angelic beings who constantly observe the actions of God.

This arrival of God is for judgment, as 1:9 states: “He will come with ten millions of his holy ones in order to execute judgment upon all.” This verse is used by Jude in the New Testament, but here in 1 Enoch it is the theme for the whole Book of the Watchers. With respect to the plot of the book, the judgment is the coming Flood, but it is clear the writer of 1 Enoch is thinking beyond the Flood to a future judgment of God on the wicked in his own day. Like Noah and his family, the elect of the writer’s day will be preserved from this coming judgment: “to the righteous he will grant peace.” The phrase “the elect” will be repeated throughout the Book of Watchers.

Chapters 2-5 are speculative wisdom not unlike Job 38-41. The writer invites his readers to examine the orderliness of creation and observe that God does not change. The natural order is a progression of seasons which follow very precise patterns and laws. In 5:4 he turns this into a condemnation of the wicked: “But as for you, you have long transgressed and spoken slanderously….” Verse seven then turns to the righteous, who will have “joy and peace in the earth.”

After the judgment, wisdom will be given to the elect who will all live and not return again to sin, being preserved from the plagues and wrath (5:7). This is not necessarily immortality since verse eight says they will live out the complete designated number of their days. Verse 9, however says their lives and happiness will “increase forever.” Isaac says some manuscripts modify this to “and their lives shall be increased in peace,” taking away some of the ambiguity OTP, 1:15 note v, on verse 10). Nickelsburg agrees with this translation.

Like many prophetic books, 1 Enoch begins by sounding several key themes. First, judgment is coming on the wicked. Like the Flood, this judgment will be a cataclysm which destroys all. But second, the elect will be preserved from this coming tribulation. Like Noah’s family, Enoch’s community may suffer, but they will be ultimately preserved and vindicated when the final judgment arrives. These are themes found in many apocalyptic texts; in the New Testament, Revelation promises judgment is coming and the preservation of the elect through that time of persecution.

The book known today as 1 Enoch not a single book, but rather a series of short books written over a period of time. They share some themes and interests, most obviously revelations given to Enoch. Since four of the five major sections of the book were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, it would appear the Qumran community valued the books. But just because a book appears in a library is not sufficient evidence to conclude the owner of the book agrees with the contents. (For example, how many books in your personal library reflect what you actually believe?)

Gabriele Boccaccini argues in favor of a close relationship between the books of Enoch and the Qumran community. While there is no evidence to suggest the Essene community produced the documents which later became known as 1 Enoch, Boccaccini rightly notes the importance of this literature to the community, which he describes as a “a parent-child relationship.” (Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis, 12). He believes “the mystery of Essene and Qumran origins is largely hidden in the Enoch literature” (Boccaccini, 13).

There are problems with this proposal, however. As Boccaccini admits, the presence of an anti-Zadokite Enoch in a pro-Zadok Essene library is troubling. Other elements which are important in the sectarian literature of Qumran are missing. “The Enochian texts offer some theological surprises to the thoughtful reader who is sensitive both to what is there and what is not there” (Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch, 5). No sacrificial cult in Jerusalem, for example. “Soteriology is knowledge in Enoch, divinely revealed secret knowledge” (Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch, 6).

Reconstructing the community which might have created this literature is clearly difficult. Commenting on the possibility of reconstructing 1 Enoch’s community, Nickelsburg rightly warns, “We see darkly in a tarnished and scratched mirror, and our interpretations of the images often present only one of several possibilities” (Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch, 3).  In Boccaccini’s reconstruction, the influence of Hellenism on the religion and practice of Israel is the impetus for the creation of this literature. As Hellenism made inroads into Jewish society in Palestine, those who argued for traditional Jewish values found themselves in a struggle for the hearts of the people.

That Israel is God’s elect is clear from the Hebrew Bible, but how that election relates to Jewish boundary markers was not always clear. The Hebrew Bible demonstrates clearly that God will judge between the righteous and the sinner, the elect and the non-elect. The Community which produced the material in 1 Enoch seems to have looked forward to a judgment of God which would sort out the true elect from the false.

Bibliography: Gabriele Boccaccini. Beyond the Essene Hypothesis: The Parting of the Ways between Qumran and Enochic Judaism (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1998).

Dillman’s Ethiopic text of 1 Enoch

In 2022 I published First Enoch for Beginners. I have been asked several times where to get a copy of 1 Enoch to read. As with most books, there are free copies on the internet and expensive books only available in the reserve room at high quality university libraries.  For the student looking to read the text, perhaps the free editions will suffice, but there are some problems with these older, free resources.

Richard Laurence published the first English translation of 1 Enoch in 1883, followed by R. H. Charles (Oxford, 1893, revised in 1913). Both are out of print and
widely available on the Internet (Pseudepigrapha.com; Sacred Texts). The 1893 edition of Charles’s translation is available in Google Books and 1 Enoch is also included in his two-volume Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1913). The 1917 edition of 1 Enoch has an introduction to apocalyptic literature by W. O. E. Oesterley (available from Logos).  Wipf & Stock sells a reprint of Charles’s 1912 translation and Dillman’s Ethiopic text of 1 Enoch.

The problem with these older, free resources is the limited manuscript evidence available to the translator. Since the Aramaic fragments of the book were not discovered and published until after 1948, Charles relies on limited Ethiopic and Greek witnesses to the text. An additional problem with these older resources is the tendency to affect a biblical tone similar to the KJV Bible.

More recently, the translation by E. Isaac (“1 (Ethiopic Apocalypse of) Enoch” in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 1:5-89) is very readable translation although it is part of a much larger volume. Isaac states in his introduction there are forty Ethiopic manuscripts of the book, but his translation is based on a fifteenth century manuscript (Kebrān 9/II, Hammerschmidt).

George W. E. Nickelsburg’s commentary on 1 Enoch in the Hermeneia (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2001) is essential for the study of the book. The first volume covers chapters 1–36 and 81–108.  The second volume on chapters 37–82 was completed by James C. VanderKam in 2012. Since Hermeneia commentaries are expensive, it is not cost-effective to buy these two volumes just to read 1 Enoch, Fortress has published the translation in a separate paperback volume in 2012. If you are going to buy a translation of 1 Enoch, I highly recommend this inexpensive volume, In the introduction to this volume, the authors state they have consulted fifty of the ninety available manuscripts of 1 Enoch as well as the Greek, Aramaic, Coptic and Latin fragments of the book. Nickelsburg attempted to translate the “earliest recoverable text” favoring the Aramaic, then Greek, then Ethiopic manuscripts.

Loren Stuckenbruck has two translations of sections of 1 Enoch: The Book of Giants from Qumran (Text und Studien zum Antiken Judentum 63; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1997) and 1 Enoch 91-108 (Commentaries on Early Jewish Literature; de Gruyter, 2007). The latter is a major commentary on few chapters of the book. The translation in the commentary “departs significantly from the strategy adopted in the translation published by Nickelsburg” (18), focusing on the Ethiopic rather than an eclectic text. Stuckenbruck offers detailed textual notes after his translation and provides notes and commentary on the text. Unfortunately the book is expensive and will only be found in quality research libraries.

I will offer one verse of comparison, 1 Enoch 91:11. I chose this verse since the Ethiopic is longer and misplaced.

And after that the roots of unrighteousness shall be cut off, and the sinners shall be destroyed by the sword … shall be cut off from the blasphemers in every place, and those who plan violence and those who commit blasphemy shall perish by the sword. (R. H. Charles, Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, 2:262).

…and through him the roots of oppression shall be cut off. Sinners shall be destroyed; by the sword they shall be cut off (together with) the blasphemers in every place; and those who design oppression and commit blasphemy shall perish by the knife. Isaac, OPT 1:72–73.

And they will uproot the foundations of violence, and the structure of deceit in it, to execute judgment.  (Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch, 434).

And after that the roots of oppression will be cut off, and the sinners shall be destroyed by the sword; and from every place the blasphemers will be cut off, and those who plan oppression and those who commit blasphemy will be destroyed by the knife.  (Stuckenbruck, 1 Enoch 91-108, 118)

Nickelsburg adds a footnote, “Translation follows 4QEng 1 4:14 (Milik, Enoch, 265)” since he does not follow the longer Ethiopic text, but rather the shorter, Aramaic text from the Dead Sea Scrolls. There is a translation of the longer text in the footnote in his commentary, but not the shorter paperback translation. Isaac adds a footnote” “4QEn: “And they will have rooted out the foundations of violence and the structure of falsehood therein to execute [judgment].”

Conclusion: The “best value” translation is the Fortress Press reprint of Nickelsburg and VanderKam from the Hermeneia series. Although it has far less textual annotations, the inexpensive paperback format makes it an easy addition. I am sure there are other translations of 1 Enoch available, what did I miss?