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The Book of Enoch the Prophet ReviewFor those that are familiar with the Enoch literature this is a reprint of R.H. Charles shorter SPCK translation, not a facsimile of the full 1912 edition with all Charles' essays and notes. The extra pages are occupied with an introduction by R.A. Gilbert who has prefaced another half dozen similar genre reprints from the same publisher. That means this is 1 Enoch (Aramaic-Coptic Enoch), not 2 Enoch (Slavonic Enoch) or 3 Enoch (Hebrew Enoch). The 3 books, together with 'Jubilees' represent 4 very different versions of fallen angel myths. R.H. Charles' translations were ground-breaking at the time but for anyone with a serious interest in Jewish literature it is now no substitute for the scholarly translations of all 4 texts, among others, found in 'The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: Apocalyptic Literature and Testaments (Old Testament Pseudepigraphia Vol 1) by James H. Charlesworth. Supplemented perhaps by Enochic material in the Dead Sea Scrolls (Vermes or Martinez editions).For those that are not familiar with the Book of Enoch what we have here is a legend originating as a midrash on Genesis 6 (concerning the "sons of God and the daughters of men") in the time of the Maccabees. Although a lot of the midrashic material in the book is taken from elsewhere than Genesis. Such as the famous (or infamous) Jude 14 quote of from 1 Enoch 1:9, where Jude's quote is in turn a midrash based on Deuteronomy 33:2, i.e. words spoken by Moses and not the Biblical Enoch of whom no words are recorded. An account of the origin and growth of the Enoch myth in Second Temple period Judaism [aka "the Intertestamental Period"] is found in 'Jewish Literature Between the Bible and the Mishnah: An Historical and Literary Introduction' by George W. E., Nickelsburg.
The myth's reception in both Judaism and early Christianity was mixed. The Pharisee author of Liber Antiquarum known as Pseudo-Philo, and several pre-Mishnah and pre-Talmud rabbis rejected the interpretation of Genesis 6 'sons of God' as being about the fall of angels and they were followed in this by Jesus of Nazareth who said that "angels do not marry" and equated "the sons of God" with "sons of the resurrection". But equally Josephus, also a Pharisee, and Philo seem to have accepted the basic premise of the Enoch story. The book's popularity is illustrated by the various copies found at Qumran.
Both Peter and Jude quote from 1 Enoch more than is commonly realised. Peter's description of "chains of darkness" is drawn on the angel Uriel imprisoning the 200 fallen angels in Tartarus. Likewise Jude's "Enoch the seventh from Adam" is itself a quote from 1 Enoch not Genesis. This has led many readers, including R.A. Gilbert the editor of this reprint, to assume that Peter and Jude accepted the book as scripture. Of course quoting a book only proves you accept the book if you then agree with it. Those making this assumption tend to skip over such comments as Jude saying Michael would "not even rebuke" other heavenly beings - when the central event of 1 Enoch is the complaint of Michael to God in the heavenly throne room against the 200 fallen angels which gives Michael, Gabriel, Uriel and Raphael license to imprison them. Anyway, buy a translation of Enoch, read Peter and Jude and make up your own mind about whether they consider 1 Enoch scripture or, in Peter's words, "cunningly devised fables". You might also note that all extant Greek manuscripts of Jude have "Enoch prophesied TO these men", not "ABOUT these men" as the KJV has it. Small word, big difference. After the early Christian period Enoch enjoyed a vogue in the period from Tertullian (a real Enoch enthusiast) to Origen. After which the development of a new doctrine for the origin of the Devil based on Isaiah made Enoch redundant and it was sidelined into Coptic and Slavonic Christianity. Jews largely rejected the fallen angel myth from Trypho the Jew onwards - and Enochic material was excluded from both Jewish and Christian editions of the Septuagint, the Vulgate (and hence the apocrypha of the modern Jerusalem Bible), Mishnah, and Talmud.
In the modern era Enoch has come back into fashion again, partly due to the discovery of copies in Africa and Israel, partly due to the evident appeal of a story which tells the gaudy details of heavenly beings' sexual relations with human women and the fall of the rebel angels on which the Bible is so disappointingly negative.
For those to whom this story has less inherent appeal it is also interesting - if only to show what the NT writers were competing with.The Book of Enoch the Prophet Overview
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