1 Enoch

It is seldom that authors attain to the immortality which they hope for, and it is still more seldom that anonymous authors achieve this distinction. And yet it is just such a distinction that the authors of the Book of Enoch have achieved. That such should be ultimately his lot was the deep-rooted conviction of one of this literary circle. He looked forward (104:11-12) to the time when his writings would be translated into various languages, and become to the righteous ‘a cause of joy and uprightness and much wisdom’. This hope was to a large degree realized in the centuries immediately preceding and following the Christian era, when the currency of these apocalyptic writings was very widespread, because they almost alone represented the advance of the higher theology in Judaism, which culminated in Christianity. But our book contained much of a questionable character, and from the fourth century of our era onward it fell into discredit; and under the ban of such authorities as Hilary, Jerome, and Augustine, it gradually passed out of circulation, and became lost to the knowledge of Western Christendom till over a century ago, when an Ethiopic version of the work was found in Abyssinia by Bruce, who brought home three manuscripts of it, from one of which Laurence made the first modern translation of Enoch. It was not, however, till recent years that the Book of Enoch and similar works have begun to come into their own owing to their immeasurable value as being practically the only historical memorials of the religious development of Judaism from 200 B.C. to 100 A.D., and particularly of the development of that side of Judaism, to which historically Christendom in large measure owes its existence.

The Book of Enoch is for the history of theological development the most important pseudepigraph of the first two centuries B.C. Some of its authors—and there were many—belonged to the true succession of the prophets, and it was simply owing to the evil character of the period, in which their lot was cast, that these enthusiasts and mystics, exhibiting on occasions the inspiration of the O.T. prophets, were obliged to issue their works under the aegis of some ancient name. The Law which claimed to be the highest and final word from God could tolerate no fresh message from God, and so, when men were moved by the Spirit of God to make known their visions relating to the past, the present, and the future, and to proclaim the higher ethical truths they had won, they could not do so openly, but were forced to resort to pseudonymous publication.

To describe in short compass the Book of Enoch is impossible. It comes from many writers and almost as many periods. It touches upon every subject that could have arisen in the ancient schools of the prophets, but naturally it deals with these subjects in an advanced stage of development. Nearly every religious idea appears in a variety of forms, and, if these are studied in relation to their contexts and dates, we cannot fail to observe that in the age to which the Enoch literature belongs there is movement everywhere, and nowhere dogmatic fixity and finality. And though at times the movement may be reactionary, yet the general trend is onward and upward. In fact the history of the development of the higher theology during the two centuries before the Christian era could not be written without the Book of Enoch.

From what has been already said it is clear that no unity of time, authorship, or teaching is to be looked for. Indeed, certain considerable portions of the book belonged originally not to the Enoch literature at all, but to an earlier work, i.e. the Book of Noah, which probably exhibited in some degree the syncretism of the work into which it was subsequently incorporated. As regards the Enoch elements, the oldest portions of it are likewise pre-Maccabean, i.e. 12-34, and probably 90:1-10, 91:12-17, i.e, the Apocalypse of Weeks. The Dream Visions, i.e. 83-90, were in all probability written when Judas the Maccabee was still warring, 165-161 B.C., 72-82 before 110 B.C., the Parables, 37-71 and 91-104, 105-64 B.C.

The authors of all the sections belong to the Chasids or their successors the Pharisees.

Conflicting views are advanced on the Messiah, the Messianic kingdom, the origin of sin, Sheol, the final judgement, the resurrection, and the nature of the future life. There is an elaborate angelology and demonology, and much space is devoted to the calendar, and the heavenly bodies and their movenients. Babylonian influences are here manifest and in a slight degree Greek.

The Book of Enoch, like the Book of Daniel, was written originally partly in Aramaic and partly in Hebrew. From an Aramaic original is derived 6-36, and possibly 83-90, while the rest of the book comes from a Hebrew original. To determine these questions categorically is a task of no little difiiculty, seeing that for four-fifths of the text we have only a translation of a translation, and that such close affinities exist between Hebrew and Aramaic. For the resemblances between the two languages are so great that frequently retranslation from the ethiopic into either is sufficient to explain corruptions in the former. There has accordingly been great divergence of opinion on this question, but in the opinion of the present writer, who has spent considerable time on the problem, the balance of evidence is decidedly in favour of the view above stated. In the course of his studies it suddenly dawned upon the writer that much of the text was originally written in verse. This discovery has frequently proved helpful in the criticism of difficult passages, and the recovery of the original in a multitude of cases.