5th Enoch: Letter of Enoch

By Scriptural Research Institute

The Letter of Enoch is the fifth and final book of the five books that have survived in the Ge'ez language. Fragments of it have been found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, along with fragments of the Book of the Watchers, Book of Parables, and Dream Visions, proving it has circulated with them since at least the 3rd-century BC. It is very unlikely that the Letter of Enoch predates the 3rd-century BC, as it includes Greek philosophical ideas that unlikely to have been adopted before Alexander conquered the Persian Empire, and Greeks began ruling Judea. One of these ideas is the concept of the 'Word,' the 'first-born of God' who was accepted by Hellenistic Jews as being the 'Angel of the Lord' from the Septuagint translation of the Hebrew scriptures.

The general message of the Letter is very Zoroastrian in its message of good-versus-bad, light-versus-dark, and righteous-versus-dishonest. The author was clearly an outcast from the power-structure of the time, and constantly attacks against the 'wealthy' and 'powerful,' accusing them of being sinful. Whoever the author was, there are very few of the indicators from the Book of the Watchers and the Book of Parables which point to Canaanite and Babylonian origins for the text, and the little present can be explained as copying from the earlier texts. The identical description of the sky becoming seven times brighter when the end of the world comes is identical to the description found in the Book of Parables, which is otherwise anachronistic in the Book of Parables, as all other indicators point to a Jewish reworking of a Babylonian text, likely during the Babylonian era. This idea that the world would end in light when good/light conquered evil/darkness, is the central theme of Zoroastrianism, the official religion of the Persian Empire that ruled Judea between 525 and 333 BC. The identical description of the end of the world in the Book of Parables and the Letter of Enoch, suggests strongly that the author of the Letter was the same person that added the description of the end-of-the-world to the Book of Parables, likely at the same time that the 'Testament of Noah' was redacted into the surviving Book of Parables.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Scriptural Research Institute
• Release date: Apr 29, 2020
• ISBN: 9781989852200

Book preview

Copyright

WHILE EVERY PRECAUTION has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher assumes no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

5TH ENOCH: LETTER OF ENOCH

First edition. April 29, 2020.

Copyright © 2020 Scriptural Research Institute.

ISBN: 978-1-989852-20-0

The original text of Dream Visions was likely written in Hebrew, between 300 and 200 BC.

This English translation was created by the Scriptural Research Institute in 2020.

The image used for the cover is ‘The Fall of the Rebel Angels’ by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, painted in 1562.

Forward

THE FIVE BOOKS OF ENOCH are a collection of books written in Semitic languages, and often grouped together as the ‘Book of Enoch,’ or ‘1st Enoch.’ The books were likely written at different points in time and different Semitic languages. The first book was the Book of the Watchers, which is generally considered to be the oldest book in the collection, however, the age of the book is debated. The book is now known to have originated long before Christianity since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, however, was lost for well over a thousand years to Europeans, and assumed to be a Christian-era work when the Europeans rediscovered it in Ethiopia. The five books of Enoch only survive in Ge’ez, the classical language of Ethiopia, however, do not survive intact, and some sections of text do not survive in any copies, presumably having been lost before the Ge’ez translations were made.

The Ge’ez texts are believed to be translations from a Greek source, which was itself a translation of an Aramaic source. Many fragments of the Aramaic texts were discovered among the Dead Sea scrolls, as well as Hebrew and Greek fragments. The Aramaic texts are mostly the same as the Ge’ez texts, however, scroll 4Q209 also includes a section of text from 3rd Book of Enoch, the Astronomical Book, which is lost from the Ge’ez copies. A few fragments of Greek translations have been found in Egypt in the past two centuries, which generally match the Ge’ez translation. A small fragment of a Latin translation was also preserved by the Vatican through the centuries, which also matches the Ge’ez copies for a small fragment of 4th Book of Enoch, Dream Visions.

Other books attributed to Enoch, including the Secrets of Enoch, which is also called the 2nd Book of Enoch, however, is not the same text as the Semitic 2nd Book of Enoch. The Secrets of Enoch has only survived in the Old Slavonic language in the Balkan Peninsula and may be a partial paraphrase of the Book of the Watchers. Another text attributed to Enoch is the Revelation of Metatron, also called the Revelation of Metatron, Book of the Palaces, Book of Rabbi Ishmael the High Priest, or the 3rd Book of Enoch, however, is not the same text as the Semitic 3rd Book of Enoch, or any section of the Semitic books of Enoch. The Revelation of Metatron is written as a sequel to the first five books of Enoch and is written from the perspective of Enoch in the sky, where his angelic name was Metatron. The Revelation of Metatron appears to have been written in Hebrew but includes several Greek and Latin words that have led scholars to assume the text is a Jewish text written in the Christian era.

The Letter of Enoch is the fifth and final book of the five books that have survived in the Ge’ez language. Fragments of it have been found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, along with fragments of the Book of the Watchers, Book of Parables, and Dream Visions, proving it has circulated with them since at least the 3rd-century BC. It is very unlikely that the Letter of Enoch predates the 3rd-century BC, as it includes Greek philosophical ideas that unlikely to have been adopted before Alexander conquered the Persian Empire, and Greeks began ruling Judea. One of these ideas is the concept of the ‘Word,’ the