Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible: First Enoch

By Daniel C. Olson

This extract from the Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible provides Olson’s introduction to and concise commentary on First Enoch. The Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible presents, in nontechnical language, the best of modern scholarship on each book of the Bible, including the Apocrypha. Reader-friendly commentary complements succinct summaries of each section of the text and will be valuable to scholars, students, and general readers.
 
Rather than attempt a verse-by-verse analysis, these volumes work from larger sense units, highlighting the place of each passage within the overarching biblical story. Commentators focus on the genre of each text—parable, prophetic oracle, legal code, and so on—interpreting within the historical and literary context.
 
The volumes also address major issues within each biblical book—including the range of possible interpretations—and refer readers to the best resources for further discussions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Eerdmans
• Release date: Apr 13, 2021
• ISBN: 9781467454742

Book preview

1 Enoch

Daniel C. Olson

Never before has 1 Enoch appeared in a Bible commentary. This is not surprising since the book is not found in any English Bibles and is missing from even the most generous editions of the Apocrypha (such as the one included in the NRSV). Enoch is therefore a unique member of the present volume and requires special treatment. Not only does its unfamiliarity demand a fuller introduction than is needed for the proto- and deuterocanonical writings, but even the bare fact of its inclusion at all in this commentary calls for an explanation.

The Book of Enoch is part of the canon of Scripture in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church; in fact, the book is often called Ethiopic Enoch since the complete work survives only in that language. (Another common title, 1 Enoch, is intended to distinguish it from two later Enoch books.) Enoch is also reckoned canonical among Ethiopian Jews. As such, a biblical commentary seeking truly ecumenical and international scope might justify its inclusion on these grounds alone. However, other books unique to the Ethiopian canon are not treated in the present volume, so there are obviously other considerations at work. A historical survey may be the simplest way to explain Enoch’s long journey from the netherworld of exotic Judaica to general Bible commentary.

It has always been known that the Book of Enoch enjoyed a high reputation among the early Christians. The NT epistle of Jude even provides a citation of Enoch 1:9, respectfully prefaced: Enoch, in the seventh generation from Adam, prophesied, saying (Jude 14–15). If we scan the Christian literature of the second and third centuries we find no lack of Enoch quotations and allusions, and these are uniformly favorable, occasionally indicating that the author accepted Enoch as authoritative Scripture. However, by the fourth century the book began falling out of favor in the church, mainly due to: (1) awareness of the exclusion of Enoch from the Jewish canon; (2) consternation over Enoch’s understanding of the sons of God in Gen 6:1–4 as angels; and (3) the usefulness of the book to heretics. Although Enoch was known and still read for several centuries more, eventually it ceased to be copied and was lost to most of the world, surviving only in a few scattered quotations.

The book fared worse in the synagogue. A high regard for Enoch is evident in late Second Temple writings such as Jubilees, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, and documents known only from the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS), but the rabbinic Judaism which came to dominate public religious life among Jews after the disastrous first and second revolts (AD 66–70 and 132–135) took a dim view of apocalyptic literature such as Enoch. Although there is plenty of evidence that the angel legends found in Enoch were remembered as a kind of folklore, the book itself ceased to have any influence as a serious religious text except among some of the more esoteric schools of Jewish mysticism. Enoch was never a candidate for scriptural canonicity among the rabbis, and it appears that Jews lost track of the book long before Christians.

Reports began circulating in Europe as early as the beginning of the seventeenth century that the lost Book of Enoch had survived in the Ethiopian church, but it was not until 1773 that copies were obtained, and then another half-century elapsed before an English translation appeared in 1821. After this slow start, however, scholarship proceeded rapidly. No fewer than five German editions were published between 1833 and 1901. Newly discovered Greek manuscripts of portions of the book were published in 1844 (Enoch 89:42–49) and 1892 (Enoch 1–32), and a Latin version of Enoch 106:1–18 appeared the following year. A second English Enoch came out in 1882. Many more Ethiopic manuscripts began to surface; a 1906 critical edition collated almost two dozen, and that same year saw the publication of an important French Enoch. But it was chiefly the translation and commentary of R. H. Charles (Oxford: Clarendon, 1893; 2d ed. 1912) which ensured the book a permanent place in the scholarly spotlight. The inclusion of this landmark work in the highly successful Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament (ed. R. H. Charles et al.; 2 vols.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1913) made Charles’s Enoch available to a wide