1 Enoch as Christian Scripture

A Study in the Reception and Appropriation of 1 Enoch in Jude and the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahǝdo Canon

Bruk Ayele Asale

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781532691171
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

Since its publication in English translation in 1821, the book of Enoch has enjoyed immense popularity in Western culture as a variety of religious groups, interested historians, and academics have sought to illuminate the Jewish context of Christian beginnings two thousand years ago. Taking the quotation of 1 Enoch in Jude 14 as its point of departure, the present study explores the significance of Enochic tradition within the context of Christian tradition in the Horn of Africa, where it continues to play a vital role in shaping the diverse yet interrelated self-understanding of Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant churches. As discussions on the importance of 1 Enoch from antiquity to the present take on new dimensions among increasingly global and diverse voices, 1 Enoch as Christian Scripture offers a rare orientation into a rich culture in which the reception of the book is "at home" as a living tradition more than anywhere else in the world today. The present work argues that serious attention to 1 Enoch holds forth an opportunity for church traditions in Ethiopia--and, indeed, around the world--to embrace some of their indigenous roots and has the capacity to breathe life into time-worn expressions of faith.

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1 Enoch

An Overview of the Transmission History of the Text and Contemporary Academic Dialogue

Introduction

The text of 1 Enoch, in its entirety, survived only in Ge‘ez through its use by the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahǝdo Church (EOTC). The text is also discovered in fragmentary form in Greek and Aramaic. Its survival can thus be classified in three stages and in three languages. Here I will attempt to offer a brief overview of the manuscripts witnesses to 1 Enoch, with a focus on the transmission history of the text in the Ge‘ez and its ultimate survival in this language. I will then move on to offer a brief overview of the contemporary academic discussion of 1 Enoch and its status as scripture amongst different interpretive communities.

Transmission History of 1 Enoch

The Qumran Aramaic Texts

Since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the proposition that the Book of Enoch originated among a Jewish community of the Second Temple Period, having been originally written in Aramaic, has achieved consensus in contemporary scholarship.20 The discovery of the Aramaic fragments of 1 Enoch at Qumran served to establish the previously debatable early dating and Jewish origin of the book. The fragments discovered include portions from all parts of the book—the Book of Watchers, the Book of Dreams, the Epistle of Enoch, and the Astronomical Book—except the Parables of Enoch. Nonetheless, significant damage to the manuscripts means that the fragments contain only limited portions of the text.

Following the discovery made at Qumran, Jozéf T. Milik tried to reconstruct the fragments, based on the Greek and Ethiopic texts available. He went on to conclude that “for the first book of Enoch, the Book of Watchers, we can calculate that exactly 50 percent of the text is covered by the Aramaic fragments; for the third, the Astronomical Book, 30 percent; for the fourth, the Book of Dreams, 26 percent; for the fifth, the Epistle of Enoch, 18 percent.”21

This conclusion has, however, been challenged and strongly criticized as misleading by subsequent studies. Edward Ullendorff and Michael Knibb, in their critical review of Milik’s book, contend that “the true proportion of genuinely recognizable Aramaic material is thus of the order of about 5% of the total [of the Ethiopic book of Enoch].”22 According to the analysis offered by Knibb, there are about 200 verses, out of a total of more than 1000, in Aramaic that correspond to the Ethiopic verses.23 He goes on to conclude, “we are very far from possessing the equivalent in Aramaic of 196 verses of the Ethiopic version,” because of the damaged state of the Qumran fragments.

Irrespective of the size of the fragments, the discovery of the Aramaic text at Qumran has had significant influence on the study of 1 Enoch. In addition to serving as an important textual witness,24 the Aramaic texts of 1 Enoch, discovered in one of the greatest archaeological finds of the modern era,25 witness to the Jewish origin of this text and its significance within the context of the community which preserved it.

The Greek Texts

In addition to the large number of Aramaic fragments of 1 Enoch, some tiny Greek papyrus fragments were also found in Cave 7 at Qumran. While these serve to shed light on the difficult question of the period in which 1 Enoch was translated into Greek, the fragmentary nature of the witnesses leaves us with a range of questions related to translation including date, provenance, and transmission history.

Based on his study, comparative study of the Greek translation and Aramaic texts of the Book of Watchers and the Epistle, James Barr suggests that the Greek translation of 1 Enoch “belonged to the same general stage and stratum of translation as the Septuagint translation of Daniel,” as both the books reflect similar apocalyptic form and content.26 Pushing the discussion further, Knibb argues that the formation of a fivefold integrated Pentateuchal structure was introduced at this stage of translation and transmission. He notes:

in any case, whatever the origin of Greek translation, and whether any part of it was known at Qumran, it is plausible to think that it was at the Greek stage in the transmission of the text that...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1 Enoch
• 1 Enoch in Jude and Other Early Christian Texts
• 1 Enoch in Other Early Jewish and Christian Texts
• 1 Enoch in the EOTC
• 1 Enoch in the EOTC
• Concluding Remarks
• Bibliography