Book Of Enoch

Introduction

The Book of Enoch (also 1 Enoch) is an ancient Jewish religious work, traditionally ascribed to Enoch, the great-grandfather of Noah. It is not part of the biblical canon as used by Jews, apart from Beta Israel. It is regarded as canonical by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and Eritrean Orthodox Church, but no other Christian group.

The older sections (mainly in the Book of the Watchers) are estimated to date from about 300 BC, and the latest part (Book of Parables) probably was composed at the end of the 1st century BC.

It is wholly extant only in the Ge'ez language, with Aramaic fragments from the Dead Sea Scrolls and a few Greek and Latin fragments. For this and other reasons, the traditional Ethiopian view is that the original language of the work was Ge'ez, whereas non-Ethiopian scholars tend to assert that it was first written in either Aramaic or Hebrew; E. Isaac suggests that the Book of Enoch, like the Book of Daniel, was composed partially in Aramaic and partially in Hebrew.[3]:6

A short section of 1 Enoch (1 En 1:9) is quoted in the New Testament (Letter of Jude 1:14–15), and is there attributed to "Enoch the Seventh from Adam" (1 En 60:8). It is argued that all the writers of the New Testament were familiar with it and were influenced by it in thought and diction

The first part of the Book of Enoch describes the fall of the Watchers, the angels who fathered the Nephilim. The remainder of the book describes Enoch's visits to heaven in the form of travels, visions and dreams, and his revelations.

The book consists of five quite distinct major sections (see each section for details):
The Book of the Watchers (1 Enoch 1 – 36)
The Book of Parables of Enoch (1 Enoch 37 – 71) (Also called the Similitudes of Enoch)
The Astronomical Book (1 Enoch 72 – 82) (Also called the Book of the Heavenly Luminaries or Book of Luminaries)
The Book of Dream Visions (1 Enoch 83 – 90) (Also called the Book of Dreams)
The Epistle of Enoch (1 Enoch 91 – 108)

Most scholars share the view[5] that these five sections were originally independent works (with different dates of composition), themselves a product of much editorial arrangement, and were only later redacted into what we now call 1 Enoch.

Józef Milik has suggested that the Book of Giants found among the Dead Sea Scrolls should be part of the collection, appearing after the Book of Watchers in place of the Book of Parables, but for various reasons, Milik's theory has not been widely accepted.more information