The Book of Enoch

The Book of Enoch by Enoch

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


According to Genesis, Adam and Eve had a third son Seth, and Enoch was his descendant six generations hence. And Enoch was the father of Methusaleh and the great-grandfather of Noah. That is the Enoch who purportedly was the author of the Book of Enoch,

That book didn't make it into the Bible, didn't even make it into the Apocrypha. In today's world, it is barely readable. There's lots about primitive understandings of the seasons and the movements of sun and moon. There's lots of prophetic sounding verbiage about the end of the world, which "foretells" the Deluge of Noah. There are interesting lists of the names of angels and fallen angels. But I didn't see anything of substance. You can read about the age of the text and scholarly opinions about it in Wikipedia. Unfortunately, you can't get any of that context and explanation in this book. There is no introduction. There are no footnotes. This is simply the text of a translation made in 1893 by R. H. Charles, with no explanation of who he was and what his credentials were, or what significance this text might have in the history of religions or as an influence in literature.

I was disappointed to say the least.



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