The Apocalyptic Imagination Part 3 - An Introduction to the Enochic Literature

 An Introduction to the Enochic Literature

This week, we beginning studying 1 Enoch, a large collection of disparate materials, which took shape over about three centuries. The tradition centres around the old Testament figure of Enoch.  George Nickelsburg, in an important recent commentary on Enoch has stated:

The sheer size, as well as the contents, historical contexts, and ongoing influence of this collection make it arguably the most important corpus of Jewish literature from the Hellenistic and Roman periods.  Roughly as large as the book of Isaiah it comprises an extraordinarily broad range of materials that we might define in modern categories as, religious, scientific, intellectual, and social.  In it we are given a unique window into the diverse world of Palestinian Judaism in the three centuries before the common era. (Nickelsburg,  1 Enoch 1, p.1)

Yet, such an important witness to early Judaism remains unknown to most modern Christians.  In particular, 1 Enoch collects several early apocalyptic visions that will be of interest to our course of study.  Studying 1 Enoch gives us a look at apocalyptic literature contemporary to the Book of Daniel (i.e., the Maccabean revolt) as well as subsequent events of the later Hasmonean period.  It gives us a larger well of apocalyptic imagery with which we can compare more familiar apocalyptic texts such as the book of Revelation, the apocalyptic passages in the gospels, and aspects of St. Paul’s religious thought. 

The figure of Enoch is first encountered in the following brief passage in Genesis 5:21-24:

When Enoch had lived for sixty-five years, he became the father of Methuselah. Enoch walked with God after the birth of Methuselah for three hundred years, and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years. Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him.

In the original context, Enoch is part of a list of descendants of Adam to Noah, noted for their longevity. What sets Enoch apart, though, is his fate. Unlike all the other descendants of Adam who are catalogued as having “died.”, we are told that “Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him.”  This suggests something unique and special about Enoch, that he “walked with God” indicates he was a holy man, or perhaps even more, that he literally “walked with God.”  Then he just disappeared because “God took him.” Unlike the others who “died” Enoch is somehow translated out of this world.  What does this all mean?  The tradition we are examining seeks to read between the lines and tell us the secret history behind those mysterious words.

Original language, context, and transmission:

In Method and Message of Jewish Apocalyptic, D.S. Russell notes that 1 Enoch was probably written in Aramaic, the Palestinian language of the day. However, the copies that have come down to us are largely in Ethiopic, which is a translation from a Greek version.  Existing Greek portions exist for 1-32, 106 & 107. There are also some fragments in Latin, Coptic, and Syriac, all attesting to a widespread distribution and readership. More recently, significant Aramaic portions of the 1 Enoch have been discovered amongst the Dead Sea Scrolls.  R.H. Charles, one of the early scholars of non-canonical Jewish texts suggests that the collection and editorial process was a lengthy one, postulating the earliest material developing in the Maccabean period (170-164 BCE [Before Common Era, aka BC]) and taking final editorial form by the first half of the first century C.E. (Common Era, aka AD.  Another noted scholar of apocalyptic literature, H.H. Rowley, has argued that the earlier sections come from 164 BC, that is, shortly after Daniel was written.  Nickelsburg finds the origins of the Book of Watchers in the late fourth or early third centuries, BC. It is also suggested that chapters 105, 108 are very late additions.

Form of the work

Given that the portions of the work most likely circulated independently, we cannot be sure exactly when and how the collection of the material began to take shape.  Russell notes that some scholars think that the “final” collection takes a five-fold form, mirroring the Pentateuch, although there is much discussion about how these sections are to be divided up.  In the coming weeks we will look at several (although not all of these sections). For our purposes, and for this week, here is a brief overview of the prologue and first section:

The first five chapters serve as a sort of introduction to the whole work and may be the work of the final redactor or later editor. It takes the form of an oracle of judgement. 

Chapters 6-36 (aka “The Book of the Watchers”)

Russell suggests that this section is probably one of the earliest portions of the book and probably dates from the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, in particular, the end of his reign (i.e., after the Book of Daniel. However, as noted above, Nickelsburg sees the stories and visions in this section as coming from an earlier period. John Collins suggests that the actual historical referent is difficult to locate and notes that this text in particular is a good example of the multivalence of apocalyptic imagery.

The story is essentially about the fall of a group of lustful angels, and how their sin brought all manner of evil upon humankind.  This longer tale is derived from the very short story of The Watchers found in the Book of Genesis 6:6-8:

When people began to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that they were fair; and they took wives for themselves of all that they chose. Then the Lord said, ‘My spirit shall not abide in mortals for ever, for they are flesh; their days shall be one hundred and twenty years.’ The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterwards—when the sons of God went in to the daughters of humans, who bore children to them. These were the heroes that were of old, warriors of renown.

The Lord saw that the wickedness of humankind was great in the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, ‘I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have created—people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.’ But Noah found favour in the sight of the Lord.

In chapters 6-16 of the Enoch narrative, as we shall see, the mating of angels and the daughters of men is seen as an act of unholy lustfulness and rebellion against God, and although God wipes the slate clean with the flood, the spirits of the giant offspring (Nephilim is sometimes translated “giant” or “fallen”) are let loose as demons upon the earth.  This is all revealed to Enoch by vision. He is allowed only the knowledge of the incident but not allowed to intercede. We learn that the demons and evil men will eventually be judged at the end of the “Golden Age.”  

Enoch then makes two journeys in the form of visions. First, he visits the place of punishment reserved for the angels (17-20), and then Sheol and the ends of the earth (21-36).

Possible Questions for Reflection:

1. Which of Koch’s descriptors (see lecture notes for week 1) do you see at work in this text?
2. What historical events do you see reflected (and mythologized or biblicized) in this text?
3. What similarities or differences do you see with the Book of Daniel (and other apocalyptic literature you might be familiar with)?
4. Why do you think Enoch became such an important figure during the period in which apocalyptic literature began to emerge?
5. George Nickelsburg, one of the most recent commentators on 1 Enoch, has stated, “I have learned to read 1 Enoch with a good deal of ambivalence. It is difficult not to be touched by the human anguish that resonates through the poignant poetry in chapter 9 … Empathy and, indeed, sympathy are appropriate responses to suffering that is exacerbated by a profound sense of injustice and the absence of God, and cries for divine retribution are understandable and hardly open to criticism by the fair-minded outsider. Doubtless, they often preserved sanity. Yet the fact remains that the appeals to holy warfare, articulated in the Pentateuch, dramatized in the Book of Joshua, and gleefully eschatologized in the Epistle of Enoch (Enoch 95), the Qumran War Scroll, and the Book of Revelation, have haunted the history of western religious humanity.  If cries for divine justice are understandable and even cathartic in the apocalyptic literature of the impotent oppressed, they can bring on chaos and profound injustice when the impotent oppressed come to power in the certain conviction that they are the righteous and chosen.  Anger easily turns to hatred when the zealous justice praised in the apocalyptic tradition is enshrined as the sole reigning virtue.  Biblical religion an its successors in the Christian and the rabbinic tradition depict a God who measures with compassion as well as justice and calls upon human beings to do the same.”  Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch, p.5.  DISCUSS