The book of Enoch E-Book

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• Herausgeber: Youcanprint
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

The Book of Enoch is an ancient text ascribed to Enoch, the great-grandfather of Noah. It is non-canonical except in some Orthodox churches. This edition is translated by Robert H. Charles. Heraklion Press has included a linked table of contents for easier navigation.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

EDITORS' PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

ABBREVIATIONS, BRACKETS, AND SYMBOLS SPECIALLY USED IN THE TRANSLATION OF ENOCH

THE BOOK OF ENOCH

THE PARABLES

THE BOOK OF THE COURSES OF THE HEAVENLY LUMINARIES

THE DREAM-VISION

THE CONCLUDING SECTION OF THE BOOK

FRAGMENT OF THE BOOK OF NOAH

AN APPENDIX TO THE BOOK OF ENOCH

The Book of Enoch

R.H. Charles

First digital edition 2016 by Anna Ruggieri

EDITORS' PREFACE

EDITORS' PREFACE

THE object of this series of translations is primarily to furnish students with short, cheap, and handy text-books, which, it is hoped, will facilitate the study of the particular texts in class under competent teachers. But it is also hoped that the volumes will be acceptable to the general reader who may be interested in the subjectswith which they deal. It has been thought advisable, as a general rule, to restrict the notes and comments to a small compass; more especially as, in most cases, excellent works of a more elaborate character are available. Indeed, it is much to be desiredthat these translations may have the effect of inducing readers to study the larger works.

Our principal aim, in a word, is to make some difficult texts, important for the study of Christian origins, more generally accessible in faithful and scholarly translations.

In most cases these texts are not available in a cheap and handy form. In one or two cases texts have been included of books which are available in the official Apocrypha; but in every such case reasons exist for putting forth these texts in anew translation, with an Introduction, in this series.

W. O. E. OESTERLEY.

G. H. Box.

INTRODUCTION

THE APOCALYPTIC LITERATURE

As the Book of Enoch is, in some respects, the most notable extant apocalyptic work outside the canonical Scriptures, it will not be inappropriate to offer a few remarks here on the Apocalyptic Literature generally. In writing about the books which belongto this literature, Prof. Burkitt says very pointedly that "they are the most characteristic survival of what I will venture to call, with all its narrowness and its incoherence, the heroic age of Jewish history, the age when the nation attempted to realize in action the part of the peculiar people of God. It ended in catastrophe, but the nation left two successors, the Christian Church and the Rabbinical Schools, each of which carried on some of the old national aims. And of the two it was the Christian Church that was most faithful to the ideas enshrined in the Apocalypses, and it did consider itself, not without some reason, the fulfilment of those ideas. What is wanted, therefore, in studying the Apocalypses is, above all, sympathy with the ideas that underlie them, and especially with the belief in the New Age. And those who believe that in Christianity a new Era really did dawn for us ought, I think, to have that sympathy. . . . We study the Apocalypses to learn how our spiritual ancestors hoped again that God would make all right in the end; and that we, their children, are here to-day studying them is an indication that their hope was not wholly unfounded."

Hope is, indeed, the main underlying motive-power which prompted the writers of the Apocalypses. And this hope is the more intensive and ardent in that it shines forth from a background which is dark with despair; for the Apocalyptists despaired of the world in which they lived, a world in which the godly were ofno account, while the wicked seemed too often triumphant and prosperous. With evil everywhere around, the Apocalyptists saw no hope for the world as it was; for such a world there was no remedy, only destruction; if the good were ever to triumph it must bein a new world. Despairing, therefore, of the world around them, the Apocalyptists centred their hope upon a world to come, where the righteous would come to their own and evil would find no place. It is this thought which underlies the opening words of the Book of Enoch: "The words of the blessing of Enoch, wherewith he blessed the elect and righteous, who will be living in the day of tribulation, when all the wicked and godless are to be removed." Nowhere in this book is the essence of this hope more beautifully expressed than in a short metrical piece in the first chapter: