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Hermeneia
1 Enoch 2: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch, Chapters 37-82
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648 pages, Hardcover
First published September 1, 2011
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June 18, 2025
[March 24, 2016] This volume didn't float my boat the way vol 1 did. I don't think it's Nickelsburg's fault in the case of his commentary on the Book of the Parables; I just found that particular section of 1 Enoch not especially interesting. The Book of the Luminaries is more up my alley, but VanderKam occassionally paid tedious attention to textual issues that I personally didn't feel were particularly important. Again, probably a personal issue and not a reflection on the book, which others may find excellent.
[June 18, 2025, edit:] So I read this book nearly ten years ago, and my feelings about the Book of the Parables and the Book of the Luminaries have not changed very much. This is a personal issue. I have just always been more interested in ancient cosmology than soteriology. It is true that the Parables contain cosmological sections but I just didn’t find them as interesting as the cosmology in the Book of the Watchers, which has a sustained vision of Enoch from chapters 12-36 as he tours heaven and earth.
I realized after reading the commentary through once that I really didn’t have a clear memory of the main points of Nickelsburg's commentary. So I decided to read it through a second time. I often find that on a second reading I pay more careful attention, which was definitely the case in this instance. I discovered, for example, that I had neglected to take *any* notes on my first reading, which is really inexcusable. The first thing I noted on my second reading was Nickelsburg's notice that the parables alternate eschatological and cosmological material but not as explicitly as chapters 1-5. I think this explains part of my general disinterest in the Book of the Parables compared to other parts of 1 Enoch, and also the N.T. Now, I'm a great fan of eschatology, Revelation being my favorite N.T. book, but I find the eschatology in the Parables tedious. Basically it just repeats over and over that the kings and the mighty will be judged on the Great Day. The notices of the vindication of the righteous were more interesting, especially the passages which seem to presage a bodily resurrection in 51.1-5 and 61.5.
Another thing which may have made the Parables tedious for me are the numerous interpolations. Surely the book would flow better if we had access to the uninterpolated original in the original order (Nickelsburg rearranges several verses into what he thinks is the original order). In the introduction Nickelsburg reconstructs what he thinks may be close to the original form of the Parables: 37-54.6; 56.1-59.3; 60.11-23; 61.1-63.12; 64.1-2(?); 65.6-8(?); 67.4-7(?); 69.2-12(?); 69.26-29; 70.1-2. And indeed this reconstruction does seem to work better!
As was the case ten years ago I preferred the Book of the Luminaries to the Parables. The main problem with reading the Book of the Luminaries is figuring out how his descriptions of the luminaries conform (or don’t conform) to how the luminaries actually behave. VanderKam is to be commended for sitting in on a physics class on descriptive astronomy in preparation for writing this book and consulting with graduate students in order to understand this important and sometimes confusing issue. It is impossible to understand ancient astronomy without a handle on how the luminaries actually behave. I sometimes found myself getting confused; for example, when the Book of the Luminaries divided the waxing and waning of the moon into 14 parts each, I found myself thinking that a lunar month lasted 28 days. I had totally forgotten about the day the moon is new and has no light, bringing the total to 29 days. This is still 0.54 days shy of the actual length of a month, but, still, this was pretty close for ancient cosmology.
In my review of ten years ago I complained about VanderKam's attention to textual details. This was a really unfair criticism. The reason VanderKam pays attention to these details is that we actually have Aramaic portions of the Book of the Luminaries. Nickelsburg can’t do the same for the Parables because we have no other text for them other than the Ethiopic. Even at that, since we only have about 30% of the Book of the Luminaries in Aramaic, VanderKam was only able to draw comparisons for the portions we have an Aramaic text available. Since I don’t know Aramaic, my eyes tended to cross over at those points of the discussion. I made it vow to myself that on my second reading I would pay more attention to these points.
A word must be said about the excellent translation by Nickelsburg and VanderKam. I much prefer it to Ann Nyland's translation. Unlike Nyland, Nickelsburg and VanderKam format the verse as verse and the prose as prose. They have a translation based on the commentary as a separate volume, and I highly recommend having it hand as you work through the commentary, so you don’t have to keep flipping through the commentary to look up references to different parts of 1 Enoch (this is a particular problem if, for example, vol. 2 references a passage in vol. 1). I also recommend having vol.1 handy as you work through vol. 2, since vol. 2 frequently refers back to vol. 1. The only problem I had looking up a reference was when VanderKam referenced 1 Enoch 91.16. I couldn’t find 91.16 in Nickelsburg’s translation. Maybe he moved it someplace I couldn’t find. In any case it wasn’t a huge problem because I found it in R. H. Charles's translation which is freely available on the internet.
[June 18, 2025, edit:] So I read this book nearly ten years ago, and my feelings about the Book of the Parables and the Book of the Luminaries have not changed very much. This is a personal issue. I have just always been more interested in ancient cosmology than soteriology. It is true that the Parables contain cosmological sections but I just didn’t find them as interesting as the cosmology in the Book of the Watchers, which has a sustained vision of Enoch from chapters 12-36 as he tours heaven and earth.
I realized after reading the commentary through once that I really didn’t have a clear memory of the main points of Nickelsburg's commentary. So I decided to read it through a second time. I often find that on a second reading I pay more careful attention, which was definitely the case in this instance. I discovered, for example, that I had neglected to take *any* notes on my first reading, which is really inexcusable. The first thing I noted on my second reading was Nickelsburg's notice that the parables alternate eschatological and cosmological material but not as explicitly as chapters 1-5. I think this explains part of my general disinterest in the Book of the Parables compared to other parts of 1 Enoch, and also the N.T. Now, I'm a great fan of eschatology, Revelation being my favorite N.T. book, but I find the eschatology in the Parables tedious. Basically it just repeats over and over that the kings and the mighty will be judged on the Great Day. The notices of the vindication of the righteous were more interesting, especially the passages which seem to presage a bodily resurrection in 51.1-5 and 61.5.
Another thing which may have made the Parables tedious for me are the numerous interpolations. Surely the book would flow better if we had access to the uninterpolated original in the original order (Nickelsburg rearranges several verses into what he thinks is the original order). In the introduction Nickelsburg reconstructs what he thinks may be close to the original form of the Parables: 37-54.6; 56.1-59.3; 60.11-23; 61.1-63.12; 64.1-2(?); 65.6-8(?); 67.4-7(?); 69.2-12(?); 69.26-29; 70.1-2. And indeed this reconstruction does seem to work better!
As was the case ten years ago I preferred the Book of the Luminaries to the Parables. The main problem with reading the Book of the Luminaries is figuring out how his descriptions of the luminaries conform (or don’t conform) to how the luminaries actually behave. VanderKam is to be commended for sitting in on a physics class on descriptive astronomy in preparation for writing this book and consulting with graduate students in order to understand this important and sometimes confusing issue. It is impossible to understand ancient astronomy without a handle on how the luminaries actually behave. I sometimes found myself getting confused; for example, when the Book of the Luminaries divided the waxing and waning of the moon into 14 parts each, I found myself thinking that a lunar month lasted 28 days. I had totally forgotten about the day the moon is new and has no light, bringing the total to 29 days. This is still 0.54 days shy of the actual length of a month, but, still, this was pretty close for ancient cosmology.
In my review of ten years ago I complained about VanderKam's attention to textual details. This was a really unfair criticism. The reason VanderKam pays attention to these details is that we actually have Aramaic portions of the Book of the Luminaries. Nickelsburg can’t do the same for the Parables because we have no other text for them other than the Ethiopic. Even at that, since we only have about 30% of the Book of the Luminaries in Aramaic, VanderKam was only able to draw comparisons for the portions we have an Aramaic text available. Since I don’t know Aramaic, my eyes tended to cross over at those points of the discussion. I made it vow to myself that on my second reading I would pay more attention to these points.
A word must be said about the excellent translation by Nickelsburg and VanderKam. I much prefer it to Ann Nyland's translation. Unlike Nyland, Nickelsburg and VanderKam format the verse as verse and the prose as prose. They have a translation based on the commentary as a separate volume, and I highly recommend having it hand as you work through the commentary, so you don’t have to keep flipping through the commentary to look up references to different parts of 1 Enoch (this is a particular problem if, for example, vol. 2 references a passage in vol. 1). I also recommend having vol.1 handy as you work through vol. 2, since vol. 2 frequently refers back to vol. 1. The only problem I had looking up a reference was when VanderKam referenced 1 Enoch 91.16. I couldn’t find 91.16 in Nickelsburg’s translation. Maybe he moved it someplace I couldn’t find. In any case it wasn’t a huge problem because I found it in R. H. Charles's translation which is freely available on the internet.
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