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Hermeneia
1 Enoch 1: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch, Chapters 1-36; 81-108
The first exhaustive commentary on this work since 1773 1 Enoch is one of the most intriguing books in the Pseudepigrapha (Israelite works outside the Hebrew canon). It was originally written in Aramaic and is comprised of several smaller works, incorporating traditions from the three centuries before the Common Era. Employing the name of the ancient patriach Enoch, the Aramaic text was translated into Greek and then into Ethiopic. But as a whole, it is a classic example of revelatory (apocalyptic) literature and an important collection of Jewish literature from the Hellenistic and Roman periods. This volume represents the culmination of three decades' work on the Book of 1 Enoch for Nickelsburg. He provides detailed commentary on each passage in chapters 1-36 and 81-108, and an introduction to the full work. The introduction includes sections on overviews of each of the smaller collections, texts and manuscripts, literary aspects, worldview and religious thought, the history of ideas and social contexts, usage in later Jewish and Christian literatures, and a survey of the modern study of the book. (Volume 2 will cover chapters 37-80 and will be written by Nickelsburg and James VanderKam.)
- GenresJudaismBiblical Studies
656 pages, Hardcover
First published November 1, 2001
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 3, 2026
DNF
According to the internet, this is THE translation and exploration of the book of Enoch, and the scholarship is certainly extensive and impressive. However, within the first hundred or so pages the author has preached on the importance of woman and minority scholars; condemned Christianity as a source of violence, persecution, and disparity; blamed the church for various historical injustices; accused Christians of not caring for the ecosystem; and apologized for using masculine gendered language when referring to God. All this from, supposedly, a Lutheran pastor.
All these little asides and more function as a leftist declaration of faith to not only let the reader know everything the author believes about everything, but to also tell us his ideology will be put first and that everything will adhere to approved groupthink.
This is all really out of place in what is otherwise (and what inarguably should be) a neutral, dispassionate, scholarly work.
I was on my back foot, but I tried to push on and ignore the propaganda bits. Another hundred or so pages in and he's using scare quotes regarding the "works" of God and pooh-poohing Divine Providence.
Nah. I'm out.
According to the internet, this is THE translation and exploration of the book of Enoch, and the scholarship is certainly extensive and impressive. However, within the first hundred or so pages the author has preached on the importance of woman and minority scholars; condemned Christianity as a source of violence, persecution, and disparity; blamed the church for various historical injustices; accused Christians of not caring for the ecosystem; and apologized for using masculine gendered language when referring to God. All this from, supposedly, a Lutheran pastor.
All these little asides and more function as a leftist declaration of faith to not only let the reader know everything the author believes about everything, but to also tell us his ideology will be put first and that everything will adhere to approved groupthink.
This is all really out of place in what is otherwise (and what inarguably should be) a neutral, dispassionate, scholarly work.
I was on my back foot, but I tried to push on and ignore the propaganda bits. Another hundred or so pages in and he's using scare quotes regarding the "works" of God and pooh-poohing Divine Providence.
Nah. I'm out.
June 18, 2024
In April 1773, the British Parliament passed the Tea Act which would lead to the Boston Tea Party. Two years after passage of the act, almost to the day, the British attempt to seize a cache of colonial weapons at Concord, Massachusetts served as the final spark that ignited the American Revolution.
I bring this up to contextualize how recently Europeans recovered the Book of Enoch. One month before Parliament passed the Tea Act, Scottish adventurer James Bruce returned to France from Ethiopia bearing a copy of a book no European had seen in a thousand years.
Excavators in Egypt later discovered a third of the book in Greek translation, and researchers identified Aramaic fragments of it among the Dead Sea Scrolls. To this day, though, medieval Ethiopic translations remain the only complete versions of a text once famous enough to be quoted directly by the canonical Book of Jude, as well as (sometimes favorably, sometimes not) by early church fathers.
George W. E. Nickelsburg of the University of Iowa is highly suited to write this commentary, given his decades of research into this and other Second Temple writings. And his task is not easy: consensus holds that this Jewish document originated in Aramaic before migrating into Greek and, later, Ethiopic.
Given this fraught textual history, any conclusions on its centuries of augmentation, editing, and translation are tentative. I find Nickelsburg cautious and well-reasoned in creating his own critical text and translation from highly divergent text forms, which gives me confidence in his text as a whole.
The Book of Enoch presents itself as the experiences, prophecies, and exhortations of Enoch, the seventh righteous descendant of Adam who “was not, for God took him.” As Nickelsburg points out, this empowered the authors and adherents of Enochic teachings to claim an authority prior and superior to the Law of Moses and the Jerusalem priesthood.
Most famously, Enoch expands on Genesis 6:1-4, extrapolating the intermarriage of the “sons of God” with the “daughters of men” into a sprawling epic of angels abandoning their proper station, mingling in lust with human women, spawning a race of carnivorous half-breed giants, and watching God slay their children before being bound and cast into the abyss to await Judgment Day. (Oh, also, demons are the spirits of the giants let loose to roam the Earth, in case you were wondering where demons come from.)
Nickelsburg suggests that the book’s historical context, to the extent we can know it, is an interpretive key. The book seethes with the impotent frustration of Jewish religionists held down by pagan Greeks. It swings from promises that God will slay the wicked (as he did the giants) and cast their souls into hell on the one hand, to prophecies on the other hand that the righteous will themselves exterminate heathens and compromisers.
Despite its Jewish origins, the Book of Enoch was never accepted as divine by Jewish guardians of the Mosaic Law. Enochic devotion seems to have been an influential but ultimately fringe movement within Judaism, which goes a long way to explain both its tepid reception by the early church and its eventual extinction in Mediterranean Christianity.
Though it should not be considered a “lost book of the Bible” or any such nonsense, Enoch does provide a valuable window into the apocalyptic genre as it developed during Seleucid domination of the Levant. Imagery that seems bizarre to us in canonical books such as Daniel and Revelation find parallels in Enoch, suggesting that they wouldn’t have seemed so bizarre to contemporaries.
Most of all, I’m reminded yet again that the past is a foreign country. We would do well to recognize we find ourselves in but one part of a river that stretches further into the past than we can see. We stand on the shoulders of giants — just, hopefully, not *those* giants.
I bring this up to contextualize how recently Europeans recovered the Book of Enoch. One month before Parliament passed the Tea Act, Scottish adventurer James Bruce returned to France from Ethiopia bearing a copy of a book no European had seen in a thousand years.
Excavators in Egypt later discovered a third of the book in Greek translation, and researchers identified Aramaic fragments of it among the Dead Sea Scrolls. To this day, though, medieval Ethiopic translations remain the only complete versions of a text once famous enough to be quoted directly by the canonical Book of Jude, as well as (sometimes favorably, sometimes not) by early church fathers.
George W. E. Nickelsburg of the University of Iowa is highly suited to write this commentary, given his decades of research into this and other Second Temple writings. And his task is not easy: consensus holds that this Jewish document originated in Aramaic before migrating into Greek and, later, Ethiopic.
Given this fraught textual history, any conclusions on its centuries of augmentation, editing, and translation are tentative. I find Nickelsburg cautious and well-reasoned in creating his own critical text and translation from highly divergent text forms, which gives me confidence in his text as a whole.
The Book of Enoch presents itself as the experiences, prophecies, and exhortations of Enoch, the seventh righteous descendant of Adam who “was not, for God took him.” As Nickelsburg points out, this empowered the authors and adherents of Enochic teachings to claim an authority prior and superior to the Law of Moses and the Jerusalem priesthood.
Most famously, Enoch expands on Genesis 6:1-4, extrapolating the intermarriage of the “sons of God” with the “daughters of men” into a sprawling epic of angels abandoning their proper station, mingling in lust with human women, spawning a race of carnivorous half-breed giants, and watching God slay their children before being bound and cast into the abyss to await Judgment Day. (Oh, also, demons are the spirits of the giants let loose to roam the Earth, in case you were wondering where demons come from.)
Nickelsburg suggests that the book’s historical context, to the extent we can know it, is an interpretive key. The book seethes with the impotent frustration of Jewish religionists held down by pagan Greeks. It swings from promises that God will slay the wicked (as he did the giants) and cast their souls into hell on the one hand, to prophecies on the other hand that the righteous will themselves exterminate heathens and compromisers.
Despite its Jewish origins, the Book of Enoch was never accepted as divine by Jewish guardians of the Mosaic Law. Enochic devotion seems to have been an influential but ultimately fringe movement within Judaism, which goes a long way to explain both its tepid reception by the early church and its eventual extinction in Mediterranean Christianity.
Though it should not be considered a “lost book of the Bible” or any such nonsense, Enoch does provide a valuable window into the apocalyptic genre as it developed during Seleucid domination of the Levant. Imagery that seems bizarre to us in canonical books such as Daniel and Revelation find parallels in Enoch, suggesting that they wouldn’t have seemed so bizarre to contemporaries.
Most of all, I’m reminded yet again that the past is a foreign country. We would do well to recognize we find ourselves in but one part of a river that stretches further into the past than we can see. We stand on the shoulders of giants — just, hopefully, not *those* giants.
August 2, 2025
[Jan 16, 2016] This is the first book I have read in this series and it won't be the last. The series seems superior to the Anchor Bible studies— much more thorough. The small print of the excurses was annoying, and I wish the book had started with the entire translation to read through before starting the commentary. Maybe you have to get volume II to get that.
[edit: Aug 2, 2025] The division of chapters between the two volumes of this commentary may seem a bit strange, but it makes a lot of sense. The idea, I think, is to have two volumes of approximately equal length. But if one cut the chapters right down the middle, one would end up in the middle of the Book of Parables, I think, which would be awkward. The way these volumes are divided with chapters 1-36 and 81-108 in the first volume and chapters 37-82 in the second volume, the volumes are of approximately equal length and the integrity of the major sections of 1 Enoch are maintained.
The overlap between volumes 1 and 2 requires some explanation, with volume 2 ending with chapter 82 but the second part of volume 1 commencing with chapter 81 and not chapter 83. According to Nickelsburg, chapters 81-82 have been removed from their original context (whatever that may be) and imported into the Book of the Luminaries (encompassing chapters 72-82 and is discussed in volume 2).
I had previously read Nickelsburg’s and VanderKam's Hermeneia commentary on 1 Enoch some years ago, but was feeling the need to revisit it, particularly after rereading Ann Nyland's translation of the three books of Enoch. I particularly wanted to compare Nyland’s translation to Nickelsburg's and VanderKam’s translation. This involved some writing notes into my Kindle edition of Nyland's translation. Ebooks are great for this! I noted a fair number of specific differences between the two translations that interested me but will refrain from citing them until I write reviews of those translation. Suffice it to say here that generally speaking, Nyland's translation is looser, and, I would say, aimed at a more general audience than Nickelsburg's and VanderKam’s translation. Nyland avoids the technical terms that Nickelsburg uses (notably "Son of Man") and formats as prose throughout. Nickelsburg and VanderKam format as verse when they feel the text calls for it.
Both translations are very good but at this point in my studies of 1 Enoch I would have to say I prefer the Nickelsburg/VanderKam translation. It is more literal and does not tend to smooth over the idioms the way Nyland does.
Although I have now read this commentary three times I do not feel competent to review it. This is because like a lot of commentaries, this is a commentary designed to be a study guide, I think, and not the sort of book one sits down and reads. In my case my interest in 1 Enoch is uneven. In my review of volume 2, I mentioned that am more interested in the Book of the Luminaries than in the Book of the Parables. Similarly, in volume 1 I was not that enthused about the epistle of Enoch. This makes it hard to give a fair review, so I will try to keep my remarks general. Towards the end of my first read through I noticed that I was not paying specific enough attention to which manuscripts were being referenced. I even had to look up what the gothic font T was referencing (Talmud, it turns out). On my second read through I made it a point especially to pay attention to references to the Aramaic. It is important to note when Nickelsburg is referencing an Aramaic text that we actually have and when he is reconstructing the Aramaic from the Greek or Ethiopic.
I would love to have both these books in my library but given the expense I probably will not buy them until sometime next year. Hopefully before then I can acquire Ephraim Isaac's translation of 1 Enoch, available in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, edited by James H. Charlesworth. According to Nickelsburg, this is a must-read for any student of 1 Enoch, because it was done with a native Ethiopian's familiarity with Ge'ez.
[edit: Aug 2, 2025] The division of chapters between the two volumes of this commentary may seem a bit strange, but it makes a lot of sense. The idea, I think, is to have two volumes of approximately equal length. But if one cut the chapters right down the middle, one would end up in the middle of the Book of Parables, I think, which would be awkward. The way these volumes are divided with chapters 1-36 and 81-108 in the first volume and chapters 37-82 in the second volume, the volumes are of approximately equal length and the integrity of the major sections of 1 Enoch are maintained.
The overlap between volumes 1 and 2 requires some explanation, with volume 2 ending with chapter 82 but the second part of volume 1 commencing with chapter 81 and not chapter 83. According to Nickelsburg, chapters 81-82 have been removed from their original context (whatever that may be) and imported into the Book of the Luminaries (encompassing chapters 72-82 and is discussed in volume 2).
I had previously read Nickelsburg’s and VanderKam's Hermeneia commentary on 1 Enoch some years ago, but was feeling the need to revisit it, particularly after rereading Ann Nyland's translation of the three books of Enoch. I particularly wanted to compare Nyland’s translation to Nickelsburg's and VanderKam’s translation. This involved some writing notes into my Kindle edition of Nyland's translation. Ebooks are great for this! I noted a fair number of specific differences between the two translations that interested me but will refrain from citing them until I write reviews of those translation. Suffice it to say here that generally speaking, Nyland's translation is looser, and, I would say, aimed at a more general audience than Nickelsburg's and VanderKam’s translation. Nyland avoids the technical terms that Nickelsburg uses (notably "Son of Man") and formats as prose throughout. Nickelsburg and VanderKam format as verse when they feel the text calls for it.
Both translations are very good but at this point in my studies of 1 Enoch I would have to say I prefer the Nickelsburg/VanderKam translation. It is more literal and does not tend to smooth over the idioms the way Nyland does.
Although I have now read this commentary three times I do not feel competent to review it. This is because like a lot of commentaries, this is a commentary designed to be a study guide, I think, and not the sort of book one sits down and reads. In my case my interest in 1 Enoch is uneven. In my review of volume 2, I mentioned that am more interested in the Book of the Luminaries than in the Book of the Parables. Similarly, in volume 1 I was not that enthused about the epistle of Enoch. This makes it hard to give a fair review, so I will try to keep my remarks general. Towards the end of my first read through I noticed that I was not paying specific enough attention to which manuscripts were being referenced. I even had to look up what the gothic font T was referencing (Talmud, it turns out). On my second read through I made it a point especially to pay attention to references to the Aramaic. It is important to note when Nickelsburg is referencing an Aramaic text that we actually have and when he is reconstructing the Aramaic from the Greek or Ethiopic.
I would love to have both these books in my library but given the expense I probably will not buy them until sometime next year. Hopefully before then I can acquire Ephraim Isaac's translation of 1 Enoch, available in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, edited by James H. Charlesworth. According to Nickelsburg, this is a must-read for any student of 1 Enoch, because it was done with a native Ethiopian's familiarity with Ge'ez.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews