Book Note | Enoch From Antiquity to the Middle Ages

John C. Reeves and Annette Yoshiko Reed. Enoch from Antiquity to the Middle Ages. Volume 1, Sources from Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Oxford, 2018.

Reeves and Reed’s monograph takes a first step toward filling a major gap between scholarship on the books of Enoch, and the subsequent traditions that evolved from them. In turn, it ultimately provides an invaluable resource for a wide variety of fields. As they note, few have “attempted to correlate their studies of the surviving literature with analysis of the wealth of later citations and allusions to Enoch and his writings.”[1]  This is due largely to the sheer volume of literature spread across multiple traditions and written in different languages — including Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, Latin, Ge’ez and Amharic, Coptic, Arabic, and others. Simply put, no single scholar has all the tools for such a task. Furthermore, even if an attempt were made, many of these texts are not available in a convenient form. Thus, the goal of Volume 1 is to provide such a resource. Methodologically, this work aims at encouraging and facilitating comparative analysis across time periods and religious traditions; thus, the texts provided are not grouped chronologically, nor are they divided by religion or language. Rather, sources are brought together via similar themes and motifs, allowing the reader to see how certain elements of Enochic tradition developed across a variety of religious and historical settings.[2]

Chapter 1 begins by gathering texts under distinct epithets given to Enoch, such as the “Seventh,” and Enoch as “Righteous.” Interestingly, the epithet attributed to Enoch as “Scribe of Righteousness,” does not exist in any extant Aramaic MSS. Rather, its earliest occurrences appear exclusively in Egyptian Christian texts, signaling an Egyptian, Christian origin. In fact, it seems likely that this epithet entered the fifth/sixth century Akhmim Greek translation of the Book of the Watchers (1 En. 12:4; 15:1) from the Testament of Abraham (11:1-4), and similar literature, rather than vice-versa.[3] Additionally, this chapter provides two texts, where Enoch is explicitly described as “The Lord’s Messiah” — a title found only in the Syriac Cave of Treasures.[4] While such traditions are unique to Christianity, Chapter 1 also contributes to the fields of late antique and medieval Judaism by demonstrating the existence of conflicting views with regard to Enoch as “righteous.” For instance, Genesis Rabbah 25.1 describes Enoch as wavering between piety and sin. This characterization is lacking in later medieval tradition, however, where Enoch appears as righteous again.[5] One wonders if this signals early rabbinic attempts to distance certain Jewish circles from Christian tradition — as well as other traditions that elevated Enoch — for the purpose of identity and community formation.

A further possibility might have to do with some early rabbinic attempts to distance communities from the claims of astronomy/astrology, as implied by Chapter 2, which turns the reader’s attention to “Enoch as a Culture Hero: What Enoch Discovered, Learned, Taught, and Wrote.” The earliest record of Enoch’s credentials is recorded in Jub. 4:17-24, which describes him learning from angels the ability to write, as well as how to observe the sun, moon, and stars, leading to his authorship of calendars.[6]  Such credentials are further developed in later Jewish, Christian, Muslim, and even Manichean literature, which Reeves and Reed demonstrate, by lumping various texts together under motifs, such as “Enoch as Purveyor of Star-Lore and Calendar Reckoning,” and “Inventor of Writing or Contributor to Book Culture,” and more. Again, contributing to the fields of late antique and medieval Judaism, it becomes clear in this chapter that Enoch’s connection with astronomy/astrology is nearly absent in classical rabbinic literature. And yet, similar to the epithet “righteous,” Enoch eventually re-enters medieval Jewish literature as an authoritative teacher of astronomy/astrology.[7] Just as fascinating is Chapter 2’s implications for Jewish and Islamic studies as Enoch, along with his medieval Muslim avatar Idrīs, are both described as savants of cosmological mysteries — the implication being that this characteristic may have re-entered medieval Judaism via some sort of relationship to Islamic tradition.[8]

Chapter 3 continues to contribute to multiple fields by compiling sources that describe particular vocational roles attributed to Enoch, such as teacher, prophet, etc. For instance, Enoch appears first as a “prophet” in Jude 1:14-15 — an idea taken up by later Christian authorities. Interestingly, Enoch as “prophet” is lacking in classical rabbinic sources. And yet, this same tradition is taken up and amplified in Manichean and Muslim sources.[9] Additionally, Enoch as a “hermit” in later medieval Jewish tradition, is lacking in earlier rabbinic literature, and yet a similar tradition appears in a 12th century Muslim text (Kisā’ī, Qiṣaṣ al-anbiyāʼ), signaling, again, some sort of relationship between medieval Jewish and Muslim traditions.[10]

Chapter 4 focuses on Enoch’s association with angels, gathering texts under motifs, such as “Enoch as a confidant and apprentice of angels,” “Enoch wields angel-like power,” and more. One observation demonstrates that Enoch/ Idrīs are both said to have a close relationship with the so-called, “Angel of the Sun,” an angelic being who brings about the movement of the sun. The seed of such lore may be present in Jub. 4:21, in which Enoch learns from angels “the power of the sun.”[11] Either way, the presence of this tradition in both Muslim and Jewish sources signals, yet again, some kind of continued conversation/shared ideas across both religious traditions — an insight valuable to both fields of study.

Chapter 5 compiles descriptions of Enoch’s escape from death. While the Hebrew Bible states that god “took” Enoch (Gen. 5:24) there is no actual explanation as to where. Further detail is developed in subsequent traditions. For instance, texts ranging from the Cologne Mani Codex to the Zohar describe Enoch as taken alive to Eden, imagined as a terrestrial location, whereas other traditions, from Ben Sira to 3 Enoch, seem to envision heaven/paradise as celestial.[12] Interestingly, both views appear in the Zohar, implying the presence of separate, yet unified, traditions that stem from different sources — an observation worth further investigation for those who specialize in medieval Kabbalah.[13]

Chapter 6 provides more detail regarding Enoch’s equation with other figures in different traditions (Idrīs, Hermes Trismegistus, and others). Such avatars likely served as one primary factor for the diffusion and development of Enochic lore, creating “a common world with integrated networks of commercial, political, and cultural communication . . . fostering the notion of an overarching unity of thought. . . .”[14] Furthermore, Chapter 6 provides a brief excursus on “Passages Featuring Metatron as the ‘Lesser YHW(H).’” As noted by Reeves and Reed, Peter Schäfer asserts that the title YHWH ha-qatan is unique to 3 Enoch. And yet, they bring together a number of primary texts which either explicitly or implicitly use the same title, demonstrating yet another advantage of examining texts outside of a single tradition, and presenting yet another contribution to the field of Judaic studies.[15]

Finally, Chapter 7 is devoted to “The Books of Enoch and Their Reception,” citing passages that view the books of Enoch as either positive, neutral, or negative.[16] The advantage of this methodology is soon realized as a shift from a positive to negative view becomes evident within Christian tradition. For instance, Reeves and Reed note that in the 2nd century CE, Christians like Justin Martyr cite Enoch as a symbol of righteousness prior to circumcision. Yet, around the same time, some rabbinic texts seem to reject portions of Enochic literature.[17] In response, some Christians, by the time of Origen, aware of this suspicion, also begin to denigrate their use. Around the closing of the Christian canon in the fourth and fifth centuries, Enochic books become increasingly vilified by Christian authorities, which ultimately contributed to their suppression in the West.[18] However, outside the Roman Empire, some Christians were less troubled by Enoch. This, plus the continuation of Enochic tradition in the Near East, as intimated by Islamic literature, may account for the re-emergence of Enochic traditions within medieval Jewish mysticism.[19]

Volume 1 certainly fulfills the goal of providing a convenient source that compiles Enochic references across religious traditions throughout the centuries, making accessible a treasure trove of sources for scholars and paving the way for future research in a variety of fields. The result of such a work ultimately puts forth a case for pursuing similar studies across traditions. Often times diachronic studies, seeking to understand the development of particular ideas and themes, are limited to a singular stream of tradition, whether Judaism, Christianity, or Islam. What we find in this text is evidence that the character Enoch not only developed and changed over time within specific traditions, but also that this figure is shared, and often develops in similar ways, across traditions. Whether this is due to conversations between communities, the result of converts moving from one tradition to another, or even failed attempts by some traditions to distance themselves from others, one of the major imports of this work is the implication that all three traditions tend to be more unified than is often presumed.[20] In other words, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam seem to evolve in relation to one another, rather than the typical assumption that all three had, at some point, “parted ways” entirely.[21] Most remarkable is that this relationship is evident from late antiquity into the medieval period. This leaves much to be anticipated for Volume 2.

Lastly, as has been demonstrated, one of the most valuable contributions are the plentiful insights throughout this volume that have implications for a wide variety of fields, ranging from antiquity to the medieval period. And, while there are no doubt plentiful insights with regard to Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, a number of observations throughout this work also hold implications for the field of Ancient Mesopotamian religion and its relation to later traditions. In fact, one wonders if a supplementary volume, providing ancient Mesopotamian precursors to Enochic traditions, might prove beneficial. For instance, Chapter 1 notes that the Enochic epithet “Seventh” appears to be related to the Mesopotamian monarch, Enmeduranki the king of Sippar —a close friend of the gods, and revealer of secret knowledge to Sippar, Nippur, and Babylon —who appears in the seventh position of the Sumerian King List.[22] Other connections between Ancient Mesopotamian and Enochic literature, unmentioned by the authors, include Seth Sanders’ argument that Adapa served as Enoch’s Mesopotamian model.[23] As well as the reworked version of the Babylonian astronomical texts MUL.APIN and Enuma Anu Enlil that appear in 1 Enoch.[24] A similar, concise resource containing such texts might further augment our understanding of the development of Enochic tradition and also further demonstrate the continuation of Ancient Mesopotamian mythology, divination, and astrology/astronomy into late antique Mesopotamian thought, as well as Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions of the late antique /early medieval periods.

Josiah Bisbee is a PhD student in the department of Religious Studies at Brown University.

[1] John C. Reeves and Annette Yoshiko Reed, Enoch from Antiquity to the Middle Ages. Vol. 1, Sources from Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018), 4.

[2] Ibid., 9.

[3] Ibid., 46-47.

[4] Ibid., 48-49.

[5] Ibid., 28-29.

[6] Ibid., 54-55.

[7] Ibid., 57.

[8] Ibid., 57. One example of Enoch equated with Idrīs is found in al-Hamdānī’s work Kitāb al-Iklīl min akhbār al-Yaman wa-ansāb Ḥimyar which explicitly says “Idrīs . . . his name in the Torah is Enoch . . .” See p. 63.

[9] Ibid., 121.

[10] Ibid., 164-166.

[11] Ibid., 185.

[12] Ibid., 211-219; 220-223.

[13] Ibid., 218-219; 232.

[14] Ibid., 254. Quoting Jan Assman, “Translating Gods: Religion as a Factor of Cultural (Un)translatability, in Sandford Budick and Wolfgang Iser, eds, The Translatability of Cultures: Figurations of the Space Between (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996), 25-36, at 28.

[15] Reeves and Reed, Enoch, 265-270.

[16] Ibid., 304-326; 328-334.

[17] Ibid., 11.

[18] Ibid., 11-12.

[19] Ibid., 12-13.

[20] Regarding conversion, Reeves and Reed provide a portion of al-Iklīl, where al-Hamdānī cites Kaꜥb al-Aḥbār, a Yemenite Jewish convert to Islam, who is often presented as a key figure who passed on Jewish aggadic lore and eschatology into Islam. Ibid., 63. Similar observations could pave the way for studies surrounding individual movement from one tradition to another and how such converts might have effected subsequent traditions by infusing their newfound faith with ideas from their previous background.

[21] This volume notably furthers the observations made nearly a decade ago in Becker and Reed’s edited volume The Ways that Never Parted: Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle ages (Fortress Press, 2007). Not only by further problematizing an assumed clean break between Judaism and Christianity, sometime in the late first or early second century, but it even adds Islam to the equation, again, showing how all three traditions evolved in relation to one another.

[22] Reeves and Reed, Enoch, 19.

[23] Seth L. Sanders, From Adapa to Enoch: Scribal Culture and Religious Vision in Judea and Babylon (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017).

[24] See, for instance, Jonathan Ben-Dov, “Astronomy in the Book of Enoch,” in the Handbook of Archaeoastronomy and Ethnoastronomy, ed., Clive L. N. Ruggles, 1889-1893 (New York: Springer, 2014).