52 of 58 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The most beautiful of all Apocrypha!, August 6, 2000
I just finished reading this work, also called "2Enoch", and I must say it is the most beautiful and at times even poetic of all the so-called Apocrypha. It's imagery is vivid and it just draws you in! Amazingly, I can't find anything here which contradicts the canonical Bible, so I can imagine Paul or other early Christians perusing this text for some clues as to what Enoch may have actually seen as he "walked with God". I strongly urge you to BUY THIS BOOK!
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40 of 46 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
More modern translations available, February 2, 2000
By A Customer
This book is what is now more commonly known as "2 Enoch" (per Charlesworth's OT Pseudepigrapha edition, Doubleday 1983), or "Slavonic Enoch".
There seems to be some confusion in the editorial comments. There is no evidence that 2 Enoch, or "Slavonic Enoch" had any direct influence on Origen, Iranaeus or NT writers (Jude, 2Peter, Luke 20 etc.) that distinction goes to 1 Enoch, or "Ethiopian Enoch", most of which is also found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, which Slavonic Enoch is not.
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19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not For The First Time Reader, February 25, 2006
The R. H. Charles or Richard Laurence english translations of the ethiopian Enoch would be the better choices for a first time reader. I, having read both translations, find this Slavic Enoch to be only for the serious student. Footnotes are full of Hebrew, Greek, and Latin to accurately parallel other sources. The footnotes do even outnumber the verses.
This Slavonic Enoch text is not as detailed as the Ethiopian text. It is most certainly a condensed, badly-translated (into the slavic language) version of one of the earlier (greek or ethiopian?) Enoch texts. There seems to be differences from the other texts but are probably because of the evolving ideas of heaven, hell, after-life, etc.
In the Introduction, which was written by R. H. Charles, definite parallels are drawn up with the Koran. Charles belives this text dates between 30 BC. and 70 AD. meaning Mohammud was familiar to some extent with it.
This particular book has a Melchizedek myth which will help one more fully understand the meaning of Hebrews 7:3. The absence of written material in Genesis ignited imaginations in the early Christian church to create stories about him. The book is worth it just for this tale, but I strongly warn not to bring it up at a Bible study unless you like making waves.
The Phoenix played a special role in the early church. Clement used it to symbolize the resurrection of Jesus(I Clement Chap 12). This bird shows up here(Chap 12).
One of the other reviews has mention of the 365 and 1/4 day calendar, revealed to Enoch, being a modern calendar. This calendar isn't really modern. The Egyptians knew of the 365 1/4 day solar cycle nearly two millennia before the Julian Calendar. When they instituted a 365 1/4 day calendar they reserved those extra days, like our leap year (Feb. 29), for the gods. The Maya, on the other side of the globe, used three different calendars(Haab, Tzolkin, and the Long Count). They knew the solar cycle was 365 1/4 days also.
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