Nephilim, Enoch, Antarctica

 Dudael (Heb. דּוּדָאֵל, compd. of dud דּוּד "kettle", "cauldron", "pot" + El אֵל "deity", "divinity" — lit. "cauldron of God") is the place of imprisonment for Azazel (one of the "fallen" angels), cohort of Samyaza. It is described in the Book of Enoch chapter 10 verses 4–7:

And again the Lord said to Raphael: 'Bind Azazel hand and foot, and cast him into the darkness: and make an opening in the desert, which is in Dudael, and cast him therein. And place upon him rough and jagged rocks, and cover him with darkness, and let him abide there for ever, and cover his face that he may not see light. And on the day of the great judgement, he shall be cast into the fire.

Dudael is also implied to be the prison of all the fallen angels, especially the evil Watchers, the entrance of which is located to the east of Jerusalem.^[1] The way this place is described, Dudael is sometimes considered as a region of the underworld, comparable to Tartarus^[2][3] or Gehenna.^[4][5][6]

The Book of Enoch (also 1 Enoch;^{[note 1]} Hebrew: סֵפֶר חֲנוֹךְ, Sēfer Ḥănōḵ; Ge'ez: መጽሐፈ ሄኖክ, Maṣḥafa Hēnok) is an ancient Hebrew apocalyptic religious text, ascribed by tradition to Enoch, the great-grandfather of Noah.^[1][2] Enoch contains unique material on the origins of demons and Nephilim, why some angels fell from heaven, an explanation of why the Genesis flood was morally necessary, and prophetic exposition of the thousand-year reign of the Messiah. Three books are traditionally attributed to Enoch, including the distinct works 2 Enoch and 3 Enoch, although none of the three books are considered canonical scripture by the majority of Jewish or Christian bodies.

The older sections I Enoch (mainly in the Book of the Watchers) of the text are estimated to date from about 300–200 BC, and the latest part (Book of Parables) probably to 100 BC.^[3]

Various Aramaic fragments found in the Dead Sea Scrolls, as well as Koine Greek and Latin fragments, are proof that the Book of Enoch was known by Jews and early Near Eastern Christians. This book was also quoted by some 1st and 2nd century authors as in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. Authors of the New Testament were also familiar with some content of the story.^[4] A short section of 1 Enoch (1:9) is cited in the New Testament Epistle of Jude, Jude 1:14–15, and is attributed there to "Enoch the Seventh from Adam" (1 Enoch 60:8), although this section of 1 Enoch is a midrash on Deuteronomy 33:2. Several copies of the earlier sections of 1 Enoch were preserved among the Dead Sea Scrolls.^[2]

It is not part of the biblical canon used by Jews, apart from Beta Israel (Ethiopian Jews). While the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church consider the Book of Enoch as canonical, other Christian groups regard it as non-canonical or non-inspired, but may accept it as having some historical or theological interest.

It is today wholly extant only in the Ethiopian Ge'ez language. For this and other reasons, the traditional Ethiopian belief is that the original language of the work was Ge'ez, whereas modern scholars argue that it was first written in either Aramaic or Hebrew, the languages first used for Jewish texts; Ephraim Isaac suggests that the Book of Enoch, like the Book of Daniel, was composed partially in Aramaic and partially in Hebrew.^[5]: 6 No Hebrew version is known to have survived.

Canonicity[edit]

Main article: Reception of the book of Enoch before modern times

Judaism[edit]

Although evidently widely known during the development of the Hebrew Bible canon, 1 Enoch was excluded from both the formal canon of the Tanakh and the typical canon of the Septuagint and therefore, also from the writings known today as the Deuterocanon.^[6][7] One possible reason for Jewish rejection of the book might be the textual nature of several early sections of the book that make use of material from the Torah; for example, 1 En 1 is a midrash of Deuteronomy 33.^[8][9] The content, particularly detailed descriptions of fallen angels, would also be a reason for rejection from the Hebrew canon at this period – as illustrated by the comments of Trypho the Jew when debating with Justin Martyr on this subject: "The utterances of God are holy, but your expositions are mere contrivances, as is plain from what has been explained by you; nay, even blasphemies, for you assert that angels sinned and revolted from God."^[10] Today, the Ethiopic Beta Israel community of Haymanot Jews is the only Jewish group that accepts the Book of Enoch as canonical and still preserves it in its liturgical language of Ge'ez where it plays a central role in worship and the liturgy.^[11]

Christianity[edit]

By the 4th century, the Book of Enoch was mostly excluded from Christian biblical canons, and it is now regarded as scripture only by the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church.^[12][13][14]

References in the New Testament[edit]

"Enoch, the seventh from Adam" is quoted in Jude 1:14–15:

And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousands of his saints, To execute judgment upon all, and to convict all that are ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds which they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against him.

Compare this with Enoch 1:9, translated from the Ethiopic (found also in Qumran scroll 4Q204=4QEnoch^c ar, col I 16–18):^[15] [16]

And behold! He cometh with ten thousands of His Saints To execute judgment upon all, And to destroy all the ungodly: And to convict all flesh Of all the works of their ungodliness which they have ungodly committed, And of all the hard things which ungodly sinners have spoken against Him.

Compare this also with what may be the original source of 1 Enoch 1:9 in Deuteronomy 33:2: In "He cometh with ten thousands of His holy ones" the text reproduces the Masoretic of Deuteronomy 33 in reading אָתָא‎ = ερκεται, whereas the three Targums, the Syriac and Vulgate read אִתֹּה‎, = μετ αυτου. Here the Septuagint diverges wholly. The reading אתא‎ is recognized as original. The writer of 1–5 therefore used the Hebrew text and presumably wrote in Hebrew.^[17][18][19]

The Lord came from Sinai and dawned from Seir upon us; he shone forth from Mount Paran; he came from the ten thousands of Saints, with flaming fire at his right hand.

Under the heading of canonicity, it is not enough to merely demonstrate that something is quoted. Instead, it is necessary to demonstrate the nature of the quotation.^[20] In the case of the Jude 1:14 quotation of 1 Enoch 1:9, it would be difficult to argue that Jude does not quote Enoch as a historical prophet since he cites Enoch by name. However, there remains a question as to whether the author of Jude attributed the quotation believing the source to be the historical Enoch before the flood or a midrash of Deut 33:2–3.^[21][22][23] The Greek text might seem unusual in stating that "Enoch the Seventh from Adam" prophesied "to" (dative case) not "of" (genitive case) the men, however, this might indicate the Greek meaning "against them" – the dative τούτοις as a dativus incommodi (dative of disadvantage).^{[24][improper synthesis?]}

Peter H. Davids points to Dead Sea Scrolls evidence but leaves it open as to whether Jude viewed 1 Enoch as canon, deuterocanon, or otherwise: "Did Jude, then, consider this scripture to be like Genesis or Isaiah? Certainly he did consider it authoritative, a true word from God. We cannot tell whether he ranked it alongside other prophetic books such as Isaiah and Jeremiah. What we do know is, first, that other Jewish groups, most notably those living in Qumran near the Dead Sea, also used and valued 1 Enoch, but we do not find it grouped with the scriptural scrolls."^[25]

The attribution "Enoch the Seventh from Adam" is apparently itself a section heading taken from 1 Enoch (1 En 60:8, Jude 1:14a) and not from Genesis.^[26]

It has also been alleged that the First Epistle of Peter (1 Peter 3:19–20) and the Second Epistle of Peter (2 Peter 2:4–5) make reference to some Enochian material.^[27]

In the Epistle to the Hebrews (Hebrews 11:5) Enoch is referred to directly, and that he received testimony is mentioned, which may allude to his book.

Reception[edit]

Main article: Reception of the book of Enoch in antiquity and Middle Ages

The Book of Enoch was considered as scripture in the Epistle of Barnabas (4:3)^[28] and by many of the early Church Fathers, such as Athenagoras,^[29] Clement of Alexandria,^[30] Irenaeus^[31] and Tertullian,^[32] who wrote c. 200 that the Book of Enoch had been rejected by the Jews because it contained prophecies pertaining to Christ.^[33]

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints[edit]

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), the largest denomination within the Latter Day Saint movement, does not consider 1 Enoch to be part of its standard canon, although it believes that a purported "original" Book of Enoch was an inspired book.^[34] The Book of Moses, first published in the 1830s, is part of the scriptural canon of the LDS Church and has a section which claims to contain extracts from the "original" Book of Enoch. This section has many similarities to 1 Enoch and other Enoch texts, including 2 Enoch, 3 Enoch, and The Book of Giants.^[35] The Enoch section of the Book of Moses is believed by the Church to contain extracts from "the ministry, teachings, and visions of Enoch", though it does not contain the entire Book of Enoch itself. The LDS Church considers the portions of the other texts which match its Enoch excerpts to be inspired, while not rejecting but withholding judgment on the remainder.^[36][37][38]

Manuscript tradition[edit]

Ethiopic[edit]

The most extensive surviving early manuscripts of the Book of Enoch exist in the Ge'ez language. Robert Henry Charles's critical edition of 1906 subdivides the Ethiopic manuscripts into two families:

Family α: thought to be more ancient and more similar to the earlier Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek versions:

• A – ms. orient. 485 of the British Museum, 16th century, with Jubilees
• B – ms. orient. 491 of the British Museum, 18th century, with other biblical writings
• C – ms. of Berlin orient. Petermann II Nachtrag 29, 16th century
• D – ms. abbadiano 35, 17th century
• E – ms. abbadiano 55, 16th century
• F – ms. 9 of the Lago Lair, 15th century

Family β: more recent, apparently edited texts

• G – ms. 23 of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, 18th century
• H – ms. orient. 531 of the Bodleian Library of Oxford, 18th century
• I – ms. Brace 74 of the Bodleian Library of Oxford, 16th century
• J – ms. orient. 8822 of the British Museum, 18th century
• K – ms. property of E. Ullendorff of London, 18th century
• L – ms. abbadiano 99, 19th century
• M – ms. orient. 492 of the British Museum, 18th century
• N – ms. Ethiopian 30 of Monaco of Baviera, 18th century
• O – ms. orient. 484 of the British Museum, 18th century
• P – ms. Ethiopian 71 of the Vatican, 18th century
• Q – ms. orient. 486 of the British Museum, 18th century, lacking chapters 1–60

Additionally, there are the manuscripts^[which?] used by the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church for preparation of the deuterocanonicals from Ge'ez into the targumic Amharic in the bilingual Haile Selassie Amharic Bible (Mashaf qeddus bage'ezenna ba'amaregna yatasafe 4 vols. c. 1935^[when?]).^[39]

Aramaic[edit]

Eleven Aramaic-language fragments of the Book of Enoch were found in cave 4 of Qumran in 1948^[40] and are in the care of the Israel Antiquities Authority. They were translated for and discussed by Józef Milik and Matthew Black in The Books of Enoch.^[41] Another translation has been released by Vermes and Garcia-Martinez.^[42] Milik described the documents as being white or cream in color, blackened in areas, and made of leather that was smooth, thick and stiff. It was also partly damaged, with the ink blurred and faint.

• 4Q201 = 4QEnoch ^a ar, Enoch 2:1–5:6; 6:4–8:1; 8:3–9:3,6–8
• 4Q202 = 4QEnoch ^b ar, Enoch 5:9–6:4, 6:7–8:1, 8:2–9:4, 10:8–12, 14:4–6
• 4Q204 = 4QEnoch ^c ar, Enoch 1:9–5:1, 6:7, 10:13–19, 12:3, 13:6–14:16, 30:1–32:1, 35, 36:1–4, 106:13–107:2
• 4Q205 = 4QEnoch ^d ar; Enoch 89:29–31, 89:43–44
• 4Q206 = 4QEnoch ^e ar; Enoch 22:3–7, 28:3–29:2, 31:2–32:3, 88:3, 89:1–6, 89:26–30, 89:31–37
• 4Q207 = 4QEnoch ^f ar
• 4Q208 = 4QEnastr ^a ar
• 4Q209 = 4QEnastr ^b ar; Enoch 79:3–5, 78:17, 79:2 and large fragments that do not correspond to any part of the Ethiopian text
• 4Q210 = 4QEnastr ^c ar; Enoch 76:3–10, 76:13–77:4, 78:6–8
• 4Q211 = 4QEnastr ^d ar; large fragments that do not correspond to any part of the Ethiopian text
• 4Q212 = 4QEn ^g ar; Enoch 91:10, 91:18–19, 92:1–2, 93:2–4, 93:9–10, 91:11–17, 93:11–93:1

Hebrew[edit]

Also at Qumran (cave 1) have been discovered three tiny fragments in Hebrew (8:4–9:4, 106).

Chester Beatty XII, Greek manuscript of the Book of Enoch, 4th century

Greek[edit]

4th century AD manuscript, with the end of 'The Epistle of Enoch' and the beginning of the Passion homily of 'Melito'; note the large text reading ΕΠΙΣΤΟΛΗ ΕΝΩΧ (EPISTOLĒ ENOCH)

The 8th-century work Chronographia Universalis by the Byzantine historian George Syncellus preserved some passages of the Book of Enoch in Greek (6:1–9:4, 15:8–16:1). Other Greek fragments known are:

• Codex Panopolitanus (Cairo Papyrus 10759), named also Codex Gizeh or Akhmim fragments, consists of fragments of two 6th-century papyri containing portions of chapters 1–32 recovered by a French archeological team at Akhmim in Egypt and published five years later, in 1892.
• Vatican Fragments, f. 216v (11th century): including 89:42–49
• Chester Beatty Papyri XII : including 97:6–107:3 (less chapter 105)
• Oxyrhynchus Papyri 2069: including only a few letters, which made the identification uncertain, from 77:7–78:1, 78:1–3, 78:8, 85:10–86:2, 87:1–3

It has been claimed that several small additional fragments in Greek have been found at Qumran (7QEnoch: 7Q4, 7Q8, 7Q10-13), dating about 100 BC, ranging from 98:11? to 103:15^[43] and written on papyrus with grid lines, but this identification is highly contested.

Portions of 1 Enoch were incorporated into the chronicle of Panodoros (c. 400) and thence borrowed by his contemporary Annianos.^[44]

Coptic[edit]

A sixth- or seventh-century fragmentary manuscript contains a Coptic version of the Apocalypse of Weeks. How extensive the Coptic text originally was cannot be known. It agrees with the Aramaic text against the Ethiopic, but was probably derived from Greek.^[45]

Latin[edit]

Of the Latin translation, only 1:9 and 106:1–18 are known. The first passage occurs in the Pseudo-Cyprianic Ad Novatianum and the Pseudo-Vigilian Contra Varimadum;^[46] the second was discovered in 1893 by M. R. James in an 8th-century manuscript in the British Museum and published in the same year.^[47]

Syriac[edit]

The only surviving example of 1 Enoch in Syriac is found in the 12th-century Chronicle of Michael the Great. It is a passage from Book VI and is also known from Syncellus and papyrus. Michael's source appears to have been a Syriac translation of (part of) the chronicle of Annianos.^[48]

History[edit]

Origins[edit]

Ephraim Isaac, the editor and translator of 1 Enoch in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, writes that "1 Enoch is clearly composite representing numerous periods and writers". And that the dating of the various sections spans from early pre-Maccabean (i.e. c. 200 BC) to AD 160.^[49] George W. E. Nickelsburg writes that "1 Enoch is a collection of Jewish apocalyptic traditions that date from the last three centuries before the common era".^[50]

Second Temple period[edit]

The 1976 publication by Milik^[41] of the results of the paleographic dating of the Enochic fragments found in Qumran made a breakthrough. According to this scholar, who studied the original scrolls for many years, the oldest fragments of the Book of the Watchers are dated to 200–150 BC. Since the Book of the Watchers shows evidence of multiple stages of composition, it is probable that this work was extant already in the 3rd century BC.^[51] The same can be said about the Astronomical Book.^[1]

It was no longer possible to claim that the core of the Book of Enoch was composed in the wake of the Maccabean Revolt as a reaction to Hellenization.^[52]: 93 Scholars thus had to look for the origins of the Qumranic sections of 1 Enoch in the previous historical period, and the comparison with traditional material of such a time showed that these sections do not draw exclusively on categories and ideas prominent in the Hebrew Bible. Some scholars speak even of an "Enochic Judaism" from which the writers of Qumran scrolls were descended.^[53] Margaret Barker argues, "Enoch is the writing of a very conservative group whose roots go right back to the time of the First Temple".^[54] The main peculiar aspects of the Enochic Judaism are the following:

• the idea of the origin of the evil caused by the fallen angels, who came on the earth to unite with human women. These fallen angels are considered ultimately responsible for the spread of evil and impurity on the earth;^[52]: 90
• the absence in 1 Enoch of formal parallels to the specific laws and commandments found in the Mosaic Torah and of references to issues like Shabbat observance or the rite of circumcision. The Sinaitic covenant and Torah are not of central importance in the Book of Enoch;^{[55]: 50–51}
• the concept of "End of Days" as the time of final judgment that takes the place of promised earthly rewards;^[52]: 92
• the rejection of the Second Temple's sacrifices considered impure: according to Enoch 89:73, the Jews, when returned from the exile, "reared up that tower (the temple) and they began again to place a table before the tower, but all the bread on it was polluted and not pure";^{[citation needed]}
• the presentation of heaven in 1 Enoch 1-36, not in terms of the Jerusalem temple and its priests, but modelling God and his angels on an ancient near eastern or Hellenistic court, with its king and courtiers;^[56]
• a solar calendar in opposition to the lunar calendar used in the Second Temple (a very important aspect for the determination of the dates of religious feasts);
• an interest in the angelic world that involves life after death.^[57]

Most Qumran fragments are relatively early, with none written from the last period of the Qumranic experience. Thus, it is probable that the Qumran community gradually lost interest in the Book of Enoch.^[58]

The relation between 1 Enoch and the Essenes was noted even before the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls.^[59] While there is consensus to consider the sections of the Book of Enoch found in Qumran as texts used by the Essenes, the same is not so clear for the Enochic texts not found in Qumran (mainly the Book of Parables): it was proposed^[60] to consider these parts as expression of the mainstream, but not-Qumranic, essenic movement. The main peculiar aspects of the not-Qumranic units of 1 Enoch are the following:

• a Messiah called "Son of Man", with divine attributes, generated before the creation, who will act directly in the final judgment and sit on a throne of glory (1 Enoch 46:1–4, 48:2–7, 69:26–29)^{[16]: 562–563}
• the sinners usually seen as the wealthy ones and the just as the oppressed (a theme we find also in the Psalms of Solomon).

Early influence[edit]

Classical rabbinic literature is characterized by near silence concerning Enoch. It seems plausible that rabbinic polemics against Enochic texts and traditions might have led to the loss of these books to Rabbinic Judaism.^[61]

The Book of Enoch plays an important role in the history of Jewish mysticism: the scholar Gershom Scholem wrote, "The main subjects of the later Merkabah mysticism already occupy a central position in the older esoteric literature, best represented by the Book of Enoch."^[62] Particular attention is paid to the detailed description of the throne of God included in chapter 14 of 1 Enoch.^[1]

For the quotation from the Book of the Watchers in the New Testament Epistle of Jude:

14 And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, prophesied of these, saying, "Behold, the Lord cometh with ten thousand of His saints 15 to execute judgment upon all, and to convince all who are ungodly among them of all their godless deeds which they have godlessly committed, and of all the harsh speeches which godless sinners have spoken against Him."

There is little doubt that 1 Enoch was influential in molding New Testament doctrines about the Messiah, the Son of Man, the messianic kingdom, demonology, the resurrection, and eschatology.^[2][5]: 10 The limits of the influence of 1 Enoch are discussed at length by R.H. Charles,^[63] Ephraim Isaac,^[5] and G.W. Nickelsburg^[64] in their respective translations and commentaries. It is possible that the earlier sections of 1 Enoch had direct textual and content influence on many Biblical apocrypha, such as Jubilees, 2 Baruch, 2 Esdras, Apocalypse of Abraham and 2 Enoch, though even in these cases, the connection is typically more branches of a common trunk than direct development.^[65]

The Greek text was known to, and quoted, both positively and negatively, by many Church Fathers: references can be found in Justin Martyr, Minucius Felix, Irenaeus, Origen, Cyprian, Hippolytus, Commodianus, Lactantius and Cassian.^[66]: 430 After Cassian and before the modern "rediscovery", some excerpts are given in the Byzantine Empire by the 8th-century monk George Syncellus in his chronography, and in the 9th century, it is listed as an apocryphon of the New Testament by Patriarch Nicephorus.^[67]

Rediscovery[edit]

Sir Walter Raleigh, in his History of the World (written in 1616 while imprisoned in the Tower of London), makes the curious assertion that part of the Book of Enoch "which contained the course of the stars, their names and motions" had been discovered in Saba (Sheba) in the first century and was thus available to Origen and Tertullian. He attributes this information to Origen,^[68] although no such statement is found anywhere in extant versions of Origen.^[69]

Outside of Ethiopia, the text of the Book of Enoch was considered lost until the beginning of the seventeenth century, when it was confidently asserted that the book was found in an Ethiopic (Ge'ez) language translation there, and Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc bought a book that was claimed to be identical to the one quoted by the Epistle of Jude and the Church Fathers. Hiob Ludolf, the great Ethiopic scholar of the 17th and 18th centuries, soon claimed it to be a forgery produced by Abba Bahaila Michael.^[70]

Better success was achieved by the famous Scottish traveller James Bruce, who, in 1773, returned to Europe from six years in Abyssinia with three copies of a Ge'ez version.^[71] One is preserved in the Bodleian Library, another was presented to the royal library of France, while the third was kept by Bruce. The copies remained unused until the 19th century; Silvestre de Sacy, in "Notices sur le livre d'Enoch",^[72] included extracts of the books with Latin translations (Enoch chapters 1, 2, 5–16, 22, and 32). From this a German translation was made by Rink in 1801.^{[citation needed]}

The first English translation of the Bodleian/Ethiopic manuscript was published in 1821 by Richard Laurence, titled The Book of Enoch, the prophet: an apocryphal production, supposed to have been lost for ages; but discovered at the close of the last century in Abyssinia; now first translated from an Ethiopic manuscript in the Bodleian Library. Oxford, 1821. Revised editions appeared in 1833, 1838, and 1842.

In 1838, Laurence also released the first Ethiopic text of 1 Enoch published in the West, under the title: Libri Enoch Prophetae Versio Aethiopica. The text, divided into 105 chapters, was soon considered unreliable as it was the transcription of a single Ethiopic manuscript.^[73]

In 1833, Professor Andreas Gottlieb Hoffmann of the University of Jena released a German translation, based on Laurence's work, called Das Buch Henoch in vollständiger Uebersetzung, mit fortlaufendem Kommentar, ausführlicher Einleitung und erläuternden Excursen. Two other translations came out around the same time: one in 1836 called Enoch Restitutus, or an Attempt (Rev. Edward Murray) and one in 1840 called Prophetae veteres Pseudepigraphi, partim ex Abyssinico vel Hebraico sermonibus Latine bersi (A. F. Gfrörer). However, both are considered to be poor—the 1836 translation most of all—and is discussed in Hoffmann.^[74]

The first critical edition, based on five manuscripts, appeared in 1851 as Liber Henoch, Aethiopice, ad quinque codicum fidem editus, cum variis lectionibus, by August Dillmann. It was followed in 1853 by a German translation of the book by the same author with commentary titled Das Buch Henoch, übersetzt und erklärt. It was considered the standard edition of 1 Enoch until the work of Charles.^{[citation needed]}

The generation of Enoch scholarship from 1890 to World War I was dominated by Robert Henry Charles. His 1893 translation and commentary of the Ethiopic text already represented an important advancement, as it was based on ten additional manuscripts. In 1906 R.H. Charles published a new critical edition of the Ethiopic text, using 23 Ethiopic manuscripts and all available sources at his time. The English translation of the reconstructed text appeared in 1912, and the same year in his collection of The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament.^[2]

The publication, in the early 1950s, of the first Aramaic fragments of 1 Enoch among the Dead Sea Scrolls profoundly changed the study of the document, as it provided evidence of its antiquity and original text. The official edition of all Enoch fragments appeared in 1976, by Jozef Milik.^[75][2]

The renewed interest in 1 Enoch spawned a number of other translations: in Hebrew (A. Kahana, 1956), Danish (Hammershaimb, 1956), Italian (Fusella, 1981), Spanish (1982), French (Caquot, 1984) and other modern languages. In 1978 a new edition of the Ethiopic text was edited by Michael Knibb, with an English translation, while a new commentary appeared in 1985 by Matthew Black.^{[citation needed]}

In 2001 George W.E. Nickelsburg published the first volume of a comprehensive commentary on 1 Enoch in the Hermeneia series.^[55] Since the year 2000, the Enoch seminar has devoted several meetings to the Enoch literature and has become the center of a lively debate concerning the hypothesis that the Enoch literature attests the presence of an autonomous non-Mosaic tradition of dissent in Second Temple Judaism.^{[citation needed]}

Synopsis[edit]

The first part of the Book of Enoch describes the fall of the Watchers, the angels who fathered the angel-human hybrids called Nephilim.^[1] The remainder of the book describes Enoch's revelations and his visits to heaven in the form of travels, visions, and dreams.^[2]

The book consists of five quite distinct major sections (see each section for details):^[1]

1. The Book of the Watchers (1 Enoch 1–36)
2. The Book of Parables of Enoch (1 Enoch 37–71) (also called the Similitudes of Enoch)
3. The Astronomical Book (1 Enoch 72–82) (also called the Book of the Heavenly Luminaries or Book of Luminaries)
4. The Book of Dream Visions (1 Enoch 83–90) (also called the Book of Dreams)
5. The Epistle of Enoch (1 Enoch 91–108)

Most scholars believe that these five sections were originally independent works^[76] (with different dates of composition), themselves a product of much editorial arrangement, and were only later redacted into what is now called 1 Enoch.^[2]

The Book of the Watchers[edit]

This first section of the Book of Enoch describes the fall of the Watchers, the angels who fathered the Nephilim (cf. the bene Elohim, Genesis 6:1–4) and narrates the travels of Enoch in the heavens. This section is said to have been composed in the 4th or 3rd century BC according to Western scholars.^[77]

Contents[edit]

• 1–5. Parable of Enoch on the Future Lot of the Wicked and the Righteous.
• 6-11. The Fall of the Angels: the Demoralization of Mankind: the Intercession of the Angels on behalf of Mankind. The Dooms pronounced by God on the Angels of the Messianic Kingdom.
• 12–16. Dream-Vision of Enoch: his Intercession for Azazel and the fallen angels: and his Announcement of their first and final Doom.
• 17–36. Enoch's Journeys through the Earth and Sheol: Enoch also traveled through a portal shaped as a triangle to heaven^{[citation needed]}.
• 17–19. The First Journey.
• 20. Names and Functions of the Seven Archangels.
• 21. Preliminary and final Place of Punishment of the fallen Angels (stars).
• 22. Sheol or the Underworld.
• 23. The fire that deals with the Luminaries of Heaven.
• 24–25. The Seven Mountains in the North-West and the Tree of Life.
• 26. Jerusalem and the Mountains, Ravines, and Streams.
• 27. The Purpose of the Accursed Valley.
• 28–33. Further Journey to the East.
• 34–35. Enoch's Journey to the North.
• 36. The Journey to the South.

Description[edit]

The introduction to the book of Enoch tells us that Enoch is "a just man, whose eyes were opened by God so that he saw a vision of the Holy One in the heavens, which the sons of God showed to me, and from them I heard everything, and I knew what I saw, but [these things that I saw will] not [come to pass] for this generation, but for a generation that has yet to come."^[78]

It discusses God coming to Earth on Mount Sinai with His hosts to pass judgment on mankind. It also tells us about the luminaries rising and setting in the order and in their own time and never change:^[79]

"Observe and see how (in the winter) all the trees seem as though they had withered and shed all their leaves, except fourteen trees, which do not lose their foliage but retain the old foliage from two to three years till the new comes."^[80]

The book also discusses how all things are ordained by God and take place in his own time. The sinners shall perish and the great and the good shall live on in light, joy and peace.

And all His works go on thus from year to year for ever, and all the tasks which they accomplish for Him, and their tasks change not, but according as God hath ordained so is it done.

The first section of the book depicts the interaction of the fallen angels with mankind; Sêmîazâz compels the other 199 fallen angels to take human wives to "beget us children".

And Semjâzâ, who was their leader, said unto them: "I fear ye will not indeed agree to do this deed, and I alone shall have to pay the penalty of a great sin." And they all answered him and said: "Let us all swear an oath, and all bind ourselves by mutual imprecations not to abandon this plan but to do this thing." Then sware they all together and bound themselves by mutual imprecations upon it. And they were in all two hundred; who descended in the days of Jared on the summit of Mount Hermon, and they called it Mount Hermon, because they had sworn and bound themselves by mutual imprecations upon it.

The names of the leaders are given as "Samyaza (Shemyazaz), their leader, Araqiel, Râmêêl, Kokabiel, Tamiel, Ramiel, Dânêl, Chazaqiel, Baraqiel, Asael, Armaros, Batariel, Bezaliel, Ananiel, Zaqiel, Shamsiel, Satariel, Turiel, Yomiel, Sariel."

This results in the creation of the Nephilim (Genesis) or Anakim/Anak (Giants) as they are described in the book:

And they became pregnant, and they bare great giants, whose height was three hundred ells:^[81] Who consumed all the acquisitions of men. And when men could no longer sustain them, the giants turned against them and devoured mankind. And they began to sin against birds, and beasts, and reptiles, and fish, and to devour one another's flesh, and drink the blood.

It also discusses the teaching of humans by the fallen angels, chiefly Azâzêl:

And Azâzêl taught men to make swords, and knives, and shields, and breastplates, and made known to them the metals of the earth and the art of working them, and bracelets, and ornaments, and the use of antimony, and the beautifying of the eyelids, and all kinds of costly stones, and all colouring tinctures. And there arose much godlessness, and they committed fornication, and they were led astray, and became corrupt in all their ways. Semjâzâ taught enchantments, and root-cuttings, Armârôs the resolving of enchantments, Barâqîjâl, taught astrology, Kôkabêl the constellations, Ezêqêêl the knowledge of the clouds, Araqiêl the signs of the earth, Shamsiêl the signs of the sun, and Sariêl the course of the moon.

Michael, Uriel, Raphael, and Gabriel appeal to God to judge the inhabitants of the world and the fallen angels.^[82] Uriel is then sent by God to tell Noah of the coming cataclysm and what he needs to do.^[2]

Then said the Most High, the Holy and Great One spoke, and sent Uriel to the son of Lamech, and said to him: Go to Noah and tell him in my name "Hide thyself!" and reveal to him the end that is approaching: that the whole earth will be destroyed, and a deluge is about to come upon the whole earth, and will destroy all that is on it. And now instruct him that he may escape and his seed may be preserved for all the generations of the world.

God commands Raphael to imprison Azâzêl:

[T]he Lord said to Raphael: "Bind Azâzêl hand and foot, and cast him into the darkness: and make an opening in the desert, which is in Dûdâêl (God's Kettle/Crucible/Cauldron), and cast him therein. And place upon him rough and jagged rocks, and cover him with darkness, and let him abide there for ever, and cover his face that he may not see light. And on the day of the great judgement he shall be cast into the fire. And heal the earth which the angels have corrupted, and proclaim the healing of the earth, that they may heal the plague, and that all the children of men may not perish through all the secret things that the Watchers have disclosed and have taught their sons. And the whole earth has been corrupted through the works that were taught by Azâzêl: to him ascribe all sin."

God gave Gabriel instructions concerning the Nephilim and the imprisonment of the fallen angels:

And to Gabriel said the Lord: "Proceed against the biters and the reprobates, and against the children of fornication: and destroy [the children of fornication and] the children of the Watchers from amongst men [and cause them to go forth]: send them one against the other that they may destroy each other in battle ..."

Some,^{[citation needed]} including R.H. Charles, suggest that "biters" should read "bastards", but the name is so unusual that some^{[citation needed]} believe that the implication that is made by the reading of "biters" is more or less correct.

The Lord commands Michael to bind the fallen angels.

And the Lord said unto Michael: "Go, bind Semjâzâ and his associates who have united themselves with women so as to have defiled themselves with them in all their uncleanness. 12. And when their sons have slain one another, and they have seen the destruction of their beloved ones, bind them fast for seventy generations in the valleys of the earth, till the day of their judgement and of their consummation, till the judgement that is for ever and ever is consummated. 13. In those days they shall be led off to the abyss of fire: (and) to the torment and the prison in which they shall be confined for ever. And whosoever shall be condemned and destroyed will from thenceforth be bound together with them to the end of all generations. ..."

Book of Parables[edit]

See also: Metatron

Chapters 37–71 of the Book of Enoch are referred to as the Book of Parables. The scholarly debate centers on these chapters. The Book of Parables appears to be based on the Book of the Watchers, but presents a later development of the idea of final judgment and of eschatology, concerned not only with the destiny of the fallen angels but also that of the evil kings of the earth. The Book of Parables uses the expression Son of Man for the eschatological protagonist, who is also called "Righteous One", "Chosen One", and "Messiah", and sits on the throne of glory in the final judgment.^[83] The first known use of The Son of Man as a definite title in Jewish writings is in 1 Enoch, and its use may have played a role in the early Christian understanding and use of the title.^[1][2][84]

It has been suggested that the Book of Parables, in its entirety, is a later addition. Pointing to similarities with the Sibylline Oracles and other earlier works, in 1976, J.T. Milik dated the Book of Parables to the third century. He believed that the events in the parables were linked to historic events dating from 260 to 270 AD.^[85] This theory is in line with the beliefs of many scholars of the 19th century, including Lucke (1832), Hofman (1852), Wiesse (1856), and Phillippe (1868). According to this theory, these chapters were written in later Christian times by a Jewish Christian to enhance Christian beliefs with Enoch's authoritative name.^[1][2] In a 1979 article, Michael Knibb followed Milik's reasoning and suggested that because no fragments of chapters 37–71 were found at Qumran, a later date was likely. Knibb would continue this line of reasoning in later works.^{[86][87]: 417} In addition to being missing from Qumran, Chapters 37–71 are also missing from the Greek translation.^[87]: 417 Currently no firm consensus has been reached among scholars as to the date of the writing of the Book of Parables. Milik's date of as late as 270 AD, however, has been rejected by most scholars. David W. Suter suggests that there is a tendency to date the Book of Parables to between 50 BC and 117 AD.^{[87]: 415–416}

In 1893, Robert Charles judged Chapter 71 to be a later addition. He would later change his opinion^[88]: 1 and give an early date for the work between 94 and 64 BC.^[89]: LIV The 1906 article by Emil G. Hirsch in the Jewish Encyclopedia states that Son of Man is found in the Book of Enoch, but never in the original material. It occurs in the "Noachian interpolations" (lx. 10, lxxi. 14), in which it has clearly no other meaning than 'man'.^[90] The author of the work misuses or corrupts the titles of the angels.^[89]: 16 Charles views the title Son of Man, as found in the Book of Parables, as referring to a supernatural person, a Messiah who is not of human descent.^{[89]: 306–309} In that part of the Book of Enoch known as the Similitudes, it has the technical sense of a supernatural Messiah and judge of the world (xlvi. 2, xlviii. 2, lxx. 27); universal dominion and preexistence are predicated of him (xlviii. 2, lxvii. 6). He sits on God's throne (xlv. 3, li. 3), which is his own throne. Though Charles does not admit it, according to Emil G. Hirsch these passages betray Christian redaction and emendation.^[90] Many scholars^{[citation needed]} have suggested that passages in the Book of Parables are Noachian interpolations. These passages seem to interrupt the flow of the narrative. Darrell D. Hannah suggests that these passages are not, in total, novel interpolations, but rather derived from an earlier Noah apocryphon. He believes that some interpolations refer to Herod the Great and should be dated to around 4 BC.^{[87]: 472–477}

In addition to the theory of Noachian interpolations, which perhaps a majority of scholars support, most scholars currently believe that Chapters 70–71 are a later addition in part or in whole.^{[87]: 76 [87]: 472–473 [91]} Chapter 69 ends with, "This is the third parable of Enoch." Like Elijah, Enoch is generally thought to have been brought up to Heaven by God while still alive, but some have suggested that the text refers to Enoch as having died a natural death and ascending to Heaven. The Son of Man is identified with Enoch. The text implies that Enoch had previously been enthroned in heaven.^[92] Chapters 70–71 seem to contradict passages earlier in the parable where the Son of Man is a separate entity. The parable also switches from third person singular to first person singular.^[91] James H. Charlesworth rejects the theory that chapters 70–71 are later additions. He believes that no additions were made to the Book of Parables.^{[87]: 450–468 [88]: 1–12} In his earlier work, the implication is that a majority of scholars agreed with him.^[93]

Contents[edit]

37. Superscription and Introduction

38–44. The First Parable.

• 38. The Coming Judgement of the Wicked.
• 39. The Abode of the Righteous and the Elect One: the Praises of the Blessed.
• 40. The Four Archangels.
• 41.1–2. Anticipation of Judgement
• 41.3–9. Astronomical Secrets.
• 42. The Dwelling-places of Wisdom and of Unrighteousness.
• 43–44. Astronomical Secrets.

45–57. The Second Parable.

• 45. The Lot of the Apostates: the New Heaven and the New Earth.
• 46. The Ancient of Days and the Son of Man.
• 47. The Prayer of the Righteous for Vengeance and their Joy at its coming.
• 48. The Fount of Righteousness: the Son of Man - the Stay of the Righteous: Judgement of the Kings and the Mighty.
• 49. The Power and Wisdom of the Elect One.
• 50. The Glorification and Victory of the Righteous: the Repentance of the Gentiles.
• 51. The Resurrection of the Dead, and the Separation by the Judge of the Righteous and the Wicked.
• 52. The Six Metal Mountains and the Elect One.
• 53–54.6. The Valley of Judgement: the Angels of Punishment: the Communities of the Elect One.
• 54.7.–55.2. Noachic Fragment on the first World Judgement.
• 55.3.–56.4. Final Judgement of Azazel, the Watchers and their children.
• 56.5–8. Last Struggle of the Heathen Powers against Israel.
• 57. The Return from the Dispersion.

58–69. The Third Parable.

• 58. The Blessedness of the Saints.
• 59. The Lights and the Thunder.
• 60. Quaking of the Heaven: Behemoth and Leviathan: the Elements.
• 61. Angels go off to measure Paradise: the Judgement of the Righteous by the Elect One: the Praise of the Elect One and of God.
• 62. Judgement of the Kings and the Mighty: Blessedness of the Righteous.
• 63. The unavailing Repentance of the Kings and the Mighty.
• 64. Vision of the Fallen Angels in the Place of Punishment.
• 65. Enoch foretells to Noah the Deluge and his own Preservation.
• 66. The Angels of the Waters bidden to hold them in Check.
• 67. God's Promise to Noah: Places of Punishment of the Angels and of the Kings.
• 68. Michael and Raphael astonished at the Severity of the Judgement.
• 69. The Names and Functions of the (fallen Angels and) Satans: the secret Oath.

70–71. Concluding Appendices

• 70. The Final Translation of Enoch.
• 71. Two earlier Visions of Enoch.

The Astronomical Book[edit]

Main article: Enoch calendar

Correspondence of weekly day in the Qumran year^[94]

	Months 1,4,7,10					Months 2,5,8,11					Months 3,6,9,12
Wed	1	8	15	22	29		6	13	20	27		4	11	18	25
Thurs	2	9	16	23	30		7	14	21	28		5	12	19	26
Fri	3	10	17	24		1	8	15	22	29		6	13	20	27
Sat	4	11	18	25		2	9	16	23	30		7	14	21	28
Sun	5	12	19	26		3	10	17	24		1	8	15	22	29
Mon	6	13	20	27		4	11	18	25		2	9	16	23	30
Tues	7	14	21	28		5	12	19	26		3	10	17	24	31

Four fragmentary editions of the Astronomical Book were found at Qumran, 4Q208-211.^[95] 4Q208 and 4Q209 have been dated to the beginning of the 2nd century BC, providing a terminus ante quem for the Astronomical Book of the 3rd century BC.^[96] The fragments found in Qumran also include material not contained in the later versions of the Book of Enoch.^[94][96][97]

This book contains descriptions of the movement of heavenly bodies and of the firmament, as a knowledge revealed to Enoch in his trips to Heaven guided by Uriel, and it describes a Solar calendar that was later described also in the Book of Jubilees which was used by the Dead Sea sect. The use of this calendar made it impossible to celebrate the festivals simultaneously with the Temple of Jerusalem.^[1]

The year was composed from 364 days, divided in four equal seasons of ninety-one days each. Each season was composed of three equal months of thirty days, plus an extra day at the end of the third month. The whole year was thus composed of exactly fifty-two weeks, and every calendar day occurred always on the same day of the week. Each year and each season started always on Wednesday, which was the fourth day of the creation narrated in Genesis, the day when the lights in the sky, the seasons, the days and the years were created.^{[94]: 94–95} It is not known how they used to reconcile this calendar with the tropical year of 365.24 days (at least seven suggestions have been made), and it is not even sure if they felt the need to adjust it.^{[94]: 125–140}

Contents[edit]

• 72. The Sun
• 73. The Moon and its Phases
• 74. The Lunar Year
• 76. The Twelve Winds and their Portals
• 77. The Four Quarters of the World: the Seven Mountains, the Seven Rivers, Seven Great Islands
• 78. The Sun and Moon: the Waxing and Waning of the Moon
• 79–80.1. Recapitulation of several of the Laws
• 80.2–8. Perversion of Nature and the heavenly Bodies due to the Sin of Men
• 81. The Heavenly Tablets and the Mission of Enoch
• 82. Charge given to Enoch: the four Intercalary days: the Stars which lead the Seasons and the Months

The Dream Visions[edit]

The Book of Dream Visions, containing a vision of a history of Israel all the way down to what the majority have interpreted as the Maccabean Revolt, is dated by most to Maccabean times (about 163–142 BC). According to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church it was written before the Genesis flood.

Contents[edit]

• 83–84. First Dream Vision on the Deluge.
• 85–90. Second Dream Vision of Enoch: the History of the World to the Founding of the Messianic Kingdom.
• 86. The Fall of the Angels and the Demoralization of Mankind.
• 87. The Advent of the Seven Archangels.
• 88. The Punishment of the Fallen Angels by the Archangels.
• 89.1–9. The Deluge and the Deliverance of Noah.
• 89.10–27. From the Death of Noah to The Exodus.
• 89.28–40. Israel in the Desert, the Giving of the Law, the Entrance into Canaan.
• 89.41–50. From the Time of the Judges to the Building of the Temple.
• 89.51–67. The Two Kingdoms of Israel and Judah to the Destruction of Jerusalem.
• 89.68–71. First Period of the Angelic Rulers – from the Destruction of Jerusalem to the Return from Captivity.
• 89.72–77. Second Period – from the Time of Cyrus to that of Alexander the Great.
• 90.1–5. Third Period – from Alexander the Great to the Graeco-Syrian Domination.
• 90.6–12. Fourth Period Graeco-Syrian Domination to the Maccabean Revolt (debated).
• 90.13–19. The last Assault of the Gentiles on the Jews (where vv. 13–15 and 16–18 are doublets).
• 90.20–27. Judgement of the Fallen Angels, the Shepherds, and the Apostates.
• 90.28–42. The New Jerusalem, the Conversion of the surviving Gentiles, the Resurrection of the Righteous, the Messiah. Enoch awakes and weeps.

Animals in the second dream vision[edit]

The second dream vision in this section of the Book of Enoch is an allegorical account of the history of Israel, that uses animals to represent human beings and human beings to represent angels.^[1]

One of several hypothetical reconstructions of the meanings in the dream is as follows based on the works of R. H. Charles and G. H. Schodde:

• White color for moral purity; Black color for sin and contamination of the fallen angels; Red color for blood in reference to martyrdom
• White bull is Adam; Female heifer is Eve; Red calf is Abel; Black calf is Cain; White calf is Seth;
• White bull / man is Noah; White bull is Shem; Red bull is Ham, son of Noah; Black bull is Japheth; Lord of the sheep is God; Fallen star is either Samyaza or Azazel; Elephants are Giants; Camels are Nephilim; Asses are Elioud;
• Sheep are the faithful; Rams are leaders; Herds are the tribes of Israel; Wild Asses are Ishmael, and his descendants including the Midianites; Wild Boars are Esau and his descendants, Edom and Amalek; Bears (Hyenas/Wolves in Ethiopic) are the Egyptians; Dogs are Philistines; Tigers are Arimathea; Hyenas are Assyrians; Ravens (Crows) are Seleucids (Syrians); Kites are Ptolemies; Eagles are possibly Macedonians; Foxes are Ammonites and Moabites;

Description[edit]

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There are a great many links between the first book and this one, including the outline of the story and the imprisonment of the leaders and destruction of the Nephilim. The dream includes sections relating to the Book of the Watchers:

And those seventy shepherds were judged and found guilty, and they were cast into that fiery abyss. And I saw at that time how a like abyss was opened in the midst of the earth, full of fire, and they brought those blinded sheep. (The fall of the evil ones)

And all the oxen feared them and were affrighted at them, and began to bite with their teeth and to devour, and to gore with their horns. And they began, moreover, to devour those oxen; and behold all the children of the earth began to tremble and quake before them and to flee from them. (The creation of the Nephilim et al.)

86:4, 87:3, 88:2, and 89:6 all describe the types of Nephilim that are created during the times described in The Book of the Watchers, though this doesn't mean that the authors of both books are the same. Similar references exist in Jubilees 7:21–22.

The book describes their release from the Ark along with three bulls – white, red, and black, which are Shem, Ham, and Japheth – in 90:9. It also covers the death of Noah, described as the white bull, and the creation of many nations:

And they began to bring forth beasts of the field and birds, so that there arose different genera: lions, tigers, wolves, dogs, hyenas, wild boars, foxes, squirrels, swine, falcons, vultures, kites, eagles, and ravens (90:10)

It then describes the story of Moses and Aaron (90:13–15), including the miracle of the river splitting in two for them to pass, and the creation of the stone commandments. Eventually they arrived at a "pleasant and glorious land" (90:40) where they were attacked by dogs (Philistines), foxes (Ammonites, Moabites), and wild boars (Esau).

And that sheep whose eyes were opened saw that ram, which was amongst the sheep, till it forsook its glory and began to butt those sheep, and trampled upon them, and behaved itself unseemly. And the Lord of the sheep sent the lamb to another lamb and raised it to being a ram and leader of the sheep instead of that ram which had forsaken its glory. (David replacing Saul as leader of Israel)

It describes the creation of Solomon's Temple and also the house which may be the tabernacle: "And that house became great and broad, and it was built for those sheep: (and) a tower lofty and great was built on the house for the Lord of the sheep, and that house was low, but the tower was elevated and lofty, and the Lord of the sheep stood on that tower and they offered a full table before Him". This interpretation is accepted by Dillmann (p. 262), Vernes (p. 89), and Schodde (p. 107). It also describes the escape of Elijah the prophet; in 1 Kings 17:2–24, he is fed by "ravens", so if Kings uses a similar analogy, he may have been fed by the Seleucids. "... saw the Lord of the sheep how He wrought much slaughter amongst them in their herds until those sheep invited that slaughter and betrayed His place." This describes the various tribes of Israel "inviting" in other nations "betraying his place" (i.e., the land promised to their ancestors by God).

This part of the book can be taken to be the kingdom splitting into the northern and southern tribes, that is, Israel and Judah, eventually leading to Israel falling to the Assyrians in 721 BC and Judah falling to the Babylonians a little over a century later 587 BC. "And He gave them over into the hands of the lions and tigers, and wolves and hyenas, and into the hand of the foxes, and to all the wild beasts, and those wild beasts began to tear in pieces those sheep"; God abandons Israel for they have abandoned him.

There is also mention of 59 of 70 shepherds with their own seasons; there seems to be some debate on the meaning of this section, some suggesting that it is a reference to the 70 appointed times in 25:11, 9:2, and 1:12. Another interpretation is the 70 weeks in Daniel 9:24. However, the general interpretation is that these are simply angels. This section of the book and another section near the end describe the appointment by God of the 70 angels to protect the Israelites from enduring too much harm from the "beasts and birds". The later section (110:14) describes how the 70 angels are judged for causing more harm to Israel than he desired, found guilty, and "cast into an abyss, full of fire and flaming, and full of pillars of fire."

"And the lions and tigers eat and devoured the greater part of those sheep, and the wild boars eat along with them; and they burnt that tower and demolished that house"; this represents the sacking of Solomon's temple and the tabernacle in Jerusalem by the Babylonians as they take Judah in 587–586 BC, exiling the remaining Jews. "And forthwith I saw how the shepherds pastured for twelve hours, and behold three of those sheep turned back and came and entered and began to build up all that had fallen down of that house". "Cyrus allowed Sheshbazzar, a prince from the tribe of Judah, to bring the Jews from Babylon back to Jerusalem. Jews were allowed to return with the Temple vessels that the Babylonians had taken. Construction of the Second Temple began"; this represents the history of ancient Israel and Judah; the temple was completed in 515 BC.

The first part of the next section of the book seems, according to Western scholars, to clearly describe the Maccabean revolt of 167 BC against the Seleucids. The following two quotes have been altered from their original form to make the hypothetical meanings of the animal names clear.

And I saw in the vision how the (Seleucids) flew upon those (faithful) and took one of those lambs, and dashed the sheep in pieces and devoured them. And I saw till horns grew upon those lambs, and the (Seleucids) cast down their horns; and I saw till there sprouted a great horn of one of those (faithful), and their eyes were opened. And it looked at them and their eyes opened, and it cried to the sheep, and the rams saw it and all ran to it. And notwithstanding all this those (Macedonians) and vultures and (Seleucids) and (Ptolemies) still kept tearing the sheep and swooping down upon them and devouring them: still the sheep remained silent, but the rams lamented and cried out. And those (Seleucids) fought and battled with it and sought to lay low its horn, but they had no power over it. (109:8–12)

All the (Macedonians) and vultures and (Seleucids) and (Ptolemies) were gathered together, and there came with them all the sheep of the field, yea, they all came together, and helped each other to break that horn of the ram. (110:16)

According to this theory, the first sentence most likely refers to the death of High Priest Onias III, whose murder is described in 1 Maccabees 3:33–35 (died c. 171 BC). The "great horn" clearly is not Mattathias, the initiator of the rebellion, as he dies a natural death, described in 1 Maccabees 2:49. It is also not Alexander the Great, as the great horn is interpreted as a warrior who has fought the Macedonians, Seleucids, and Ptolemies. Judas Maccabeus (167 BC–160 BC) fought all three of these, with a large number of victories against the Seleucids over a great period of time; "they had no power over it". He is also described as "one great horn among six others on the head of a lamb", possibly referring to Maccabeus's five brothers and Mattathias. If taken in context of the history from Maccabeus's time, Dillman Chrest Aethiop says the explanation of Verse 13 can be found in 1 Maccabees iii 7; vi. 52; v.; 2 Maccabees vi. 8 sqq., 13, 14; 1 Maccabees vii 41, 42; and 2 Maccabees x v, 8 sqq. Maccabeus was eventually killed by the Seleucids at the Battle of Elasa, where he faced "twenty thousand foot soldiers and two thousand cavalry". At one time, it was believed this passage might refer to John Hyrcanus; the only reason for this was that the time between Alexander the Great and John Maccabeus was too short. However, it has been asserted that evidence shows that this section does indeed discuss Maccabeus.

It then describes: "And I saw till a great sword was given to the sheep, and the sheep proceeded against all the beasts of the field to slay them, and all the beasts and the birds of the heaven fled before their face." This might be simply the "power of God": God was with them to avenge the death. It may also be Jonathan Apphus taking over command of the rebels to battle on after the death of Judas. John Hyrcanus (Hyrcanus I, Hasmonean dynasty) may also make an appearance; the passage "And all that had been destroyed and dispersed, and all the beasts of the field, and all the birds of the heaven, assembled in that house, and the Lord of the sheep rejoiced with great joy because they were all good and had returned to His house" may describe John's reign as a time of great peace and prosperity. Certain scholars also claim Alexander Jannaeus of Judaea is alluded to in this book.

The end of the book describes the new Jerusalem, culminating in the birth of a Messiah:

And I saw that a white bull was born, with large horns and all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air feared him and made petition to him all the time. And I saw till all their generations were transformed, and they all became white bulls; and the first among them became a lamb, and that lamb became a great animal and had great black horns on its head; and the Lord of the sheep rejoiced over it and over all the oxen.

Still another interpretation, which has just as much as credibility, is that the last chapters of this section simply refer to the infamous battle of Armageddon, where all of the nations of the world march against Israel; this interpretation is supported by the War Scroll, which describes what this epic battle may be like, according to the group(s) that existed at Qumran.

The Epistle of Enoch[edit]

Some scholars propose a date somewhere between the 170 BC and the 1st century BC.

This section can be seen as being made up of five subsections,^[98] mixed by the final redactor:

• Apocalypse of Weeks (93:1–10, 91:11–17): this subsection, usually dated to the first half of the 2nd century BC, narrates the history of the world using a structure of ten periods (said "weeks"), of which seven regard the past and three regard future events (the final judgment). The climax is in the seventh part of the tenth week where "new heaven shall appear" and "there will be many weeks without number for ever, and all shall be in goodness and righteousness".^[1]
• Exhortation (91:1–10, 91:18–19): this short list of exhortations to follow righteousness, said by Enoch to his son Methuselah, looks to be a bridge to next subsection.
• Epistle (92:1–5, 93:11–105:2): the first part of the epistle describes the wisdom of the Lord, the final reward of the just and the punishment of the evil, and the two separate paths of righteousness and unrighteousness. Then there are six oracles against the sinners, the witness of the whole creation against them, and the assurance of the fate after death. According to Boccaccini^{[60]: 131–138} the epistle is composed of two layers: a "proto-epistle", with a theology near the deterministic doctrine of the Qumran group, and a slightly later part (94:4–104:6) that points out the personal responsibility of the individual, often describing the sinners as the wealthy and the just as the oppressed (a theme found also in the Book of Parables).
• Birth of Noah (106–107): this part appears in Qumran fragments separated from the previous text by a blank line, thus appearing to be an appendix. It tells of the deluge and of Noah, who is born already with the appearance of an angel. This text probably derives, as do other small portions of 1 Enoch, from an originally separate book (see Book of Noah), but was arranged by the redactor as direct speech of Enoch himself.
• Conclusion (108): this second appendix was not found in Qumran and is considered to be the work of the final redactor. It highlights the "generation of light" in opposition to the sinners destined to the darkness.

Contents[edit]

• 92, 91.1–10, 18–19. Enoch's Book of Admonition for his Children.
• 91.1–10, 18–19. Enoch's Admonition to his Children.
• 93, 91.12–17. The Apocalypse of Weeks.
• 91.12–17. The Last Three Weeks.
• 94.1–5. Admonitions to the Righteous.
• 94.6–11. Woes for the Sinners.
• 95. Enoch's Grief: fresh Woes against the Sinners.
• 96. Grounds of Hopefulness for the Righteous: Woes for the Wicked.
• 97. The Evils in Store for Sinners and the Possessors of Unrighteous Wealth.
• 98. Self-indulgence of Sinners: Sin originated by Man: all Sin recorded in Heaven: Woes for the Sinners.
• 99. Woes pronounced on the Godless, the Lawbreakers: evil Plight of Sinners in The Last Days: further Woes.
• 100. The Sinners destroy each other: Judgement of the Fallen Angels: the Safety of the Righteous: further Woes for the Sinners.
• 101. Exhortation to the fear of God: all Nature fears Him but not the Sinners.
• 102. Terrors of the Day of Judgement: the adverse Fortunes of the Righteous on the Earth.
• 103. Different Destinies of the Righteous and the Sinners: fresh Objections of the Sinners.
• 104. Assurances given to the Righteous: Admonitions to Sinners and the Falsifiers of the Words of Uprightness.
• 105. God and the Messiah to dwell with Man.
• 106–107. (first appendix) Birth of Noah.
• 108. (second appendix) Conclusion.

Names of the fallen angels[edit]

Some of the fallen angels that are given in 1 Enoch have other names, such as Rameel ('morning of God'), who becomes Azazel, and is also called Gadriel ('wall of God') in Chapter 68. Another example is that Araqiel ('Earth of God') becomes Aretstikapha ('world of distortion') in Chapter 68.

Azaz, as in Azazel, means strength, so the name Azazel can refer to 'strength of God'. But the sense in which it is used most probably means 'impudent' (showing strength towards), which results in 'arrogant to God'. This is also a key point in modern thought that Azazel is Satan.^[1][2] Also important in this identification is the fact that the original name Rameel, is very similar in meaning to the word Lucifer ('Morning Star') which is a common Latin name of Satan in Christianity.

Nathaniel Schmidt states "the names of the angels apparently refer to their condition and functions before the fall," and lists the likely meanings of the angels' names in the Book of Enoch, noting that "the great majority of them are Aramaic."^[99]

The name suffix -el means 'God' (see list of names referring to El), and is used in the names of high-ranking angels. The archangels' names all include -el, such as Uriel ('flame of God') and Michael ('who is like God').^[100]

Gadreel (Hebrew: גדר האל, romanized: Gader ha-el, lit. 'Wall of God') is listed as one of the chiefs of the fallen Watchers. He is said to have been responsible for deceiving Eve.^[101][102] Schmidt lists the name as meaning 'the helper of God.'^[99]

Enoch and contemporary theology[edit]

Enochic studies have traditionally been historical, focusing on the meanings of the text for its ancient audiences. 1 Enoch counts as Old Testament scripture in the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church and has played a significant role in its theology, especially via the andemta tradition of interpretation.^[103] In 2015 a group of scholars from Ethiopia and other countries held meetings in Ethiopia and the UK to explore the significance of Enoch for contemporary theology. The initial outcome was a collection of essays published in 2017 on various theological topics, including justice, political theology, the environment, the identity of the Son of Man, suffering and evil.^[104]

See also[edit]

• 2 Enoch
• 3 Enoch
• Aramaic Enoch Scroll
• El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron, a 2011 video game inspired by the Book of Enoch
• Non-canonical books referenced in the Bible

Notes[edit]

1. ^ To distinguish it from 2 Enoch and 3 Enoch.

References[edit]

1. ^ Jump up to:^{a b c d e f g h i j k} Barker, Margaret. (2005) [1987]. "Chapter 1: The Book of Enoch," in The Older Testament: The Survival of Themes from the Ancient Royal Cult in Sectarian Judaism and Early Christianity. London: SPCK; Sheffield Phoenix Press. ISBN 978-1905048199
2. ^ Jump up to:^{a b c d e f g h i j k} Barker, Margaret. (2005) [1998]. The Lost Prophet: The Book of Enoch and Its Influence on Christianity. London: SPCK; Sheffield Phoenix Press. ISBN 978-1905048182
3. ^ Fahlbusch, E.; Bromiley, G.W. The Encyclopedia of Christianity: P–Sh page 411, ISBN 0-8028-2416-1 (2004)
4. ^ Cheyne and Black, Encyclopaedia Biblica (1899), "Apocalyptic Literature" (column 220). "The Book of Enoch as translated into Ethiopic belongs to the last two centuries BC. All of the writers of the NT were familiar with it and were more or less influenced by it in thought"
5. ^ Jump up to:^a b c Ephraim Isaac, 1 Enoch: A New Translation and Introduction in James Charlesworth (ed.) The Old Testament Pseudoepigrapha, vol. 1, pp. 5-89 (New York, Doubleday, 1983, ISBN 0-385-09630-5)
6. ^ Emanuel Tov and Craig Evans, Exploring the Origins of the Bible: Canon Formation in Historical, Literary, and Theological Perspective Archived 2016-06-15 at the Wayback Machine, Acadia 2008
7. ^ Philip R. Davies, Scribes and Schools: The Canonization of the Hebrew Scriptures London: SPCK, 1998
8. ^ Ephraim Isaac, in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, ed. Charlesworth, Doubleday, 1983
9. ^ "1 Enoch contains three [geographical] name midrashim [on] Mt. Hermon, Dan, and Abel Beit-Maacah" Esther and Hanan Eshel, George W.E. Nickelsburg in Perspective: An Ongoing Dialogue of Learning. p. 459. Also in Esther and Hanan Eshel, "Toponymic Midrash in 1 Enoch and in Other Second Temple Jewish Literature", in The Origins of Enochic Judaism. Historical and Philological Studies on Judaism 2002 Vol24 pp. 115–130
10. ^ Justin Martyr. "Dialogue 79". Dialogue with Trypho.
11. ^ Anonymous (2015). "Secret knowledge of Dead Sea Zodiacs". In The Jewish Chronicle (website). A Review of Zodiac Calendars in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Their Reception by Helen Jacobus.
12. ^ Lee, Ralph (2014-03-01). "The Ethiopic 'Andəmta' Commentary on Ethiopic Enoch 2 (1 Enoch 6–9)". Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha. 23 (3): 179–200. doi:10.1177/0951820714528628. ISSN 0951-8207. S2CID 162871589.
13. ^ "The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church". www.ethiopianorthodox.org. Retrieved 2021-01-08.
14. ^ Asale, Bruk A. (2016-09-14). "The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church Canon of the Scriptures: Neither Open nor Closed". The Bible Translator. 67 (2): 202–222. doi:10.1177/2051677016651486. S2CID 164154859.
15. ^ intertextual.bible/text/1-enoch-1.9-jude-1.14
16. ^ Jump up to:^a b Clontz, TE; Clontz, J (2008), The Comprehensive New Testament with complete textual variant mapping and references for the Dead Sea Scrolls, Philo, Josephus, Nag Hammadi Library, Pseudepigrapha, Apocrypha, Plato, Egyptian Book of the Dead, Talmud, Old Testament, Patristic Writings, Dhammapada, Tacitus, Epic of Gilgamesh, Cornerstone, p. 711, ISBN 978-0-9778737-1-5.
17. ^ R. H. Charles, The Book of Enoch London 1912, p. lviii
18. ^ "We may note especially that 1:1, 3–4, 9 allude unmistakably to Deuteronomy 33:1–2 (along with other passages in the Hebrew Bible), implying that the author, like some other Jewish writers, read Deuteronomy 33–34, the last words of Moses in the Torah, as prophecy of the future history of Israel, and 33:2 as referring to the eschatological theophany of God as judge". Richard Bauckham, The Jewish world around the New Testament: collected essays. 1999 p. 276
19. ^ "The introduction... picks up various biblical passages and re-interprets them, applying them to Enoch. Two passages are central to it The first is Deuteronomy 33:1 ... the second is Numbers 24:3–4 Michael E. Stone Selected studies in pseudepigrapha and apocrypha with special reference to the Armenian Tradition (Studia in Veteris Testamenti Pseudepigrapha No 9) p. 422.
20. ^ Barton, John (2007), The Old Testament: Canon, Literature and Theology Society for Old Testament Study.
21. ^ Nickelsburg, op.cit. see index re. Jude
22. ^ Bauckham, R. 2 Peter, Jude Word Biblical Commentary Vol. 50, 1983
23. ^ Jerome H. Neyrey 2 Peter, Jude, The Anchor Yale Bible Commentaries 1994
24. ^ E. M. Sidebottom, james, Jude and 2 Peter (London: Nelson, 1967), p. 90: '14. of these: lit., 'to these'; Jude has some odd use of the dative'. Also see Wallace D. Greek Grammar beyond the Basics. The unique use of the dative toutois in the Greek text (προεφήτευσεν δὲ καὶ τούτοις) is a departure from normal NT use where the prophet prophesies "to" the audience "concerning" (genitive peri auton) false teachers etc.
25. ^ Peter H. Davids, The Letters of 2 Peter and Jude, The Pillar New Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 2006). 76.
26. ^ Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch, Fortress, 2001
27. ^ Williams, Martin (2011). The doctrine of salvation in the first letter of Peter. Cambridge University Press. p. 202. ISBN 9781107003286.
28. ^ "Apocalyptic Literature", Encyclopaedia Biblica
29. ^ Athenagoras of Athens, in Embassy for the Christians 24
30. ^ Clement of Alexandria, in Eclogae prophetice II
31. ^ Irenaeus, in Adversus haereses IV,16,2
32. ^ Tertullian, in De cultu foeminarum I,3 and in De Idolatria XV
33. ^ The Ante-Nicene Fathers (ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson; vol 4.16: On the Apparel of Women (De cultu foeminarum) I.3: "Concerning the Genuineness of 'The Prophecy of Enoch'")
34. ^ Doctrine and Covenants 107:57
35. ^ Nibley, Hugh (1986). Enoch the Prophet. Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book. ISBN 978-0875790473. Archived from the original on 2019-03-28. Retrieved 2019-03-19.
36. ^ Pearl of Great Price Student Manual. LDS Church. 2000. pp. 3–27.
37. ^ Nibley, Hugh (October 1975). "A Strange Thing in the Land: The Return of the Book of Enoch, Part 1". Ensign.
38. ^ The History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. pp. 132–33.^{[full citation needed]}
39. ^ Boccaccini, Gabriele (2007). Enoch and the Messiah, Son of Man: Revisiting the book of parables. p. 367. ... Ethiopian scholars who produced the targumic Amharic version of 1 Enoch printed in the great bilingual Bible of Emperor Haile Selassi.
40. ^ The Online Critical Pseudepigrapha Archived 2007-12-31 at the Wayback Machine
41. ^ Jump up to:^a b Josef T. Milik (with Matthew Black). The Books of Enoch: Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4 (Oxford: Clarendon, 1976)
42. ^ Vermes 513–515; Garcia-Martinez 246–259
43. ^ P. Flint The Greek fragments of Enoch from Qumran cave 7 in ed.Boccaccini Enoch and Qumran Origins 2005 ISBN 0-8028-2878-7, pp. 224–233.
44. ^ Brock 1968, pp. 627–628.
45. ^ George W. E. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch, Chapters 1–36; 81–108 (Fortress Press, 2001), p. 15.
46. ^ see Beer, Kautzsch, Apokryphen und Pseudepigraphen, l.c. p. 237
47. ^ M.R. James, Apocrypha Anecdota T&S 2.3 Cambridge 1893 pp. 146–150.
48. ^ Brock 1968, with an edition of the text at p. 630.
49. ^ Charlesworth The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Vol.1 Doubleday 1983 p.6
50. ^ Nickelsburg 1 Enoch 1 - Hermeneia Commentary Augsburg 2001 xxiii
51. ^ John Joseph Collins, The Apocalyptic Imagination: An Introduction to Jewish Apocalyptic Literature (1998) ISBN 0-8028-4371-9, page 44
52. ^ Jump up to:^a b c Gabriele Boccaccini, Roots of Rabbinic Judaism: An Intellectual History, from Ezekiel to Daniel, (2002) ISBN 0-8028-4361-1
53. ^ John W. Rogerson, Judith Lieu, The Oxford Handbook of Biblical Studies Oxford University Press: 2006 ISBN 0-19-925425-7, page 106
54. ^ Margaret Barker, The Lost Prophet: The Book of Enoch and Its Influence on Christianity 1998 reprint 2005, ISBN 978-1905048182, page 19
55. ^ Jump up to:^a b George W. E. Nickelsburg 1 Enoch: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch, Fortress: 2001 ISBN 0-8006-6074-9
56. ^ Esler, Philip F. (2017) God's Court and Courtiers in the Book of the Watchers: Re-interpreting Heaven in 1 Enoch 1-36. Eugene, OR: Cascade.
57. ^ John J. Collins in ed. Boccaccini Enoch and Qumran Origins: New Light on a Forgotten Connection 2005 ISBN 0-8028-2878-7, page 346
58. ^ James C. VanderKam, Peter Flint, Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls 2005 ISBN 0-567-08468-X, page 196
59. ^ see the page "Essenes" in the 1906 JewishEncyclopedia
60. ^ Jump up to:^a b Gabriele Boccaccini Beyond the Essene Hypothesis (1998) ISBN 0-8028-4360-3
61. ^ Annette Yoshiko Reed, Fallen Angels and the History of Judaism and Christianity, 2005 ISBN 0-521-85378-8, pag 234
62. ^ Gershom Scholem Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (1995) ISBN 0-8052-1042-3, pag 43
63. ^ RH Charles, 1 Enoch SPCK London 1916
64. ^ Nickelsburg 1 Enoch, Fortress, 2001
65. ^ see Nickelsburg, op.cit.
66. ^ P. Sacchi, Apocrifi dell'Antico Testamento 1, ISBN 978-88-02-07606-5
67. ^ Cf. Nicephorus (ed. Dindorf), I. 787
68. ^ "[I]t is questionless that the use of letters was found out in the very infancy of the world, proved by those prophecies written on pillars of stone and brick by Enoch, of which Josephus affirmeth that one of them remained even in his time ... But of these prophecies of Enoch, Saint Jude testifieth; and some part of his books (which contained the course of the stars, their names and motions) were afterward found in Arabia fœlix, in the Dominion of the Queene of Saba (saith Origen) of which Tertullian affirmeth that he had seen and read some whole pages." Walter Raleigh, History of the World, chapter 5, section 6. (Google Books) Raleigh's marginal note reads: "Origen Homil. 1 in Num.", i.e., Origen's Homily 1 on Numbers.
69. ^ For example, see Origen's Homilies on Numbers, translated by Thomas P. Scheck; InterVarsity Press, 2009. ISBN 0830829059. (Google Books)
70. ^ Ludolf, Commentarius in Hist. Aethip., p. 347
71. ^ Bruce, Travels, vol 2, page 422
72. ^ Silvestre de Sacy in Notices sur le livre d'Enoch in the Magazine Encyclopédique, an vi. tome I, p. 382
73. ^ see the judgement on Laurence by Dillmann, Das Buch Henoch, p lvii
74. ^ Hoffmann, Zweiter Excurs, pages 917–965
75. ^ J. T. Milik The Books of Enoch: Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4
76. ^ Vanderkam, JC. (2004). 1 Enoch: A New Translation. Minneapolis: Fortress. pp. 1ff (ie. preface summary).; Nickelsburg, GW. (2004). 1 Enoch: A Commentary. Minneapolis: Fortress. pp. 7–8.
77. ^ The Origins of Enochic Judaism (ed. Gabriele Boccaccini; Turin: Zamorani, 2002)
78. ^ The Rise and Fall of the Nephilim, Roberts (2012). Scott. Red Wheel Weiser.
79. ^ "The Book of Enoch, Section I". ccel.org. Retrieved 2020-02-13.
80. ^ "Book of Enoch: Book 1". www.ancienttexts.org. Retrieved 2020-02-13.
81. ^ the Ethiopian text gives 300 cubits (135 m), which is probably a corruption of 30 cubits (13.5 m)
82. ^ A Brief History of Angels and Demons, Bartlett (2011). Sarah. Hachette Book Group.
83. ^ George W. E. Nickelsburg; Jacob Neusner; Alan Alan Jeffery Avery-Peck, eds. (2003). Enoch and the Messiah Son of Man: Revisiting the Book of Parables. Brill. pp. 71–74. ISBN 9004129855. Retrieved 24 February 2014.
84. ^ Charles, R. H. (2004). The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, Volume Two: Pseudepigrapha. Apocryphile Press. p. 185. ISBN 978-0-9747623-7-1.
85. ^ J.T. Milik with Matthew Black, ed. (1976). The Books of Enoch, Aramaic Fragments of Qumran Cave 4 (PDF). OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS. pp. 95–96. Retrieved 19 March 2019.
86. ^ M. A. KNIBB (1979). "The Date of the Parables of Enoch: A Critical Review". New Testament Studies. Cambridge University Press. 25 (3): 358–359. doi:10.1017/S0028688500004963. S2CID 162661253. Retrieved 24 February 2014.
87. ^ Jump up to:^{a b c d e f g} Gabriele Boccaccini, ed. (2007). Enoch and the Messiah Son of Man: Revisiting the Book of Parables. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing. ISBN 9780802803771. Retrieved 24 February 2014.
88. ^ Jump up to:^a b James H.Charlesworth; Darrell L. Bock, eds. (2013). "To be published in a book: Parables of Enoch: A Paradigm Shift" (PDF). Retrieved 24 February 2014.
89. ^ Jump up to:^a b c R. H. CHARLES, D.Litt., D.D. (1912). The book of Enoch, or, 1 Enoch. OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS. Retrieved 24 February 2014.
90. ^ Jump up to:^a b "SON OF MAN". Jewish Encyclopedia. JewishEncyclopedia.com. Retrieved 24 February 2014.
91. ^ Jump up to:^a b Chad T. Pierce (2011). Spirits and the Proclamation of Christ: 1 Peter 3:18-22 in Light of Sin and Punishment Traditions in Early Jewish and Christian Literature. Mohr Siebeck. p. 70. ISBN 9783161508585. Retrieved 24 February 2014.
92. ^ Michael Anthony Knibb (2009). Essays on the Book of Enoch and Other Early Jewish Texts and Traditions. Brill. pp. 139–142. ISBN 978-9004167254. Retrieved 24 February 2014.
93. ^ James H. Charlesworth (1985). The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha and the New Testament: Prolegomena for the Study of Christian Origins. CUP Archive. p. 89. ISBN 9780521301909. Retrieved 24 February 2014.
94. ^ Jump up to:^a b c d Beckwith, Roger T. (1996). Calendar and chronology, Jewish and Christian. Leiden: Brill. ISBN 90-04-10586-7.
95. ^ Martinez, Florentino Garcia; Tigchelaar, Eibert J.C., eds. (1997). The Dead Sea Scrolls: Study Edition. Brill/Eerdmans. pp. 430–443. ISBN 0-8028-4493-6.
96. ^ Jump up to:^a b Nickelsburg, George W. (2005). Jewish Literature between the Bible and the Mishnah, 2 ed. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. p. 44. ISBN 0-8006-3779-8.
97. ^ Jackson, David R. (2004). Enochic Judaism: three defining paradigm exemplars. Continuum. p. 17. ISBN 978-0-567-08165-0.
98. ^ Loren T. Stuckenbruck, 1 Enoch 91–108 (2008) ISBN 3-11-019119-9
99. ^ Jump up to:^a b Nathaniel Schmidt, "Original Language of the Parables of Enoch," pp. 343–345, in William Rainey Harper, Old Testament and Semitic studies in memory of William Rainey Harper, Volume 2, The University of Chicago Press, 1908
100. ^ Barker, Margaret (2004). An Extraordinary Gathering of Angels. London: MQ Publications Ltd.
101. ^ Davidson, Gustav (1967). A Dictionary of Angels, Including the Fallen Angels. New York: Free Press. p. 120.
102. ^ The Book of Enoch. Translated by Charles, R. H. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1912. p. 137.
103. ^ Ralph Lee, 'The Contemporary Influence of Ethiopian Andemta Traditional Commentary: Examples from the Commentary on 1 Enoch and other Texts', in Philip F. Esler, The Blessing of Enoch: 1 Enoch and Contemporary Theology. Eugene, OR: Cascade: 2017, 44-60
104. ^ Philip F. Esler (ed) (2017), The Blessing of Enoch: 1 Enoch and Contemporary Theology (Eugene, OR: Cascade).

Bibliography

 

 

 

On March 14, Israeli News Live published a provocative video-story titled "The Fallen Angels Imprisoned in Antarctica and are still Alive" (below video.)

 

The commentator, Steven Ben-Nun, analyzed the apocryphal Book of Enoch, which describes the experiences of Enoch, a pre-deluvian biblical figure, who was taken into the heavens to witness and play a key role in a major celestial conflict.

Enoch became the principal intermediary between two sides of the conflict between the "Fallen Angels", and the "Righteous Angels" serving an all knowing deity referred to as "the Lord".

 

There were multiple issues in the conflict such as Fallen Angels interbreeding and/or performing genetic experiments with humanity, and passing on forbidden knowledge and technologies to the still developing human civilization.

The Book of Enoch begins with the arrival of 200 Fallen Angels in the area of Mount Hermon, which borders modern-day Lebanon and Syria.

 

The Fallen Angels began interbreeding and/or genetically modifying the local inhabitants.

6.1 And it came to pass, when the sons of men had increased, that in those days there were born to them fair and beautiful daughters.

6.2 And the Angels, the sons of Heaven, saw them and desired them. And they said to one another: "Come, let us choose for ourselves wives, from the children of men, and let us beget, for ourselves, children"…

6.6 And they were, in all, two hundred and they came down on Ardis, which is the summit of Mount Hermon. And they called the mountain Hermon because on it they swore and bound one another with curses.

Source

While the Fallen Angels had established an outpost on Mt Hermon, it was Antarctica that they would be removed to ultimately after losing the heavenly battle with the righteous angels, according to Ben-Nun's analysis of the Book of Enoch.
 

 

 

 

 

Ben-Nun cites passages from the Book of Enoch which are very suggestive of Antarctica as indeed the location where Enoch was taken to witness celestial events:

18.5 And I saw the winds on the Earth which support the clouds and I saw the paths of the Angels. I saw at the end of the Earth; the firmament of Heaven above.

 

18.6 And I went towards the south, and it was burning day and night, where there were seven mountains of precious stones, three towards the east and three towards the south.

 

18.7 And those towards the east were of colored stone, and one was of pearl, and one of healing stone; and those towards the south, of red stone.

 

18.8 And the middle one reached to Heaven, like the throne of the Lord, of stibium, and the top of the throne was of sapphire.

What's interesting in the above passage is that Enoch refers to a location that "was burning day and night".

 

Ben-Nun believes that this fits the description of Antarctica during the Southern Hemisphere summer season when there is 24 hour sunlight.

 

Regarding the seven mountains, this appears to refer to Mt. Vinson in the Sentinel Range of Antarctica, according to Ben-Nun. He also refers to six nearby mountains in the range that might qualify as the mountains described in the Book of Enoch.

 

Mt Vinson is the highest mountain in Antarctica, and is located towards the middle of the Sentinel Range. It would have stood out just as spectacularly with its snowcapped peaks in ancient times, as it does today.

 

Regarding the southern and eastern alignment of the six adjacent mountains to Mt Vinson described in the Book of Enoch, Ben-Nun speculates that this was their alignment prior to the catastrophic flood event, which coincided with a shifting of the Earth's axis of rotation.

 

 

 

 

This corresponds to the research conducted by Sir Charles Hapgood who asserts that pole shifts have been a regular occurrence in Earth's history.

 

In his 1958 book, The Earth's Shifting Crust, Hapgood proposes that a pole shift had happened at the end of the last ice age, about 11,000 BC.

 

Ben-Nun's conjecture is interesting, but as one can see from the map showing the Sentinel Range where Mt Vinson is situated, there are far more than seven mountains in the range.

 

Ben-Nun's conjecture is not conclusive as he himself points out.

 

Nevertheless, he gives us a possible location of the imprisoned Fallen Angels, Mt Vinson and/or six other mountains in the Sentinel Range.

 

Ben-Nun goes on to discuss the Book of Enoch and its reference to imprisoned Fallen Angels that were removed from Mt Hermon to Antarctica (Mt Vinson/Sentinel Range):

18.14 And like a spirit questioning me, the Angel said: "This is the place of the end of Heaven and Earth; this is the prison for the Stars of Heaven and the Host of Heaven.

 

18.15 And the stars which roll over the fire, these are the ones which transgressed the command of the Lord, from the beginning of their rising, because they did not come out at their proper times.

 

18.16 And He was angry with them, and bound them until the time of the consummation of their sin, in the Year of Mystery."

Ben-Nun's reference to the Fallen Angels still being alive in their Antarctica prison raises an intriguing possibility.

 

The Book of Enoch describes a future "Year of Mystery" when they are liberated.

 

Is this an event we will shortly witness?
 

For an answer, we can begin by analyzing some intriguing parallels between Ben-Nun's analysis of the Book of Enoch, and the recent disclosures of secret space program whistleblower Corey Goode concerning Antarctica.

 

Like the pre-deluvian biblical figure Enoch, Goode says he has also been taken to witness celestial events by a recently arrived group of highly evolved extraterrestrials called the "Sphere Being Alliance".

 

Like Enoch, Goode has also been asked to act as an intermediary for both sides in a "heavenly" or solar system-wide conflict.

 

Goode said this began in March 2015 when he accepted the role as the delegate for the Sphere Being Alliance in on-going negotiations between different factions and groups from both Earth and off-world civilizations.
 

Goode said that he has been taken to Antarctica twice to witness events.

 

The most recent in January 2017 involved him viewing the remains of a Pre-Adamite civilization that had flourished until a major global catastrophe corresponding with the great flood that destroyed coastal cities and low-lying land all over the world around 12-13 thousand years ago.

 

Goode said that the Pre-Adamites survived by entering stasis chambers in the largest of three miles long motherships that crash landed on Earth around 60,000 years ago, after the pre-Adamites were expelled from the Moon due to a conflict with the dominant extraterrestrial factions there.

 

The Pre-Adamites set up their major base of operations in Antarctica, and established outposts in Asia, Europe and the Americas, according to Goode.

 

Conflict soon emerged between the Pre-Adamites and other human-looking extraterrestrial groups, who had been conducting 22 genetic experiments with surface humanity for nearly 500,000 years.

 

This is where Goode's historical account resonates with Ben-Nun's analysis of the Book of Enoch.

 

Goode's Pre-Adamites appear to be the same "Fallen Angels" described in Book of Enoch in terms of their interbreeding and/or genetic experiments with the local human population.

 

In the case of the Mt Hermon landing of the 200 Fallen Angels, this is consistent with Goode's claim that the Pre-Adamites established colonies all over the Earth where they genetically altered the local humans and installed hybrids into leadership positions.

 

 

 

 

Regarding the Righteous Angels described in the Book of Enoch, these appeared to be the extraterrestrial groups that had been conducting 22 long term genetic experiments which were being interfered with by the Pre-Adamites.

 

The Sphere Being Alliance, insofar as they have leveled the playing field for constructive negotiations between different space programs and extraterrestrial factions, the modern-day Fallen and Righteous Angels, appear to be playing a similar role to the all knowing Lord mentioned in the Book of Enoch.

 

Ben-Nun's analysis that the Fallen Angels were imprisoned in Antarctica, and are still alive, corresponds with Goode's claim that the Pre-Adamites are in statis-chambers on one of their massive Motherships buried deep below the Antarctic Ice Shelf.

 

Finally, Goode has revealed that excavations in Antarctica are underway, and that the stasis chambers containing the pre-Adamites have been found.

 

The hybrid descendants of the Pre-Adamites, which are among the elite bloodline families that secretly have ruled humanity, are eager to gain access to the stasis chambers and to reawaken their ancient ancestors.

 

The goal of doing so appears to be to have the Pre-Adamites re-assume once again their former dominance in planetary affairs, thereby allowing their hybrid off-spring to step out of the shadows and directly rule over humanity.

 

This suggests that the "Year of Mystery" mentioned in the Book of Enoch, when the "Fallen Angels" are liberated, may be very close.

 

All this leads to an intriguing question.

Is Goode himself a modern-day Enoch being given key roles in witnessing and mediating between different human and extraterrestrial factions as the delegate of the Sphere Being Alliance, which appears to be functionally identical to the all-knowing deity described in the Book of Enoch?

If so, this would suggest that Enoch himself was an extraterrestrial contactee of the Sphere Being Alliance or a similar group, 13,000 years ago.
 

If the Pre-Adamites/Fallen Angels are awakened/liberated, then there will certainly be a need to deal with them and their hybrid off-spring about what roles they are to play as humanity awakens to the truth of its history, and manipulation by multiple extraterrestrial groups and elite bloodline families.

Secret Space Program whistleblower, Corey Goode, has revealed more startling information about Antarctica and its history as an extraterrestrial refugee colony established roughly 60,000 years ago.

 

He asserts that the alien refugees found advanced "builder race" technologies there that were created over 1.8 billion years ago.

Equally intriguing is his claim that some of the extraterrestrial refugees are still alive today in stasis chambers, located inside 30 mile long motherships buried under 2000 feet of ice below Antarctica's Ross Ice Shelf.

 

In Goode's February 21, 2017 Cosmic Disclosure TV episode he stated that he continues to receive briefings from a USAF run secret space program about the excavations in Antarctica being conducted by archeologists, which began in 2002.

 

In an earlier article, it was described what Goode said about the USAF briefings, and what he had encountered during a January 2017 visit to Antarctica with an Inner Earth civilization called the "Anshar".

 

In the Cosmic Disclosure episode, Goode provides more details and graphic depictions of what he personally witnessed in Antarctica.

 

He describes the extraterrestrials as "Pre-Adamites", who were originally from Mars and a Super-Earth (Maldek) whose remains now form the Asteroid Belt.

 

 

Artist depiction of Pre-Adamites.

Sphere Being Alliance

 

 

During their long history, he says that the inhabitants of Mars and Maldek fought a series of high tech wars back when Mars was a moon of Maldek.

 

Approximately 500,000 years ago, these wars came to a climactic end with Maldek being obliterated.

 

Maldek's remains hit Mars with such force that the latter's surface cities on one side of the planet were totally destroyed, and most of its atmosphere was lost.

 

This made life on Mars' surface very precarious at best, and led to planetary evacuation by the Martian survivors. Billions of refugees from both Mars and Maldek found refuge on our present Moon.

 

However, the time of the catastrophe our Moon was another satellite of Maldek, but it was artificially created with vast living areas in its interior as Goode has previously described.

 

The Pre-Adamites inhabited the Moon for approximately 440,000 years, and at some point during this period, according to information received by Goode, the Moon was moved into its present orbit around the Earth.

 

Eventually, another conflict forced the Pre-Adamites to the Moon, and they had to quickly move to the nearby Earth.

 

They chose Antarctica to rebuild their civilization due in part to the existence of Ancient Builder race technologies, which were still functioning as Goode explained:

Then they [Pre-Adamites] end up on the Moon for a period of time. And then somehow they ended up getting chased off the Moon.

 

There were some attacks that occurred, and after that they fled, but their craft were too damaged leave our solar system or make it to another planetary sphere.

 

So since they had to crash-land on Earth, they decided that they would go to this one continent that still had working Ancient Builder Race technology that was... 1.8 billion years old.

The Pre-Adamites only had three motherships to use to establish their new colony on Earth after a crash landing in Antarctica.

 

It was the technology in these motherships that gave the Pre-Adamites hope that they could rebuild their civilization:

Well, they only had the technology that they had on these three craft with them.

 

That's all the technology they had. So they had to cannibalize and repurpose that technology from the spacecraft once they had crash-landed. And there were three that were extremely large.

 

They were motherships.

This is where the interviewer, had some corroborating information to share from another whistleblower, Dr. Pete Peterson, about the size and location of one of the discovered motherships:

And I want to point out, that this was one of the absolutely stunning details in which I start to ask Pete [Peterson] on the phone, "Do you know anything about Antarctica?"

And he independently says,

"They're going to announce that they found a mothership."

He only knew about one - a mothership that was 30 miles wide, mostly circular in shape - that's been found under the ice.

 

Goode describes the Pre-Adamites who settled Antarctica:

They range 12~14-foot tall. They have elongated skulls. They were very spindly, thin.

This suggests that the Pre-Adamites were likely the prior inhabitants of a lower gravity planet like Mars, which would facilitate gigantism.

 

After spending over four hundred thousand years on the Moon with its even lower gravity field, the Pre-Adamites may have naturally increased in body height to finally result in their spindly 12-14 foot stature.

 

On Earth, because of its stronger gravity, the Pre-Adamites would find themselves at a clear disadvantage compared to the native inhabitants in terms of physical strength, speed and stamina.

 

This meant that in terms of geopolitical power the Pre-Adamites would have to rely on the advanced technologies they had access to, the most advanced of which were located in Antarctica.

 

The Pre-Adamites soon needed hybrids to act as intermediates between themselves and the rest of the Earth's population.

 

While the pure blood Pre-Adamites remained in Antarctica, close to their advanced technologies, the hybrid Pre-Adamites would be used to rule over humanity in the different colonies established around the planet, as Goode explained:

They had created hybrids because they could not operate in our environment very well.

 

And they created hybrids of them and the humans that were here on Earth… all of the main Pre-Adamites that were pure blood were down in Antarctica…

 

There was a group of these Pre-Adamites, of this Pre-Adamite bloodline, that was in the Central America, South America region, and there was another completely different bloodline group - both royals - in Asia and Europe.

This is consistent with what the Ancient Egyptian historian, Manetho, tells us about pre-dynastic times, the Gods directly ruled over Egypt, and then placed their off-spring, hybrids or demi-gods, in the leadership positions.

 

 

Plaque showing

Pharaoh Akhenaton and Queen Nefertiti

around 1352-1336 BCE

 

 

A similar scenario is described in the Sumerian King List, which suggests that these historic documents are not mythical accounts of pre-history, but accurate historical records.

 

The Pre-Adamites, however, were not the only extraterrestrial race active on Earth 60,000 years ago according to Goode's sources.

 

He says that among them was a non-human looking race, the Reptilians, who quickly emerged as the Pre-Adamites' primary rival in dominating planetary affairs.

 

Goode described the conflict between the Pre-Adamites and the Reptilians, and how to begin with, the Pre-Adamites having the upper hand due to their advanced technologies.

 

However, the Reptilians would slowly gain ascendance after a series of "smaller catastrophes" that were a precursor to an even more destructive geological event that was to come:

Apparently these Pre-Adamites have been in conflicts with the Reptilians for a while.

 

These Pre-Adamites they stated were not good guys at all, but were in some sort of a conflict with the Reptilians, and had actually kept the Reptilians in check here on the Earth during that time that they had crash-landed here.

There had been a couple other smaller catastrophes that happened where they had lost their power and the Reptilians always find an opportunity to come back in a moment of weakness.

 

During the major catastrophe (about 13,000 years ago) the Antarctica continent was flash frozen during a sudden pole shift, which cut off the Pre-Adamites' outposts around the world from their main base of power.

 

 

Graphic depiction of

Corey Goode visiting Antarctica excavations

and Pre-Adamite/hybrid bodies.

Sphere Being Alliance

 

 

Now the Reptilians would become dominant in planetary affairs:

…But after these cataclysms that occurred on Earth, the Pre-Adamites and the Reptilians sort of had a truce or a treaty.

 

And after that point, the Reptilians pretty much controlled all of Antarctica and the Pre-Adamites had zero ability to get access to their ancient technology, their libraries.

 

Everything was down there.

Hybrids of the Pre-Adamites were able to escape the catastrophe in their global outposts, but those of the pure bloodline were stuck in Antarctica in their giant motherships.

This [Pre-Adamite] civilization controlled the entire planet.

 

What little resources they had, they were able to control the planet. After this last cataclysm occurred, none of the survivors, Pre-Adamite survivors, had access to their technology.

So we mentioned the group that was in Asia, Pre-Adamite group, and there was another one in South America, Central America, they could no longer visit or communicate with each other.

 

They were separated.

 

The elongated skulls found in South and Central America trace back to the Pre-Adamite hybrids who ruled over their colonies in these areas:

In South and Central America is where they had set up most of their enclaves. And they had been set up around other Pre-Adamite structures that were now destroyed because of the cataclysm.

 

There were huge earthquakes that basically liquified the ground and a lot of the buildings, massive buildings, they had just fell apart and fell and sunk into the ground.

 

They were running the hemisphere. They were mixing their genetics with some of the indigenous people of South and Central America.

 

That's why we have elongated skulls beings that have a different colored skin but different genetic mix.

The two major Pre-Adamite colonies, one spanning Asia and Europe, while the other encompassed South and Central America, vied with each other in a competition between the bloodlines, which continues today through two major factions of the Illuminati:

And they had always had some sort of a competition between these two bloodline groups even before the cataclysm. This whole bloodline of these Cabal or Illuminati-type people, they trace their bloodlines through these Pre-Adamites.

If we accept that Reptilians are another extraterrestrial group that exercise great influence from behind the scenes, through their own hybrids, then we can see that the Earth's hidden rulers are divided into distinct factions with a long history of conflict stemming from rivalries.

 

This is perhaps nowhere better exemplified than in the Book of Enoch, which describes different groups of "angels" at war with one another.

 

In the Cosmic Disclosure interview, Goode says the following on this subject:

Q: So in the Book of Enoch, they're describing this group as the fallen angels.

A: Uh-huh.

 

Q: So you're saying these Pre-Adamites with the elongated skulls, that that is the fallen angel storyline.

A: It is the fallen angel storyline, yes.

Many of the original refugee Pre-Adamites are currently in stasis in their motherships buried under the Antarctica ice:

Well, they had a number of beings that were in stasis.

 

The information I received was that the surviving Pre-Adamites, the bloodline that originally came from another planet, had put themselves in stasis before this cataclysm occurred about 12,800 years ago.

 

They have not awoken them yet. They're trying to decide what they're going to do.

Goode then goes into some detail about the "limited disclosure" plan, which involves sanitizing the archeological site of anything having to do with extraterrestrial life:

Now, another interesting note.

 

We do have these archaeologists and employees of various universities that are down there excavating and documenting all of this, but what they have done, they being the Cabal, I guess you'll say.

 

They have used these large electromagnetic submarines that I discussed earlier to take a lot of archaeological items that they had found in other digs that they were keeping suppressed from humanity.

 

They had them in huge warehouses.

 

They were taking some of these artifacts down to Antarctica and seeding them. And this one large dig that these archaeologists are going to make public.

 

They are also removing any body that does not look human. And a lot of the human bodies, they don't look like they were slaves. They have tunics that have gold thread weaved in the tunics.

 

They look 'royal'...

The next step in this limited disclosure plan, according to Goode, is to slowly reveal in a many decades long process, the existence of secret space programs:

So they're planning on giving us a sanitized disclosure, and then over time they will disclose the Military-Industrial Complex Secret Space Program.

 

And after they do that, they'll say,

"Oh, by the way, yeah, we've got this fairly advanced Secret Space Program, and while we've been out to other planets, we've found very similar ruins as we've found in Antarctica."

So they're going to try to trickle the information down over decades, and not immediately tell us about the ships they found and the high technology and non-humans.

 

What Goode has been told and personally witnessed in Antarctica tells us a lot about Antarctica's secret history, and the role of different extraterrestrial groups who established control over this vast icy continent almost double the size of the lower 48 US states.

 

Goode also leaves us with a profound question to contemplate:

"what happens when the Pre-Adamites are awakened in their stasis chambers and discover our current global civilization is very different to what they may desire?"

 

Earth's best-kept secret to looking young is buried under Antarctica's deep, old ice.

 

The planet's fountain of youth is frozen water mantling Antarctica's mighty Gamburtsev Mountains, a new study reports. Roughly the size of the European Alps, by all rights, the 100-million-year-old Gamburtsevs should resemble the rolling Appalachians by now, having eroded away beneath grinding ice.

 

Instead, the Gamburtsevs are as rugged as the Rocky Mountains.

"The question is, why does it look young?" said lead study author Timothy Creyts, a glaciologist at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.

 

"We think that erosion stopped for the Gamburtsevs and most of East Antarctica once the ice sheet started getting large enough."

No one has ever laid eyes on the Gamburtsev Mountains. The deep valleys and steep ridges are completely entombed by ice that is up to 10,000 feet (3,050 meters) thick.

 

The mountains are hidden near the 70 degrees East longitude line beneath Dome A (or Argus Dome), one of the coldest places on Earth.

 

 

Radar images revealed frozen water

on the Gamburtsev Mountains' high ridges.

Credit: Tim Creyts

 

 

But if Antarctica melted, the Gamburtsevs' peaks and ridges would be one of the continent's highest mountain ranges.

 

The mountaintops now measure more than 8,850 feet (2,700 m) above sea level and would bounce back to more than 10,800 feet (3,300 m) with the ice sheet missing.

"It's a massive mountain range, and it's very fresh-looking," Creyts said.

To see through the ice, an international group of scientists flew ice-penetrating radar instruments across the Gamburtsev Mountains over a four-week period in December 2008 and January 2009.

 

The survey data revealed a network of subglacial streams and lakes flowing through deep, long valleys within the mountains. This is the source of the frozen mantle that protects the Gamburtsevs from erosion, the researchers reported Nov. 17 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

 

Where the Gamburtsevs' valleys and ridges are aligned against the direction of ice flow, the water is forced uphill. Water flows against gravity's pull in Antarctica because of the pressure from the overlying ice.

 

But at the higher elevation of the ridges, where temperatures are colder, the radar survey showed that water freezes. This is mainly because the ice sheet is thinner and cold surface temperatures can penetrate downward.

 

The thin coating of frozen water ice is enough to shield the rocks from wear and tear.

 

Though humans may sandblast their skin to look younger than their years, removing layers of rock with erosion quickly ages a mountain range. But without liquid water between ice and bedrock, glaciers erode very slowly.

 

(Glaciers can still flow without slippery water as lubricant, but most of the movement is internal, through folding and warping of the ice.)

 

 

Water ice protects the mountains from erosion.

Credit: Tim Creyts

 

"Wherever we see freezing in the radar data, areas of erosion were really reduced," Creyts told Live Science.

The researchers have identified landscape features in Canada and northern Europe that may have formed by similar processes during past ice ages, Timothy Creyts said.

 

Two examples are the Torngat Mountains in eastern Canada and the Scandinavian Mountains that run down the Scandinavian Peninsula.

 

Both are old mountain ranges that were buried under ice sheets.

"We think there is a land surface record of the processes we see in the radar data," Creyts said.

The deep, long valleys, cirques and jagged, narrow ridges revealed in the survey data are evidence that the Gamburtsev Mountains were chiseled by glaciers at some point, but the researchers think these features were carved starting 45 million years ago, as the planet gradually moved toward a colder climate.

 

The vast Antarctica ice sheet  was in place as early as 34 million years ago.

 

Since that time, Antarctica's ice has advanced and shrunk as Earth swung through warmer and colder periods, but the researchers think "cold-based" glaciers similar to today's ice sheet also protected the Gamburtsev Mountains from erosion.

 

The Gamburtsevs' high elevations are thought to be an important ice reservoir for Antarctica, sheltering mountain glaciers even during hothouse climates.

"The Gamburtsevs have remained cold since the initial start of the ice sheet," Creyts said.

A research team

probes for crevasses on Totten glacier,

the largest in East Antarctica.
Hayden Henderson/Helires/AAD



The massive East Antarctic Ice Sheet

looks stable from above - but it's a

dangerously different story below.

 

On a glorious January morning in 2015, the Australian icebreaker RSV Aurora Australis was losing a battle off the coast of East Antarctica.

 

For days, the ship had been trying to push through heavy sea ice. It rammed into the pack, backed up and crashed forward again. But the ice, several meters thick, hardly budged.

 

Stephen Rintoul, an oceanographer at the University of Tasmania in Hobart, Australia, nearly gave up his goal - to reach a part of the continent that had thwarted all previous expeditions.

"I really thought that would be it," he says. "It'd be another failed attempt."

Then the weather came to the rescue, with a wind change that blew the ice away from the shore, opening a path through the pack.

 

The ship managed to break free and wove its way through 100 kilometers of ice, reaching the edge of the frozen continent shortly after midnight.

 

Rintoul and his team were the first scientists to reach the Totten Ice Shelf - a vast floating ice ledge that fronts the largest glacier in East Antarctica.

"It was a really exhilarating experience," says Rintoul, chief scientist of the expedition.

The team had to work fast before the ice closed again and blocked any escape.

 

For more than 12 hours, Rintoul and his colleagues carried on non-stop, probing the temperature and salinity of the water, the speed and direction of ocean currents as well as the shape and depth of the ocean floor.

 

They also deployed instruments that would continue taking measurements after the ship had departed.
 

These first direct observations confirmed a fear that researchers had long harbored:

that warm waters from the surrounding ocean can sneak underneath the floating glacier tongue and eat the ice away from below. ¹

"This could explain why Totten has been thinning in the past few decades," says Rintoul.

Findings such as these are revealing some scary truths about East Antarctica - the vast, remote landmass to the east of the Transantarctic Mountains (see below image).

 

This region is about as big as the entire United States and the majority of it stands on a high plateau up to 4,093 meters above sea level, where temperatures can plunge to -95°C.

 

Because the East Antarctic Ice Sheet seems so cold and isolated, researchers thought that it had been stable in the past and was unlikely to change in the future - a stark contrast to the much smaller West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which has raised alarms because many of its glaciers are rapidly retreating.

 

In the past few years, however,

"almost everything we thought we knew about East Antarctica has turned out to be wrong", says Tas van Ommen, a glaciologist at the Australian Antarctic Division in Kingston, near Hobart.

By flying across the continent on planes with instruments that probe beneath the ice, his team found that a large fraction of East Antarctica is well below sea level, which makes it more vulnerable to the warming ocean than previously thought.

 

The researchers also uncovered clues that the massive Totten glacier, which holds about as much ice as West Antarctica, has repeatedly shrunk and grown in the past ² - another sign that it could retreat in the future.

 

Although East Antarctica doesn't seem to be losing much ice today, there are indications that it is feeling the heat of climate change and is responding in measurable ways.

 

This is disconcerting because its ice sheet is more than ten times bigger than the one in the west. If all the ice below sea level in East Antarctica were to disappear, the height of the world's oceans would swell by nearly 20 meters.

 

Researchers are now trying to gather as much information as possible about East Antarctica to better predict what's to come.

 

Their concern is that over the next few centuries, the ice sheet there might reach a tipping point.

"Once glaciers retreat beyond a certain point, things may go downhill very quickly and cause rapid sea level rise," says Eric Rignot, a glaciologist at the University of California, Irvine.

 

"We don't want to sleepwalk into a calamity like this."

 

 

 

 

 

Deep danger

 

Rignot was one of the first scientists to warn about possible trouble in East Antarctica - a region long neglected by climate researchers.

 

In 2013, his team detailed the behavior of ice around the margin of Antarctica by combining satellite imagery, airborne surveys and climate models.

 

The researchers found evidence that six East Antarctic ice shelves, including Totten, were melting from below at rates much higher than expected - with some even rivaling those of fast-retreating glaciers in West Antarctica. ³

 

More surprises emerged when the researchers took a closer look at some of those East Antarctic glaciers.

 

Satellite imagery and airborne surveys between 1996 and 2013 showed that the surface of the Totten glacier dropped by 12 meters and that its grounding line - the point at which the ice flowing off the continent begins to float on the ocean - retreated inland by a shocking amount of up to 3 kilometers. ⁴

"This is not an isolated incidence," says Chris Stokes, a glaciologist at Durham University, UK.

His team analyzed satellite imagery obtained between 1974 and 2012 that covers all the coastal regions in East Antarctica. Most areas had no net ice gain or loss.

 

The only exception is the Wilkes Land region - an area larger than Greenland that includes Totten glacier. ⁵

 

Three-quarters of the glaciers there retreated between 2000 and 2012.

"Wilkes Land may be East Antarctica's weak underbelly," says Stokes.

As researchers were pondering the surprising retreat of East Antarctic glaciers, Tas van Ommen and his colleagues were flying over Totten to probe its underside.

"The landscape underneath the ice is fundamentally important for how glaciers flow and how they respond to climate change," he says.

When the team launched an international initiative called ICECAP (International Collaboration for Exploration of the Cryosphere through Aerogeophysical Profiling) a decade ago to systematically survey the hidden landscape of East Antarctica,

"we almost knew nothing about what's going on down there", he says.

Every Antarctic summer since then, ICECAP's aircraft have been criss-crossing the vast continent to peer through the ice using radar as well as gravitational and magnetic sensors.

"They are the best flights in the world," says Martin Siegert, a glaciologist at Imperial College London and a principal investigator of the project.

The seemingly featureless ice sheet is ever-changing - with wind-sculpted snow dunes and ice shimmering in thousands of shades under the unearthly Antarctic light.

"It's just like another planet," he says.

The flights have revealed an astoundingly dramatic landscape hidden beneath the relatively flat ice sheet.

 

Preliminary results from airborne surveys this January, led by glaciologist Sun Bo at the Polar Research Institute of China in Shanghai, confirmed the existence of a 1,100-kilometre-long canyon - the longest in the world, and almost as deep as the Grand Canyon in the United States.

 

In previous flights over Wilkes Land, van Ommen's team discovered that 21% of the Totten glacier catchment is more than 1 kilometer below sea level - an area 100 times larger than previous estimates.

"We really didn't expect it to be as extensive as it has turned out to be," says Donald Blankenship, a geophysicist at the University of Texas at Austin and another ICECAP principal investigator.

The team also found underwater troughs that extend all the way from the edge of the Totten Ice Shelf to the grounding line 125 kilometers inland, and as deep as 2.7 kilometers below sea level. ⁶

 

This deeply contoured landscape could allow warming waters from offshore to quickly reach and erode the ice.

 

 

"Almost everything

we thought we knew about east Antarctica

has turned out to be wrong."

 

 

The first chance to study the fate of that water came when the RSV Aurora Australis reached Totten in 2015.

 

Near the glacier tongue, Rintoul and his colleagues detected waters as warm as 0.3°C - much warmer than the -2°C freezing point of sea water. ¹

"They are driving rapid rates of melt," says Rintoul.

The instruments he and his team left behind show that warm waters are present all year round.

 

If these waters follow the recently discovered channel beneath Totten to the grounding line, they will be at least 3.2°C warmer than the freezing point at that depth.

"That would be really bad news," he says.

Threats to ice shelves could also come from the Antarctic interior - from lakes under the ice sheet that periodically send flood waters towards the coast.

 

A decade ago, Lake Cook beneath the ice sheet in Wilkes Land suddenly drained, gushing 5.2 billion cubic meters of flood water - the largest event of this type ever reported in Antarctica.

 

Such floods could be another destabilizing factor, causing faster ice flow and more iceberg calving, says Leigh Stearns, a glaciologist at the University of Kansas in Lawrence.

 

 

 

 

Troubled past

 

These scenarios are not just hypothetical, say researchers.

 

Studies in the past few years have revealed that East Antarctica has lost a lot of ice in the past, and could do so again in the near future.

 

Some of the evidence for that comes from a 2010 expedition supported by the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program, which retrieved sediments from the sea floor off the coast of East Antarctica.

 

Getting those sediments was a dangerous endeavor.

 

The ship had to repeatedly stop drilling and dodge massive icebergs.

"The waters around Antarctica present some of the most challenging environments for ocean drilling," says Tina van de Flierdt, a geochemist at Imperial College London and a principal investigator of the expedition.

The efforts paid off, however, by revealing surprising changes in the ice sheet's history.

"We had long thought when the East Antarctic Ice Sheet grew to the current size about 14 million years ago, it's the end of the story," says van de Flierdt.

 

"It's this big stable block of ice that isn't really doing anything in the face of climate change."

 

In 2015,

the icebreaker RSV Aurora Australis

transported the first scientists

to the Totten Ice Shelf.

Paul Brown/AAD

 

 

Instead, the sea-floor sediments revealed that the ice sheet waxed and waned many times between 5.3 million and 3.3 million years ago ⁷ - an epoch called the Pliocene, when air temperatures were up to 2°C higher than today.

"We got a clear signal every time it was warm, suggesting that the ice sheet was sensitive to climate warming," says van de Flierdt.

The researchers say that they have some intriguing preliminary results from the most recent interglacial period, between 129,000 and 116,000 years ago - when the globe was as warm as it is today.

 

The ice sheet retreated just slightly less at that time than it did during the much warmer Pliocene.

"That's a big surprise," says van de Flierdt.

 

"If the results prove to be robust, I'd say it's really interesting," says Maureen Raymo, a geochemist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, New York.

 

"This may mean that you can lose a certain amount of ice quite easily with a little bit of warming," she says.

 

 

 

Fast forward

 

As East Antarctica's vulnerability comes into focus, researchers are increasingly concerned about the future.

 

The only way to forecast decades or centuries ahead is to use computer models that simulate how ice sheets respond to a changing climate.

 

But the models are relatively simplistic, and until recently they couldn't accurately reproduce some past events, such as the significant glacial retreats that scientists have been discovering in East Antarctica's history.

 

Climate researchers Robert DeConto of the University of Massachusetts in Amherst and David Pollard of Pennsylvania State University in University Park have tried to make the simulations more realistic by factoring in some processes that were left out of earlier studies.

 

Their model allows melt-water on the ice surface to deepen crevasses and splinter the ice shelves, and it simulates how ice cliffs collapse once they lose the ice shelves that buttress them.

 

When DeConto and Pollard included these processes, their model showed East Antarctica's glaciers retreating substantially during the last interglacial period and in the Pliocene. ⁸

"It's really the first successful attempt to roughly match ice-sheet simulations with our best understanding of past glacier retreat and sea-level rise," says van Ommen.

After looking back in time, the researchers turned their model to the future.

 

There, they saw a mix of good and bad news. In their simulations, the entire Antarctic Ice Sheet does not change much in the next 500 years if global warming is limited to less than about 1.6°C above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century - roughly in line with what the Paris climate agreement aims to achieve.

 

But if temperatures rise more than about 2.5°C above pre-industrial levels by 2100 and continue climbing, Antarctic ice melt will raise ocean levels by 5 meters by 2500, ⁸ with nearly half of that coming from East Antarctica.

 

With Greenland ice also melting, the global sea level would rise by at least 7 meters - enough to inundate large parts of major coastal cities such as Mumbai, Shanghai, Vancouver and New York.

"This would drastically reshape the world's coastline and affect millions," says DeConto.

He cautions that the model is still rather crude - mainly because observations of East Antarctica are so limited.

"Most of the coastline is simply unmapped," he says.

The lack of data has also resulted in extremely poor ocean models that grossly underestimate the amount of warm water reaching the ice shelves, says DeConto.

"This really calls for long-term monitoring of ocean conditions."

In East Antarctica now, temperatures are dropping rapidly as the austral winter sets in; researchers are cozy at home reviewing the latest haul of data from the field season.

 

A priority for the future is to map the bedrock beneath all major ice shelves.

 

That will help researchers to identify other glaciers that might be eaten away by warm ocean waters, and to predict how the interior might respond once the ice on the coastal margins disappears.

 

One of the scariest finds would be large valleys in the continental interior that get deeper as they slope towards the ocean.

 

These could destabilize large sections of East Antarctica's glacial cap when its margins start to disintegrate over the coming decades and centuries.

"Then the entire ice sheet could slide off easily," says Blankenship. "There would be nothing to hold it back."

 

 

References

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2. Aitken, A. R. A. et al. Nature 533, 385–389 (2016) - Repeated large-scale retreat and advance of Totten Glacier indicated by inland bed erosion - doi:10.1038/nature17447
    

3. Rignot, E., Jacobs, S., Mouginot, J. & Scheuchl, B. Science 341, 266–270 (2013) - Ice-Shelf Melting Around Antarctica - doi: 10.1126/science.1235798
    

4. Li, X., Rignot, E., Morlighem, M., Mouginot, J. & Scheuchl, B. Geophys. Res. Lett. 42, 8049–8056 (2015) - Grounding line retreat of Totten Glacier, East Antarctica, 1996 to 2013 - doi: 10.1002/2015GL065701
    

5. Miles, B. W. J., Stokes, C. R. & Jamieson, S. S. R. Sci. Adv. 2, e1501350 (2016) - Pan–ice-sheet glacier terminus change in East Antarctica reveals sensitivity of Wilkes Land to sea-ice changes - doi: 10.1126/sciadv.1501350
    

6. Greenbaum, J. S. et al. Nature Geosci. 8, 294–298 (2015) - Ocean access to a cavity beneath Totten Glacier in East Antarctica - doi:10.1038/ngeo2388
    

7. Cook, S. P. et al. Nature Geosci. 6, 765–769 (2013) - Dynamic behaviour of the East Antarctic ice sheet during Pliocene warmth - doi:10.1038/ngeo1889
    

8. DeConto, R. M. & Pollard, D. Nature 531, 591–597 (2016) - Contribution of Antarctica to past and future sea-level rise - doi:10.1038/nature17145