Abridged Commentary. The Book of Enoch

Transcription

1 Abridged Commentary The Book of Henock, known as the Ethiopic Book of Enoch, is prob a bly the first writ ten script in the his tory of re li gious thought and pro vided the ba sis for the de vel - opment of secular and philosophical understanding of hu man na ture. It is one of the Apoc a lypse 1 books of scrip ture, along with the Book of Ju bi lees, that has been canonized and accorded complete religious status by the Ethi o pian church. 2 The west ern world through Eu ro pean schol ars, dis cov ered the Book of Henock in As a re sult, the book s lit er ary genre and pro - vence did be come the sub ject of on go ing de bate among bib li cal and clas si cal schol ars of west ern Christiandom. 3 The first source of dif fi culty in this de bate is at - trib uted to a dif fer ence of lit er ary genre. The classicalist who believe that western civilization has its roots in Greek and Ro man cul tures have adopted the work ing hy poth e sis that only these two west ern cul - tures de vel oped lit er ary genre, such as epic, trag edy, lyric, po etry and his to ri og ra phy. Fur ther, it is stip - ulated that philosophy, religion, political and social in sti tu tions had their or i gin in the clas si cal times 4 of the west ern world. It is this line of think - ing that spawned, inadvertently, a genetic interpretation of civ i li za tion based on a sin gle lin ear and homogeneous function, namely the great western civilization. In writing history or historiography, one is easily drawn into temp ta tions to en gage in a di a logue on the ex traor di nary pro cess of the Greek and Latin lit er a - ture dur ing the past three mil len nium. While Greek may have achieved a pre cise lit er ary genre and ef fec tively 1 The word apocalypse means a mysterious revelation and can be found in various cultures-especially in Near Eastern countries. The most comprehensive bibliography can be found in James H. Charlesworth (col.) under the title Apocalyptic Literatur and the Old Testament (New York 1983). For the Ethiopic Book of Enoch See R.H. Charles and Michael Knibb. See also the Apocraphia and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, 2 vols. by R.H. Charles (Oxford 1913). 2 Ethiopia is the only Eastern Church that includes in its cannon the Books of Henok and Jubliee-others regarded these books as pseudepigraphical. 3 See Knibb's bibliogrphy. 4 See Encyclopedia Britanica, Classical Education.

2 Page vi become the vernacular for western civilization, the ge netic point of view as it is ad vanced in the neo clas - si cal era does not pro vide a thor ough or help ful un der - stand ing of the an cient literary genres that predate classical times. When dealing with ancient civilizations, the genetic point of view need not be con sid ered in or der that other per spec tives can be taken into ac count with out the ex - clu sive claims of a par tic u lar lit er ary genre. This is so be cause ex clu sive claims, for ex am ple, that phi- losophy, religion, political and social institutions had their birth in clas si cal times 5 can not be com pre - hended by merely re cit ing the lit er ary ex pres sions of the Ionic pe riod. The clas si cal Greek and Latin eras share strong chronological and analogical ties with historical antecedent events that were formulated long before the civilization of ancient Mesopotamia and the Near East. Ac cord ing to an cient ancedote, early Greek my thol ogy, in clud ing Homer s epic po ems and Herodotus lit er ary land mark. Historie in the Ionian di a lect, were greatly influenced by ancient civilizations of Asia Mi nor and the Near East. Prob a bly, the most im por - tant as pect of the an cient civ i li za tion is in the Greek al pha bet, which came from Se mitic sources. These sources also gave life to the evolution of Greek literary tradition, even though Greek and Latin now do overshadow their original source. The twofold relation described as chronological and analogical ties between the Eastern and Western civilizations have been epitomized by the epistemology of, solely, the Ionic enlightenment. Eastern philosophy, religion, social and political institutions have been ef fec tively Hellenized and disseminiated through out the Hel le nis tic world. The sources of wis dom, how ever, have not been prop erly im parted in terms of its lit er - ary ex pres sion. And Greek my thol ogy, with out any at - tribution to any determinant origin, has developed a narrative of historiography based on a primordial time. This may have some revelance to un cer tainty, or un cer tain ties, on the part of a so ci ety that de vel ops a whole body of literary work outside the framework of the universal mode of literary expression. The ques tion of the or i gins of the lit er ary genre of the Ethiopic books of Henok and Ju bi lee, or the en tire ed i - fice of the scrip tures, ex tends far be yond the his to ri - og ra phy of one sin gle so ci ety. With re spect to the 5 ibid.

3 de bate con cern ing the lit er ary genre, Greece, as noted ear lier, did not in vent the al pha bet and yet Homer, the poet and the man of let ters, be came a phe nom e non in lit - er ary tra di tion. The Soph ists, Soc ra tes, Plato and Ar - is totle were the ma jor foces be hind the event of the Ionic en light en ment. But the Ionian School of Phi los o - phy, like the al pha bet, did not orig i nate in Greek cul - ture; it was de vel oped com pletely in Asia Mi nor. With the above no ta tion of his tor i cal pro cess in mind, the or i gins of any genre will re main ob scure un less a par a - digm is developed to explain the narrative activities of the an cient near East ern so ci et ies, along the line of cy cli cal and lin ear con cep tion of time. In ad di tion to the para dig matic con cep tion of time, other his tor i - cal fac tors must be in cluded in the paradigm in order to limit the exclusive claims or genetic interpretation of apocalypticism. Legends, myths, historiography and the genetic hypothe sis that were de vel oped by west ern schol ars have not been with out in her ent bi ases. In dis cuss ing the apoc a - lyp tic genre, schol ars de fined apocalypticism as a paraprophetic phenomenon. The apocalyptic argument, based on its close re sem blance with the scrip tures, seems to con firm the hy poth e sis given above, i.e. all other pos si ble view points are ex cluded and the meth od - ological framework, in its postscriptual manifestations, had become a single genetic interpretation along a lin ear lit er ary genre. This phe nom e non, un for - tu nately, does not fully ex plain any pos si ble cul tural trait which may have con sti tuted a cul tural con tin uum within a di verse lit er ary genre. In stead, it has sim - ply led to unverifiable claims to singularity literalistic ren der ing of one sin gle source for the or i gins of the genre. How ever, the sig nif i cance of the tex tual diversity of all apocalypses writings and eschatological thought of var i ous cul tures gen er ally at test to an independent development of literary expressions. For example, the name apocalypse means revelation and has a universal concept. This universality can be found in antiquity in Persian theology, in Homer s Odyssey, in Plato s Republic, etc. In this inquiry, the hypothesis and methodological frame work used in dis tin guish ing the genre of Henok will be ex am ined. How ever, this in quiry is not a com - plete study and does not fol low the con tem pla tive path of biblical scholars. The Book of Henok is the old est and most im por tant lit er ary ex pres sion of all time, dat ing back to 4000 BCE. The or i gins of its genre in pri mor dial time, hav - ing been the sub ject of great con tro versy among the prin ci pal west ern schol ars

4 Page viii in the field. Since its dis cov ery by the west in the 1770s, the book has been stud - ied, col lated and ed ited. Vo cab u lary and syn tac ti cal ev i dence, tex tual and even et y mo log i cal cor re spon dence have all been used to trace its or i gin. The Ar a - maic and the Greek frag ments of Henok (Enoch in the west ern ter mi nol ogy) though both do not have a sat is fac tory text for a more de tailed struc tural anal y - sis of nar ra tive forms, seem to mo ti vate many Eu ro pe ans schol ars to probe the or i gins of the genre. Rich ard H. Charles, in his 1906 edi tion of Enoch, praised the book for its im mea sur able value as be ing prac ti cally the only his tor i cal me mo rial of the re li gious de vel op ment which historically Christendom in large mea sure owes its ex is tence. From this point of view, Henok seems to tran - scend itself from a paraprophetic phenomenon to a historiography scholarly genre for the de vel op ment of Chris tian ity. But in the ab sence of ca non i cal text ei ther in He brew or in any other scrip ture of East ern-west ern Chris ten dom, the ri val genre hy poth e sis pre sented as the Ar a maic-greek frag ments of Enoch have proven un - ver i fi able. Both pres ent and fu ture schol ars will face dif fi cult task of proof unless a full text compatible with Ge ez is found that state that Ethiopic was not the original language of the genre. The frag men tary texts in He brew, Ar a maic and Greek have shown some corresponding materials with Ethiopic. While this method could be used as one of the vari ables in in ves ti gat ing the genre of the book, the vorlage theory based on correspondence, parallels, or similari ties can not be used as con clu sive ev i dence, be cause it is not the same as genre or iden tity. The lit er ary gen - res of these two books are grounded in an cient Ethio-Kemetic epistemological framework. To sup port the above hy poth e ses, the work of Ron ald K. Brown could be used as ev i dence of filiation with the Old and New Tes ta ment Scrip ture. The dis cov ery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the frag men tary cop ies of Ar a maic sug gests that the Book of Enoch and Ju bi lees were re - garded as au thor i ta tive scrip ture. How ever, the Dead Sea Scrolls from the caves of Qumran are still fluid and it does not give a fixed text or canon. More im por - tantly, it does not go be yond 250 BC. The in ves ti ga tion will con tinue and the con tri bu tion of Ron ald K. Brown toward the reconstruction of ancient African Historiography will provide a basis for understanding the study of re li gion within the his tor i cal con text of Ethio-Kemetic cos mog ony. Dr. Brown is one of the few schol ars who dare to take this mon u men tal task; With brilliant scholarship, knowledge, ability and vision, he ex e cuted a com pre hen sive anal y sis of the book of Enoch and its re la tion ship with the Old and New Tes ta - ment Scrip ture; with over three hun dred ci ta tions, his cross-reference with the Holy Bible is rendered as easy reading to the general reader.

5 Excerpted from: An In quiry Into the Ethiopic Book of Henock: The European and Ethiopian Views by Wosene Yefru, Ph.D.