Bibliography
George W. E. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch, ed. Klaus Baltzer, Hermeneia—a Critical and Historical Commentary on the Bible (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2001)
About the Book of Enoch 1 in general:
-Similar to Genesis 6, Book of the Giants.
-written at least before 200BC but during of after Babylonian time.
-Found in Qumran/dead sea scrolls
-First written in Aramaic of Hebrew-unknown but of Semitic form. Translated to Greek then later to Ethiopian.
-contains:
• The Book of the Watchers (ch.1-36)
• The Book of Parables (ch.37-71)
• The Book of the Luminaries (ch.72-82)
• The Dream Visions (Ch.83-90)
• The Epistle of Enoch (Ch.92-105)
• The Birth of Noah (Ch.106-107)
• Another Book of Enoch (ch.108)
Lists of names:
Ch.6: (ringleaders of the 200): 20 heads of 10.
Ch.8 (what each watcher did)
Ch.20 (archangels). Michael, Uriel, Raphael, Gabriel
Ch.69 (names and functions of the ‘satans’)
-Chapters 1–5 announce in programmatic fashion, and in similar language, the judgment and its consequences that are described in chaps. 10–11 under the guise of the flood and that are alluded to in chaps. 20–36 in connection with Enoch’s visions of the places of punishment and reward. Thus chaps. 1–5 foreshadow and introduce the message of chaps. 6–36. It is worth considering the relationship between chaps. 1–5 and 6–36 in terms of genre.
-Chapters 1–5 are a prophetic oracle about the judgment that is based on the visions that are detailed in chaps. 14–36 (see 1:2). Chapters 1–5 announce or predict the events and conditions that Enoch has learned about from the mouth of God in the divine throne room and from the interpreted visions that he saw during his cosmic journeys. The descriptions in 5:5–9 are also paralleled in 10:17–11:2, in a divine speech addressed to the angels (Nicklesburg, pg. 132).
-The corpus that we know as 1 Enoch (chaps. 1–108) is extant in its entirety only in an Ethiopic (Geʿez) version that was translated from a Greek translation of the Aramaic original between the fourth and sixth centuries.57 The translation was part of the larger project of translating the Old and New Testaments. Along with the Book of Jubilees, the Book of Enoch was accorded canonical status in the Ethiopian Bible (see §6.3.7.1–2). (Nickelsburg pg.15)
-1 Enoch 6-11 focuses on what the Watchers did, including Shemihazah and Azazel.
-1 Enoch 12-16 recounts this story but through Enoch’s perspective and having him mediate between them and God.
-Different from chaps. 6–11, which are a third person account of events on earth and in heaven, the author of chaps. 12–16 speaks in the first person, albeit pseudonymously, of events that have been personally experienced in the heavenly throne room. And because these events are recounted in the style of a prophetic commissioning, the author is claiming that his interpretation of them is revealed truth.(NIcklesburg, pg.232).
-Enoch was taken to the angels some time before the fall of the watchers, and his final removal takes place after their fall, since he announces the reprimand of heaven to them before he is finally taken back up to God(Nicklesburg, pg.233).
-Enoch’s role is analogous to those of the archangels in chaps. 6–11. He is an intercessor with access to God, albeit for the fallen watchers rather than for the giants’ victims. Moreover, he is commissioned to go to the fallen watchers(Nicklesburg pg. 229). Although Enoch’s title in this section is “scribe” (12:3–4; 15:1), he functions as a spokesman for God. Indeed, he is the first prophet, and he is given unequalled access to the heavenly throne room.
His treatment of the consequences of the watchers’ sin reinterprets the sections of chap. 10 dealing with the demise of the giants. Rather than annihilating the giants, their death releases their evil spirits and creates a vast empire of demons who will afflict the human race until the final judgment. Thus these demons, rather than the historical counterparts of the giants, are the cause of evil in the author’s time.
The author of chaps. 12–16 turns the combination of the Shemihazah and Asael traditions—already present in chaps. 6–11—to his own purposes. The element of revelation, which appears to have been added to the Shemihazah tradition in two stages (see Introduction to chaps. 6–11, § The Growth of Tradition in Chapters 6–11), plays a minor role here in comparison to the author’s emphasis on the generation of evil spirits as the cause of evil. On the other hand, consonant with literary developments in chaps. 6–11, Asael emerges here unambiguously as the chief rebel angel, and Shemihazah is not even mentioned. (Nicklesburg, pg.229).