The Book of Enoch

and only the first 32 chapters and a few fragments have come down to us. 1) Cf. the introductory remarks on the Greek text by Radermacher.

On the other hand, in a distant corner of Africa, Ethiopia, removed from the literary interests of the civilized world, the Book of Enoch has been preserved in its entirety as part of the Old Testament canon. The strange content of the work, with its fantastic and bizarre conceptions of heavenly things and cosmic phenomena, decidedly appealed to the Abyssinian taste for the legendary and abstruse. As the following long list of manuscripts preserved to us proves, this made it a widely read book. It usually takes the first place in the codices and is also represented in single copies. As among Abyssinian Christians, it remained in use among the Falasha Jews—likely through Christian influence—and a few verses have even found their way into their prayer book. 2) Cf. Halévy, Prières des Falashas Prayers of the Falashas, Paris 1877, p. 1, 2 with ch. 89, 36. 37.

The Ethiopic translation was made in approximately the 5th or 6th century from the Greek text circulating in Egypt. This is demonstrated, first, by the irrefutable confusions: metalla metals vs. met' auta after them (8, 1); eas autous you allow them vs. ta eis autous those [belonging] to them (9, 11); myrion myriad vs. mysteriou mystery (18, 16); eis seirenas into sirens vs. hos eirenaiai as peaceful (19, 2); koiloi hollow vs. kaloi beautiful (22, 2. 3). Second, it is shown by the—admittedly not complete, yet extensive—agreement of the Ethiopic version with the Greek fragment found in Egypt, in contrast to the strong deviations of the piece preserved by Syncellus. For its time, the translation is generally good.

The first news of the existence of an Ethiopic Book of Enoch reached Europe at the beginning of the 17th century, namely through a report by the Capuchin friar Ägidius Lochiensis, who was active in Egypt, to the French scholar Peiresc. The latter tried by all means to get hold of a manuscript of the work; however, what he finally received was not what he sought, but rather a compilation by an Abyssinian priest named Bahaila-Mîkâ'êl 3) No. 117 in Zotenberg’s Catal. des Mss. éthiop. Catalog of Ethiopic Manuscripts, Paris 1877. dealing with similar material, as the most significant expert on Ethiopic at the time, Hiob Ludolf, concluded after examining the manuscript. 4) Hiob Ludolf, Historia aethiop. History of Ethiopia, Francof. 1681, lib. III ch. 4; Comment. in hist. aethiop. Commentary on the History of Ethiopia, ibid. 1691, p. 347 ff. Only a hundred years later (1773) did the well-known British explorer of Africa, James Bruce, bring three manuscripts of the work to Europe, of which he [presented] one...