The Book of Enoch

donated to the Bodleiana 1) No. 4 in Dillmann’s Catalogus codd. mss. aeth. bibl. Bodl. Oxon. Catalog of Ethiopic Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, Oxford 1848., kept one for himself 2) Now Cod. Bodl. 5., and presented the third 3) Now Zotenberg No. 49., a copy made in Abyssinia of the previous one, to King Louis XV of France. Based on the first manuscript transferred to the Bodleiana, the Archbishop of Cashel, Richard Laurence, produced the editio princeps first printed edition 4) Libri Enoch prophetae versio aethiop. ed. a R. Laurence Ethiopic version of the Books of the Prophet Enoch, ed. by R. Laurence, Oxford 1838. of our book in 1838 by having it printed verbotenus word for word. The first critical edition based on five manuscripts, which were available in Europe at that time—aside from a Roman codex and the Parisian copy of the Bodleianus—was received from Dillmann’s 5) Liber Henoch aethiopice ad quinque codicum fidem editus cura A. Dillmann Book of Enoch in Ethiopic, edited by the care of A. Dillmann based on the testimony of five codices, Leipzig 1851. expert hand in 1851, and it has remained the only one until now. 6) Variants have only been published twice since then. When the newly found Greek text became known, Dillmann published the differing readings of three manuscripts in d'Abbadie's possession (d = Abbad. 197, e = 35, f = 55) for the first 32 chapters in question in the Sitzber. d. Berliner Akad. Proceedings of the Berlin Academy 1892 No. 51. Then, R. H. Charles utilized the 9 manuscripts of the British Museum for his English translation (The book of Enoch translat. from Prof. Dillmann’s ethiop. text, Oxford 1893) and recorded the variants to Dillmann's text. Since then, however, the number of manuscripts has constantly grown, so that we now possess over 26 pieces, excluding fragments and excerpts; of these, 14 are in England, 8 in France, 3 in Germany, and one in Italy. Naturally, it was not possible for me to utilize all these codices for my work, but I have at least acquired information about all of them so that I could form a judgment regarding their value or worthlessness. These they are. They are all written on parchment; those I have used are marked with an asterisk. 7) Since Charles adopted Dillmann's sigla, and the most recent translator Beer (in: Die Apokryphen und Pseudepigraphen des A. Test. hrsg. v. Kautzsch The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, ed. by Kautzsch, Tübingen 1900 Vol. II, 217—310) in turn adopted those of Charles, I have also kept and continued them so as not to cause confusion with a new designation.

*A = Bodleianus 4, Greek 4º, 40 leaves, 3 columns, 2nd half of the 18th century. Enoch alone (105 chapters). Printed in Laurence’s edition.
*B = Bodleianus 5, Greek 4º, 141 leaves, 3 columns. 18th century (?). Various hands. Headings and chapter numbers frequently omitted. Enoch (98 chapters), Job, Isaiah, 12 minor prophets, Solomonic writings, Daniel.