Title: The Book of Enoch – A Complete Reference and Guide
Author: Joseph B. Lumpkin
Bibliographic Info: 249 pp
Cover: Soft
Publisher: Fifth Estate Publishing (2010)
ISBN-10: 1933580925
ISBN-13: 9781933580920
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The book of 1 Enoch (a.k.a. Ethiopic Enoch) is a collection of five main books and two short appendices which claim to be accounts from the Enoch. They were written at various times during the last few centuries B.C., as well as the first century A.D. It is quite an important non-canonical book to study as it contains a lot of information about traditions that developed in Judaism and presents a common worldview in second-Temple Judaism of apocalyptism, which considers the world to be full of wickedness and in imminent danger of divine judgment.
The translation of 1 Enoch that is used here is taken from the standard translations of R.H. Charles and Richard Laurence, but it is also supplemented by more recent information on the text of 1 Enoch, as well as making the text sound more like modern English instead of the 18th and 19th centuries.
Lumpkin provides a 25 page introduction to 1 Enoch, which ably shows the importance of 1 Enoch to biblical studies. The book of 1 Enoch had an influence on the New Testament authors and writings, though as to what extent is unknown. The New Testament epistle of Jude directly quotes from the first chapter of 1 Enoch. Throughout this book, Lumpkins provides a lot of quotations to New Testament texts which he feels offer evidence of possible influence by 1 Enoch, as well as quotations from the Old Testament which may have been used as sources by the authors of 1 Enoch. There are also other comments injected throughout the text of 1 Enoch to help explain confusing passages or to illuminate the text further. Although I think it would have been better to contain them to footnotes instead of placing them throughout the text of 1 Enoch. I think for the cheap price this book sells for, it is a very good introductory look at 1 Enoch.
